That Time A Client Sued Me

On this episode, well over half a year after launching this podcast, I decided to pull out my very first episode to help explain my "why." If you have not listened to this episode, it's a must listen. If you have listened to it, well, maybe it's time for a cautionary tale refresher! Either way, here's the WHY for this episode:

🤔 Why did I start this podcast?
🤔 Why did I start a learning program for designers?
🤔 Why did I decide to overhaul my entire design business?
🤔 Why do I operate my design business as a business?
🤔 Why do I place such stringent policies and processes in place for my clients (and me) to follow?

Well this episode will explain my why in all it's gory detail! 😬
This episode talks about my lowest point in life and career. And boy was it low! 

The very moment when I knew I had to make a choice to either slither away and lose everything or make big changes and begin the rest of my design career the right way. At this point, you know what my choice was, but let me tell you how I came to that decision and the steps I took to get there. Grab a strong drink, and sit back and listen to the most pivotal moment in my life and career. 

What if you could finally create the interior design business of your dreams while consistently making 6 figures and doing it all with no stress? Join Design Business Fast Track today to make your Design Business dreams a reality!

www.designbusinessfasttrack.com

For all things John: www.johnmcclain.co
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Transcript

Hey, y'all, you're listening to the designer within podcast episode number 36.

I'm John McClain and welcome to the designer within podcast, the business minded podcast created for creative entrepreneurs by a creative entrepreneur. That's me. I know firsthand the challenges, but also the victories that can come with our careers. And I'm here to sip and spill the tea with you. It's time to dive deep within yourself and redesign your own business and your life from the inside out.

Together we will uncover secrets and share valuable insights. So prepare for a transformative experience, my friend, because it's time to unleash the designer within.

Hey everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the designer within I'm John McClain. Happy to have you here. As always today, I am pulling out an episode from the archives. Actually, I'm pulling out the very first episode of the podcast because. I've had so many people ask me, why did you get into this type of business? 

Why did you decide to start a podcast? Why did you decide to start coaching? Why did you decide to start helping other designers? And I felt that it is really important to share my why. So this episode explains it all in all of its gory gory detail. And I know that if you've just joined the podcast realm of listening to the designer within you might not have gone. Back and listen to episode number one. 

So I'm going to sort of twist your arm now and make you listen to this episode because truly, truly, truly, it was a life changing experience that led me to wanting to help you and wanting to help other designers really level up their design businesses. And hopefully not make the same mistakes that I did. 

And this episode will explain those mistakes. And most importantly, it will talk about how I came out. On the other side of those mistakes. So whatever you're going through right now, whatever you feel might be bringing you down, that you cannot come out of, just listen to this episode and I will show you that you can truly come out of anything. 

All right. So let's jump into this episode from the archives and listen to what really jumped started the changes in my design business, and hopefully will help you do the same for yourself. 

So let's dive in.

welcome to the designer within I've so excited to finally start my podcast dedicated directly and solely for the interior design professional. 

 My name is John McClain and I am an advocate for you. I have experienced almost everything there is to experience in the interior design industry. And I really want to share my feelings, my thoughts, and my experiences and my lessons with you. So that was the reason I created the designer within a podcast

in this podcast, we are going to address the difficult conversations we're going to dive in deep to systems and processes and contracts and agreements and all the things that they do not teach us in design school. We will talk about them and would want to have some wonderful guests along the way to share their experiences as well and how you can learn and benefit from them too. 

So on this inaugural episode . I wanted to share with you a very private moment in my own life. And in my own business, it was something that frankly turned everything around for me. And really made me focus on. 

