Ep 117 Transcript: Building a Business Where Creativity Accountability and Contribution Drive Growth with Joy Lynskey
This transcript was auto-generated and may contain errors in spelling or inaccuracies in the spoken words.
Shauna Lynn Simon (01:50.062)
Hello and welcome to the Real Women Real Business podcast. I am your host, Shauna Lynn Simon. And today we have really exciting guest. I'm joined by Joy Lynskey. She is the founder and CEO of Jewel Toned Interiors, which is an award-winning women-owned interior design studio based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Now Joy is known for pairing design excellence with operational strategy, leading projects across luxury, multifamily, workplace, wellness, and residential spaces.
with many projects focused on the underserved communities. Joy also brings a broader leadership lens though to the built environment. She served as the first woman president of the Construction Executives Association. So today we're gonna be talking about what it really takes to cultivate a culture of creativity and contribution, how leaders build trust without lowering standards and where to start if you want a stronger team culture, but you're already feeling stretched a little bit too thin. So Joy, welcome to the show.
Joy Lynskey (02:47.579)
Thanks for having me. Excited to be here.
Shauna Lynn Simon (02:49.39)
I'm excited to have you. Yeah, I think this is such a great conversation to have to I work with so many clients. And of course, you know, our audience base here is our "Accidental CEOs" who are generally creative entrepreneurs who followed more passion than plan. And so, you know, a lot of them started off like a lot of them are interior designers. And they started off saying, you know, I want to build an interior design company. And the motivation behind that is often well,
I'm really good at making things look pretty. I'm really organized. I know how to find the right finishes. And I'm obviously oversimplifying a lot of it, but what doesn't come into the conversation often when they're first starting out is at some point, I'm going to need some support. I'm going to need a team to help me. And so when it comes to starting to grow that team, that can be a really challenging thing, not just from the logistics and operations standpoint, but to what we're going to be talking about today, which is more of that culture, because we were managing different humans with very
different personalities, feelings, and everything else, and yet still wanting to maintain what we've created as a business and ensuring that we're translating that through all of our team members. So I'd love to learn a little bit more. First, let's just talk a little bit about your background. How did you get into interior design? What was your journey into this role?
Joy Lynskey (04:02.52)
So I started as a psychology major. I was raised by a mother with bipolar disorder. So I was always very interested in the brain and what makes people do the things that they do and what makes people tick. So I studied psych for a year and the guy I was dating in college was a psychology major and not using his degree to any way. And so he said, what are you going to do when you get out of college? And I really didn't have an answer. I just wanted to study that. So
He suggested that I look at interdesign. I'm from a very small town. I didn't never even heard of it as a profession. This is like the days of trading spaces. So that's like the closest thing I knew to it. It's such an iota of what. It's an iota of the industry. And honestly, they're just very small of what we do actually here at Joltona Terriers. So I went and talked to the department chair and
Shauna Lynn Simon (04:43.504)
Shauna Lynn Simon (04:46.829)
Yeah.
Joy Lynskey (04:59.246)
I never looked back. made the switch. I switched my majors and I've always been super interested in psychology and just it still is so baked into everything that's interior design, all the research that's behind the R &D of a chair and just space planning and everything. So it's really symbiotic, I think.
Shauna Lynn Simon (05:17.742)
And that's really interesting because yeah, psychology definitely, it comes into play in so many ways. didn't study psychology in university, but I did take a few different human behavior type courses. And I was, I minored in business, which had a lot of marketing psychology and such in it. And I, then I was, while I was in university, I was working as a bartender and I ended up actually doing that for 15 years, all through my first career, all through starting my first business. And I often say, you know, bartenders are.
half bartender, half psychologist, because you, not only do you, are you spending a lot of time, it's, you know, the old adage of like, you're listening to people's woes at the bar, and that's definitely a part of it. But more than that, it's every guest that comes in, you've got to immediately identify what type of bartender would this person like? What type of service would this person like? You gotta be able to read people pretty quickly. I think interior design is very similar. You need to be able to read potential clients very quickly.
but you also need to be able to keep an open mind to help to develop a better profile of them as you're working with them and really understanding what they need. So I would imagine not just in your team culture, but in your actual interior design business, you're applying that psychology probably pretty much every day.
Joy Lynskey (06:31.306)
Yeah, absolutely. And dealing with partners or, you know, or yeah, there's, and just there's so many stakeholders in every project that we work on. even just understanding the priorities that are special to that particular stakeholder and being able to change the conversation around the project and still make it successful for everybody involved. It's definitely very much ingrained in what I do every day.
Shauna Lynn Simon (06:37.518)
vendors.
