Ask Us Anything: Meagan Camp on helping clients come to terms with storage fees

Summary

Trade Tales Podcast Episode Summary

Title: Ask Us Anything: Megan Camp on Helping Clients Come to Terms with Storage Fees
Host: Kaitlin Petersen, Editor-in-Chief of Business of Home
Guest: Megan Campbell, Founder of Megan Camp Interiors
Release Date: June 25, 2025

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1. Introduction

In this episode of Trade Tales, Kaitlin Petersen welcomes listeners to the "Ask Us Anything" segment, where she addresses questions from interior designers seeking advice on building and scaling their design businesses. This week, the focus is on managing the complexities of storage and receiving logistics as a design firm takes on more projects.

2. Scaling Challenges: Storage and Receiving

Megan Campbell, a returning guest, shares her firsthand experiences with scaling her interior design business. She outlines the transition from using a warehouse with per-package charges to managing her own storage units and receiving team as her business grew.

Megan Campbell [01:00]: "As our business has grown, we used to receive at a warehouse, they charged us per package... Then we got our own storage units, pay our own people to receive, inspect, and that's been fine."

3. Third-Party Receivers vs. In-House Storage

The discussion delves into the pros and cons of third-party receiving services versus handling storage in-house. Megan emphasizes the control gained from managing her own storage units, though she notes that the cost savings were not significant.

Megan Campbell [01:54]: "Not really. It just kind of gave us more control of it."

She explains how siloing projects by assigning specific storage units to different clients helps prevent mix-ups.

Megan Campbell [02:08]: "You know, the Smiths unit is 109. The Joneses is 110. And we could deliver things directly to there so that we didn't get one of 25 lamps confused."

4. Communicating Storage Fees to Clients

A significant portion of the conversation centers on how to transparently communicate storage and receiving fees to clients. Megan discusses incorporating these costs into the overall project budget and the challenges clients face in understanding these additional expenses.

Megan Campbell [12:50]: "It's very expensive. I mean, we're not talking a couple hundred dollars. We're talking thousands of dollars a month."

She highlights the importance of explaining that storage fees are a necessary part of delivering quality design services and maintaining project integrity.

5. Budgeting and Contracts

Megan outlines her approach to budgeting, where storage and receiving costs are a line item in the contract. This transparency helps clients understand the necessity of these fees from the project's inception.

Megan Campbell [25:06]: "It's a line item and we don't provide any additional information other than receiving storage and accepting costs per that month."

6. Vetting Receiving Companies

The reliability of receiving partners is crucial. Megan recounts a negative experience where a receiving company improperly shared sensitive billing information with a client, leading to the termination of that partnership. She now ensures that receiving companies have strict protocols to protect client information.

Megan Campbell [24:29]: "We actually had an issue with a receiving company a couple years ago... So that was the end of that relationship with our receiving company."

7. Ordering Timing and Procurement

Deciding when to place orders is a delicate balance between securing desired items and minimizing storage costs. Megan explains her team's strategy of ordering items with longer lead times first, such as antiques and custom pieces, while delaying orders for accessories until later stages of the project.

Megan Campbell [38:00]: "Antiques and vintage, because it's one of a kind. You don't want to take that risk because once it sells, you're never going to find anything like it."

8. Organizational Practices: Side Marks and Installation

To maintain order and prevent cross-project mix-ups, Megan emphasizes the use of "side marks"—detailed identifiers for each item that indicate the project, room, and client. This system ensures that items are correctly allocated during installation.

Megan Campbell [33:32]: "So side marks are so important... The project of the client's last name, so it's the address, the room, and the business name."

Additionally, the receiving team organizes delivery loads systematically, aligning them with the installation sequence to streamline the installation process.

9. Advice and Insights

Megan shares valuable advice she has received over her career:

1. Never Take 'No' for an Answer:

   Megan Campbell [39:35]: "Once you get a no, don't just say that's not the end of the road."

   She elaborates on this by explaining the importance of persistence and creative problem-solving in overcoming obstacles.

2. Be Comfortable Talking About Money:

   Megan Campbell [40:46]: "You have to get comfortable talking about money... It's so important because that's so much of the front end of a project."

   Megan underscores that clear and honest financial discussions are pivotal in client relationships and business sustainability.

