Kobel & Co.’s radical take on the client questionnaire

Summary

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Trade Tales: Kobel & Co.’s Radical Take on the Client Questionnaire

Podcast: Trade Tales
Host: Kaitlin Petersen, Business of Home
Guests: Mallory Robbins & Elizabeth Bennett, Kobel & Co.
Episode Date: April 8, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this insightful episode, host Kaitlin Petersen sits down with design duo Mallory Robbins and Elizabeth Bennett of Kobel & Co. to explore their innovative approach to client relationships, abandoning the traditional questionnaire in favor of a deeply personalized, conversation-driven process. The pair discuss the evolution of their partnership, their philosophy around trust and creativity, business systems, hiring, and their distinctive definition of success in design.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

Formation of the Partnership

• Origins & Complementary Strengths
  • Both Mallory and Elizabeth share similar backgrounds—a blend of childhood influences and creative inclinations—yet bring distinctive skills: Mallory is the function and process lead, Elizabeth the creative director.
  • Their partnership began serendipitously at a popsicle party and flourished due to mutual respect and aligned values.
  • Quote:
    • "I cannot imagine doing this business without a partner because of that counterbalance...our strengths and weaknesses are very opposite. Thank gosh." – Mallory Robbins (08:09)

Division of Labor & Brand Voice

• Balancing Form and Function
  • While both are involved in every project, Mallory focuses on production and logistics, Elizabeth on aesthetics and creative decisions.
  • Their studio maintains a unified client experience by deciding Mallory would take all initial client calls for consistency in communication.
  • Quote:
    • "All clients should get the same voice… Mallory would take all of those calls so that every client has the same experience." – Elizabeth Bennett (15:44)

Radical Rejection of Client Questionnaires

• Why No Questionnaires
  • Kobel & Co. favor an unscripted, conversation-based process over rigid questionnaires, believing it reveals more authentic client needs and avoids prescribed, rehearsed answers.
  • Instead, they hold a “DNA meeting” with image decks, prompting gut reactions.
  • Quote:
    • "We very decidedly do not have a questionnaire...the goal in that is that it’s not scripted. It’s intended to be more of a reactionary experience...what naturally comes out of these discussions are things that I don’t know that someone would always write down in a poised response on a questionnaire." – Mallory Robbins (26:31)
  • Their process includes only imagery—never their own work, unless a client specifically requests it—to facilitate unfiltered feedback.
  • Quote:
    • "We do not put in our own work, and that is on purpose...we generally genuinely want honest, raw answers. We do not want the client concerned about tiptoeing around...You don’t know these places, we don’t know these people. Gut reaction." – Elizabeth Bennett (33:33–34:21)
  • The DNA meeting is typically 1–1.5 hours (sometimes split), with both partners present, to engage both members of a couple and tease out their true preferences.

Client Experience and Process Flexibility

• Tailoring Decisions and Experience
  • The team adapts their process to each client's preferred decision-making style—even supporting those unaccustomed to making aesthetic choices.
  • Trust is foundational: “If we had to summarize it in one word, I think it’s trust.” – Elizabeth Bennett (25:53)
  • They invest in studio spaces and amenities to create a luxury, joyful experience for clients from beginning to end.
    • "We want clients to look forward to coming to these meetings...We want to make it a fun experience, an interesting experience...they look forward to these design meetings." – Elizabeth Bennett (40:36)

Fee Structures and Business Pivots

• Evolving Billing Models
  • Started billing hourly, pivoted to flat-fee after experiencing the pandemic surge in E-design, but now use a hybrid: hourly for architectural review, then flat fee from design through installation.
  • This system allows clients flexibility and clarity, and enables the firm to forecast workload and finances more reliably.
  • Quote:
    • "We pivoted to this hourly model at the forefront...once architectural plans are finalized...we are then in flat fee design." – Elizabeth Bennett (17:47)

Scaling, Team Building, and Studio Vision

• Team Philosophy
  • The studio employs a cohesive, invested team where everyone has client exposure at some phase. They prioritize nimbleness and personal involvement over scaling to a large firm.
  • Employee growth and feedback are emphasized through annual and biannual reviews.
  • Quote:
    • "We do hard work here. We do serious work here. We have a very high bar, I think, for the work product that goes out. But at the end of the day...we have a high bar for our expectations, but we all wanna have a good time." – Mallory Robbins (49:22)
• External CFO & Delegation
  • As the business complexities increased, they brought on an external CFO and delegated bookkeeping and taxes to free up creative space.
  • Regular check-ins allow them to "work on the business, not just in it."

Making Project Decisions

• Project Criteria
  • Their core requirement: clients must be "willing to go all in" with trust and commitment—regardless of project size—as full creative engagement leads to the best results.
  • They avoid piecemeal projects and minor updates ("just new pillows"), seeking partnerships with clients ready for transformation.

Press and Perception

• Role of Press & Midwestern Identity
  • Photography and press are valued for finishing and showcasing projects, but selection is careful due to investment and relevance.
  • They take pride in their Kansas City roots, challenging stereotypes and offering a broad, flexible design perspective, often working coast-to-coast.
  • Quote:
    • "We are redefining in some ways what people think of as Midwestern style...the commonality is a home that feels personal and inviting and livable." – Elizabeth Bennett (69:56)

Definitions of Success

• Creative Freedom and Trust
  • For both, success is rooted in client trust—paving the way for creativity and personal, meaningful design.
  • Notable Quote:
    • "Success looks like trust...they are making choices that they could not have come up with on their own, should not have come up with on their own." – Elizabeth Bennett (74:12)
    • "I think success...looks like creative freedom, and I think that comes from trust." – Mallory Robbins (75:02)

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Memorable Moments & Quotes with Timestamps

• On Partnership:

  • “There are so many things...our moral compasses are incredibly aligned, but...our strengths and weaknesses are very opposite…We have become very best friends. Our families vacation together...it's business first.” – Mallory Robbins (07:51–08:40)

• On Abandoning Traditional Questionnaires:

  • “We very decidedly do not have a questionnaire…what naturally comes out of these discussions are things that I don’t know that someone would always write down in a poised response on a questionnaire.” – Mallory Robbins (26:31)

• On Listening and Decision Making:

  • “We want them to feel as comfortable in the decision as they did in the process to get there. And so I think what our studio tries hard to do is flex our process to whatever that client's individual decision making process is…They want their process to feel one of one.” – Elizabeth Bennett (38:36)

• On Team Growth:

  • “We do hard work here. We do serious work here. We have a very high bar...but at the end of the day...we all wanna have a good time.” – Mallory Robbins (49:22)

• On Press and Regional Prejudices:

  • “I think it comes at a little bit of a, you know, where are you located? And then we say Kansas City…sometimes when meeting with editors in New York or people in the industry…you just don’t know how that’s going to land.” – Mallory Robbins (69:15)

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• Introduction and Studio Background – 00:02–06:40
• Dynamic & Roles in Partnership – 07:06–12:10
• Workflow & Communication with Clients – 13:15–16:31
• Billing Models/Evolution – 16:45–21:30
• Project Criteria & Full-Service Philosophy – 23:49–25:48
• Process: No Questionnaires, DNA Meeting – 26:31–34:44
• Client Experience & Studio Showroom Goals – 39:11–40:36
• Team Building & Employee Growth – 45:00–54:16
• External CFO and Financial Management – 54:24–58:58
• Personal/Professional Challenges as Entrepreneurs – 59:06–62:43
• Thoughts on Future Growth – 51:44–52:25
• Press, Photography, & Regional Perceptions – 65:52–74:05
• Closing: What Success Looks Like – 74:12–76:40

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Conclusion

This episode offers a candid deep-dive into Kobel & Co.’s collaborative philosophy, their personalized approach to understanding clients, business strategies, and commitment to meaningful, high-touch design. Their “radical” departure from formulaic questionnaires, focus on trust, and process flexibility provides valuable lessons for designers and entrepreneurs alike, emphasizing that creativity, customization, and authenticity are the keys to both client satisfaction and entrepreneurial fulfillment.

