Free Daily Podcast Summary
To-The-Trade with Interior Design Community: Daily Summaries Delivered
by Interior Design Community
Introducing "To-The-Trade," the ultimate podcast for interior designers. Our mission: to provide business and productivity hacks for better work/life balance. Join industry leaders and experts as we explore trends, strategies, and practical advice. Elevate your design business, manage clients, build your brand, and stay ahead with technology. Achieve success and fulfillment in your career. Listen to "To-The-Trade" now!
Latest Episodes
The most recent episodes — sign up to get AI-powered summaries of each one.
- Yesterday52 min
To-The-Trade S3E17 Stop Selling Me: Sharon Sherman on What Designers Want from Brands and Showrooms
Sharon Sherman of Thyme and Place Design has 40-plus years of experience across interior design and kitchen and bath, and that dual perspective gives her an unusually clear view of what's broken among designers, showrooms, and brands, and what actually works.The episode digs into a gap that's been widening since COVID. Clients are changing. Showrooms are closing. Brands that want the designer market often don't understand what that market actually needs. Sharon is direct: brands spend heavily on events and PR that completely miss designers, then blame the design community for being unsupportive. What designers want, she says, is to be welcomed and inspired, not sold to. They want solutions that improve projects and make businesses more profitable.She illustrates the dysfunction with a personal story. She visited a company's showroom repeatedly over several years before placing her first $45,000 order. Her rep never once reached out. The rep finally appeared after multiple large orders had already been placed. The showroom had benefited from her loyalty. The brand had no relationship with her at all.Her own approach is intentional. About 25 accounts across furniture, flooring, wall covering, and accessories, not a hundred. Deep relationships that go both ways: her showroom contacts know her well enough to advise her clients in her absence, and to tell her when a material won't work before she specifies it. She credits those relationships with saving her from costly mistakes, from wrong seaming placement on countertops to finding the right specialized installer for a gym floor.The "dinner plate" analogy she offers is one of the episode's most practical frameworks. Large vendors for core products, local showrooms for regional sourcing, and one or two specialty partners for the pieces that matter most. Managing that mix on purpose, rather than by default, is a business decision.On direct purchasing, her view is nuanced. Better margins are real, but only if the infrastructure supports it: receiving relationships, purchase volume that makes the brand care, and the capacity to absorb what goes wrong. For many solo designers, the showroom relationship is the more profitable choice once all the hidden costs are factored in.She closes with a prediction: the industry is dividing into conveyor belt design and what she calls painterly design. One fills spaces efficiently. The other curates them intentionally. The right clients, the right vendors, and the right relationships will determine which side of that divide each designer ends up on.
- 1 weeks ago46 min
To-The-Trade S3E16 Beyond the Showroom: What Brands Really Want from Designers, with Jenny York
Jenny York, VP of Marketing at Currey & Company, joins Laurie for a conversation about what it actually takes to build a brand that designers want to work with.Currey is approaching its 40th anniversary as a second-generation family-owned business, now led by founder Robert and Suzy Currey's son Brownlee. That independence shapes everything, including creative risk-taking, the decision to hold real inventory, and the culture of high-touch relationship-building that makes their showrooms feel like a reunion every market week.Jenny brings nearly 30 years of experience in the home furnishings industry to her role, including 20 years in editorial, covering trade shows, market centers, and the rise of designers as a major distribution channel. That history gives her a different lens. She saw firsthand which companies made the shift to being designer-friendly and which didn't, and she watched Currey become an early adopter of that change.Some of the most practical takeaways in the conversation: being genuinely designer-friendly means restructuring your warehouse, customer service, and sales team, not just hanging a welcome sign. It means valuing the small orders, not just tolerating them. And it means being honest that some people on your team won't make that cultural shift, and being willing to act on that.What makes a designer stand out to a brand like Currey? Coming to market in person always matters. But the tip Laurie and Jenny return to is simpler: photograph your finished project, own your copyright, and share those images directly with the manufacturers who made it. Currey can't shoot thousands of products in real homes. When a designer shares installation images and does so freely, that's genuine brand partnership, and it tends to pay off in relationships that hold up when things go wrong.On the industry at large: Jenny sees a real shift toward quality and away from fast furniture, AI has a place in analytics and projections but not in Currey's creative voice, and the consolidation of trade shows means every in-person interaction counts more than it used to.Currey is expanding carefully into adjacent product categories, most recently cordless lighting and bath vanities, with a new addition coming this fall. They'll be in Atlanta, Dallas, and Las Vegas this summer.