What I needed to focus on which was the business side of my design business. And it's, it's not a happy story in the beginning. I'm hoping that by sharing this with you in all its gory detail, you will not make the same mistakes that I did. And I will lead you all the way to the end and show you exactly how it has defined who I am today, how I run my business and why I want to share this with all of you, my creative friends. So without further ado, let's jump in to this story. Are you ready? Grab a cup of coffee. I have a dot tail wrap, whatever you want, but this is going to be a doozy and, and you may have heard bits and pieces of it. If you follow me in any capacity on social media or on other podcasts that I've been a guest on, but I'm going to share with you today, some exclusive details That I've not even shared with other podcasts let's dive in. So I was a newbie designer. And I had this thing about me, where I felt like everybody was trustworthy. 

And I know that deep down people aren't completely trustworthy, 

but somehow I had this night, Eva Tay, that. People are trustworthy, and you know, no one's going to want to hurt you or your business, whether it's financially or mentally, I just trusted people. And I had this new client that frankly was a bit overwhelming at first it was a lot of money. it was a huge home. 

It was a, the biggest project I've ever taken on in my entire life. 

And this fabulous new project came with a client with a fabulously huge ego. 

As most clients have when they have an exorbitant amount of money. So the process continues and I start working with this client and everything is kosher at first there's no problems. It's all in that sort of honeymoon excitement stage of working together and selecting products. And. 

We were designing lots and lots of custom pieces for this. Massive 20,000 plus square foot home. And it was just so exciting for me. And I just felt like, wow, I've made it like this is it. Like I have made it to. The big times, I'm going to be a quote unquote, successful designer. And I'm going to use this project to catapult me to success beyond belief. 

Ah, just like that. I expected this overnight sensation to happen. Here's what I didn't take into consideration. I did not take into consideration that number one, I should have a written agreement. What, I did not have a written agreement with this client. Yes. You heard it correctly. And it was the worst possible thing that I could have done in this situation. And it's one of the reasons now I harp on that aspect so much, but more on that later. 

So I did not have a written agreement. It was a handshake and a smile at the end. I trusted this person. We were fast friends. We were working together a lot, working on every aspect of the home. And then the way it started was the client said, Hey, John, you know, I. I uh, have this house and it's, it's not my first home as a second home and I really want some help with it. And I want it to have your look to it. And by the way, the only portfolio that I had had at the time was just projects that I had worked on for friends and family. So there wasn't really anything too substantial to, to show. And so I love it and it's almost like a buildup of my ego and it's a great pat on the bat and like, wow, you're really trusting me enough deep down, I really see now what really happened was I think this person just likes to take advantage of other people and they took advantage of my naivete for not understanding that I shouldn't have a business side of my interior design business. So there was the handshake and a smile. There was a, the trust factor. It was John. Here's my credit card number. Use it to buy whatever you want, make sure that it has the look that I'm going for. Make sure that it looks high end and make sure that it feels luxurious. 

And I trust you to make the right decisions. So red flag, number one, I should never have worked with someone without an agreement, and also never worked with someone without an idea of how much they were wanting to invest. In their design. 

And the design fee that I was charging at the time. I wasn't even a design fee. It was simply a markup. And I hate that word by the way markup, but that was what I was doing. Then I was simply charging a markup on products and then not. Charging for my time. It worked out, you know, mathematically, but it did not work out on a scale of understanding how I actually operate my business. So I had really, wasn't giving this client as much information as I should about how I run my business at the time. And which was horribly. I did not run my business at the time. 

My, I basically let my clients. Run my business for me. So anyway. We're going along and we are making these great choices and we're choosing things. And, this client, again, the trust factor is just increasing all the time. 

They sent me out of town first class to help them choose another home. If they were buying in another state. And we were really just sort of bonding and I felt really close to this person. So I'm making the decisions. I'm ordering things that I feel were really make the house beautiful. 

And the other part of the problem was I really wasn't clear to the client on how I was charging them for the products. It was just here's the product. Bye it, put it on my card and go with it. And I will put this caveat in there. This client is again, very wealthy, so they're probably not in their books every day. And I know for a fact, they're not. 

And as you know, things are being purchased and as I'm making decisions, they're not checking their credit card statement every day, as are every month as most people do, they have a team to do that? So one day I'm driving down the road and we've probably in about month number 2.5 at this point. And I'm driving down the road, probably from a meeting for this client. 