10. Conclusion

The episode wraps up with Megan emphasizing the necessity of storage and receiving logistics as integral parts of running a successful interior design business. By maintaining transparent communication with clients, vetting reliable receiving partners, and implementing systematic organizational practices, designers can effectively manage their growing project loads without compromising on quality or client satisfaction.

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Key Takeaways:

• Transparent Budgeting: Clearly incorporate and communicate storage and receiving fees in project budgets.
• Reliable Partnerships: Vet and establish trustworthy relationships with receiving companies to safeguard client interests.
• Organizational Systems: Utilize detailed side marks and systematic loading procedures to maintain project order.
• Client Communication: Educate clients on the necessity and benefits of storage services to foster understanding and acceptance.
• Professional Advice: Embrace persistence and financial transparency as cornerstones of business growth and client trust.

This episode provides a comprehensive guide for interior designers facing the challenges of scaling their operations, offering practical solutions and professional insights to navigate the complexities of storage and logistics in the design industry.

Transcript

[Megan Campbell]

Foreign.

[Caitlin Peterson]

Hi, I'm Caitlin Peterson, the editor in chief of business of Home. Welcome to Ask Us Anything, a new show where I'll be tapping former Trade Tales guests to answer all of your questions about building a better design business. Some weeks we'll be workshopping a crisis. In others, we'll take a step back to talk about the big picture. Things like embracing change, hiring, or how to level up. No question is out of bounds. No is too large or too small. And we're keeping it confidential so that this is always a safe space to air your frustrations and share your fears. This week I'm excited to field a question from a designer who has several new projects coming up. In many ways, that's great news, but at the same time, the logistics of shipping and receive it are getting a lot more complicated and she's looking for guidance.

[Megan Campbell]

You know, as our business has grown, we used to receive at a warehouse, they charged us per package. They inspected it as we got bigger. Then we got our own storage units, pay our own people to receive, inspect, and that's been fine. As we have one home. However, we have multiple coming up. And now I'm just thinking, am I going to have 30 storage units?

[Caitlin Peterson]

Our question asker already has her own storage units and a receiving team. But you can see how her new project load will put a strain on her current systems. She's looking for a fresh perspective on the right approach.

[Megan Campbell]

I know that these larger firms out there, their homes are bigger and larger and many more and across the country. So I just wondered how they keep their sanity and keep it organized, all while keeping costs down as much as you can for a client.

Totally. When you switched to warehousing on your own versus using that third party receiver, was it a significant cost savings?

Not really. It just kind of gave us more control of it.

Okay. Yeah, yeah.

You know, the smiths unit is 109. The Joneses is 110. And we could deliver things directly to there so that we didn't get one of 25 lamps confused.

Got it. So it was more about siloing projects than about. Than about the service or the costs associated.

Correct. Because you still are having to pay for those units, pay for someone to go over there, open that box up, still check it, you know, within five days, none of that has changed. Yeah, it's almost just paying someone different.

I mean, is it your employees? Is it sort of a set group of people who you're tapping?

Yes, a set group of guys who do so much for us, who do a lot of installs for us. We are paying on a weekly basis to go over and do that for us every Friday because all it takes is, you know, one time where something was damaged outside of that window that you'd see later and the vendor says, oh, sorry, you're outside of that window, we can't fix it for you. That happened once and we didn't do that again. So within five days, everything is open and inspected thoroughly. One of my main questions was timing of this procurement. It's almost like we can handle getting another unit and paying for those fees and all that. Are other designers storing this furniture for a year? You know, the procurement timing is a big one.

Well, it makes sense because, you know, you don't want to have to reselect. You don't want to have to go back to a client and say this doesn't exist or it's twice as expensive or.

Exactly. Especially in the world of the tariffs we're in. That's kind of what we're dealing with now.

Yeah.

And you know, you also don't want your client to pay for 10,000 of square feet of furniture for a whole year just because you had already selected it. I can't find the best method of the timing.