- 2 weeks ago48 min
To-The-Trade S3E15 Renovation Decision: Architecture, Process, and Market Trends with Kimberly Kerl
Kimberly Kerl is an architect and designer based in South Carolina with thirty years of experience, and her episode with Laurie and Nile covers a lot of ground: client process, billing, trends, and an honest read on where the market is right now. She starts with video. Kimberly has been documenting a live renovation at her own home, posting unscripted walk-throughs from the job site multiple times a week. Her audience is hooked. The value, she says, is in closing the knowledge gap. Clients have no idea what a pocket door actually involves until they see the framing and the electrical relocation happen in real time. Video makes that visible and, eventually, makes billing conversations easier. Her intake process is tight. Every inquiry gets a free 15-minute discovery call, followed by a paid on-site consultation ($375 to $600) where she requires both decision-makers to be present. She's evaluating communication styles, priorities, and who the real decision-maker is, all before she writes a single word of a proposal. The proposal arrives within one to two days, ties directly to her contract, and breaks the project into four phases with clear fees attached to each. She doesn't collect a retainer and has never been burned doing it that way. A recurring theme in her work is the renovate vs. move question. Clients come to her undecided, and with today's interest rates, the math often favors staying put. She helps them work through it, and most do continue forward. Multi-generational living is also driving more projects, with adult children back home and aging parents needing accommodation. Kimberly designs proactively for privacy, acoustics, and flexibility even when clients aren't thinking about it yet. On trends, outdoor living is fully mature in South Carolina. She's installing dishwashers, ice makers, retractable screens, and layered lighting in spaces that function year-round. Health and wellness is the next wave, with saunas showing up at every trade show and home gyms becoming genuinely well-designed spaces. Smart home tech is valuable when it works quietly in the background, and a good integrator makes all the difference. The market has slowed. Inquiries are down, contractors are calling her rather than the other way around, and clients are cautious. Kimberly sees it as a market correction after an unusually long run, not a reason to panic. It's cyclical, and it always has been.
- 3 weeks ago52 min
To-The-Trade S3E14: Tracee Murphy on Psychology for Smarter Design Firms
Tracee Murphy has spent 26 years in luxury residential design, runs her firm Trademark Interiors, and teaches designers and brands how to leverage psychology for a competitive edge through her platform, The Designer Launch. Her title, The Design Biz Therapist, is not a metaphor. She believes the gap between a struggling design business and a thriving one often has nothing to do with talent, portfolio, or pricing and everything to do with emotional intelligence.The conversation starts where Tracee says every project should start: with the designer. Before reading a client, you have to be able to read yourself. That means knowing your triggers, recognizing when your emotions are shaping your decisions, and building the self-awareness to pause before you react. No system, no contract, and no questionnaire does its job without it.On the client side, Tracee has developed a lifestyle questionnaire that serves a dual purpose. On the surface, it collects project information. Underneath, the answers reveal how a client makes decisions, how much control they want, how they handle problems, and what they need to feel confident in a process they do not fully understand. Tracee feeds those answers into AI to build a psychological profile, then uses that profile to calibrate how her team communicates, not to reinvent her process, but to tailor her language. A control-oriented client might get more specific updates. A hands-off client gets the same template with less added. The process stays the same. The communication flexes.That consistency matters because trust is not built in a first meeting. It is built through leadership. Tracee talks about what happens when a designer lets a client take the wheel, from choosing tiles together in a showroom to absorbing last-minute changes from an absent partner who never signed off on anything. In her firm, all decision makers are required to attend every meeting. If someone new comes in six months later wanting to change direction, the conversation is clear: here is what that costs, here is how it changes the timeline, and it is your call.The business results are real. Over five years of intentionally implementing emotional intelligence practices, Tracee's firm's profits doubled. She also had a heart attack at 48 during a client presentation. The two facts are connected. The boundary work is not just about money. It is about staying in this industry long enough to do great work.The Designer Launch offers courses on the psychology of interior design, conflict management, and selling luxury. Follow Tracee at @thedesignbiztherapist on Instagram and visit thedesignerlaunch.com to learn more.