Two. You know, Choose something for their home. And I did a phone call and the client calls me. You guys. They are screaming, bloody murder streaming. To the top of their lungs at me screaming and cursing and saying all the things that I never want to hear from another human being in my life. And it just shakes me to my core and I'm like, hold on, hold on, hold on. What are you talking about? And the client is saying, 

how dare you. You charge my credit cards. You spit my money without asking me. I told you I trusted you and you broke that trust. And. On and on and on and on. And I'm I'm and I'm saying, you know, calm down, like take a breath, like, let's talk about this. Let's figure this out. 

And this client is in no mood to talk. I mean, no mood to talk. It is. Yell yell, yell, curse, curse, curse. And then the final thing before they hung up was, and I'm going to Sue you for everything that you own. Click. 

Well I mean little known to them. I didn't really own that much at the time. But, um, I was nevertheless very, very, very scared, very frightened. And because when you are young and when you are new. And a career and someone with more experience of screwing people over comes on board and just starts telling you, I'm going to Sue you for everything that you have, because you did something that I told you not to do. When in fact I did everything that this person told me to do, you get stared. And it brought me into a tailspin which started with, of course, working with their internal team, their internal business team to figure out like, okay, what charges are. 

Are you talking about. I had to develop tons and tons of spreadsheets. I had to develop all the facts and figures that I had worked on for their project. Which, you know, again, looking back hindsight is 2020. I really should have done that early on in the beginning. And there should have been this framework set out for how I was going to run the project, but more on that later. 

Back to the crisis at hand. We are, and you guys I'm laughing about it now and it's, it is something that, you know, I'm not really laughing. I'm just, I laugh when I'm nervous. You'll find that out about me, but I can actually talk about it now. And there were so many years. Where I could not speak about this project and the situation at all. And now I really want to share this story 

and I want to enlighten other people on what happened to me so that it does not happen to you. But, it was definitely not a laughing situation in the beginning. It was. More of a crying situation, which I'll tell you about that soon. So I'm working with their internal team and we're going through books and figures and it starts going downhill fast and it becomes roughened this about to my card, refund this back to my card, refund this back to my card. And it was all the things that were either in process of being ordered. We're in a warehouse that had been ordered or were accustomed items that were being manufactured from a local shop. 

And with all of that, of course, I paid a down payment for all those things. With all of that product, I actually paid for the product all firsthand. So I was making purchases on my own credit card before I was charging it to the client's credit card, which was a big, big no-no. And I do not do that now. 

But I did it then. And as it spiraled and as it became worse and worse and worse. I saw that this was not going anywhere and I felt that I had to hire an attorney to help me out. Because the conversations grew much more tense. The client would not even speak to me at this point. And the only way that I was getting information was from the client's attorney. And again, being very young and attorneys at the time terrified me. I hated the thought of even having to use an attorney, but the attorney from this client contacted me right away. 

And basically said, if you do not refund all of this money and give us the product right. I am going to move forward with the lawsuit. So I immediately found an attorney that would take my case, and that would work with me considering the fact that I had no written agreement 

And really honestly, no written approvals other than text messages and a couple of emails here and there. So it was really, really. Scarce on the documentation Homefront for me, which was terrifying. And, I frankly was concerned that I would even find an attorney who would take me on. But this attorney was recommended from my accountant. 

And the accountant was friends with the attorney and thankfully the attorney felt pity for me. And decided to take on my case and helped me out. So fast forward a bit. Basically. I go into emergency mode and I decide that I'm going to try and fix this situation as best as possible for the things that I can control and mind you. 

This is a very, very mind boggling situation. I'm confused about why the client, it has turned this way. I have all of these, you know, mixed up emotions in my head about how, this project is going to turn out. I love the project. I love the design of the project. I'm I love being a designer. And now all the things that I love about this business are being sort of, covered by the negative aspects of what this client is doing. 