[Caitlin Peterson]

On its face, this is a question about receiving and storage, but when you start digging in, it's actually about everything from talking to clients about the surprising costs of design work, to pacing a project, balancing the risk that you'll need to reselect against the price of storage fees, and so much more. As we ended our call, I knew just who to connect with to help this designer find her footing. Someone who's found that a buttoned up approach to procurement is the secret to a well executed install day. And someone who wants to save her clients money, absolutely, but who also wants to make sure that they have a good experience. She explains why she's baked the cost of working with her receiving partners into her fees as a non negotiable part of doing business with her firm. All that and more in just a moment. Our question today is all about when to place an order and then what to do once all of those orders start to arrive. When you're furnishing an entire home, you're juggling purchase orders for hundreds or even thousands of items and it can be overwhelming. That's why FourHance has developed tools to ease the administrative lift of pulling a project across the finish line. They offer assets like high risk product photos and lifestyle imagery for mood boards and proposals. Real time inventory updates so you Always have a clear picture of what's available and features like guest accounts for your clients that put you in the driver's seat when it comes to sharing details like pricing. As a designer, you automatically unlock wholesale pricing with no order minimums and deeper discounts the more you spend. Explore the benefits of shopping with Four Hands for your next [e-mail] Tradetales today I'm joined by former Trade Tales guest Megan Campbell, who's currently working on several dream projects and who's handed off her social media several years after taking a break from the platform altogether. When Megan was on the show the first time, she explained how a new focus on providing exceptional customer service had prompted her to streamline her firm's processes. I thought she'd be the perfect person to answer today's question.

[Megan Campbell]

Thank you so much for joining me today. TradeTale's listeners heard from you three years ago. Our conversation made kind of a big splash in the industry. And you told me how you archived all your Instagram posts and quit the platform for a year. How are you doing today?

Yeah, I feel that was such a crazy experience. I'm glad I did it. I don't think I could do it again because my business has grown so much since three years ago. But yeah, it was great for my mental health. And mental health is such a topic now and every industry in the world. And I think a lot more people are going off social media.

Yeah.

And they're not really announcing it. They're just doing it for their own sake. I don't know if they're doing it on their business side, but you definitely see people who will come back and say, hey, I had to take a month off to my mental health. And so it's, it's a little bit more. More regard, you know, it's a little bit more normal these days than when I was doing it three years ago during COVID I just felt like I was going against the system, but I'm glad I did it.

I think when we talked, you had sort of just come back on and you were sort of like tiptoeing into some lessons about who you were when you were away from the platform versus who you were on it or who you're. What your business needed off versus on.

Right.

Three years into being very on again. What's different?

Well, I think that our clients have changed, and I don't know if that had to do with me taking a step away from social media, but our clients, clients are more. They're more thoughtful, they're choosing us as a business, as a studio for the work that we produce, rather than having an interior designer. It could be anyone. I also have a really amazing team, and three years ago, I think I had one person working with me part time. And now I have two very exceptional women who come to work or a team. So I think that a lot of the growth has to do with the fact that we're all building it together and we feel a sense of camaraderie. And we also work a lot in our neighborhood. I live in Brooklyn Heights. Our studio is in Dumbo, and most of our projects are within walking distance from either my personal home or our office.

That's a dream, by the way.

It's so nice. I mean, you really get to know people, and you're there much more frequently than you normally would on other projects because you don't have to travel. You're just walking. And also, I found that this area of Brooklyn loves to hire Brooklyn. I always say that Brooklyn hires Brooklyn, where Brooklyn Heights is such a little darling neighborhood and people are pretty obsessed to live here, and so they like to hire people who also live here is what I found.

You said that the type of client you have has changed, that it's now people really intentionally seeking out your studio. Is there something you did differently to attract that?

I think that it's less about what you're posting online and more about the interpersonal relationships, really getting out and talking to people. And it's not necessarily industry networking. Industry networking is great, but it's getting out in your community and meeting your neighbors, meeting people in your Pilates class, meeting people at the park, meeting literally your neighbor next door to you, and just chatting with people who live in the same area in the same city as you do. And it's so simple. But for New Yorkers, it feels like, so foreign to talk to people, to talk to your neighbor. But again, I think Brooklyn Heights, we all talk to each other. We're very, very neighborhoody here. And I'm sure there's other areas. I know there's other areas in New York City that are the same.

That's amazing. You said you wouldn't quit social media again today.

[Caitlin Peterson]

Why not?

[Megan Campbell]

I have too much invested in the business at this point, and there are two. Yeah, I have too many followers and there's too much engagement. I mean, there's. There's a lot more happening on social media than there was three years ago. Also, I outsource it too, which is very helpful as well. I probably don't do as much as I should still. I mean, it really is another job. But I try to outsource as much as I can.

What else has happened in the last couple years that you're excited about?