Shauna Lynn Simon (06:59.182)
Yeah, well, I think this is something that I think is often underrated about interior designers specifically is that we're actually not just making things look pretty. There's so much, it's sort of the iceberg effect, right? You know, we see the surface, we see the final results, but so much went into that. And, you know, we can talk about everything that goes into creating the drawings and the procurement and, you know, the concepts and everything else. But even before all that comes into play,
there's the human element and it doesn't really matter if you can create a beautiful room. Even if you can create one that is exactly what the client is looking for, if you can't manage expectations and manage different dynamics and emotions, and especially when you're dealing in residential, I know you do both residential and commercial, but especially in residential, there's a lot of very real emotions attached to these projects. And anyone who...
If you ever want to test your relationship with a partner, go ahead and do a renovation with them, right? It's a great litmus test for that. Okay. So let's, let's talk about how this applies to the culture that you've created in your team. So when you say that, you know, creativity and contribution, you know, we talk about ensuring that we've got that creativity in the contribution. What does it look like in real life on a team on an average Tuesday or in an average meeting? What does it look like to really foster that contribution culture?
Joy Lynskey (07:59.64)
Totally.
Joy Lynskey (08:21.378)
So we're very intentional about it here. We follow a quarterly cadence and so, and that comes down to even our daily behaviors as a team, but that contribution. So every day my team is meeting except for Tuesdays. Ironically, we have one no meeting day, which is today. Perfect. Yeah. But so we have either a huddle or a team meeting where everybody just gets their heads together for five minutes and talks about their intention for the day.
They acknowledge one of the other Gems for living out one of our core values. They talk about their 24 hour win and that could be personal or professional. We are humans and so we love to hear all the personal sides too and celebrate that with the team. And then they also share a roadblock and the roadblock has to be something that people could assist with. It can't be time or something outside of their control. So that just helps because at the beginning of the day, everybody knows what everybody's up to. And then also
you know, it just aligns everyone on the team. So that's the kind of like more sold bite-sized piece. But the quarterly cadence is what's really where the rubber meets the road. And I'm in the process of writing a book about it, which I'm super excited about. I don't have a title yet. It's a working title.
Shauna Lynn Simon (09:36.162)
You'll have to let us know when it does get released. We'll add it to the show notes. Yeah.
Joy Lynskey (09:39.458)
Yes, but when JTI was young, I want to say two years and I already had a team of four because, and I'm happy to share that side of the story. I basically had to grow the business outside my comfort zone very fast. But I just saw myself as, even though I have a minor in business too, I just really felt like.
there was so much more collective brain power in the people that I had chosen to be part of my team than just me. And so, and I wanted to find a way to canvas them and to have them contribute to the success of the business. Psychologically, it's also great because it gives people autonomy. makes them, you know, it galvanizes people if they have a say. But really the why behind it was I knew I needed support.
And I also knew I needed, I knew that there was a better outcome that could come out of many brains than just mine. So I created like a methodology of in a full day meeting where we talk about the past in the morning and then we talk about the future in the afternoon. And it's really broken down hour by hour. And it's an intense day because it's a lot of thinking, but we have intentional brain breaks and bio breaks. And a lot of times our vendors will cater the lunch so that we, you know, either
to our showroom in the middle of the time, or at the end we'll go rock climbing, or we'll do pottery, or like we've done a ton of different things. I've done over 40 of these meetings now, because the company's like 13 years old, and we've done it every quarter for a long time. So I have a lot of data, and it's just been amazing how much it's really just moved the needle with the company, and really helped keep us all in alignment, and also keep everyone accountable.
Shauna Lynn Simon (11:20.022)
Okay, so I got a few questions about this. Alright, so let's start with the daily meeting thing. You said it's every day except for Tuesdays that you meet for about five minutes. Did I get that right?
Joy Lynskey (11:28.748)
Yeah, five to 10.
Shauna Lynn Simon (11:30.478)
That was gonna be my next question. Is it actually only five minutes? I think this is probably like, can hear the panic already inside the head of a lot of listeners of like, I can't have a meeting every day because a five minute meeting turns into a 30 minute meeting. So how do you keep it to five to 10 minutes? How do you keep it from going on?
Joy Lynskey (11:46.304)
It's only four things. You're not supposed to talk about anything outside those four things.
Shauna Lynn Simon (11:50.688)
Okay, so when someone shares like their roadblock, for example, you're not solving it in the meeting. You're just sharing it. Got it. Okay.
Joy Lynskey (11:56.942)
Like an information share. If there's a roadblock that people can help alleviate, they can continue the conversation after, and that's usually what happens.
Shauna Lynn Simon (12:05.5)
Oh, wonderful. Okay.