But after the meeting with the attorney. And we figure out a game plan and the game plan is they are going to try to reach out to the client and start this conversation of, Hey, listen, you know, you're not going to get everything that you want. So let's figure this out. You did ask for this product, you did ask for John to purchase these things and. 

The attorney then went on to try to prove those particular, approvals. But in the meantime, I could not just sit there and twiddle my thumbs. So I had a warehouse. By the way warehouse that I was paying rent on. I had a warehouse full of merchandise that was just sitting there and that merchandise was sitting there waiting to be installed. And these were things that. 

I knew the client wanted in their home. It was accessories. It was side tables. It was lamps. It was a bookcases. It was all the things that we had discussed for their house to make it completely finished. And I'm talking probably at that point in the warehouse was probably. I would say around 65 or $70,000 worth of merchandise. 

And I started immediately reaching out to the vendors of the products of the things that were not custom. There were some custom things already there. 

That had been completed, but I decided to reach out to the vendors and try to start returning things that could be returned. So I reach out to these large vendors names that you very well know now. And I still use today and ask them, what are the opportunities for me to return these things? Of course, there are. 

Procedures and red tape to go through, but basically it came down to lots of restocking fees. I had to pay all the restocking fees. I had to pay all the shipping fees. I had to repackage everything. So I spent hours and hours and hours. Putting everything back onto a pallet, packaging, those back up, waiting for those to be picked up by FedEx or whatever truck was going to pick those up. 

And it was all encompassing just to get those back. And then, so when those charges started to be credited back to my credit card, Minus all of the fees. Of course, I did start to feel a little bit better about the situation. Mind you. There are still six figures in limbo with all of the custom items that are being produced in a factory. So all of the items that we had being produced include sofas and custom tables. And, and when I say sofas, I mean, very, very large sofas. 

Two of them. As a matter of fact, we're around 15 feet long. They were gorgeous. . I created a two sofas that faced each other. They were tufted. I had a gorgeous, gorgeous table that basically sat in the middle of these two sofas and it mimicked the shape of the two semi-circle sofa. So if you can envision that in your head, it was just amazing. And it was a very large room. So you didn't see that. I really had fun with that design and I had fun with all of that part of it. 

And there was a part of me that was. Not only, dying and withering away because of the financial strain, but also the designer, part of me was also dying and weathering away because I was losing all of the things that I was once. So excited about. So we move on, we move on, we move on and fast forward to the next section. And by the way, there's lots of crying on the floor. Bathroom moments here. There's lots of late night. 

Prayers. There's lots of, you know, pacing, the floors. There's lots of just, you know, all an out. Crying, fits anguish. I just got to the end of my ropes. And it was to the point where it was straining my marriage. It was straining my, of course, financial situation. We were young. We didn't have a lot of money anyway. And so it was just very difficult on, on myself and my husband too. 

To get through this. Thankfully, he was there for me. And was able to basically lift me up. When I was at my lowest point. So we. Worked through a lot of that together. And then the attorney is having conversations with the client's attorney. Really not getting anywhere, maybe a little bit here and there, but not very much because the client is not budging. 

And the attorney after about two months of back and forth, maybe three months, if I remember correctly, it was a while. Finally, the attorney comes to me, my attorney and says, John, I really don't see a way out of this. To our advantage. I cannot prove. What you were saying, and we really have to figure out another alternative. Would you be willing to reach out to the client directly and ask the client?

If we can resolve this separately. Without attorneys. And the attorney said, sometimes this does work. And the client, you know, might listen to you now that it's been awhile and that they've had time to cool off. 

So I texted the client. And basically said, hi, I'm reaching out I know it's been very difficult back and forth with the attorneys. Let's just get this resolved and move past it. What do we need to do to move past it without all of the attorney involvement? Because It's lasting so long. And I know we both just want to move on. And to my surprise, a couple of days later, I got a response. And the client said, yes, let's figure it out. How to move on. So that conversation started and then the client, and I basically worked out a couple of things on a text message and then attorney took over from there and of course added all of the legal documentation that was necessary to move forward. 