Transcript

[Elizabeth Bennett]

We want them to feel as comfortable in the decision as they did in the process to get there. I think what our studio tries hard to do is flex our process to some degree to whatever that client's individual decision making process is. I think that's inevitably what they're looking for. They want their process to feel one of one

[Caitlin Peterson]

hi, I'm Caitlin Peterson, the editor in chief of Business of Home. Welcome to Trade Tales, where I'll be talking to interior designers about the challenges, pivots and procedures, perspective shifts that come with growing a design firm. My hope is that you hear your own why echoed in these stories, or an idea that sparks your own breakthrough. I hope it helps you realize that even when entrepreneurship feels lonely, you're not alone. My guests today are a design duo who found their better business half in each other, one favoring function and the other taking the lead on form. They explain how together they're creating an elevated experience for clients who are willing to go all in. I can't wait to share it with you. But first, a quick word about Becoming a BOH Insider. If you are ready to get some real momentum behind your goals this year, consider becoming a BOH Insider. It's a membership program tailored to the needs of busy design professionals that gives you access to exclusive BOH reported as well as a weekly curriculum of online workshops led by some of the most respected voices in the industry. You'll also get access to a rich archive of past courses so you can always find the guidance you need no matter what challenges you're navigating in your business. Explore the benefits of becoming a BOH insider [e-mail] bohinsider.

[Mallory Robbins]

I grew up in a home with a dad who went to architecture school and then because of family kind of circumstances, left his dream of becoming an architect on his way to New York to kind of help run the family business. So it was sort of a joke that we moved a lot because my dad needed a creative outlet, he needed a project constantly and he was incredibly had a very modern aesthetic. So you know, famously my parents very first house my mom said we had to move because I was starting to walk and there were like no walls on the second floor. It was this like amazing very contemporary house with these like 10 inch little ledges and my mother was like sick and tired of trying to have me walk, not off the 10 inch ledge down the 10 foot ceiling. I have vivid memories of my childhood. He and I would drive around on Saturdays and Sundays and arguably now as an adult, trespass we were trespassing on other people's projects and walking around and, you know, he'd show me like that' the kitchen is. And, you know, arguing about the sight lines and why did they do it this way? And so it was. It's in my DNA.

[Caitlin Peterson]

That's Elizabeth Bennett. She went on to study industrial design in college and then began a career designing promotional product. A decade in, she had found success, but she had also grown tired of the corporate world and was looking for the next opportunity. As it happened, someone from her past was in a similar situation.

[Elizabeth Bennett]

You know, I always loved design as a child. I don't think I had a clear role model that made me envision that necessarily as a career. But I think I knew I wanted to do something creatively around that. And part of that was visual. Part of it was also very much related to puzzle solving or space planning and flow. I have a really distinct memory of my dad building a storage room in our basement and putting in this door and the door going in and me coming down to check it out and why wouldn't you have the door go the other way? You're wasting all this space behind it. And him just kind of stopping and staring at me thinking, of course. Why didn't I think of that? I've always been fascinated by how you get into a space, how the arrangement of the furniture can change the flow of the room and how you're interacting with people in it.

[Caitlin Peterson]

That's Mallory Robbins. She tried out architecture in college, but quickly realized that it wasn't a fit. Instead, she went into consulting, earning her MBA and building a corporate career. Her interest in design would reignite years later when she became a homeowner. After that, she started a firm, took on a few design jobs, and was contemplating the next steps for her business when she crossed paths with Elizabeth.

[Mallory Robbins]

Mallory and I actually remet at a popsicle party for our kiddos. Her oldest girl and my son are in the same class at the same school, and when they were like three, there was a popsicle party for new students. And we kind of saw each other there and had remembered each other because we went to the same college and we were actually in the same sorority.

[Elizabeth Bennett]

Elizabeth and I did go to college together. She was iconic in college, being two years older than me. She was always fabulously styled and known for great accessorizing. When we ran back into each other, you know, 15, 20 years later, she walked in and it was like, oh, my gosh, that is Elizabeth Bennet. She's exactly the same person so beautiful and pulled together. And it was fun to have that rekindling in that moment.

[Caitlin Peterson]

After reconnecting with Elizabeth, Mallory had a sudden realization. She didn't want to run her firm all by herself.

[Elizabeth Bennett]

I think I had just started our first whole home project and Elizabeth, she had just had her home photographed in a local publication. So it was kind of this series of events where bumped into each other. Then I saw her home in this publication. And I think I've had maybe twice in my life this like, big aha, positive, sure in my gut moment. And this was one of them. And I just felt absolutely called, if you will, that Elizabeth was meant to be my partner that year.

[Mallory Robbins]

I had been so kind of just burned out and miserable in kind of these corporate jobs. They weren't feeling anything creative. And I had always had such a calling to be creative. You texted me and said, I just saw your house, quit your job and join me. Haha. And I think I texted you back immediately, like, I'm out of town right now, but when I get back, come over. And from there, my husband and I had some heart to hearts and he was so tired of listening to me complain that he was like, let's do it. So we did. Here we are.

[Caitlin Peterson]

In 2019, the duo started working together, embarking on a partnership that plays to both of their strengths.

[Interviewer]

I wanted to talk to them about

[Caitlin Peterson]

why they no longer use a client questionnaire, how they maintain a single brand voice at every touch point, and why a willingness to go all in. Is there new criteria for incoming projects?

[Interviewer]

What does it take to really step on the gas and build something that could give you both a paycheck that was meaningful? What did that require? Early on?

[Elizabeth Bennett]

I think it required a willingness to try and fail. I think also a willingness to say yes to just about everything. And we did quite often, we organized playrooms. If someone was looking for something to be done that was even remotely tangential to what we wanted to do, we said yes, if nothing else, for exposure and experience. And we worked really long hours, which I can't say has changed since then.

[Mallory Robbins]

I mean, Mallory and I are Both up at 5, texting each other, sometimes on the phone quietly. And there's a lot of details. You know, the devil's in the details in this industry is made of details. If someone called us and wanted us to decorate their table, we were like, sure, yes, fantastic. You have a budget of $20.

[Elizabeth Bennett]

Fantastic.

[Mallory Robbins]

I'll bring all my own things, you know, Right. I will furnish it, keep it. We're hustlers. And I mean that in the most affectionate way. I think Mallory and I are very opposite. We have an amazing counterbalance to us. I cannot imagine doing this business without a partner because of that counterbalance. There's so many things that we, at our core, our moral compasses are incredibly aligned, but we're. Our strengths and weaknesses are very opposite. Thank gosh. I cannot imagine going into a business with a kind of best friend. I don't know how that would work in the long run. We hear lots of stories about friends that went into business together, but I think because we so respected each other at the onset, we have that amazing foundation. And we are best friends, right?

[Elizabeth Bennett]

Yes, always.

[Mallory Robbins]

We have become very best friends. Our families vacation together, but I think we truly love and admire each of our individual approaches to our business. And it's business first. It's not personal always.

[Interviewer]

Can you talk a little bit about that yin and yang or how you balance each other out?

[Mallory Robbins]

I think at the beginning, I think we kind of settled into a little bit of identifying where our strengths are. I definitely lean slightly more form. Mallory definitely leans more function. There's not any project, even shoppable designs that come through our studio that don't have our eyes on it if we're not the ones physically doing the work, which we're doing all of the work. But our eyes are both of us on every aspect of the business. So you get a little bit of both. You get that push and pull from the two of us of form, leading, function, driven, the balance. Mallory is an amazing to do lister. She lives for our Monday status meeting that I detest because I don't like the to do list. Monday is not my favorite day of the week. It is her favorite day of the week. I can't believe you'll admit that.

[Elizabeth Bennett]

I think also, Caitlin, to your question. I think as our team has grown, as Elizabeth said, we're both absolutely involved in every project and every aspect of the project, but I think naturally, just for efficiency and clarity, we have diverged in areas that we, you know, take the lead on. And Elizabeth, very much so our creative director. I'm always going to give an opinion, whether asked or not, but absolutely defer to her on, you know, the overall look and feel and the final details. She's exceptionally talented at that. The production side of the company, which is what we refer to sort of the other half, I take the lead on that end. So everything from procurement through the administrative aspect of the company. So we kind of look at it sort of like what does it look like and how does it get done

[Mallory Robbins]

or how does it flow? You also lead the way. She's an amazing, like, spatial planner. Mallory starts every project with the spatial planning and the floor planning with our two designers on our staff. Whereas I'll weigh in without my opinion being asked for, but I will weigh in on whether I like the flow. But at the end of the day, Mallory really is the subject expert on sort of functioning flow for the client's needs.

[Elizabeth Bennett]

I think we balance each other in that way though too, because she'll be the first to rightfully so called me out. That sometimes that, that problem solving aspect that gets me excited about a floor plan is also where I could be my downfall. So sometimes if I'm looking for something I can get really pigeonholed on. It has to be a certain size, it has to be a certain budget amount. And she's the first to kind of like grab me and pull me back and look at the big picture of the room. On the flip side, you know, Elizabeth is focusing on what it looks like and what it feels like. And, you know, sometimes we just need like a slight scale check with each other, but those.

[Mallory Robbins]

I have many scale fails. I am not the one to be trusted with scale. I know when it's right. But I'll pull a table and she'll be like, you pulled a 48 inch table? I'm like, yeah, it's fabulous. She's like, we need a 72 inch table. Details, details.