Joy Lynskey (12:06.988)
And, our team's in person and virtual. It's hybrid. So, you know, there's always a couple people calling in. And then on Fridays, a lot of us are all virtual so that, you know, we're just used to be meeting on Zoom quickly for that. It doesn't always look the same. But we start the meeting reading our charter, which is a document that was created by the team.
not me, a coach led that, kind of like our Pledge of Allegiance. Whoever's in person or has the charter in front of their eyes, like they're not on the road or whatever, you basically just break it up into that many people. So we have eight people and you kind of just like, you know, we're spatial people, right? So you can like see, I need to read like two sentences or three sentences. And so we go through it. And so a lot of my team, I would like to say me too, but can, has it memorized. Cause we do it everyday
Shauna Lynn Simon (12:54.798)
That's amazing. I love that. Okay. And so when you started doing this with your business and you know, what was your team on board with it? Like, did you have to get them get their buy in for it? Or were they like, Yeah, okay, I guess we'll do that. Or was it more of like a, okay, we'll check that box, but we're not really into it. Like, what was the feeling when you first introduced this with your team? The huddles? Yeah.
Joy Lynskey (13:16.206)
The huddles, I don't remember a pushback, but what we used to call the pow wows, I don't refer to as pow wow anymore because I learned that that's culturally insensitive. At our quarterly meetings, there was pushback with my team, but it also wasn't the right team for me. It was a completely different team than what I have now. So there was also some cultural misalignment there.
Shauna Lynn Simon (13:25.646)
It is, yes.
Shauna Lynn Simon (13:40.77)
So this was going be my next question though. So let's lead into this because that was going to be my next question of, did you find that you were able to take the people you had and they were able to fit into the culture that you were building or did you find you had to hire intentionally for the culture?
Joy Lynskey (13:54.584)
Hire intentionally for the culture, for sure.
Shauna Lynn Simon (13:56.94)
And, I'm sure that wasn't an easy thing to face either. I'm sure there's probably people listening to this who are saying like, but I really, I really love this person on my team and they do great work and I respect them. I appreciate them. They've been with me for say three years or five years or whatever that looks like, but to identify that they no longer fit into the culture. Did you end up letting people kind of self-select? Did you end up having to lay people off? what was, how did that transition look?
Joy Lynskey (14:22.496)
At that time, most people self-selected out. To have that level of accountability takes a very unique person to actually want it. And a lot of people don't. They just really don't. And that's okay.
Shauna Lynn Simon (14:34.018)
And I think you're absolutely right. don't know. Have you ever read, Tim Reed, the CEO of Netflix wrote the book called No Rules Rules. I don't know if you've read it.
Joy Lynskey (14:41.964)
No, but I love him. I've heard a lot of his podcast.
Shauna Lynn Simon (14:44.27)
Yeah, so you already understand the overall culture and for anyone who is not familiar, highly recommend the book or the podcast to understand a little bit about the Netflix culture. I'm not saying that that culture is for everyone. This is not necessarily an endorsement of it, but there is a lot of value to it. I happen to know people personally who work at Netflix and I've talked to them about it. They're like, yeah, I that is actually the culture that's there. And basically to kind of sum it up.
is that there is a high level of accountability. You own your job and your responsibilities. And what this actually means is that anyone at any level of the company is allowed to make big decisions. If you are directly in charge of something, so you could be in charge of a project and find yourself signing for a million dollar contract, for example, or authorizing a purchase for $20,000 for the next day. Like it's not uncommon. You don't have to be this higher management. You don't have to seek these other approvals.
but they have fostered this culture through numerous systems that they have in place that ensure that you are comfortable with that level of accountability. And a lot of people do tend to self-select out of it, like you said, but that is a challenging thing to get the team that is going to be accountable. But I know, you know, one of the things I teach with my clients all the time is if you want to avoid the boomerang effect of delegation, you need the right people on the team and they need to understand what their role is. So sometimes boomerang effect just comes from
the leader not making it clear that you are now owning this when they're delegating it out, delegation should be ownership, passing off ownership. And sometimes they're not doing that properly, but other times they're with a team member who just is gonna constantly bounce it back to you because they don't want to own anything.
Joy Lynskey (16:20.704)
A lot of it for us comes around the concept of integrity being about performance and workability instead of it being collapsed with morality. So a lot of people, when you say that you're not demonstrating integrity, they immediately think it's a personal attack and they take it like it hurts, right? Like it really hurts to hear that. But we have a context in the company that integrity comes around being whole and complete. So if there is an established task or
anything at hand, it's clear and communicated what complete looks like so that everybody's set up for success. And then that accountability is really beautiful because people will support each other personally and professionally if they know like what you're up to as a human and how you want to show up. So it's like a sword I'll die on. Like I know that sounds pretty savage and I know it's different and I know it's not for everybody. We're not for every client either.
And that's okay. We were built specifically and intentionally. But what we have and the people that are here, it's really beautiful, the level of authenticity that people can show up at work for.