- 4 weeks ago59 min
To-The-Trade S3E13 The Content Goldmine Every Interior Designer Is Sitting On with Eric Dillman
Eric Dillman started in interior design school, moved into sales and digital marketing, and now works directly with designers to help them show up consistently on social media and stop waiting for the perfect moment to post. In this conversation with Laurie Laizure and Nile Johnson, he gets into what designers should prioritize, how to stay consistent when life gets hard, and how to finally get on camera.On platforms, Instagram remains the primary play for most designers. It's visual, it's where clients are, and Meta rewards native posting. LinkedIn is useful for brand and manufacturer relationships, not client leads. YouTube Shorts is quietly building, and Laurie notes that YouTube feeds AI search in ways worth paying attention to. The simplest strategy is to find one platform where you can perform well and automate distribution to the rest.On content: designers are sitting in a content goldmine and don't know it. The mistake is thinking in terms of final outcomes— the reveal, the finished room. Clients want the process. They want to know who's in their house, why you made the choices you made, and what goes into a recommendation they might have taken for granted. Tag your brands. Document your decisions. That context is something no influencer can fake, because they weren't on the job.On consistency: batch your content. Eric records podcast episodes months ahead and coaches designers to keep a running camera roll of unposted content so that when a hard week hits, the feed keeps going. Laurie adds that reposting something from six months ago is completely fair—most people won't remember, and the ones who do will just say it was a good one.On-camera fear: Nile admits he has the ring light and the mic and still doesn't use them. Eric didn't show his face on his own profile for two years. His starting point: a tight one-minute script, built with AI, run through a panel of AI critics to strengthen it before you record. Use Instagram's free Edits app for teleprompter, green screen, and clip-by-clip recording. Flub a sentence, delete that clip, move on. Post it, then put your phone down. Your biggest supporters will be strangers who connect with your work -- not your inner circle.The episode closes with an idea Laurie and Eric are both clearly excited about: a challenge to get 10,000 interior designers making videos, using shared scripts and a common hashtag.
- Apr 27, 202652 min
To-The-Trade S3E12 What Finally Going to High Point Market Changed About Rhobin DelaCruz's Business
Rhobin DelaCruz has been designing for over 18 years, but he didn't attend High Point Market until about 2.5 years ago. The turning point was business coaching, specifically understanding that designers who build direct vendor relationships and sell to their clients themselves can capture 20 to 100 percent profit on goods, compared to the 10 to 20 percent that comes from sending someone to a retailer. That math made the trip worth taking.In this episode of To-The-Trade, Rhobin talks with Laurie Laizure and Nile Johnson about how his approach to the market has evolved with each visit. His first was about observation. His second was intentional: meet the right people, make a lasting impression, and leave market with contacts who would remember his name. That shift in strategy set off a chain of relationships that has shaped his business in ways he didn't see coming.This spring, Rhobin is a High Point Market Style Spotter. He's leading a Saturday tour focused on just two showrooms, Classic Home and Sunpan, and plans to highlight the campus's outer areas that most attendees skip. His practical navigation advice: download the app, group your visits by building, and wear broken-in shoes. Fashion is a real thing at High Point, but the market day calls for comfort first.Some of his best advice is the bigger picture: go in with a strategy, but stay open to who you meet. That's how the Design Besties came together. Rhobin met Whitney Atkinson, Laurie Johnson, and Nikki Watson at the VRD Summit, and the four bonded on a group showroom tour at his second market. He started a group text after the trip. Two years later, they're in daily contact and serve as each other's informal board of advisors.From that group came the Teachers Lounge Movement, now a 501C3 nonprofit. When Nikki suggested designing a teacher's lounge for a local school instead of her own backyard, the group immediately said yes. The emotional reveal from that first project changed the trajectory of all four designers' work. Their High Point collaboration with High Point by Design brought in over 20 brands and more than $50,000 in donated furniture.The episode also covers how visibility in this industry is actually earned, why follow-up is the skill most designers undervalue, and why the path to becoming a Style Spotter or panel guest has nothing to do with paying to play.Rhobin's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rhobindelacruzdesigns/Website: https://rhobindelacruz.com/
- Apr 20, 202656 min
To-The-Trade S3E11 with Juliana Ewer - Why Serious Designers Don't Skip High Point Market
Houston designer Juliana Ewer has been going to High Point Market almost every year since 2018. In this episode of To-The-Trade, she and host Laurie Laizure make the practical, financial, and professional case for why market attendance matters not as a perk, but as a real competitive edge.The conversation starts where Juliana always starts: product knowledge. You can't do a sit test online. When a client says they want a firmer seat or a fabric that holds up to daily family life, the designer who has been in the showroom and sat in the chair already knows what to recommend. Laurie adds that the market also helps you spot saturation. She walks through the boucle moment, when every showroom in the same year had the same off-white fabric, and experienced designers immediately clocked that it was already over. You only see that pattern from a bird's eye view.The quality difference between trade-only and retail brands is clear. If the general public knows a store by name, the company has spent a lot of money on marketing rather than on materials. The brands at High Point that don't run national campaigns typically reinvest that budget into the product. Juliana illustrates this with a vendor who, months after delivery, identified a frame issue from a single photograph and coordinated a full pickup and rework around her client's schedule, including a family wedding. That level of service is what protects a designer's reputation when something goes wrong.Practical market tips run throughout the episode: comfortable shoes, leave the laptop at home, let vendors mail the catalogs, and plan your showroom route around the education sessions. The 313 Space gets a recommendation for its natural light and boutique vendors. The Antique and Design Center at Market Square opens a day early on Thursday, and things move fast. Hooker's outdoor deck is the reset button when the day gets overwhelming.Juliana leads Insider Tours for High Point Market Authority and is leading a Hotspot Tour this year as part of the StyleSpotter program. She came to market for the first time as a new designer in 2018, went to every education session she could find, and met a stranger on the shuttle who became a lasting friend. The market is where relationships are built with vendors and other designers, and sometimes with the version of your business you didn't know you were building.