Now. That's not saying that this was a great resolution. It was not a great. Resolution. It was not a great resolution at all. For me, it was a resolution of. just trying to move on past this situation to free my brain space, to be able to move on with my life, to be able to take this albatross that was wrapped around my neck and finally get rid of it. 

And I knew that if I did not take the bull by the horns and do this myself, that this client could care less, if this went on forever, frankly, because they had people doing this for them, for me, I was the people I had no one else other than my attorney to lobby for me to take care of all the ins and outs. 

and essentially this new business of mine was on hold completely. So the client and I came to a resolution through the attorneys. And the resolution was this. Get a load of this. the client ended up. Agreeing to pay my cost. Yep. You heard that correctly. My costs for all remaining furniture. at this point, the client still wanted all of the furniture. The clients still wanted all the custom pieces. 

it did not want any of the items that were basically non-custom because I had already returned those, but the client did want all of the custom pieces that were made for their home, because again, they were custom and they would look great in their home and they knew that, and they knew that the quality of the design. 

Was great. And that was one thing that kind of perplex my attorney at one point. And they asked me, I don't know why this client still wants all of these pieces. And I said, well, they're really good pieces. They're really good designs. And the client knows that I'm a good designer, frankly. And the client knows that these pieces are going to look great in their home. 

So we agreed on this solution. The client would pay costs. I put my tail between my legs and sign the documents and we were ready to move forward. The client was going to buy. 

I think probably like six or seven sofas. some bookcases, some coffee tables, some end tables. some other random, pieces of custom furniture that were made. Perfect and wonderful. 

Sounds great. Right? Like ready to move forward. I don't care anymore. I cut my losses and move on. Get on with my life. That was my goal. So we set the installation date up. We're ready to do all of that. And then. And then, yeah, and this is my nervous laughter. 

I am preparing all of the moving trucks to go and pick up the merchandise at the factory to be delivered to the client's home. And then no kidding. The day before they were supposed to be picked up from the factory. The owner of the factory calls me. Crying and says, John, I'm watching my factory burned to the ground and all of your products are inside. 

I thought it was a joke. I thought. It was a prank. And I kept prying to the owner of the factory. And I said, are you, are you joking? Are you, you know, is this, why, why are you telling me this? And then when the owner just continued to burst out into tears and crying and saying it was not a joke, I knew that this was very, very serious. 

At that moment. All of this hurt all of this anger, all of this fear. All of this worry that I felt was about to be behind me. Was added back onto my shoulders and then I had to figure out another solution. I'm dealing with this owner's factory burning down, you know, trying to help them make them feel better. I'm dealing with my own emotions at the time and basically I'm numb. So I literally hang the phone up and I fall to the ground. I fall to the ground. And just start crying myself because I know what's about to happen. I know that this is going to rewind my entire process back. 

So so much. And we're going to basically have to start over. In a lot of ways. I reach out to my attorney after letting this all sink in and let the attorney know what happened. Of course, the attorney has the same feelings I do. But the attorney says we have to let the client know right away. The client did not believe me or the attorney. 

When we reached out the client thought we were lying. The client thought that we were just saying that because we didn't have the pieces. we had to actually approve via a news article via a online article that the factory was burnt down and we had to prove to them. That way because they were getting angrier. 

That this was now going to be delayed and they look to us as the fault of that. that lasted for a couple of days where we had to, again, prove that this was. A legitimate claim that factory did burn down and that everything that we had was inside of it. And, you know, we had to figure out a plan B. 

So I let the factory owner sort of gather themselves together for a week or so. And, and the other part too, by the way, lesson learned here, the factory did not have insurance. The factory owner did not have insurance on any of their products on their building. On anything. And as a young designer, I did not ask that question. I did not make them prove that lesson learned for you guys, listening. Now, you need to require that you see the insurance policy of the warehouse, that you are storing your merchandise in. 