Shauna Lynn Simon (17:23.937)
that. You know what? I want to dive a little bit further into that accountability and how that also translates into the services and to your clients experience as well. And we're to do that right after we take this very short break.
Alright, welcome back to the Real Women Real Business Podcast where we are speaking with Joy Lynskey about building a culture that's accountable, that owns their responsibilities and their roles. And we've already covered a lot of great ground on this in terms of building that culture intentionally. take a very real and very hard, sometimes uncomfortable look at your
current team and see whether or not they're going to fit into that culture and having those conversations with them to build that culture. And some people might self-select that, some people might not make it through, but the ones who do are going to help to take your company to new levels. But it's also going to help you as the leader to be able to alleviate a lot of the load that you're carrying because you're still, it's a new load that you carry when you're responsible for other humans.
and ensuring that they're in the right role, that they've got the support that they need and everything else, but there's a level of accountability that needs to be there for them to be able to be self-sufficient essentially within their roles. So I think a lot of owners do say that they want contribution, but then their team is still waiting to be told what to do. So how did you make the shift so that your team knows that you want them to actually be involved, you want them to contribute, you want them to own things?
Shauna Lynn Simon (19:41.548)
What's sort of the conversations you're having with your team about this?
Joy Lynskey (19:44.702)
I mean, it starts with the early interviews, right? Like the onboarding process. We're really open about it and that we are small, like there's eight of us. So every voice is important. And if you end up, you know, part of our team, a JTI Gem, because we're the, my whole team, that's what we call each other, the Gems. If you are, you know, part of this team, it's expected and it's really like where the rubber meets the road, right? So.
I love, we have a very multicultural team and that is incredible just because of the wide range of life experiences that my eight women can bring to projects and how we can challenge each other and thinking about things differently and looking at things differently, especially because we serve such a wide range of demographics and people. So I think it's just really being intentional and also
walking the walk and making sure that we're modeling it. So I'm always going to say when I mess up and I'm always going to apologize and I'm going to own it because I can't expect my team to do that if I don't.
Shauna Lynn Simon (20:50.094)
And so, you know, what does accountability look like if mistakes are made, if, you know, something doesn't go as planned? Like, how do you as the owner avoid, you know, the sort of the rescue of like, oh, let me just fix everything and allowing them to fix it while also ensuring that there's an accountability there? You know, how do you treat like when someone's like, oh, I screwed up, like, let's say, I don't know, like one of the common things is probably when it comes to ordering things, mismeasuring something.
And I really thought that this was going to fit. like, actually one of my colleagues just went through this recently. They were planning on storing an outdoor cushion underneath a bed for the winter months. And they'd measured everything, even had the cushion resize. And what did not show in any of the specs for the bed was a bar that went across the bottom that they hadn't accounted for. So now they've got the cushion that doesn't fit and they're all trying to solve it. So there's a whole lot of like, where could we have changed things? What went wrong here? So how do you handle when...
these mistakes happen, how does the team handle that and how do you avoid rescuing them?
Joy Lynskey (21:51.928)
The team knows that if it's something that's on us, we will, the company will always own it or eat it. Like the cost, something like you just said, that's always going to be the default. So they know the like, consequence. They also know that I'm here, like in the wings if they need. So typically, especially cause my, lot of my team has been with me for a while. They will typically come with, these are some solutions I've come up with. What do you think? Which is great.
That's like best case. And then, you know, workshop those with them. And then I'll also say like, do you want me on the call? Do you want me to make a follow-up call? Like they know that I'm still there. And then of course, if I need, if it needs to go straight to me because of the level of breakdown, then that's there for them too. But as an owner and leader of the team, one of the biggest things I'm always looking for is icebergs. And it's just like the what ifs, like playing out the scenarios of like what could go wrong. Sometimes I'm not.
like in a project enough to do that, but at least like holistically as a company, that's something I'm always just trying to look out for like six, 12, 18 months type things.
Shauna Lynn Simon (23:01.548)
And how are you doing that exactly? somebody's listening is like, that sounds great. How could, but I'm still very reactive in everything that I'm doing. Like, how can I anticipate some of these things more? Like, do you have a process to it? Is it something where like, is it about documentation? Is it about making sure that your team has, you know, solid SOPs in order? Like, what does this look like for you?
Joy Lynskey (23:21.358)
Yeah, we're really process driven. We have playbooks on playbooks. And then from like a financial side, just like the prospecting and the sales and just the hygiene of a healthy pipeline, all of that comes into play for that. And then also just playing out, know, looking at concentration risk. If you have like one main client, like that kind of thing, running scenarios, we do a lot of repeat work with clients. that's, you know, fostering those relationships, checking in.