[Interviewer]

Was that kind of flow of working together a parent from the beginning or what were the conversations you had to navigate with each other as your partnership has evolved to get to this place?

[Mallory Robbins]

I definitely don't know if we set out being like, you're gonna run this and you're gonna run that. Cause I think very much in the beginning, we were both so excited to just be doing this and building this dream and getting traction and people were calling and it was like we were so thankful that we were just sprinting. I think it's when the company became larger, when the projects became larger, the budgets became larger, the homes became more complex that we recognized a need for us to try to play to our strengths. For me to get out of having an opinion about the way the contract was written or something like that, that's really. She needs to drive that ship. It just became kind of a natural division. There have been a couple of check ins I would say that we've had on. Is this working? Never a decision.

[Elizabeth Bennett]

We're both always going to have an opinion on one aspect or the other and are aware of what's happening. I don't think anything's happening. Totally in a vacuum. But, yeah, maybe no formal conversation, more just kind of like at the end of the day, what we fought harder for. Yeah. Third opinion.

[Mallory Robbins]

I think I may have messed up on a couple of emails and she was like, I'm going to take over this. It's not the way I would have written that.

[Interviewer]

I love exploring partnerships because I think they can be both so rewarding and so challenging. How do you talk about your partnership with clients, about when they'll see each one of you, when they won't see either of you?

[Elizabeth Bennett]

I don't actually feel like that's something we spend a lot of time explaining. I think we are very much in touch with the project and in some ways this may sound just like slightly out there, but connected to each other very much from a thought process. And so it is not unusual for one of us to sort of pick up where the other left off. And ideally that feels fairly seamless. I think there are naturally areas of the project where one of us will dip in more than the other, but I don't think anyone really disappears, so to speak. I don't feel that's a question we get often, like, why aren't we seeing.

[Mallory Robbins]

There are definitely projects, though, where, like, Mallory is more of the face, more has more face time with the client, just based on the relationship, the interaction, our schedules. And we do try to kind of then run with that. Even though all the meetings are happening internally, I'm fully aware of every single selection making the selections. There's sort of a natural flow to that. But I think also our team is still relatively small, so that if you're getting an email from Cassidy, our amazing project manager, it's very much because the subject matter of that email very much sits in her bucket. Or Natalie, one of our amazing designers. If it's Cabinet edits, red lines, it's very much in her bucket. You've sat in the meeting with her. That's coming from her because she's doing the work. But for the most part, we really are pretty present throughout the projects.

[Elizabeth Bennett]

The client doesn't have to think about whether to email Elizabeth or email me or email our project manager. We have one email that hits all team members in the studio. And I think when you do have different people kind of pushing and pulling in different aspects of the project, we would never want a client to feel burdened with. Well, who's my point of contact and who's kind of doing that decision. They just know that they can reach COBOL and one of us is getting back to them in a very seamless, continuous fashion.

[Interviewer]

Are there hiccups in that? I feel like waiting for someone else to answer.

[Mallory Robbins]

I think we have a pretty clear

[Elizabeth Bennett]

sense of who is responsible for doing the answering. I think what it does is on the receiving end. We're all at the same time aware of what's being said. So rather than waiting on someone internally to pass that information along, everyone's sort of read in, if you will.

[Mallory Robbins]

I also think Mallory. One of Mallory's amazing strengths is almost like copywriting. And I think one decision that we may have made inadvertently, early on, all clients should get the same voice. Every new prospective client, There was a period where we were both taking new client calls, and I just talk about our process in a different way than Mallory does, just naturally. So that was a decision that we made, that Mallory would take all of those calls so that every client has the same experience. So she very much handles a lot of, like, if there's a hard conversation, it's always coming from her. If there's a good conversation, lucky me, it's always coming from her.

[Elizabeth Bennett]

I know. Well, she just.

[Mallory Robbins]

She's so much better at it.

[Elizabeth Bennett]

That's what she keeps saying.

[Mallory Robbins]

Works out great for me.

[Interviewer]

The second part of my question from before, this idea of, you know, how clients perceive your partnership. How did you have to think differently about the way that they pay for your partnership in terms of, like, billable hours?

[Mallory Robbins]

That was, I think, one of our very first business pivots that we had as a team. When I started with Mallory, she was billing hourly, and we. Right before the pandemic, we had a client come to us, and she wanted this sort of hybrid design. And we were like, let's do it this way. And we ended up. It was sort of the birth of our shoppable design, our E design program, where it's, you know, a flat fee for a designed room with links to the product that the client is responsible for purchasing on their own. They can use it as a mood board. They can buy the exact products. It's up to them. After we did that and the pandemic happened, we ended up doing, like, 100 rooms. It was really huge for us all over the country through the pandemic, but it allowed us as business owners to really look at the work coming in and what that meant for our expenses. So we did pivot to a flat fee. After the pandemic, we've been. We are still in a flat fee, but recently we did make a slight tweak to that.

[Elizabeth Bennett]

And I think it's been, gosh, probably a year, year and a half. We've sort of got three buckets within our contract. And this is something that's talked about really up front with clients when we do have that new client inquiry. So we do what we call sort of our architectural review phase hourly, and that sometimes is a month of work. We have had clients where that's two years of work, and what that really is is truly commenting on their architectural plans. So sometimes we're brought in with the architectural plans already in place, and we're doing a review of the layout, making comments, kind of everything from flow to the aesthetic to how is your final furniture arrangement going to work within the parameters of these Wal. Sometimes we're brought on before the architects. So we're doing some of, kind of the ground laying for what those architectural plans will inevitably look like. And what we felt like that shift offered was a lot of flexibility. And I think one of the key learnings was we had a client a few years ago, this darling young couple who was building a new home. They were really torn on the style of the house. And so there were these periods of time where we would be really involved with them creatively and weighing in on the floor plans and also meeting with the architect. And then there would be large periods of time where the architect was doing her thing and updating these drawings and having large blocks of time in those revisions and in those down periods. And so what we recognized was a flat fee didn't really make sense during that part of the project. We wouldn't want to be billing someone when we're not actually engaged with them. And so we pivoted to this hourly model at the forefront of the project, which ends as soon as plans are finalized. So once architectural plans are finalized, whether that's a new build or it's a renovation plan submitted for permitting approved, we are then in flat fee design. And that has been, I think, one a great way for our studio to feel like we are truly partners with a client. We are engaged with them. There are inevitably rooms or spaces or decisions that are, you know, we try, we try and we try again until we get it right. There are other decisions that flow a lot more easily. And so I think for the client, it doesn't feel like they're being penalized per se, for, you know, really noodling over a specific decision. And our team in the reverse doesn't have any sort of resulting guilt about continuing to dive into a concept, because if we don't feel like it's perfect, we're not going to leave it be. We want the ability and flexibility to continue to ideate and be creative behind the scenes.

[Mallory Robbins]

We don't want to penalize the client at the beginning when they're trying to figure out what kind of house they're building. So it makes a lot more sense for them to feel like, bring us in when you need us. We're here on an hourly basis, and then when we're locked and loaded and ready, you know, we go into the real design.

[Interviewer]

Do you pivot back to hourly for the procurement phase or how are you billing for that part of the work?

[Elizabeth Bennett]

We are flat fee all the way from the onset of design through final installation. That flat fee is determined based on. On the scale and length of the project. So there's a big conversation at the forefront with the client and the architect about the expected timeline of the project. And we're usually trying to build in some amount of cushion there just because I think we've no knock on our contractor partners, but I think we've had yet to have one nail their exact. Yeah, their exact estimate. Exactly. So there is a provision that comes into place if the project goes past that initial estimate, and clients are aware of that at the beginning, but that serves as a little bit of both a safeguard for ensuring the project stays on time, but also that our team can continue to stay engaged without a negative aspect to it.

[Interviewer]

Yeah. Has it been easier to explain to clients? Has it been better for your balance sheet? Like, how have you experienced the outcome of some of these changes?

[Elizabeth Bennett]

For us, it's been an incredible positive. What it allows on the client side is us to articulate right at the beginning what their project will cost. Obviously, there's some amount of estimation that's occurring with that architectural phase, but again, it's very much in their hands. If they want the freedom and creativity to explore different architectural layouts over a period of two years and want to invest in that, so be it. If they have a pretty good sense of what they want, and we want to go through that process fairly quickly, that's also, again, very much in their hands. They're driving that time outlay, if you will, from an internal perspective. What it allows us to do is plan one to almost two years out financially. And it gives us a really clear sense, bandwidth wise, what we're able to take on as a team. We have a really internally clear Sense of when those big time outlays will be on a project and then so when we're taking on a new project, ensuring that we're doing our best to not stack projects that are all going to be in the same phase of life now. It's not a perfect science. There are delays. Some projects go slower, some projects go faster. Every once in a while you've got a few that end up bunching up on each other. But it gives us at least a clear roadmap of data to look at when we're making the decision to say yes to a new large scale project.