We have been working on some projects that are sort of dream projects right now. We have been working on a couple townhouses, and the clients are very much aligning with our aesthetic as a studio. This eclectic, new, old, lots of pattern, fresh, not stuffy, kind of young families, young couples who are looking at their spaces as their forever homes, which is really great because then they get excited. It's not a temporary space, it's their home. Yeah, for quote, unquote, forever. And we've been really sinking our teeth into a couple of these projects. And again, they have come from interpersonal relationships of being out in your community. And I don't know if that would have happened if I hadn't done that, if I hadn't been part of my neighborhood.

Are you ready to give some advice?

Hit me.

All right. Well, this week we are fielding a question from a designer who is struggling to scale up her receiving and warehousing practices. Her firm has grown, and the systems that worked when she only had really one project waiting to be installed now feel unmanageable, and she's looking for a fresh approach.

Well, I would say it starts in our contract with the storage and receiving. I used to openly and transparently discuss this with clients, and that is one of two items, this in photography, that get the most questions and the most pushback. And I have actually lost projects because a client cannot wrap their head around, well, why am I paying for storage if I'm also paying for shipping? And no matter how many times I'm trying to explain, if they've already made up their mind that this is unnecessary, they're not going to hire a studio, even though there's really no other way around it, especially in a large renovation or a new construction. Where's the stuff go? I mean, and I've. I've asked clients that if you can give me a better solution. This is what we have come across. This is what the industry does. So when we do project budget at the very, very start of a project, we build it in. It's part of the budget. I do discuss that there's a storage that we work with, a storage facility that we work with, but other than that, it's not as detailed discussed as it is once the client has signed, looked at the contract signed, and then.

We start purchasing what was in your contract before that. Like clients couldn't wrap their heads around, or what is it about talking about storage that just kind of clients can't get a grip on?

Yeah. And before I was doing this full time, I think I probably would have had an issue with it too. It's. It's very expensive. I mean, we're not talking a couple hundred dollars. We're talking thousands of dollars a month. And you're paying for a whole team on the back end to receive and inspect and photograph and document and communicate with the designer. I mean, it's. It's definitely a large cost of doing business. And that is what I. How I frame it or reframe it. It's the cost of doing business. You do it once, maybe you do it twice in your lifetime. But most people don't renovate multiple. Multiple times in their life. If they do it, it's twice. In our industry, we do. You know, I know designers that buy and renovate and do it again and again and again. But for the average person who's hiring an industry trade member, a designer, it's once. And then I ask, if they have questions, I'll ask them, well, where does your stuff go?

You've shipped it, but, like, to where.

Where's it going? I had a client, actually, who wanted to put everything in the basement.

Okay.

And I thought, okay, well, first of all, a bad idea, right? We all are shaking our head going, no, no, no, that's a terrible idea. What if it floods? What if this insurance. And then when I explained to them the amount of quantity, like the masses, amount of boxes that will be shipped to your basement will take up your entire basement. You will not even be able to get down to your basement. And that sort of painted this picture. So he underst. He understood then.

Well, and also someone's gonna come to your basement every couple days to like, accept packages and inspect them and. Yeah, yeah.

Well, that's the other thing, too, is no one's inspecting. And I will tell you, every time that I go against my policy and have something sent to a client's resident directly, something goes wrong. Every single time something doesn't get delivered, or it's broken, or it's not the right item, or things get stolen. We've had things left on porches and they have been stolen. And then whose responsibility is that? You know, it becomes a little tricky in the logistic department of what we do.

So now what do clients see in your contract? Are they just seeing sort of an overall budget that they're agreeing to, and then they get kind of a more detailed breakdown once you're developing that budget more fully for them.

Yes, that's correct. So in the contract we do put, we send items to a third party receiving, and they're insured and bonded and temperature controlled and all the good stuff. And that usually when they're signing, I get questions about that. But at that point, it's not going to make or break them signing. And I will tell them that it's built into the budget. So we do 20% of an item's cost and we build that in. Sometimes it goes over, sometimes it goes under as budgets shift and change as a project progresses. But it is definitely built in. And I certainly don't want clients to be spending an exorbitant amount on storage. You know, that's not. Our goal is to say, oh yeah, storage, let's just, you know, fork it up. You got to pay. We want the. Obviously we want the budget to go towards the beautiful things, the pieces in the project. So then that becomes tricky with. When do we order? We don't want to order something too early, too prematurely to then just sit in a warehouse for a year. And then our client is paying for a year of storage of an item that could have maybe been purchased six months down the line, you know, and only had six months of storage. With antiques, anything vintage, we don't take the risk. We purchase right away anything from Europe. Well, before the tariffs started to really be implemented, we were ordering anything from Europe. We were placing immediately and we got around some tariffs. Things were delivered before those went into effect. So I'm so glad we did that. But there are, you know, it's interesting. It's a conversation that we have in our studio on almost a daily basis.