One of the biggest takeaways that we have from our quarterly meetings is that we go through two projects typically within two different verticals so that we're not looking at like the same type of project at the same time, same day, but we do a lessons learned and that lessons learned document obviously grows every quarter, right? But it's also, and then it, then it goes into a training document for new hires because there's no reason why.
people coming off the street shouldn't learn from the issues that have already occurred within the business. So it's really great. It's not small. And you know, it takes an hour out of our quarterly meeting to go through a couple of projects, deep dive them. But the team has been making notes throughout, that's like now built in to how we work. they've been making notes throughout the life of the project to be able to present that to everyone.
Shauna Lynn Simon (24:42.678)
Right, so you're not having to sit down and try to remember like, shoot, what did I learn on this one? It's pretty automatic there.
Joy Lynskey (24:49.26)
Yeah. And then also the value of the teams that aren't, because typically our projects will have a two person team and the other designers will learn from, you you're living from, like you're teaching each other so that the same issues aren't occurring. And that's something that was really different from my past firms that I worked at and into your design, just like that collaborative, like supportive approach versus a little more competitive within the team.
Shauna Lynn Simon (25:16.846)
Yeah, no, we don't want that. No. I can see how that can cause some serious challenges. And I know that that does exist in some company cultures, but it's really hard to foster growth and allow people to be authentic and comfortable and vulnerable in different scenarios if there's constantly this level of competition. And I know that you're working with some pretty high end clients at times. So it's a pretty high expectations and high standards to live up to.
When it comes to managing that, I would imagine that it becomes a little bit intimidating for your team at times as well. So I know there's a lot of people that would probably say, I don't want to take ownership of something, of a $5 million project or whatever it's looking like for you. It sounds like a lot of responsibility. So going back to your hiring and you were talking about how you're infusing this into the hiring and onboarding process to ensure that you're getting people the right culture.
How does that show up in hiring? And then I want to talk about how this translates into like your actual client experience.
Joy Lynskey (26:15.959)
like the ability to speak with those like higher-end like projects and clients.
Shauna Lynn Simon (26:22.306)
To be able to feel comfortable in any of these scenarios that you're going to throw at them for the accountability and ownership that they're going to be expected to take on the projects and be a contributing member as opposed to just someone who's waiting for direction and tasks like a task bunny, essentially, as opposed to doing that.
Joy Lynskey (26:40.024)
So we, my business partner and I are executive champions on all, most all of our projects. We have tiers of engagement and some will choose one where we're not involved. Of course we still are in the background. So we are either Jacqueline or myself reviewing or like a point person that the client knows that they have access to at any time. And then we also just make sure and role play.
So we have the designers walk through, how do you anticipate presenting those ideas? Like do that with us, you know, and making sure that they have like a comfort level and then we critique. it's, you know, an interior design school, most of us are, we get critiqued a lot. And so there should be no surprise that it continues into the professional realm. And really it should continue into the professional realm. It's what makes it, know, iron sharpens iron kind of thing. Like it just makes everything better.
Shauna Lynn Simon (27:34.432)
Absolutely. think if there's one thing that I've learned from my experience as an interior designer as well is anytime I'm presenting to a client, you have to be able to encourage feedback from them without them feeling they're going to hurt your feelings. So I always make it very clear from the first moment of like, this is not personal. If there's something you don't like, you need to speak up because the time to bring it up is not when we're about to do the install. You know, we need to address these things much, much earlier on. So to your point, you know,
most designers have been, it's been ingrained in us essentially to not take, they don't get me wrong, if we've worked really hard on a design and we feel like we nailed it and the client hates it, that's gonna hit hard no matter what, of course. It's not to say that doesn't, you don't feel it still, but for someone to say, I'm not really loving this part of it or I don't really like this part of it, you have to be able to take that critique, be able to run with it, be able to investigate a little bit further, what don't you like so we can move forward. So I think if we can...
If we could all translate, not just in your firm or in any other interior design companies, but in life in general, if we can all just be able to take that critique as feedback, as like a support that we can draw knowledge from and be able to grow from, we'd all be so much stronger for it. But I think that it's not taught enough, especially in the real world scenario, like you're saying, you where
We're told to, you know, the compliment sandwich when you're giving a review to someone, for example, tell them about something positive, then tell them a negative and tell them a positive. That's not really getting us what we actually need and the results that we need out of someone. It's not to say that you should be beating them up every day either, but to be able to give constructive feedback in real time in a way that is helpful is is something that I think should be built into every culture, really. But it's difficult because some people aren't able to to handle it.
as well as we would like them to. So the fact that you're building it in from the hiring process and ensuring that you're getting the people that are going to be more comfortable with that and continuing on, like you said, from their design school training. think that's fantastic.