And that that policy does cover. All of the things that you need to cover. There's too much to mention here in this one specific podcast. We can talk about that later, but, um, at the very least you need to insist on seeing the insurance policy of the warehouse who is storing your merchandise and to make sure that your products are covered for all types of incidents. 

once the factory owner got their bearings about themselves, they were actually able relocate to a temporary facility. And essentially start up their business again in a, in a loaner facility that someone had allowed them to use. Thank God. Right. That was great because not only , was it my products that were destroyed in the fire. Of course it was hundreds of other products that were destroyed and it was. 

Lots of orders that had to be fulfilled and this person didn't want to lose their entire livelihood. So they were able to sort of get back on track and start making those products again for me. Thank goodness. And about two months later, I would say we had all of the products again. We had every single product. 

Ready to go. Of course, during this time I had to provide updates to the client. I had to show them that we were diligently working on this, that we were actually, getting these things remade. The fire did destroy them. But once again, I should not cross this off of my list because it was still there and these were still pending. 

fast forward, once again, to the final install, we're ready do the installation. The custom furniture is ready to be delivered. I'm at the factory multiple times, checking on it. I go with the delivery team the day before we picked everything up. 

And then we. Get ready for the install the following day. And here is how the installation. Tell me if you had an installation like this, I hope not. And I doubt it. So here is what happens. I. Um, outside of the entrance to the client's neighborhood. 

And I'm waiting on the trucks. Here's what happens when we go to the client's home. So I pull in. With my car. The two moving trucks pull in behind me. And then the armed security guard. Yes. You heard that right. And armed a security guard. Comes in as the fourth vehicle. Because my attorney was apparently privy to some information where they did not trust this client to not do bodily harm to me and the other people there. So my attorney felt that it was important that I had an armed security person there. 

Because it turns out that the client also had an armed security person with them as well. quiet the situation, right? Quite the situation. So we go in, we unload all the furniture, put everything in place. Sign-offs are done. Money is wired. No one leaves the premises until my attorney confirms that the money is in the escrow account for all the products, the money's there I've now done my due diligence in the home. I've documented everything, taking videos, taking photos, taking every sort of documentation to prove that this products were put into the home. And then when I'm leaving the house and the client walks up to me and says, John, I really don't know how this got to this point. 

And. Extends their hand out to shake my hand. I do not shake their hand. And I say, I know exactly how this got to this point. And I turn around and I get into my car and I drive away. And. I left that open to interpretation because. I was not going to tell the client that this was all my fault. 

I wanted the client to know that this was some of their fault and it was, but primarily it was my fault. You guys, this was all on my shoulders. The reason that all of this happened. Was because of my negligence. Yes. I leave the premises. I start driving down the road. One tear falls, two tears, fall three tears fall. before I know it, I am. 

Crying like a baby. I can't even see the road. And I remember exactly the spot on the road. I could take you guys there right now where I was. And I pull over to the side of the road. And I just let it all out. I let out. Probably at this point, about six months worth of fear and anger and timidness and overwhelm. 

And just pure hatred. Sometimes I let it all out and I let everything come out of me. And it just is a cleansing cleansing moment. And I know sometimes we have to do that and I know sometimes it's necessary. But I don't like the fact that it was necessary because of something that was preventable. so after I dried my tears, 

And pull myself together. And crank the car and started driving again. I instantly knew that I had two choices. I could either. Forget about all of this and change careers completely and never, ever operated business again and call this a failure and call myself a failure and say, forget it, John. You really screwed up and you can not ever do this again and move on past it. 

And try something different and work for someone else for the rest of your life. Or I could pick myself up by my bootstraps. I could figure out what I did wrong. I can make a plan to change things I could. Come up with. All of the procedures and processes and rules rules. Yes. Imagine that rules from my company. I could come up with my own rules for my own company, that people and clients and everyone who worked with me had to follow. 

