This week on the Creative Genius podcast, Gail Doby welcomes Mel Bean, the principal of Mel Bean Interiors, to talk about her 20-year journey through the interior design landscape and the predictability of scaling an elite firm.

Mel pulls back the curtain on how a structured leadership framework—specifically partnering with an exceptional Director of Operations—unlocked a positive operational flow that allowed her to step back into her role as a visionary. She discusses overcoming limiting beliefs regarding business ownership and how deep dive financial modeling completely shifted how her company tracks profitability and projects revenue. Finally, Mel outlines how she structures a hybrid environment that gives her staff the flexibility to be deeply present for family milestones without sacrificing professional excellence.

In this episode, you’ll hear about:

Changing Paths: Mel’s realization a few years into college that she needed to leave to unlock her hidden creative side.
Shopping vs. Designing: Breaking down the 20+ decisions that go into a single furniture piece, and why social media can be a powerful client-education tool.
The Non-Billable Employee: Overcoming the fear of hiring a non-billable Director of Operations, and how that single choice can skyrocket your growth.
Data Over Doubt: Why escaping isolation and swapping raw, un-redacted financial metrics with design allies across the country fuels true inspiration.
“Why Not Me?”: Moving past imposter syndrome and the limiting beliefs of a non-entrepreneurial upbringing to confidently pursue massive lifestyle goals.

If you’re listening on your favorite podcast platform, view the full show notes here: https://thepearlcollective.com/s15e1-shownotes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICPH-3mmR8Y

Episode Transcript

Note: Transcript is created automatically and may contain errors.

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GAIL DOBY
Welcome to Creative Genius. I’m so glad you’re here, Mel. And I can’t wait for us to have this conversation. So here’s my first question for you. Who would you have or what would you have on a desert island if you were stranded?

MEL BEAN
it’s funny that my first thought that I have is that I want my espresso machine so that I can make my morning latte.

GAIL DOBY
I’m sure there’s some plugins out there somewhere.

MEL BEAN
I I’d need an ice maker then as well though, because you can’t have a hot latte on a desert

GAIL DOBY
Well, there you go. I like that. Okay. Well, interesting thing to think about. And I’m sure there Yeah. And I bet there might be a few people on your journey with you. Who would you have with you?

MEL BEAN
Probably a first for you.

MEL BEAN
Well, I would want to take my boys for sure. my sons Cooper and Chase. They are seniors in high school. And of course, other than just being obsessed with them as my children, I also think they are so much fun. So they would turn a kind of an unfortunate situation into a good time, I think.

GAIL DOBY
that sounds like fun. Well, I’ve only seen them in passing on our Zoom call, so it’s really fun.

MEL BEAN
I might be biased, but I think they’re pretty great.

GAIL DOBY
Well, I’m sure you feel that way as every mom should. So good for you. Well, let’s talk about your journey into being a designer. How did you get started with that?

MEL BEAN
Gosh, well, I started college dead set. Well, even in high school, I was going psych pre-med. I was good at math and science. And so I went really deep into college prep and into all of the classes that would set me up for success in that career. And it wasn’t until a couple of years into college that I started doubting that. I got into some tricky classes that I could do fine in, but I wasn’t excited about.

And I started to get the concern of is this what I’m going to feel like the rest of my life? And it wasn’t immediately clear to me that I wanted to do interior design. But once I did discover it, I felt like something had clicked into place when I changed my major in my first class. And it just made me want to go back and get a do-over on I wish I’d taken the art classes in college, but I was too focused on all the college prep. I wish I’d had done these things that

not only would have kind of led me to my career path sooner, but also would have just helped me to get to know myself in a different way. And so I was really thrilled to get into interior design in college. And then as quickly as I could, I got an internship so that I could see, okay, what is this really like? What is this, what is the day to day? What does it look like? I know it’s not like a HGTV show. I know that’s not the reality of this industry. And so fortunately I loved it.

GAIL DOBY
Did you were there any surprises when you got into it?

MEL BEAN
So many, I really didn’t have a lot of expectations of what it looked like. I think that’s I didn’t grow up with any interior designers in my life. And so I think that’s part of what took me so long to consider it as an option for myself. now it seems a little obvious with hindsight. and so I went into it, the advantage of that is I didn’t go into it with a lot of expectations. I hadn’t seen the way other people had done it before me. So I was really fortunate

to learn under several different design firms here in Tulsa where I live and really wonderful people who kind of went above and beyond in training me and giving me opportunities. And so I did see everything from creating inventory and showroom and the back end of what all goes into that through managing projects and the infinite number of details that go into it. I think that’s something that most clients are so shocked by.

Today is the amount of detail that goes into every project, the number of decisions that go into it. So that was surprising to me, but also felt like a great opportunity. I saw all these ways that really nuanced ways in which I could guide a project or guide the the feeling a space gives me and the people who use it.

GAIL DOBY
Mm-hmm. Yeah. And it’s something that seems so normal for us that are designers because we can envision what it’s going to look like done, even when we’re just looking at fabrics and pieces of wood and just samples. And I think it’s it’s really hard for people who aren’t visual like we are. So how do you get over that hurdle with them of how they helping them envision this?

MEL BEAN
You know, it’s been interesting with social media. That’s recently been kind of a trend that designers are doing and we haven’t participated as well, that you show a single image and pop up all of these decisions that went into that one image. And we’ve had a lot of clients say how helpful that was to them. it is our job to create really clear expectations about the time and investment it’s going to cost our potential clients. and so we

guide them through our process. We really explain everything, but we we communicate the difference between shopping and designing. Sometimes I wish we could just shop. Sometimes I wish I could just select this one item, this one item, this one item and put together a a design that way, but it’s not the way we work. I wouldn’t actually want to work that way. It would be so limiting to our vision.

Whereas one furniture piece, as you know, may have, you know, 20 decisions that have to be made in order to get to that one look. And so it does help. Social media helps a little bit. Educating on our process helps a little bit. And then we do use visual tools and present like this is the fabric, this is the wood sample, this is the wood species, this is the trim detail, this is, you know, and so many, this is the exact size. Here’s the cushion infill. there are so many more options.

But that can feel overwhelming, but at the same time that’s why we’re here...