Joy Lynskey (29:30.316)
Yeah, I believe trust is a really big part of it. Like you have to have the foundation of trust and be able to like speak super direct and critique, you know, without mincing words really. But that's, that is built in and everybody knows that at the end of the day, like, so one of our biggest differentiators is that we check our ego at the door. And so that even in interior design can be tricky to hire. I hate to be stereotypical, but there can be a lot.
divas and divas in our industry. just the ability to put that aside and have that overarching, like big picture focused mentality about serving the client, making sure that we can walk away from the project with the client being fully seen and heard is massive.
Shauna Lynn Simon (30:17.718)
Yeah, it can definitely be humbling for each individual person on the project as well. But the amount of growth that can come from being able to check your ego at the door, you can just get a whole different perspective. You can be much more objective about your responses, about how you hear things. You can be a much more active listener. So there's so many benefits to it, aside from just, you know, being able to ensure the client has the great experience.
there's so much opportunity for the individual as well. When you talk about how your team is involved, we talked a little bit about the lessons that we've learned and a lot of this is all relating to client experience. How involved is your team in helping to shape the overall direction of the company or coming up with ideas for whether it's furthering a marketing campaign or a growth strategy or identifying opportunities in the marketplace that might be an underserved market.
How involved are they? Is this coming up at the quarterly meetings or is it mostly primarily focused around client experience?
Joy Lynskey (31:14.123)
No, quarterly meeting touches every aspect of the company from sales and marketing to financial to operations. We run on EOS, but we like EOS 2.0 because my business partner and I were actually in a Pinnacle cohort, which takes a bit of EOS and then it adds like other business books like Entrepreneurial Myth and Scaling Up and a lot of ones you've heard of.
but so we, all have scorecard. If you've been with the company for more than a quarter, then you have metrics that you are tracking weekly. That's very EOS centric. We have changed it and adjusted it to be a little more towards our company and the way we run. the goals are, we still call them Rocks, which is very EOS but we call instead of calling them goals, we call them promises. Cause a promise is like, you're like,
Shauna Lynn Simon (31:56.898)
Shauna Lynn Simon (32:04.718)
You don't want to break your word.
Joy Lynskey (32:06.022)
Yeah. Cool. Yeah. And it is about your word. So yeah, to answer your question, the sales and marketing aspect would probably be there. It would be presented at least a little bit in the morning. So we go over the past quarter and our wins. And because we have a scorecard that has all these metrics, we being designers and so visual color code them. So you can literally look at a scorecard like this. And if it's mostly green, we probably didn't have high enough goals, you know, from.
Shauna Lynn Simon (32:33.676)
Joy Lynskey (32:35.79)
But you can see if we won the quarter.
Shauna Lynn Simon (32:39.496)
You still want to make somethings achievable because otherwise no one's ever celebrating the wins. You're not getting to the milestones, but I hear you say that too.
Joy Lynskey (32:46.958)
We shoot for 80%. So as long as we're 80%, we don't really want to be 100 % because we're not stretching ourselves. So from this, answer your question, we, one of the parts, one of the aspects of these quarterly meetings is that we audit all of our clients and from like a beating your soul aspect, just so we can see if the team is getting enjoyment from the type of work, type of client. And then we also, and then once that that is established and it's very rudimentary, we literally use
emojis like happy face, sad face and that's it. And once those are established, we then show the team, okay, and these are the people that actually pay on time. So then you really end up with like the 20 % like, yeah, how do we get more of these? Yeah.
Shauna Lynn Simon (33:33.646)
And it's funny that you say that because it sounds like such a simple exercise, but it's one of the exercises I put a lot of my clients through. Let's go through your client list. Who did you like? Who did you not like? And let's talk about like, why did you like them? Why did you not like them? And we actually sort the list initially by sales volume.
And then we go through and talk about them. Like your answer to why did you like them cannot be because they showed up with a big bag of money. Like as much as we all want the clients that just show up with big bags of money, it doesn't always make them ideal clients. So I like that you're aligning the two and keeping those things separate. Yeah.
Joy Lynskey (34:04.854)
Yeah, we don't look at the necessarily the proportion of sales more just the cadence of pay.
Shauna Lynn Simon (34:09.814)
payments. Yeah, I like that too. Yeah, it's not just about the dollar value so much as are they responsible payers. Right. And so with these quarterly meetings, I would imagine you get a ton of ideas from your team. Can you maybe share a moment where like a team member's idea actually helped to change some of the trajectory of the business or an outcome or something you've been struggling with that made a real difference? Because I think it's important to share
Joy Lynskey (34:17.409)
To be on our agreement. Right.
Shauna Lynn Simon (34:38.392)
to show, if you allow them to feel safe and comfortable sharing their ideas, there's some pretty incredible results that can come out of that.