[Interviewer]

How many projects is a comfortable full plate today?

[Mallory Robbins]

I think it really depends because every project is slightly different. But I would say that right now with the team that we have in place, we're at 20. Okay, we've been a little higher. It felt a little stressful. But I think 20 feels like a really good mix right now because again, the lifecycle of each of these projects and the scope of each are very different. Some of them are new builds, some are more like just furnishings of the whole home, some is a kitchen. So they're all very different. But I think that number toggling around that number in terms of total clients for the studio at our current size feels, feels really good.

[Interviewer]

What makes you say yes to a project today? I love that there is sort of a variety. It sounds like in what you will still say yes to. But what's the driver in saying this is a good fit for what we do today?

[Elizabeth Bennett]

The number one factor that I think for us as it'll be a successful project or a project that our studio is excited about, is the client being willing to go all in. So we don't have a minimum scope in terms of number of rooms or size of project or budget. It's more if we are going to touch a space, we're going to touch it from top to bottom, no holding back. And I think that was a learning lesson for us. I think we, you know, we did a few years ago projects where we, we committed to saying, okay, yes, we'll help you build your new home, but but not do the furniture. That was hard. We inevitably are thinking about the entire space and want the client to have that journey with us. And so feeling like we don't have to hold back creatively in any way is really what allows us to be the most successful.

[Mallory Robbins]

I think it also comes from a place of our strong desire to have the best result for the client. It's just not as successful. I think When a client comes to us, the job she's referencing that we finished a few years ago, they really just wanted our help designing the house, picking the wallpapers, all the lighting, the plumbing, the layout. But they wanted to use, you know, they weren't ready to furnish the home. And it. It's a beautiful house, but it was incredibly hard throughout the process to select a paper and a paint without knowing the whole, without being given the freedom to do the whole space. We're always just very aware of the return on investment for the client. You know, this is. Our industry is in and of itself a luxury service. And I think at the end of the day, we want our clients to be not just happy, but thrilled with the end result, but also with the partnership and the value. And I think we've learned that when someone comes to us and says, I just want new pillows, that's just probably a project where it's not going to be the best fit for us. And we're trying to get better at identifying that. And I think one of our goals for the next year is to find a way to maybe identify clients that maybe we are not a good fit for early on, just in terms of

[Interviewer]

scope of work, in terms of pace of work, in terms of personality, or.

[Elizabeth Bennett]

I think at the end, I think it comes down. If we had to summarize it in one word, I think it's trust. I think when a client trusts us to listen to them, and we do spend a lot of time listening, we very much spend a good chunk of the initial part of a project really listening to what they're saying and also what they're not saying. And if they trust us to listen to them enough to get to understand who they are, who their family is, who they're aspiring to be, what lifestyle they want to be living, and then turn that trust over to us, I think those are far and away our most successful.

[Mallory Robbins]

For instance, we do not have, like, a questionnaire. I know a lot of studios use a fairly lengthy questionnaire potentially to, you know, identify an ideal client, potentially as a kickoff to a project, to kind of gain information about the client. We very decidedly do not have a questionnaire. We have a process that we go through at the very beginning. But the goal in that is that it's not scripted. It's intended to be more of a reactionary experience so that we can really, truly hear and witness for ourselves, like really honest opinions and dynamics. And kind of what naturally comes out of these discussions are things that I don't know that someone would always write down in a poised response on a questionnaire. So the process that we go through at the very beginning is so much about listening, but it's all images, it's all imagery. Yeah.

[Interviewer]

Can you break down for me what that experience is for the client? It's after they've signed on, right?

[Mallory Robbins]

Yes, it's after they've signed on. So they've signed on, they've signed their contract, We've kind of gone through some of the written. Yeah, we're on board, they're in the client roster. And one of our very first meetings is what we call a DNA meeting. And Mallory and I together handcraft a deck of imagery specific to their project scope. So if it's just a kitchen, it's a lot of kitchens. If it's, you know, kids rooms, it includes kids rooms and so forth, but it's just imagery. And it's hand selected to have images that our gut says they will love and our gut says might be not a fit at all. And the exercise is purely to have them. We go through each image and it's for them to just respond to it. And some clients, at the very beginning, really struggle. Am I supposed to, you know, am I supposed to pick one? Am I supposed to be identifying things that I like? And we really stress there are no rules, really, just about what speaks to you. And sometimes, you know, we get very literal answers, like, I don't like chains on chandeliers. Okay, good to know. I hate seeing wires in lighting. Okay. You know, noted. And sometimes it's, I love the way that looks. It's a place I'd like to visit, but not a place I'd like to live. So there's a lot of different things that come out of it. Every client session is incredibly different, but a lot of times clients will come to us really confused and like, I actually don't know what my style is. But the beauty of it is, at the end of this session, we have a really beautiful collection of pieces and parts that collectively, they are the commonality, they are the thread that pulled those images together. So it's a very unique end result, and it gives us a touchstone to continually kind of come back to. They have every right to change their mind through the design process. It is in no ways like the rules for the house, but it's a great place for us to start.

[Elizabeth Bennett]

Yeah, I think often those, you know, again, if it's a couple, that is actually the one meeting, we really insist that both parties join also, because we want to hear both perspectives. And sometimes when they do start farther apart, that exercise allows them to see where their overlap is. And that can really feel successful to them too. They might have felt concerned about being on different sides of the aesthetic coin. And then through that process, we can kind of talk through areas where those things.

[Mallory Robbins]

I would say animal print is typically a very hot button topic. Yeah.

[Elizabeth Bennett]

We find out right away, do you like animal print or you don't have colors of red and red and yellow and purple are always sort of ones that have strong opinions from people. But that summary mood board. And we always make it really clear to the clients we are not looking to identify an image to replicate. We're not even looking for a single image to point back to. It is a collection of images that create a feeling, not specific details, but a feeling. And we will keep that at the front of their presentation through the life of their project. And it's something that. That they. We can point back to with them, you know, when they do have those moments where they kind of waver aesthetically. And it's something we internally also refer back to.

[Interviewer]

I have a bunch of really granular questions, like, logistically, you are in this meeting. You have what I'm guessing is a digital presentation of these images. Are you literally constructing a. Like, keep this cut that new mood board, like, on the fly in front of the clients in this meeting?

[Mallory Robbins]

No, it's definitely. It's digital. Yes. We usually have a printed version that we're making our own notes on. And then after the meeting, we kind of go back, review, compile, edit, and then that becomes a resource that's available to them, and we kind of reference back to it, but we edit it ourselves to kind of pull out what we heard and what we infer and what fits to create this. Sometimes it's several pages of just kind of inspirational imagery.

[Interviewer]

And then. Is that another meeting with them, or is that just something you send as a. Like, here's where we landed.

[Elizabeth Bennett]

It depends. Often we will pull that out first thing in our next meeting and kind of talk through it, and we'll. We'll also summarize what we see in it. So if it's, you know, we're looking at this series of images, and what we're getting from here is you want a home that feels inviting and warm, layered, but in no means stuffy. You're not drawn to heavy pattern or color, but instead, like, things that are neutral and tactile, we'll put some verbiage behind it. And almost always, I Actually can't think of a time where they didn't say, yes, that is me. Because we really did spend hours listening really specifically to what they liked and they didn't like. And so we take that moment of gut check, and then that is a document that we give to them. But I think Elizabeth alluded to this in that initial presentation. We are absolutely putting in images that we suspect they may react negatively to, and that is on purpose. I think if in the world of Instagram and Pinterest and literally any digital image at your fingertips, the client can get a little lost out there in what they're responding to. And so I think finding those bookends, those guardrails of what we don't like is just as important as identifying what we do like. So sort of ruling things out is almost as important as deciding what stays in.

[Mallory Robbins]

We're looking for strong feelings.

[Interviewer]

Second question. You mentioned hours, and I really wanted to know, how long is this meeting?

[Mallory Robbins]

It is. It depends on the scope of the project. And sometimes it does get broken out into different sessions.

[Elizabeth Bennett]

We will break it out at some point. The client fatigues sometimes. What is that limit have you found? I would say an hour and a half is really the max per session. So if we need to do a second or a third session, we will do it. But I think an hour and a half is about how long we can keep there. Stamina sometimes push it to two, but at a certain point, you notice their responses start to sort of just slide off. And quite frankly, the deck is very robust. So there's also a point where if they've had a really strong, clear point of view, we can skip some slides. Right. Like, we don't need to belabor the fact that we get it. They hate blue or, you know, whatever

[Mallory Robbins]

it is they like. Their blood. Got it. Yeah.