I'm just like, should I order this now?

We're just always talking about, can we order this now or should we hold off? Or we're checking. Okay, that's still available. Should we take our chances? And it's not a black and white process, unfortunately. I wish it was. It really is case by case, item by item and project by project. Each project is so different than the last. There are projects that the turnaround time is six months. So with that, we're just ordering immediately, you know, for the client wants to be in, in six months. We place everything all at once. But if there's a renovation or if it's a new build, and we know there's. There's no way anyone is going to be moving in for another year, year and a half, we really look at each item and ask ourselves, and ask as a team, are we placing this order now or can we push it a little bit longer? And, you know, with that, and I will say that we have had some incidences where an item is no longer available. It does happen. And so then what we have to do is go back to the client resource and. And have another conversation, which in the end ends up being just as much in our design time, in our hours, as it would be if we had just ordered it to begin with. And then the storage space, so it's like between a rock and a hard place sometimes with that, but also kind.

Of all comes out in the wash. Yeah, it does.

And again, it's the cost of doing business. You know, it's. You do it one time. This is not a yearly thing. It's once one and done. Your items are secure. They're in this, in the warehouse. And I rest, you know, well, at night, knowing, okay, that item has been purchased and we got it. It's in there, it's in the storage. Rather than wondering, you know, is that still going to be available? Are we going to have to resource. And we all know how difficult sourcing is. You find the perfect piece you presented, the client gets excited and to go back and say, sorry, it's not available anymore. Yeah, it's never a fun conversation.

Are you ever delaying, you know, if you have that new build, if you, you know that you've got this really long timeline, Are you pushing out sort of when you start presenting to clients so that you can move right into procurement, or is that still happening pretty early in the process?

It is happening pretty early. Clients, when they start a project, even if they know that they're not going to be moving in to their apartment or home for a year, year and a half, two years, whatever it is, they're hiring a designer, they want to start designing. They don't really. And we have experimented with this with sort of kicking the can a little bit, you know, kind of kicking the can down the line and trying to figure out like, well, we don't really need to present anything right now. And people get anxious. So we do it right away. We start looking at pieces, we start looking at inspiration right away. And, you know, that's what's so great about working with an architect and a contractor, is that they will also be having these conversations with our clients about timeline and expectations. And when you're renovating, you know, you're not moving in in two months. Most people at this point know this.

You, you Talked about, you know, you have a receiving company that you work with. Can you talk a little bit just about that receiving inspection and storage process?

Yes. So, fortunately, there's a large amount of amazing receivers in New York City, where we're based, and they're amazing. We really look at them as an extended part of our team. So when an item is purchased, it goes directly to them. That is their. The shipping address for the item is our receivers. Receivers will accept an item on our behalf, and they open it up immediately, which is really key. Before the delivery truck pulls away, they are opening up that item and ensuring. Does this look okay? Is there anything broken? Is anything happening here? And if there are some obvious defaults and damages, they will not accept the delivery. And we give them permission to not accept the delivery if there is something wrong with the item that is being delivered to them. And so if it goes back on the truck, we get a notification. And therefore, that gives us enough time to work with the vendor and reorder a piece if necessary. And this is another key component to working with the receiver is it buys us time. So when we are installing, we aren't having these surprises during install. Installs are very intense. They're very stressful. We have a very short amount of time to turn around a project. I mean, that is really our time to shine is installing and making a beautiful space. So if something is damaged and let's say it's a side table, let's say it's a headboard and you're presenting a finished space. But. Oh, yeah, wait, that headboard. We just. We are. It's still coming. Don't worry. It doesn't work. Just. It doesn't work that way. It's constant communication. And then if everything looks good, they wrap it back up, they put it into our designated storage facility, and we. We wait until the installation date. And when we're doing houses, it's thousands of items. And that's another thing I think that a lot of clients don't quite understand is how many pieces, like how many.

Things there are in your house.