Joy Lynskey (34:47.347)
Yeah, we've gone after new verticals from them. We've went from being all five days in office to having virtual Fridays from it. That was a request and we were like, let's test it out, you know, for a quarter. And it was great. productivity didn't go down and nobody skipped a beat and people did their jobs and it was great.
Shauna Lynn Simon (35:06.744)
probably just as nice for you as it is for them, right?
Joy Lynskey (35:09.154)
Yeah, I mean, I'm always here. I like to be in the office.
Shauna Lynn Simon (35:12.224)
But it might be nice to not have everybody else around on that Friday.
Joy Lynskey (35:16.43)
It's quiet. It's quiet. I am trying to think what else. So we've established like who our ideal client profile is, which has been really great. And it's hard because I can't like necessarily pinpoint like a person because it is like a group think and it is, it's like a collect the collective brain power of everybody in the room. And of course there's a lot of voices than others. Right. My most recent quarter, which I'm very excited about though, starting in 2026, I now have
Instead of it being my business partner and I running the whole day, I've now divided the entire day into the team. So they run different team members run each section and cause they've done so many like it's, you know, it's like, it's, it's second nature. know what, there's no surprise and they can put their own spin on it. So it's, that's been really fun. And I'm excited to just still watch them grow because you know, they're leading and presenting all of us and doing that.
Shauna Lynn Simon (36:12.536)
Well, this is how you're building leaders, right? Like this is, I think that this is, okay. So I want to touch on this for a moment though, because I can almost imagine again, I feel like sometimes I can read my listeners thoughts and I can hear some of the listeners saying to themselves, but if I give them this much autonomy, this much ownership, this much responsibility, what's going to keep them from just stealing all of my ideas and going and starting their own business?
Joy Lynskey (36:37.708)
I mean, for me, like, so what? I mean, then say I fully support you and I can't wait to see how successful you're going to be.
Shauna Lynn Simon (36:40.396)
Right?
Shauna Lynn Simon (36:48.002)
Yeah, I love knowing that I was a part of that, right? Like that I built that, that I helped them to get to the point where they felt this is my next chapter, this is my next step. And I was a part of that journey for them.
Joy Lynskey (36:59.126)
Yeah, I mean, big picture goal, I would love to support more women owned design firms like young, you know, I only say young, I mean young by the business, not the not the owner. started design firm, but because we've been through it. I've had two babies since I started the company, my business partner said two babies, another, you know, lot of moms here, but
Shauna Lynn Simon (37:11.458)
out the actual VR.
Joy Lynskey (37:24.202)
And we've been through a lot. We've been through downturns and global pandemic and flooding and flea infestations and toxic employees. Just a lot, But I just would, I would absolutely love to, and we have started working through what it could look like, have like an affiliate program where we're really supporting and mentoring other female led design companies. And then also,
that we could collectively be stronger as like the more small to mid-sized businesses because there is so many of us in this country. We go up against Gensler and HOK on projects, which is globally top five, 15. So I just think that there's a lot of power in small businesses and I think, and female-led small businesses and just being able to like...
support women in showing up like wholly as partners and community leaders and business owners, like all of it.
Shauna Lynn Simon (38:25.174)
It's so true. And I think the interior design world has come a really long way since I first entered it, which was about 15 or so years ago, 16 years ago. It's much more collaborative now than it ever used to be. It's, you know, we are starting to tear down some of the walls that.
I think we're put up for a long time, but we still have a long way to go. So it's great when I can speak with owners like yourself and knowing that you're, paying that forward as well. Like you're taking that, that mindset and not just keeping it to yourself and to your own business, but you are looking at ways to, to continue to share that and spread that to the rest of the world. And, know, you talk about supporting women businesses and obviously we're the Real Women Real Business Podcast. We're all about this, you know, of course, but it's always easier said than done too, especially like I would love to support all women led businesses in
all aspects of the work that I do, both as a business coach, as an interior designer, in all the things that I do. But there are times where, you know, I was talking about, I was looking for a business valuator because I help people sell their businesses as well. Working a little bit in the mergers and acquisitions world. And I was looking for a business valuator and I couldn't find a woman to do it to save my life. And I ended up bringing in a man and I don't want to discriminate against men either. Like he's the most qualified. I want to bring him in.
but there's still some very male dominated industries and it can be more more difficult sometimes to find those women. And one of the things that you did was you became the first woman president of the CEA. So how did that come about? What did that teach you? How did you use that as a way to foster recognition for women or give a bit of a spotlight to what women can do in the industry?
Joy Lynskey (40:01.678)
So the first thing is even ending up in that organization, because it's called Construction Executives Association. So I think it was pretty amazing to be invited originally. It was a client of mine. He owned a roofing company. And I told him, I'm not in the construction industry. And he's like, you've been on my construction site for, it was his oceanfront condo. He's like, been on it like every week for two months. What are you talking about?