[Caitlin Peterson]

Is it ever your own work, or

[Interviewer]

is this sort of a Pinterest deep dive?

[Elizabeth Bennett]

We do not put in our own work, and that is on purpose. I think we have found one or two instances where we actually accidentally slipped our own work in, or the client thought it was our work and then they were anxious to give.

[Mallory Robbins]

We accidentally slip our work in. We just didn't know it was ours and we found it.

[Elizabeth Bennett]

No, let me. Let me rephrase that. We did recently. I did do one where. Don't even listen to that. Nine times out of 10, we do not put our own work in. And the reason is we generally genuinely want honest, raw answers. We do not want the client concerned about tiptoeing around don't hurt your feelings. Their feeling on something. You're not going to hurt our feelings. But we don't even want to put that in front of them, right. If we just want them to feel like we don't know. You don't know these places, we don't know these people. Gut reaction. What do you think about it?

[Interviewer]

But you did include your work one time.

[Elizabeth Bennett]

I did include our work, this last one that I just did. Because the client really loves a particular project. So I think diving in further, what it is about that project specifically, is it. Is it the tone, is it the flow? Is it the level of relaxed versus

[Mallory Robbins]

it was a wearable, though. Did she spot it?

[Interviewer]

Is this a client who came and was like, I love this project, therefore.

[Elizabeth Bennett]

Okay, yes, absolutely, yes. Cape's referring to the images herself. So I think anytime a client does come to the table with specific imagery, whether it is ours or in a comment composition of images they've found, I think slipping it into that presentation to see how they respond to it in the context of that greater conversation is still helpful.

[Interviewer]

It's something you would do again, then I think this is very fun.

[Elizabeth Bennett]

I think in the right context, we would do it. I think the funny thing about clients responding to this presentation is we do often have clients that pick it up on slide three. They understand they're really looking for an overall feeling. They get kind of grooving in the rhythm and they feel comfortable saying, like, I love that I want to live there, or like, I'm really actually repulsed by that. I think every once in a while you get a client who is very functionally focused. I'm going to say nine times out of 10, they're probably in an engineer.

[Mallory Robbins]

They're Mallory's dream class. Mallory loves a functionally focused.

[Elizabeth Bennett]

But I think where we can lose them sometimes is if they have compiled inspirational imagery of their own and they've sent those to us and said, we like this. Sometimes those inspirational images they've just pulled out because they like the way the millwork is around a window and we're stepping back and looking at the big picture, like, huh, what a.

[Interviewer]

You like this.

[Elizabeth Bennett]

What an oddly modern home for someone who has said they, you know, lean traditional. And so having it in that conversational deck to react to. And once they get their kind of, again, sort of flow going in that conversation of understanding that it's not just about pulling an image apart for specific pieces, but the overall feeling of the space, I think that sort of gets them warmed up and they're Able to more specifically address. Actually, I don't really love that room. I was just looking at that one really nitty gritty feature and thought I should be compiling those things.

[Mallory Robbins]

I think it's good too, because we really try to blend in that particular process step. Try to blend a lot of different styles and kind of different features. And some are very avant garde and some are more modern and some push the boundaries. And I think the goal there is we really truly want every project to feel incredibly personal to that family and to that client. It's through our lens. You know, we're kind of the guide and we're obviously designing it with them, but it shouldn't feel lockstep like any other project. And I think the beauty of this is that you really are absorbing all different types of pieces and parts that then becomes this collage of things that are very unique to this client. You know, no one else will respond in the exact same way. And that's where a project becomes really truly successful. When a client can kind of put down Instagram, put down Pinterest as best as we can and really just focus on what are the things that I like that I innately look at and respond well to, and what is that compass for me and my design? And I think that's where we really get to a point where we can kind of flex and build something that feels very personal.

[Interviewer]

How do you keep that momentum going for the client? How are you thinking about the client experience throughout the entire life cycle of a design project?

[Mallory Robbins]

It's very top of mind.

[Elizabeth Bennett]

Yeah, very top of mind. I think it's also very personal. So within those, you know, let's say 20 projects, every client has a really different decision making process. It's something we try to touch on early on. How do you like to make decisions? Are you someone who don't show me more than two options, it'll overwhelm me. Are you someone who wants to see a hundred before you come back to option one? Some clients are more self aware of what their decision is.

[Interviewer]

Do most people know that about themselves or no?

[Elizabeth Bennett]

I think half and half, probably more, yeah.

[Mallory Robbins]

I think sometimes clients think they know and then we quickly learn, oh, no, no, no, no.

[Elizabeth Bennett]

And these are, and we say that gently, these are decisions they will then live with for years to come. They are making large investments. We want them to feel as comfortable in the decision as they did in the process to get there. And so I think what our studio tries hard to do is flex our process to some degree to whatever that Client's individual decision making process is that's admittedly, you know, a little tedious on our end to sort of like play a different role per project and support people in a different way. But I think that's inevitably what they're looking for. They want their process to feel one of one.

[Mallory Robbins]

In essence, it is again, you know, it is a luxury service based industry that we are in. It's very technical, it's very fun, but it's so much more than, you know, these beautiful pictures that are the end result. There's so much technical detail that goes into it and it really needs to feel like a luxury service to the client. I think Mallory and I have made a large investment in our business by purchasing a building here in Kansas City that will be our new studio. And we did it first and foremost in mind with giving our clients a more luxury experience. We really want them from anywhere. You know, we have clients all over the country now, but we really want to have a bespoke experience from the minute that they come in the door that it feels like the luxury service that we are partnering with them on. We are investing in a small showroom in the front where we're going to be showing different lighting companies that you can't see here in Kansas City. And we'll have a small kitchen showroom with a French range. And we really just want the experience to be elevated, professional, but also joyful and fun. I mean, if we can't have fun on this, you know, it's not good for anyone.

[Elizabeth Bennett]

It has a bar too.

[Mallory Robbins]

Yeah, it has a bar. I got real excited about that. And if I can find a way to put a diet coat. Dispensing. Yeah, yeah.

[Elizabeth Bennett]

We want clients to walk in. We want clients to look forward to coming to these meetings. They are, you know, we are not unaware of the fact that even as many decisions as we take off their plates, it's still a lot of decisions and it's still a large investment and a big outlay of their time. And the more we can make it a fun experience, an interesting experience. They look forward to these design meetings. They think of them as collaborative and experiential. We want to do that for them.

[Mallory Robbins]

Hey, designers.

[Caitlin Peterson]

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[Elizabeth Bennett]

Can you talk to me a little

[Interviewer]

bit about the different layers of services that you offer? You know, we talked about sort of that online only design wing, but. But what are sort of the buckets that clients fall into when they're working with your firm?

[Mallory Robbins]

Well, we do the one on one consultations on the expert.

[Caitlin Peterson]

Yep.

[Mallory Robbins]

We've been doing that for a bit, which are always really fun because you just never know what you're going to expect and you get to talk about everything. And we always kind of equate it to speed dating. It's kind of like, okay, we have 55 minutes. What do you want to talk about? Those have been great. Full service is sort of our largest bucket, I would say. And that's really soup to nutrition will take you all the way from your architectural drawings or even the thought process of where do we even want to start to installation. And we're setting the coasters and we're lighting your favorite candle and we have your favorite cocktail ready for you. We really want that end installation to be something that is incredibly memorable. In between the two, we do Shoppable Design, which is our online kind of E design offering. And then we do occasionally do construction consults. That was, I feel like the first

[Interviewer]

time I met you, that was like a really core piece of your business.

[Mallory Robbins]

Yeah. Right out of COVID We did, I mean, we did a ton of Shoppable design. Our E design service was something that we developed out of a need for one client and then sort of launched it. The pandemic happened, it took off, which was great for us because we got to dabble in all different styles. We were still a very young studio. We learned so much during that period of time. Then we had a couple clients who came to us who wanted that same style of service but needed more technical direction on construction. And that's sort of where the construction consultations came into play. It's still very client driven. They're responsible for getting the paint samples, putting them up, making that final selection. But Shoppable Design is really best suited for Soft goods. It's really best suited for fabric finishes, you know, furniture. It's not suited for like a kitchen remodel. It's just. That's not how it's built. But a construction consult is an area where we can meet with a client for. You can buy different sessions and we'll meet with you and go over your floor plan, tile selections, plumbing suggestions, and we kind of give them access to our opinion on what we've key learned on those things and then they can run with it.

