We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Emilie Schiller. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Emilie below.
Emilie, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. The first dollar your business earns is always special and we’d love to hear how your brand made its first dollar of revenue.
My first real client who I did a contract for, had to figure out my process with, and had to get paid by, was someone I met at a networking breakfast.
I had left my job in consulting, started my design business and was trying to focus full-time on that (as an aside, that was a decision I made FAR too early, and I ended up going back to consulting for a few years while I continued to do Home Methods on the side), but I knew I needed to go out and meet people to let them know that I and Home Methods existed.
It was a Chamber of Commerce breakfast held at Miss Shirley’s in Baltimore (it’s a very popular restaurant that I think has also been featured on some TV shows about Baltimore) and I remember at first feeling VERY out of my element. My history of networking has been with people who were either similar in age, worked at the same company or a similar type of company, or at happy hour with some dim lighting and liquid courage; a well lit event with oatmeal and people who were deeply involved in the business community, and had been for on average 10+ years, wasn’t really my forte.
I picked a seat at the table (a giant, U-shaped table; I have some thoughts about that layout…), and since I’m definitely not the person who talks to every person in the room, I stuck to a small group of people I was sitting with and tried to really get to know them, talking about them personally as well as their businesses.
After a while, I was one on one with a very nice man who said he and his wife were looking to do some work in their house and would I come take a look. Of course I said yes, that was the entire point of going! I gave him my card, and he contacted me a few days later.
It was a smaller project, but something I needed to get my feet wet with non-friend clients, and he and his wife were fantastic (being in client services and dealing with people and their homes, you’re never really sure how people will react about things). I talked them through everything as I had planned, and throughout, they were receptive to my feedback, taking some ideas and holding off on others, but doing so in a way that I knew they had really considered it. I learned a lot about how I wanted to work with design clients in that process, and after the project was over, they left me a very nice review, which I was really excited by.
I haven’t exactly kept up my streak of networking breakfasts since then, but I still think back fondly on how that one actually paid off!
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
When I was a kid, my parents liked to take me to open houses for fun. I think they really lucked out because it was something they liked to do, but it turned out that was something I did (and still) like to do too. At the time, I had no idea that it would influence what I do as an adult – I just thought looking at houses and picturing how I’d live there was a cool thing to do (in case you’re curious, I was always very interested in a room with sloped ceilings above the garage; what can I say, it was the suburbs in South Carolina haha).
Cut to me as an adult, watching and reading about interior design was always something I was interested in, but I didn’t think much about it until after I had been working for a number of years. I actually started my career in talent management and then moved into management consulting – basically, my job was to make sure employees had everything they needed to be successful in their roles, whether it was a new employee onboarding program, a plan for how to adopt new organizational changes or a process for how to get promoted.
Although I really enjoyed creating a positive employee experience, it didn’t always satisfy my creative needs, and after about 12 years, I found myself more interested in what I was doing in my free time – namely, decorating my apartments or giving friends and family advice on how they should decorate their homes.
Finally, I thought, well, I should learn more about this officially – I started taking classes and certificate programs to build my skills, and I felt like interior design was a career I could really see myself doing. Luckily, my previous work experience gave me a great foundation of project management and client management skills – skills that are really important in this field, but ones that I don’t think are at the top of anyone’s list! – so I focused on building my design and creative skills.
On a whim, someone said to me, “why don’t you start a business while you keep your day job?” And I thought, “now there’s an interesting idea – why don’t I do that?” So I did (I think this was an instance where my making a decision and not second-guessing it really worked in my favor!). Home Methods was started in 2017, and I was lucky enough to have a few early clients willing to take a chance on me, and over time, I’ve built up my business to where I no longer have my day job and I’m a full-time designer.
My focus now is on helping create unique spaces for my clients – spaces that reflect who they are and how they live. I handle all the nitty-gritty, from custom furniture to managing contractors, so my clients can simply enjoy the adventure from concept through execution.
In a lot of ways I feel like I’ve come full circle – I get to go into new houses all the time, but instead of picturing myself living there, I picture my clients living there. It’s great to be able to see how every space I do becomes a unique reflection of the people who live there, and I can give them what they want and need to create a special space just for them.
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
Since my entire current career is a pivot, I think it’s important to focus on this!
My initial work experience is based on a career where I had years of experience, lots of contacts, and had dealt with different types of clients, scenarios, etc. Over time, that experience helped me to be successful in that career, but when I started interior design, I was starting from scratch. Case in point – I had mapped out in my business plan what my first year would look like, and I was wildly off target!
When I was making the transition from consulting to design, I assumed that my success in one career would immediately translate to my new career, and that was a level of hubris I’ve had to keep in check along the way because interior design is not the same as management consulting. There are definitely skills that overlap and skills that I developed in my first career that I now use in my second, but I have to remember that I have to have interior design experiences, I have to build interior design contacts, and I have to develop my familiarity with new interior design scenarios.
My husband Dave once said to me (I think as a joke but I say it all the time now) “every day’s a classroom” and that could not be truer in my current situation. I have to remind myself that experiences come over time, success is earned and mistakes aren’t the end of the world but are learning opportunities that will help me become a better decorator. Sometimes it’s hard, but I try to keep it in the front of my mind so I can keep the focus on my end goal of giving my clients what they want and need, and the times when I have been able to do that, the pivot has been a lot easier than the times when I’ve tried to fight that.
Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?
Accountability and responsibility, 100%.
I am often very hard on myself; I am my worst critic and harshest evaluator (I’m also pretty type A in case you can’t tell, and starting in consulting did not help that haha). To combat that feeling of critiquing myself, I try to hold myself accountable as much as possible. If I say I’m going to do something, I do it. I’m on time. If you entrust me with your job, I’ll give you my best designs for what you asked for. In short – I try to do good work consistently, and do that work in such a way that I stand behind it. I think about how clients will talk about me to others, and that, plus my own assumed feeling of responsibility for being in charge of their room or house, makes me want to hold myself accountable and give them something I’m proud of.
I think my clients can see this in even the little details I handle, and that builds a sense of trust. In their reviews and in the photos of their homes, I think this comes through, however intangibly, and other clients see that and take note.
Contact Info:
- Website: homemethods.com
- Instagram: homemethods
- Facebook: homemethods
Image Credits
Tommy Sheldon Photography, Suzie Soleimani – The Eye Behind the Lens, Cassandra Kapsos – CK Photocraft, Timothy Peters.