Thousands. And also I will say to them, if you get one, let's say you order one thing. Sometimes it's Amazon, right? You order one thing on Amazon and it comes in this huge box for this tiny little thing. The packaging is out of control. And who's dealing with that? So when we go to install the receivers, take all that packaging away. It's the only way that I have. I mean, I don't know any other way to do it. And I actually, we do talk about this in the studio. Like, is there another way? There isn't. This is the only way to do procurement, especially in a large city when space is a premium.

[Caitlin Peterson]

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[Megan Campbell]

How did you find this receiver and how do you, I mean, how do you vet them? What are the questions you would ask to make sure that partner is doing all the things you need of them?

We actually had an issue with a receiving company a couple years ago where our client called them up and wanted to see all of the billing. And we are the client. Not our clients, they're our client. You know, it's this whole domino effect. And this receiving company did provide all of the sensitive billing information to this client with no questions asked. So that was the end of that relationship with our receiving company. Yeah, we never use them again. It didn't go over so well with this client either, as you can imagine. So one of the questions I ask when interviewing a new receiver is if someone outside of my business requires or requests information, how do they go about handling that? This receiver that we're working with now has it in their system and in the contract that we have signed, the three people who are allowed the information, which is my two employees and myself.

What did they see that like surprised or upset them?

Well, we do charge markup on receiving costs.

Okay.

And that is. I don't know if everyone does that, but we certainly do that. And they were surprised at how much the difference between what we were asking and what they were ultimately needing to pay. So, yeah, it got a little tricky. Got heated. I'm not gonna lie. You know, it's how do you navigate that when you have a relationship, you've built a relationship with a receiving company. And I had been with them for six or seven years, and so the loyalty there was. Obviously there wasn't any. I was a number and I saw that and so I immediately jumped ship and went to someone else. And we're very happy with who we're working with now, but I think it's important that, you know, clients, people in general are very savvy and it doesn't take much to just give someone a call and request information. But it's the business and whoever is dealing with a random person calling that needs to be a little bit more buttoned up. And that's. Yeah, that was definitely the fault of this receiving company.

Yeah, totally. Can you tell me a little bit more about how you bill clients for the receiving? You know, you said you sort of build it into the cost of the item. What does that actually look like on the client's bill?

It's a line item and we don't provide any additional information other than receiving storage and accepting costs per that month. If they ask, we will show them the breakdown. Most of the times, people don't really want to see the breakdown. I do say to clients at the front end of a project that we have the receipts. We are going to spare you with the amount of paperwork that we are sending, but at any time you want to see anything, yes, we will show that to you. But to keep our invoices very clean and streamlined, it'll be a line item. And that has worked. You know, I mean, I have great relationships with my clients. I'm not here to screw anyone over, but I am totally, I am running a business. And I think that that's something that at the end of the day, it's my salary, it's my team's salary I need to mark up and I need to feel confident that that's how we're keeping our lights on. You know, that is how we're all paying our mortgages and our rents and buying food for families. And that's the cost of doing business. So, yes, it's very clean, but we do keep records on the back end. So if there's any questions, I'm more than happy to have our account, our accounting team send, you know, send a receipt and show exactly what was what something cost plus markup. I mean, it's, it's always including the markup.

More broadly, I feel like our question asker was so keenly aware of not wanting to Spend a client's budget on storage fees. You said the same thing. When you're building that early budget, how are you talking about what these costs will be? You know, in terms of. Especially like, this is how much money you have to spend. This is how much is going to be on shipping and receiving and storage. Where. Where do those conversations happen and how do you help clients get comfortable with that?

Yeah, I don't know if anyone's really comfortable spending a lot of money. You know, it's just. It's talking to them, just how we're talking. It's holding their hand and explaining cost of doing business. We bake in another 20% on top of the shipping, on top of the items costs. We don't get a lot of questions anymore.

Is that about your clients changing, or is that about your approach changing?

Yeah, I think it's a little bit of both. I think the clients are. We're doing full homes, we're doing full apartments. They don't really have the time to be nitpicking. Of course, you get the. You know, you'll get someone with a lot of questions, and you answer the questions as clearly as you can. You know, I'm. Again, I'm. I'm transparent. I'm open about how we work in our systems and our policies. There's no other way. And I will say that, too. There's no other way. This is not an if or. And this is it. We've had. And I'll give them scenarios where when we've sent things directly to a residence, it doesn't ever go well, and then they're paying more in our time to deal with the mistakes. Mistakes. Yeah. I wish there was a really straight answer with this. You know, I wish it were black and white, but it's not. And every client's different, and every project's different. Every timeline is different. And so I think it's important to have. Just to have open dialogue with your receiving company, with your team, and with the client. You know, it's this constant open dialogue that's just to ensure that the project is going as smooth, smoothly as it can without steamrolling our client in their budget.