[Interviewer]

How does that break down in terms of the volume of work you're doing today?

[Mallory Robbins]

It's shifted drastically in the last two years. Yes.

[Elizabeth Bennett]

Our studio is primarily full service design.

[Mallory Robbins]

I would say it's 9010.

[Interviewer]

Okay. What is your. And how has your team evolved as the firm has changed and grown?

[Mallory Robbins]

We have the best team I think we've ever had right now. We have a procurement manager, a project manager, a senior designer, another designer. Mallory and I. We have a suite of financial contractors like an external CFO and whatnot, bookkeeper, and then we have a studio assistant. And we're actively hiring right now for a studio manager and potentially a marketing manager as well.

[Interviewer]

Is everybody on every job then the designers?

[Mallory Robbins]

I think we're trying to divide a little bit. They both do a lot of architectural work. It's very technically driven, it's very CAD focused, and I think there needs to be a single source of truth in the documentation. So we are trying to divide them up a little bit in terms of who's taking the lead on the actual drawing of the various components.

[Elizabeth Bennett]

Everyone else is generally involved on each project. It's just a different degree and at what stage in the project. And so we do have, depending on the type of project, different hands and at different point. I think we mentioned earlier the commonality across that is Elizabeth and myself. And then of course just continuing to hear really from the same voice. So there will be phases of the project during procurement. You're definitely going to hear from our procurement manager far more often. You certainly wouldn't be hearing from her at the outset of a project outside of setting a budget, which is one of the first interactions she has with. With a client. Conversely, I think there are time periods in that architectural phase where it's really specifically Elizabeth and I and one of our designers, but our project manager doesn't need to be involved yet at that point. So we've got team members sort of like phasing in and out as the project goes along. But the client should be really familiar with the full roster of our team. And our team to some degree should be familiar with the full roster of projects. We're a small studio and if someone is out on vacation or we just had our first maternity leave, we don't want the wheels to kind of grind to a halt. So the ability to kind of flex in as needed on different projects, I think allows us to be very nimble.

[Interviewer]

How do you think about, you know, is everybody client facing then at some point in the project?

[Mallory Robbins]

It depends on the client. It depends on the project. But I do think everyone is client facing at some point. There's, I mean, like, if we're going over cabinet red lines and it's incredibly detailed and our senior designer has done the majority of the work, she's going to be present. She is amazing at calling out details that need to be addressed. That's really her area of focus. So she'll be in that meeting. Whether she's leading it or I'm leading it is kind of dependent on the day. But I think what's also very important to Mallory and I in the new studio, as well as just in the business as a whole, is we really want to be an organization where we have employees who feel invested in the work and feel invested in the company and feel like they have a career trajectory. And I think so much of that has to do with ownership.

[Caitlin Peterson]

Yeah.

[Mallory Robbins]

So we really do want all of our employees to feel like they intimately know our clients and are up to date on sort of at least the high, you know, the high level topics in the case that someone did have to stand in. We don't ever want the client to feel a lurch because someone's out sick. That's just not the way we want the experience to feel.

[Elizabeth Bennett]

I think in that same vein, though, we don't expect everyone to be an expert on every topic. And I think empowering our team to say, if the meeting was intended to be about cabinets and our designer is taking the meeting, and if the client then kind of diverges and starts talking about a pillow fabric, no one has the expectation that the person who designs the cabinets also knows what the pillow fabric is. And so I think empowering our team to be able to say, I'm going to have so and so get back to you on that and then just ensuring that it gets done. So I think it's a little bit of a well choreographed dance of who has that information, but then also making sure responses are timely and captured when conversing with the client.

[Interviewer]

Can you talk a little Bit about creating that pathway for growth for employees. What does that require of the two of you? What does that require of the company?

[Mallory Robbins]

I think it's something that's a. I'm not going to say it's like a. A new goal to us, because it's something that's in the forefront of our mind is employee satisfaction and people loving their job. We do hard work here. We do serious work here. We have a very high bar, I think, for the work product that goes out. But at the end of the day, you know, we will tell our team, especially on install day, you know, this is not heart surgery. Something will go wrong. We will fix it. We feel very strongly that we stand behind our studio's work. Side note, we had a project recently where a measurement was taken wrong for a angled sofa that had to fit just so in a basement. And it was delivered and the angle was wrong. Was it terribly wrong? No. Was it wrong enough that Mallory and I stood there and looked at each other and said, we're gonna have to eat this. And it was a $10,000 sofa, but we went to the client five minutes later and said, the angle's wrong. Keep the sofa. We're having a new one made for you. And we don't want our team to feel crestfallen because of that. Right. Like, this is not heart surgery. We're not saving lives. We have a high bar for our expectations, but we all wanna have a good time. We work together so hard together. Yeah.

[Elizabeth Bennett]

Also in that example, we're a team. The decision and the weight of decision and the weight of responsibility is not sitting squarely on one shoulder. We are, as a studio, backing our projects and the decisions behind them. And at the end of the day, we're all working towards ensuring the client loves every aspect and what they see and experience is the luxury experience they wanted.

[Mallory Robbins]

I think we're still a fairly small team, and we're making a large investment in this new studio space. And we're lucky enough to be getting, you know, wonderful projects on, you know, different outside of our state. That's just incredibly exciting. So I think as we grow the team, we're growing it with a lot of sensitivity in mind, with a business sense in mind, but also with our team in mind of, you know, who needs to come, who needs someone probably under them in the future. What does that look like? When will that red flag go up? We're just always thinking about sort of the next five years.

[Interviewer]

Is there a goal in terms of, like, how big the team gets, how Much the firm scales. Do you have a sense of where you want to be in five years?

[Mallory Robbins]

I don't know that we know where we want to go per se. I think we know what we want it to feel like. And I think we don't want to become a huge team. We don't want there to ever be a point where Mallory and I are not intimately involved in the design and in the projects. I think that's something that, that just isn't the direction for our studio in particular. I do think we want to be able to take on different clients across the country. We're doing that now. There's different aspects of that that works really well that we're figuring out this works better than this. I don't think we know exactly where we're going, but I don't think we want to become a 30 person team. That seems terrifying.

[Elizabeth Bennett]

That does seem terrifying. And I think at that point it becomes less about the design and more about people managing. So I think we're both sensitive to, again, having come from those large corporate backgrounds where those structures are in place for a reason, to help with success, at a certain point, they become sort of process for process sake. And so the ability to stay small and nimble and fine tune what we're doing kind of on the fly is important to us. I think something, though, that we tell the team is we don't know what we don't hear. We are not mind readers. That's huge. Yeah. So if a team member has something they're worried about or they're stressed about or an opportunity that they're excited about, you know, our project manager came to us and said, I'd really love to take a class to be able to do some of the technical pieces that right now the designers are doing. I feel like some of these things I could take off their plate. Amazing. You know, I wouldn't. We wouldn't have known that she even was remotely interested in doing that if she hadn't raised her hand and taken initiative. So both ways, I think, you know, coming up to us and letting us know how they're feeling workload wise, but also areas of opportunity. I think that that's where we see the most.

[Mallory Robbins]

I think another thing we really have tried to tighten in the last two years is making sure that we're having annual and biannual check ins as 1 on ones with every employee, just as a review, but also as exactly what Mallory was saying, like, how are you feeling? How is the dynamic? What can we do better? Where are you seeing efficiencies that need attention. And that's really important to us to have that one on one time. We do it out of studio. We really try to kind of have it feel like a disconnect where it's an open and honest conversation. We really don't know what we don't hear. We are very receptive to recommendations from the team. You know, what are you seeing that maybe I'm just not aware of? I think that's really important and that's something that we've really become a little bit more strict with I think in the last two years.

[Interviewer]

Thinking about kind of the other piece of your team, that financial and bookkeeping side of things.

[Caitlin Peterson]

What is it like to work with

[Interviewer]

an external cfo and how did you decide that's what you needed?

[Mallory Robbins]

We've gone through a few over the years, but we have a CFO right now who we adore. I think it's really great to step outside of the business. I think we meet with her every two weeks to just look at financials, like just look at the trajectory of the build of the business in a very black and white way, to talk about pipeline, to talk about where we're doing well, where we're not doing well, where there was a hiccup up. Mallory and she usually meet the first half of the call in a bit more transactional capacity where I'm not much help. But it's also good for Mallory and I. You know, our heads are so down in the business that it's rare that we get to kind of put our heads up and look at the business. So these meetings kind of force us to get out of in the business and really just look at the business and try to make objective decisions. You know, we are. We come from corporate backgrounds, we run the business. Business, I'd say fairly conservatively. It's very important to us. So it's a good time for us to kind of just look at the health of the studio.