And see how that worked. And that's what I decided to do. That's it. So I had about a two hour drive home and on that two hours, I mentally. I made a list of all the things that I needed to do to make my company transform. From this horrible disaster from this horrible failure to a thriving, successful company that other people wanted to emulate. And I, at that point I never saw. 

How someone would ever want to emulate what I was doing. I never ever thought that someone would ever look to me as a source of inspiration, because of all the bad things that I had done, but I pulled my phone out I started just speaking into my phone and I was recording these memos. 

 So during that two hour drive, I basically started all of the. Systems and processes that I now have for my company. This was the beginning of that. This was the first step. 

That I needed to take, to actually give my company organization to give myself a platform, to work with my clients better, to have successful projects, to make sure from start to finish that. Every single thing was accounted for in there. And as I made this list and as I went through it, 

I could've kicked myself so many times for all of the balls that I dropped. I could have avoided so much heartache had, I just had these things in place. From that moment, I knew that I would never, ever go back to that again. And then once I got back home, I even worked on it more. I sat down and started typing out more on my computer and was just over flowing with information of things that I wanted to include and all of my steps that I have now in place for, for my project journey, which I have 18 steps that I use for my project journey from beginning to end, nothing is lost. 

Nothing is forgotten. Every single thing is accounted for. I have a process for my process. Every single thing that we do as a company is now documented. But the most important thing that came out of this for me was the value of a good agreement. The value of a good contract. Aye. Totally. Totally underestimated the value of a. 

Quality written agreement. My agreement now is unapologetically. 26 pages, depending upon the length of the scope of work that our client has given us. But around 26 or 27 pages, is the length of our agreement. I say that with all the competence in the world, because I don't care. That's my agreement. My agreement is my agreement. I write it because I want clarity. I want transparency. I had my attorney review it. It is literally an amalgam of. 

All of the agreements that I've have ever been exposed to and agreements that I have. read over the years and agreement that my attorney has given me and then situations that have happened to me, but these are all of the things that I wanted to include in the agreement. And my agreement is very easy to read. It's not difficult. There's no one ever going to say, oh, I really don't understand what that means because I write it in the form of easy understanding. I write it in layman's terms. There's not any jargon inside of it. And I even take what I considered, quote unquote difficult phrases and explain them even further with examples. So my takeaways from that experience were so many, and you're probably going to hear little pieces of that in. 

Every episode of every podcast that I ever do. But, um, the videos take away from me. And I hope for you too, if you don't have one, is that my agreement is the backbone of my company. My agreement is the backbone of every single thing that I do with a client, every single interaction. It is what I revert back to it is your silent business partner. 

It is your, foundation it keeps you on track. It keeps your client on track. It lets the client know what your expectations are. It lets you know what the client's expectations are. There's no vagueness whatsoever. And the clarity. And the transparency that I have in my agreement allows me to lay my head on my pillow. 

Every single night and never, ever, ever wonder if a client is going to call, cursing me threatening me anything. , I use my agreement as the strong foundation of my company. And it is the thing that does protect me. And I urge you, if you do not have a strong agreement, or if you don't have an agreement at all, you definitely must have something. Please get something. 

Agreements are so critical. But maybe even if you do have an agreement, it's time that you take a look at it and go back over your agreement and just give it a review, give it a once-over find out if there's something that you need to add back into it. 

For example, during the pandemic, everyone added a force majeure clause into their agreements. If it was not in there, that covered things as acts of God and pandemics and all the things that could basically stop your project. So that was something that was possibly not in a lot of agreements at the time. 

And a lot of people went back in and added those in there. Again, I had a lot of learning lessons from this horrible, horrible, massively, horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible situation. But, um, the takeaways from it were wonderful. And as I said before, it took a long time before I could even speak about this situation before I could even speak to my husband about it. 

We had an internal. Code system where we would not even talk about this particular client or this situation, but now I'm on a mission to share this with you to share this with the world. That is where the designer within business came from. It came from the fact that. I had this huge learning experience. And I developed these systems that have allowed my company to run. 