- Apr 13, 202656 min
To-The-Trade S3E10 Know Your Worth and Say the Number: Pricing Confidence with Jill Erwin
Jill Erwin started her interior design business in 2006, survived the recession, and recently hit the 20-year mark with a rebrand: Just Jill Home. She joined Laurie and Nile on To-The-Trade to discuss what it actually takes to get to the point where you charge what you are worth and stay there. Pricing was the throughline. Jill has spent years attending industry panels where designers reference rates without ever naming a number. Her take: just say it. Based on the market data Laurie shared, designers at the 20-year mark are operating in the $250 to $300 per hour range, with major metro markets pushing considerably higher. Jill confirmed she is moving toward $250 in Richmond and is clear-eyed about why: that is what her experience is worth. To give clients a lower-risk entry point, Jill developed two introductory service tiers she calls Quick and Fast (2.5 hours) and Short and Sweet (5 hours). Both were designed to let her assess a client's and a project's fit before moving into a full contract. If the dynamic feels off, she has a structured way out. If it feels right, she moves forward. The contract itself has evolved over 20 years, adding photography rights, scope protections, and other clauses she learned to include the hard way. Design philosophy came through in the specifics. She described a multigenerational family room near the Chesapeake Bay where she fit seven individual seats, a sofa, and a round leather ottoman into a cohesive plan, each piece chosen for how a specific family member actually uses the room. She also talked through a repeat client who came back after 15 years as an empty nester. Jill designed a custom coffee station with navy cabinetry and a bistro table, built around how the client now starts her mornings. The broader conversation circled back to the same point Jill has spent 20 years learning: designers who undercharge are not just hurting themselves. They are giving away equity that belongs in their own businesses and households. The client benefits. The designer absorbs the cost. Jill's new website, Just Jill Home, launches May 1, 2026. She can be found on Instagram at [@justjillhome](https://www.instagram.com/justjillhome/).
About To-The-Trade with Interior Design Community
Introducing "To-The-Trade," the ultimate podcast for interior designers. Our mission: to provide business and productivity hacks for better work/life balance. Join industry leaders and experts as we explore trends, strategies, and practical advice. Elevate your design business, manage clients, build your brand, and stay ahead with technology. Achieve success and fulfillment in your career. Listen to "To-The-Trade" now!
Customized Recaps
AI-powered recaps with compact key takeaways, quotes, and insights.
Straight to Your Inbox
Get key takeaways from To-The-Trade with Interior Design Community in a 5-minute read.
Save Hours Every Week
Stay current on your favorite podcasts without falling behind.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Podzilla's To-The-Trade with Interior Design Community daily summary?
It's a free AI-powered email that summarizes new episodes of To-The-Trade with Interior Design Community as soon as they're published. You get the key takeaways, notable quotes, and links & mentions — all in a quick read.
How does the To-The-Trade with Interior Design Community podcast summary work?
When a new episode drops, our AI transcribes and analyzes it, then generates a personalized summary tailored to your interests and profession. It's delivered to your inbox every morning.
Is this an official To-The-Trade with Interior Design Community product?
No. Podzilla is an independent service that summarizes publicly available podcast content. We're not affiliated with or endorsed by Interior Design Community.
Can I get summaries of other podcasts too?
Absolutely! The free plan covers up to 3 podcasts. Upgrade to Pro for 15, or Premium for 50. Browse our full catalog at /podcasts.
How often does To-The-Trade with Interior Design Community release new episodes?
To-The-Trade with Interior Design Community publishes weekly. Our AI generates a summary within hours of each new episode.
What topics does To-The-Trade with Interior Design Community cover?
To-The-Trade with Interior Design Community covers topics including Arts, Design. Our AI identifies the specific themes in each episode and highlights what matters most to you.
Start getting To-The-Trade with Interior Design Community summaries tomorrow morning.
Free forever for up to 3 podcasts. No credit card required.
Free forever for up to 3 podcasts. No credit card required.