Yeah, our question asker got her own storage units. I think she was working with a receiver and she pivoted to really doing this on her own, you know, with the. With the help of some. Some employees to, you know, do that inspection part of the process. But I got the sense that she was using her own storage units in sort of a search for control over the Process a way to stay organized. Are there other ways to get the same results? And how are you kind of keeping all of this cleanly delineated and organized internally?

I mean, unless you really have the experience with receiving and storage, I think that it's more organized. You stay more organized when you're hiring a company. Not all receiving companies are created equal, as my story earlier, as, you know, informed. But the good ones, their knowledge and their expertise is an added value to your team, I don't think. I mean, I couldn't imagine having my own storage unit and having people go in and out of that. That seems chaotic to me. I don't think that's the best way. I think the best way is to investing in a third party who does this. Just like your clients are investing in an interior designer. You know, could they do it? They probably could, but are they going to do it as well as you? No. So why try to do the storage as well as these companies can, as these larger teams? And then they have the trucks and they bring everything on site and they have a team and there's like 20 guys that show up and you just point and they unwrap it and they place it. I mean, it's magic.

I love that they take away the trash. That's actually such a. Such a gift.

The Styrofoam, I mean, and the amount of garbage on install day, if you've ever seen a show house during the install, and the amount of garbage that comes out of show houses, which is really unfortunate because it's a huge waste. But it's like that. It's very similar to that. And you're under a time crunch for.

The show house and for the install.

Both things. You're under this deadline, and it has to be done. It has to be done. The clients are aware. Okay. Designers are installing. We can move it in a week or two days. Yeah. And that's your time to shine, too, as an interior designer, As a designer. That someone is investing their. You know, sometimes it's up to two years we're working on these projects. They've invested a lot of time, energy and money into us. That is our time to wow them, to give them that HGTV experience. Although I shouldn't, you know, the reveal of the end of the project, it's, you know, here it is. And. Yeah, the garbage. Oh, gosh. To deal with the garbage on my own, that. That just stresses me out even thinking about it.

One thing the question Asker did ask about was really keeping things straight. You Know not having client A's lamp end up with client B's stuff. What are you doing to help the receiver keep projects isolated?

So side marks are so important. It is the name of a company. So Megan Camp Interiors as an example, the room. So living room. And what else is in the side mark? Why am I forgetting? Because I don't do this. My project amazing project manager does this and I'm forgetting how things, little things work. But they're side marks. So it's the, the. Oh the project of the client's last name. So it's the address, the room and the business name. Not necessarily in that order. Yeah, sidemarks are key and sometimes they slip through the, you know, slip through and the receivers will say hey, what's the side mark on this? And that's how they keep organized. So then when we say hey, project A needs to be installed, they won't mess that up because they've already for months on the back end have been organizing the pieces per project. And I also to go even to nerd out even more about this is they will actually load the truck based on delivery. So if they know that things are pieces are going to the very, very top of the house, that's what will be in the front of the truck. So that it's systematic. They take things out. It's going all the way so they're not up and down stairs unnecessarily. Again, this is why you hire a team to do this. Because I mean why on earth would we all try to be receivers? They there's companies that have it down path.

Does their load in order impact how you start installing a home?

Oh, that's a good question. We have. So in a large project we'll print out room plans, floor plans, sometimes even photos of the items with the spot that it's supposed to be in the room. And we'll tape it to the door or to the wall of each space. So it's kind of dummy proof. It's just following the, kind of following the plan. Like, oh, the bed goes here. And then when we come through we will place things or we'll have them place things maybe a couple inches closer to the wall or to the left or to the right of the window. Just kind of really getting it to be the exact thought when they're initially placing it. The whole goal for them is to get it unpacked, get it installed.

Like close enough.

Yeah, close enough. And then we go through. And that's why installs take days because it's all These fine details that go into a space.

One thing I wanted to go back to really quickly was just, you know, you mentioned before, there is this sort of delicate dance of, okay, do we order this now? Do we wait? When do we place this order? What are those, you know, who's, who's tracking that? Or what are your systems for sort of keeping tabs on the purchasing process as you are deciding like when to pull the trigger on each item?