So smoothly. And I won't say it's perfect because no company runs perfectly, but I'm very proud of where we are as a, as a business and as a company and my team is happy, our clients are happy and I never, again, have to wonder if something is going to go awry. If I'm going to get a, you know, a bad message from a client, I just, I just don't. 

And that to me is worth. All the things in the world to know that I've set up my business in a way. That protects everybody involved and that the end result is a successful project. And I, I tell a client, I want all the warm and fuzzies. I want to see you in the grocery store 

and I want you to come up and hug me or shake my hand and say, hi, I don't want you to turn the other way. And that is the goal as a business owner is to achieve both of those things as a successful business and providing a service or a product, and also the relationships that you develop, those should only. 

Grow, and you should foster those relationships and those relationships should turn into more referrals. And now I can thankfully say we're about a 75% referral based business, which is wonderful to say that our past clients tend to need to refer new clients to us. And that is Testament to the fact that we thankfully do things the right way. 

So I want you to take this. As a wake-up call for yourself. I want you to listen to my horror story and ask yourself. Are there any holes in your business right now? Where this could happen to you. Are there any holes in your agreement right now that would allow something similar to happen? Are there any ways that you operate or run your business? 

That would leave a door open for a potential issue or. God help us. I catastrophe It's hard to ask yourself those things, but it's almost like an insurance policy where you sit down and you review all of the ways that you run your company and the contract that you have and the agreement that you worked with. 

And ask yourself, is this functioning for me the way that it should. And is it functioning for me in the best possible way to protect myself? And my company and my employees. 

Also, if you don't work regularly with an attorney, I do suggest that you do have an attorney that you can consult with to review your agreement, review your contracts, review any sort of legal questions that you have. That should be the final final say. So of course I am not an attorney. I cannot give you legal advice, but your attorney should be able to review your agreement or provide you with an agreement and give you all of the information that you need to. 

Successfully provide something to yourself and your clients so that you are protected and your client is protected. if you are at a complete loss. You can purchase interior design agreements online. I have some for sale on my website. There is of course, other websites, ASI D that has a interior design agreements for sell, but you can find something as a starting point. Take that. 

Edit it, as you wish speak with your attorney, have that agreement drawn up with your attorney, put in any clauses that you feel are important for your business, and then have your attorney give the final seal of approval. 

I hope this has helped you. I hope that we have ended on a high note. 

 And I have to say there was one theme song that kept going through my head the entire time that I was going through all of the difficulties with this particular client It was from Taylor swift and it was mean, and it just sort of made me feel so much better about this client at the time. , but that song was sort of the Anthem song for getting me through this bad situation. So thanks Taylor swift for that. 

I know it was a little dismal in the beginning, but I feel that every bad story should have a happy ending. 

And I'm still thankful to say that my sad story does have a happy ending. I'm a business coach. Now I'm sharing all of my knowledge with all of you and I'm doing this podcast as part of that outreach to. Prevent this from happening and occurring again with other people. And I really do hope that you've taken one kernel of knowledge from it today. And if you've done that, then you're already winning. So come back and visit me every week. We're going to be doing a brand new podcast once a week. And every single podcast is going to have lots of actionable items, lots of takeaways. 

It's going to be all direct things that you can apply. To your business. And I'm so happy that you have decided to join me on this first podcast of the designer within business. 

Thank you again for joining me and I will see you next time on the designer within podcast. I'm John McClain. Keep growing, keep learning and keep designing. 

Thanks for sticking with me to the end of the designer within podcast. It means the world to me. If you're ready to dive deeper into the topics that we've discussed here, be sure to check out my online coaching and courses program, design success academy. com here. I will teach you everything you need to know to run your interior design business.

From starting the project all the way to the end, including marketing and pricing your services for profit. And for more information on this podcast, including how to be a guest or my design services in general, go to johnmcclain. co. That's johnmcclain. co. See you soon, friend.