You're in construction. He didn't understand why. I didn't see it. So I'm like, you know what? You're right. So I went, so I joined. And then a couple of years later, I was like, well, I'm not going to be in this group and not like get involved. So I went to, and I'm like, I think I want to be on the board. What do you think? And he's like, I'm going to give you my seat. So of course that happens. And then once I was on the board for a couple of years, it was another man that actually named me treasurer. It's a ladder. So treasurer, secretary, VP,
president. So I had a four year runway. And I just said, you boys are not ready for me to be president. And he's, you know, because it's a board so you're close. And they know knew I was kidding. I wasn't being disrespectful. But, but he said, Yeah, we are amazing. He's a dad of three amazing women, you know, married, married. And so he he and he has a ton of granddaughters. So like he was any I think he's like, has like five sisters too. So he was like corn.
But I think that it's really important as women to always just to mention the allies and the men that have moved over or have invited us or have advocated this anyway. And when men do it, I make a really big deal out of it. And it's sad that it is a big deal because it shouldn't be. But like I've invited men to be on panels, speaking panels or whatever. And they've said, listen, I have a colleague who's
better at this than me and it was a woman. And that's just really cool. I just think it's really important to always give credit where credit is due and also just to let the men know that it matters, you know, and that it's seen, that it's not just a default and that they're not wrong, you know, the word they're not bad, right? Like, cause they're can't see some of that. And that's not helpful in any way, shape or form either.
Shauna Lynn Simon (42:20.078)
I think that's a really good point because we need to make sure that we're not drawing more lines, that we are building more bridges than digging trenches. And sometimes some of the ways that we speak to men, address men, reference men, can come across as sort of like a down with the patriarchy kind of overly feminist view. And I'm not saying that there isn't a time and a place sometimes for that, but to your point, there are a lot of men there that really do want to see, it's not just about promoting women, but just allowing the best
person, the best qualified to step into a role regardless of gender, regardless of their identity in that sense. And I think it is really important to acknowledge that because sometimes for some of them it's just second nature and they didn't even realize they did anything that incredible. And so it needs to be acknowledged so they know how important it is that they are recognized.
Joy Lynskey (43:10.914)
Yeah, but I did use the platform, I will say, to bring some maybe more feminine leading conversation to the group. And I'm very excited that it was well received by the board and by the membership at large. So I want to say six years ago, we had a fireside chat around diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging, making sure that belonging aspect was part of it. That colleague of mine, since that fireside chat is like nationally in a position of
of like diversity inclusion now. So it's so cool. That's impressive. Yeah. And then I've also just brought the conversation around suicide prevention because the construction industry has eight times the national average is also a way for me to honor my mom, my late mother, you know, who dealt with that for unfortunately her whole life, suicide ideation. And what's great about
bringing that to that group is just that it's so much bigger than me. And that's what I'm up to, right? Like I don't, I, you know, we all do our best every day, but like, I really do want to make an effort to make ripple effects of good. And that, and that was what was really great about being in there. And, and maybe even using the fact that I was a female to lean into some of these soft, sometimes considered softer skills, but really impactful and necessary conversations to be had.
Shauna Lynn Simon (44:31.106)
And think that's really important. I I wish we had more time to dig into that further, but I do want to say thank you for doing that because I think it's such a powerful conversation to have and one that, as you said, might not have come up if it wasn't for bringing that feminine energy into the conversation. It's something that hits really close to home with me. So I appreciate that you made that priority and was able to foster some of those conversations. So think that's wonderful. think that's a perfect place actually to close out our episode.
And on that note, you have a very special gift for our listeners. Can you tell us about your offer?
Joy Lynskey (45:06.55)
Yes, so we will do a free one hour design consultation that could be for your home or for your business. We'd love to just understand your priorities and we can really dive into that and in the way that you get through that is just through our contact form on our website, which will be in the show notes I can assure you.
Shauna Lynn Simon (45:26.85)
Yes, yes. the, the website is jeweltoned.com. And yeah, you'll just go to the contact form mentioned in the podcast and we'll be sure that that's in the show notes as well. Absolutely. Joy, thank you so much for sharing your story with us today. I so appreciate that you were able to make the time for this. I really enjoyed having you on the show.
Joy Lynskey (45:45.42)
We covered a lot.
Shauna Lynn Simon (45:47.406)
Yeah, thank you. Amazing. Well, listen, if you're listening to this episode and what we're saying here today is resonating with you, we do hope that you will continue to allow us to be a part of your journey each week. Tune in for new episodes that drop every Tuesday morning at 7 a.m. Eastern time. Don't forget to like us and subscribe to us on your favorite podcast platform, wherever you get your podcast. And remember, the best way that you can not only show your support for this podcast, but for your fellow women entrepreneurs is to share this episode.
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