It's an internal document that we have. We are working on two different projects where there's a huge amount that we are ordering. One project we're doing in phases, so that's a little bit easier to manage because it's not the entire entire project at once, it's floor by floor. And the other project, it's the whole house. Thankfully, if this is benefit to this project, the client drags their feet on decisions. So it's not all approved all at once. And I think that this client just needs to really sit on the items we're presenting and discuss it as a couple. And so therefore it buys us some time where we're not having to then purchase a thousand pieces all at once. It's 10 pieces here, like this room.

Then that room then, right?

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It's so interesting how each project, I mean, as well oiled as a business is, as an interior design business is. It's so funny how internally it can be kind of not a chaotic mess, but we're still figuring things out internally. And I don't know if that'll ever change because each project is so different and each the parameter of each projects are different all the time.

In general, like, are there categories of things? I know you said like antiques we're going to order now. Are there other things that are sort of like, get it while you can where there. And are there certain categories where you sort of feel safe waiting a little bit longer, or is it vendor by vendor?

It is vendor by vendor and it's again, project by project. Antiques and vintage, because it's one of a kind. You don't want to take that risk because once it sells, you're never going to find anything like it. You know, you got to get it, got to get it when it's hot. You got to buy it right away. Anything with longer lead times. So if something is 16, 18, 22 weeks, we're looking at those items first. Okay, well, we got to start placing that item and then we look at the date and we look at the calendar. Anything custom also, that takes a longer Time to produce. We generally place those accessories. We don't really purchase accessories. That comes at the last part. We'll do items on loan and we'll bring that into install. So the smaller items we're not really worrying about. We start with the larger pieces first and then work backwards, really. Although I will say that there's a customer bookshelf that we're having made by a cabinet maker, and it takes 20 weeks, but we're a year out, a year and a half out from the client moving in. So we. We've told the vendor we're not ready to order that yet. We have the funds from the client, but we're just. We're going to sit on this a little bit because then what happens to that piece? We risk the piece getting damaged if it sits again in storage for three months, four months. But to answer your question, we start with the larger, the longest lead times first, and work our way backwards.

This has been amazing. This has been great advice.

[Caitlin Peterson]

I wanted to know what's the best.

[Megan Campbell]

Piece of advice you've ever received?

I have two. It was a. I can't remember who told me this advice, but it's something that I think about often to never take no for an answer. Once you get a no, don't just. That's not the end of the road.

How has that served you? Or how has that showed up for you in important ways?

If I do get a no, it's. I just start asking the questions. You know, a contractor will often say, sorry, that can't be done. And you know it can. They just. They're telling you that. So it's just, I don't know, asking detailed questions or sort of reframing it in a different way. So that was. Yeah, that's been pretty great advice. And the second one, it's so boring, but it's so. It's so true. You have to get comfortable talking about money. If you're going to work with clients and they're spending a lot of money on you, on the items. Yeah, you gotta be comfortable talking about money. And I will tell you, that didn't happen until probably a couple years ago.

Who told you that was that early career advice that just took a while to come?

I think so. Yeah.

Okay.

It was another small business owner, and they just said, you got to be comfortable talking about money. Megan. And I went, the last thing I want to do is talk about money. Right. You know, it's just. That's not why. Why I got into running a business doing interior design. That's not. I didn't get into this profession to talk about money, but it's so important because that's so much of the front end of a project is money. That's what we're talking about. It is how much does this cost? How much do.

[Caitlin Peterson]

Including storage.

[Megan Campbell]

Including the storage. And storage is not cheap. It is not cheap. And I look at these bills and I go, oh my God. Oh, they're so large. But again, cost of doing business.

[Caitlin Peterson]

That's our show for today. Thank you so much for being here and for everyone listening with a question of your own. I'd love for you to ask us anything. Don't worry, we'll keep it anonymous. Please start the conversation by sending me an [e-mail] if you're enjoying Trade Tales, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts to help others discover the show. And if you're looking for even more great business advice, head on over to businessofhome.com TradeTales is producing produced by me, Kaitlin Peterson and Caroline Burke. This episode was edited by Caroline Burke and Michael Castaneda. Our theme music is by Kyle Scott Wilson. Thanks again for listening and I'll see you here next week.