Hot Young Designers Club | Interior Design Business Podcast · Hot Young Designers Club

165: We're not in the business of decorating assholes with Heather KW Styles & Studio Laloc

·1 hr 36 min·3 clips

They want to leave the desk up with their setup for Monday through Friday, so I need a leg that looks like furniture, not hydraulic arms.

Rebecca basically has to hit record because the room is already mid-conversation. It fits the show: designer friends talking over each other, making quick jokes, and somehow landing on useful business advice. Video has joined the setup. Lauren explains that Studio Laloc is based in Seattle with Brooklyn roots, and the group immediately turns that into a goofy international bit. The first stretch feels like a studio group chat, with everyone correcting, adding to, and reviving the same joke before the episode finds its business point. That point is client trust. The strongest section is about showing one best design instead of crowding the presentation with weaker cheaper options. The thinking is simple and useful. If the designer knows the likely costs before the meeting, the client can fall for the right solution before the trimming starts. That changes the whole tone. Door handles, hinges, fabrics, and draperies stop feeling like apologies and start feeling like choices. The drapery example is the cleanest version of it. A quote comes back lower than expected, so the designer suggests the upgraded Schumacher fabric they both liked better. The client says yes without much drama because she had already accepted the budget range in her head. That is the better kind of upsell. It is not about chasing the priciest thing for sport. It is about giving the client enough clarity to spend well without panicking. Then the episode wanders back to nonsense in the best way. The bob jokes come back, the group riffs on renaming a Marco Polo chat, and it ends like a Friday studio debrief that accidentally taught a pricing lesson.

As heard by us

A practical look at selling stronger design without getting trapped by price.

This episode looks at how interior designers can sell the better answer without getting dragged down into the cheapest one. Lauren Karen lays out a simple approach: bring one strong design forward, keep a realistic range in view, and give clients room to choose the upgrade once…

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Why you'd press play

You need pricing language that helps clients choose the stronger option.

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