[Interviewer]

Every two weeks that seems like a lot, but maybe every month is too spaced out. What happens in two weeks that kind of is worth revisiting.

[Elizabeth Bennett]

Yeah. So they rotate the. Every other is really a bookkeeping focused approach. Just really looking at the nitty gritty of the financials. And then once a month is that bigger picture P and L, you know, where we have the opportunity to kind of creatively bounce ideas off of her sometimes. It's the first time that Elizabeth and I have had a moment in a few days to sit down and talk through things. It's almost like our little sort of owner therapy in a way. You know, here's a position we're thinking about hiring. What do you think about that? What do you think about it from a financial perspective? But then she's really wonderful about asking us questions back that kind of poke holes sometimes in our own theories.

[Mallory Robbins]

And yeah, recently, she was the one recently that said we were looking at different. She's always looking for us to look for areas of opportunity, for us to take things off our plate and to delegate. And she was listening to us and she was like, I don't necessarily know that you're hiring for the right position. I'm curious why you're not looking at a marketing position. Where are most of your ideal clients coming from? And we stepped back and realized, like most of our ideal clients have found us on social media and we do our own social media. We are infrequent with it. We are the absolute worst about being responsible about it. So that was kind of an aha moment to us about. Oh yeah, why don't we just really actually formalize that a little bit and see what comes of it. So, you know, it's her ability to step back from a 10,000 foot view and say, like, you're saying all these things, but what I'm really hearing you say is success is coming from this and you're not putting any attention towards that.

[Interviewer]

It sounds like you've had this role for a while. What made you think that was the

[Elizabeth Bennett]

best option for you? I think Elizabeth and I have backgrounds in such a broad range of skill sets and have interest and maybe even ability to do a lot of things that it takes to run a business, that doesn't necessarily mean we should do all of the things. So I think recognizing areas that feel like we could hire or engage someone to do it much better than we could so that we can then focus our attention on, in essence, what our studio is. We are a design studio. We are not being employed to be bookkeepers or be CFOs. That doesn't mean we're not very aware continuously. I mean, I spend an incredible amount of time just kind of mapping out the financial trajectory of the firm and keeping eyes on billing and all of those things. We never want to step back wholeheartedly. But having someone who that is their role to ensure that that's flowing smoothly well.

[Mallory Robbins]

And she interacts and interfaces with our bookkeeper who is external, as well as like our tax accountant who is external. So I think those are two areas that Mallory and I are very well aware. They are certainly not in my talent bucket.

[Elizabeth Bennett]

I will say sales tax is not something we want to do, and we

[Mallory Robbins]

don't want to mess up the financials of the business business. So I think that early on, as we got to a point where things were getting more complex, it became something that was, let's not wing this side of it. Let's bring a team together who interfaces well together. And they've also kind of picked each other. Yes. Our CFO has made recommendations and has kind of built this little team for us that they all work really well together. It's a bit of a seamless process

[Interviewer]

at this point for each of you. What part of running the firm has tested you the most as an entrepreneur?

[Mallory Robbins]

Probably the part that's been the most challenging or the most eye opening is the partnership. In that I could not do this by myself. It is a constant balancing act. I think, you know, we are mothers to young children. We have families. I think you can't do it all. And I think it's the recognition that there are certain things that we put as our very first priority. And then, you know, in essence, things fall through the cracks. I don't have a very vibrant social life. I'll say it. I just. I'm an introvert at the end of the day on a Friday, I want a pizza and a bottle of wine. Let's be honest. I think it's that balancing act, and I think that also hearkens back to Mallory's and my balance in our business and what's become our friendship. Our families are like family. That becomes a great just background for us. But I cannot do what she does. She could probably do what I do, but differently. I think genuinely, we rely on each other in such a way that it makes our business so much stronger. I really have so much admiration for, you know, studio leaders who are. Who are solo. I physically could not do it myself at the bar. That we do it or that we strive to do it.

[Elizabeth Bennett]

You know, Elizabeth said the other day we were talking, and I think a point she made was stood out to me. We are essentially carrying the weight of decision making for you know, at oftentimes 20 different families. But not just the decisions, but some of the. The biggest, heaviest decisions they will make. We have seen families through births, IVF divorce, weddings, you know, children leaving. We've seen them through these large family milestones, and we are sort of carrying the to do list, but also the mental load that comes with that. And I think if we didn't have each other to then internally share that with. I think it could be crushing.

[Mallory Robbins]

I think I was listening to a podcast, and they were talking about the most stressful things in your life, and one of them was going through a home renovation. And it dawned on me that some of these new stress signals in my body were probably because we are going through 20 of those at any given time. And, yes, it's not our home, it's not our personal finances, but we. We as a studio, take transparency incredibly seriously. One of our very first meetings is a very detailed budget analysis that we really want the client to sign off on so that we have guardrails. We want the client to feel like the end product is beautiful, personal, but also on budget. Like, we never want there to be, you know, smoke and mirrors about what their investment is in their selections. That's very important. So we carry all of that for all of these projects. And I think at the end of the day, you know, it's a lot. It's a lot of stress in the minutia. There's a lot of technical work that we hold, but we somehow, naturally, we don't panic at the same time. We always joke with our teen. They're like, I don't know, I might like it better if you both panicked at the same time. But I'll usually panic about something about two weeks before Mallory panics, but I'll be over it by then, so I'll be able to be like, oh, don't think about it this way. Think about it this way. I've already been there, so that's a blessing, I think, for us. But, yeah, I think I, you know, can't do it alone, man. Wouldn't want to.

[Interviewer]

We talk a lot on this show about how a principal's role evolves as their team grows. How are you both thinking about the way your individual roles continue to evolve kind of towards and away from each other?

[Mallory Robbins]

I don't think, ever away from each other. I'm going to say that we just built one office for the two of us.

[Elizabeth Bennett]

We're sharing a table still. We had five to make a different decision, and we're at the same table.

[Mallory Robbins]

You put us in the smallest room together.

[Interviewer]

That's amazing. That's so much.

[Mallory Robbins]

We just don't know any other way. You know, I think it's tied for me, I'll say for me, it's very much tied to that ideal client. I think getting more projects with that ideal client. And for us, I think it's defined not so much by Budget. I mean, we love bespoke, handmade, beautiful things. Things, right.

[Interviewer]

The budget doesn't hurt.

[Elizabeth Bennett]

Yeah, the budget doesn't hurt. It does.

[Mallory Robbins]

You know, there are beautiful things at every budget. We tell every client that. But I think it's the clients who trust us and let us lead and let us manage the process because we are always looking for efficiency. That's always top of mind. Being able to, in that role myself, think more strategically, think more in the creative space and less in the, you know, what does the toilet paper holder look like? Which is a selection that, you know, I often make, you know, what does that, the hand towel look like? I think I'd like to have more creative freedom where we're really thinking strategically on, like bigger, more colorful. I say that, you know, in all uses of the word colorful projects where we're really trusted to kind of throw some wild ideas out. Those are always our most successful projects where Mallory and I are literally nervous the two minutes before the client comes in for the design presentation. They are always.

[Elizabeth Bennett]

Did we push too far?

[Mallory Robbins]

Oh, the one we just did that was just in a home tour and House Beautiful was. I was nervous. I was very, very nervous. I almost pulled the fabric before the client walked in.

[Elizabeth Bennett]

And then she said yes to everything.

[Mallory Robbins]

And then she said yes to everything. And it was like, oh, okay.

[Elizabeth Bennett]

My answer to your question would be similar to Elizabeth's, but I think also being able to pull heads up on Coble and Coetz. So I think as a studio, you know, when we look at our calendar for the week, the very first meeting to get canceled, when it, when, when clients need something is. Is something internal and particularly if it's something that just Elizabeth and I are working on, you know, this, this showroom in the front of the business. Any other endeavor that we want to do as company owners, as studio owners gets pushed to the back burner. And we are not short on ideas, we are short on bandwidth and literal time in the day to execute them. So I think as the studio grows, finding ways to again turn over those aspects that don't pull us out creatively or overarchingly out of the project work, but maybe kind of removing some of those tasks that could be better, probably better done by someone else, quite frankly, more efficiently done by someone else adjacent,

[Mallory Robbins]

non client related work, non client related

[Elizabeth Bennett]

work, so that we can have that headspace to grow Cobell and company the way we want to.

[Interviewer]

You mentioned House Beautiful. What is the role that Press has played in the trajectory of the firm and how are you Thinking about it

[Mallory Robbins]

moving forward, I think for the studio's sake, I think the photography at the end of the project is always like the icing on the cake to any project. It's our ability to really see through the lens, the final work, to curate the space the way that we've always sort of hoped it would look to create the mood to, you know, add in the crazy floral or the accessories. It's really something for the studio. It's a great way to finish the product. And we give it to the client in a book, which is a nice way for them to have it in their care guide.

[Interviewer]

Do you shoot before you like hand over the house or are you coming back to shoot?

[Elizabeth Bennett]

We do, yeah. So as long, if we can, our ideal process is to both install and photograph in the same week prior to turning it over to the client. And that that's twofold. That's one we can really have the liberty to finish those final details, like down to the nth degree, and also kind of own that process during which they then experience moving into the house. I think second to that is these again have been year to two to three year long experiences. The last thing the client wants is someone coming back into their home and disrupting them. And we're sensitive to that. So I think if we can get in there and get out of there before it is home again to them, that feels like a smoother handoff to the client. And in some ways I think it's a little bit of a carrot at the end of the stick for us. The photography is fun, it's exciting, it's what gets us our next project. So it helps us finish strong. We know we are going to photograph it and we want to style it to completion and. And we are not immune to being fatigued ourselves sometimes with decisions. So it gets us reinvigorated and energized to do that final layer of accessorizing and pulling the art and ensuring that when the client moves in, everything feels complete. Because the last thing we want is a client after all of this work and all of these decisions to come in and feel like the house is 80%. That would not feel like success. And there are sometimes clients that reach that point of fatigue where they're like, I don't know, I'm not sure I want to finish this. And we really push to say,

[Mallory Robbins]

you're

[Elizabeth Bennett]

not going to want to revisit this, you're not going to want us to come back, you want to move in and be done and let us gift that to you. And they are so much happier when they let us take the lead on that.

[Interviewer]

Do you shoot every project?

[Mallory Robbins]

We do not shoot every project. Sometimes it's just like timeline doesn't work out or photographer isn't necessarily available. Doesn't line up quite right. Sometimes it's just surely logistics. Sometimes it'll be a project where maybe we didn't get to do the whole thing. We didn't really go the whole way. It is a very large investment. Photography is a huge investment in our line item of expenses. And we do try to be a little bit particular about where we really want to go all in and do the whole thing. But not every project gets. Gets photographed.

[Elizabeth Bennett]

We're also inevitably designing these spaces for the homeowner for it to feel right in real life. There are some spaces that won't translate into photography, whether it's the lighting, you know, the natural lighting or the angle. Maybe it's a tight space. And so making sure that it's right for the homeowner, always priority number one.

[Mallory Robbins]

I think when you were talking about press, I think sometimes when meeting with editors in New York or people in the industry, I think it comes at a little bit of a, you know, where are you located? And then we say Kansas City and northern Midwest. And you just don't know how it's going to land. You don't know if people will make assumptions about the quality of your work. Your perspective, our clientele, your clientele. And I think that's something that's been kind of interesting for us in the last two to three years, I would say.

[Interviewer]

Do you find that you are surprising people then with the work, the clientele, the. The kind of the output of the studio?

[Elizabeth Bennett]

Absolutely. I think we are redefining in some ways what people think of as Midwestern style. I think we also really, as Elizabeth alluded to, pride ourselves on our ability to flex into different aesthetics. So feeling as comfortable designing for someone who wants a kind of more modern leaning home as someone who wants something really traditional. And regardless of their geographic location, we work with clients from coast to coast. I think the reason clients from outside of Kansas City come to us though, is the commonality is a home that feels personal and inviting and livable. I think we feel really strongly as a studio that all of our spaces should be used and lived in. We don't just do pretty spaces for pretty spaces sake. And in fact, we never want our spaces to be too pretty or too precious. I think we work really hard to ensure there's a bit of tension or grit or interest within them. But I think if we found commonality in why people come to us from places where designers are plentiful is that feeling of a very personalized, approachable, comfortable design that is by no means boring or utilitarian.

[Mallory Robbins]

I think it also comes from maybe like a general ignorance of people that just haven't been to the Midwest. I think you hear Kansas City, and I think a lot of images come to various people's mind, I would imagine. I think the wizard of Oz, you

[Elizabeth Bennett]

know, also, we're in Missouri.

[Mallory Robbins]

Yeah, we're in Missouri.

[Interviewer]

Well, I grew up in the Kansas side of Kansas City.

[Mallory Robbins]

I did too. I did too.

[Elizabeth Bennett]

I grew up in misconception number one. We don't live in Kansas.

[Mallory Robbins]

But I think people innately think of like rural. The wizard of Oz now, you know, Travis Kelsey and Taylor Swift, thank God, you know, barbecue. But there's a whole host of adjectives and topics that I think people come preconceived notions with. I think being born and raised here, it's an amazing area of the country, our city. I'm incredibly proud of the Nelson Atkins. We have an amazing museum, art museum, opera, ballet, the whole thing. I think there's a lot of old money in Kansas City, but people are very humble and private and don't want things to be fussy or contrived. And I think that's very much in how we approach our work. I think if something's too pretty, it's not right. If something doesn't have tension, the room isn't finished. Nothing needs to be too precious. But I think we have the luxury too in the Midwest of when you think about the different geographies of the country, you think of the Northeast, and there's a very specific Hampton Z vibe and Connecticut that I think of there, and I think of the south, and I think of, you know, floral on floral and the fabric and all of the trims and all of those fabulous colors. And obviously the west coast is, you know, breezy and indoor, outdoor. And here in the middle, we can kind of borrow a little bit of everything and blend it together into something that feels not necessarily geographically limited. There are beautiful neighborhoods of hundred year old plus homes that have fascinating details and charm. And I think Mallory and I love a new build, but we really find ourselves playing to our strengths in a remodel of an old home. I think there's something about the problem solving of an old home that really gets Mallory going. And I really love hearkening back to what would have been. I think a phrase I use a lot in the studio is setting the house back. Sometimes there are some design decisions in different decades, some trends that maybe weren't back aligned with the architecture of the house. And I think that's really where Mallory and I get excited, is being able to kind of set a house back to its core and to its bones. And here in our hometown, there's no shortage of different styles to play in. And I think that's just a misconception, you know, meeting fantastic designers. We've been lucky to meet some of our idols, and I think some of them have been here and have designed here, and we'll say it's a great town. It's kind of a sleepy secret. Secret.

[Interviewer]

I love it. Final question. What does success look like to each of you today?

[Elizabeth Bennett]

I think success looks like trust. Truly, our most successful projects have been the ones where the client has trusted us to hear them, to see them through. They've taken sometimes a slight leap of faith to look at us and say, I just don't know, but I trust you. And they are the ones who inherently are so thrilled at the end because they are making choices that they could not have come up with on their own, should not have come up with on their own. They are looking for professionals who do this day in, day out to push them past their comfort zone, but also keep them in a place that feels uniquely like them and strike that balance. So I think identifying, continuing to identify clients that are looking to put that trust in us, that feels like success.

[Mallory Robbins]

I feel like success. To jump onto that. I think it looks like. And I'm sure every designer would say this. I think it looks like creative freedom, and I think that comes from trust. I think that comes from clients who are coming to us, not necessarily saying something that's prescriptive, coming to us and saying, this is what I want. I know this is what I want. I want this, this, this, this, this, and this. We can make that beautiful. We can put our hands around that and put our lens on that. But they're limiting themselves and they're limiting their investment in our studio. I think I would much rather have a client come to us and say, I'm comfortable spending this much. I have this home. I would love for you to make it feel personal and feel as good as it can feel. I think that allows that slight shift in narrative, allows our team to really dream bigger on behalf of that client. Come to the, you know, stretch our imaginations, try to think of more creative solutions. You'll get a better service out of our studio and I would imagine a lot of other creative studios by not coming to the table with a prescriptive description or expectation of how it's going to go. You know, at that level, I sometimes wonder what made you want to bring a design partner on. So I think creative freedom and the ability to really act on the behalf of our clients because that's really where they get the best experience and it's really where we all have the most fun.

[Interviewer]

That's our show for today. Thank you so much for listening.

[Caitlin Peterson]

If you'd like to keep up with

[Interviewer]

the latest design industry news, check out

[Caitlin Peterson]

new products or browse job openings, head on over to businessofhome.com and if you're enjoying Trade Tales, please leave a review

[Interviewer]

on Apple Podcasts to help others discover the show.

[Caitlin Peterson]

If you have a note for the show or a story of your own to share, I'd love to hear from you and you can email me@trade talesusofhome.com Trade Tales is produced by me, Kaitlin Peterson and Caroline Burke. This episode was edited by Caitlin Caroline Burke and Michael Castaneda. Our theme music is by Kyle Scott Wilson.

[Interviewer]

Thanks again for listening and I'll see

[Caitlin Peterson]

you back here next week.