Business of Home, Kaitlin Petersen
191 episodes listed below
Interior design business, told through real firm decisions.
Trade Tales follows interior designers through the operational decisions that shape a creative business. Episodes move from real problems such as first hires, client questionnaires, presentations, delegation, and partnership into grounded advice about process, money, team structure, and growth.
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Trade Tales looks at interior design from the business side of the studio door. The concerns are concrete. A designer is hiring for the first time and feels the weight of shaping someone else's career. A firm wants a client questionnaire that can reveal taste, hesitation, and the guardrails around what a client does not want. Another designer wonders whether a more structured presentation process would save time or drain the joy from collaboration. These are not abstract growth lessons. They are the small, consequential choices that decide how a creative firm actually functions.
Caitlin Peterson, the Editor-in-Chief of Business of Home, gives the show a warm but focused editorial frame. She tends to set up the stakes carefully, then lets designers explain the systems, meetings, documents, and judgment calls behind their work. The Ask Us Anything format adds a useful second mode, bringing anonymous questions about hiring, process, growth, and client management to Trade Tales guests for practical response. It keeps the show grounded in the worries designers may not want to say out loud.
Recent episodes return often to process as a form of care. Kobel & Co. describes listening closely enough to translate client reactions into a shared design direction. Alison Giese and Chloe Redmond Warner talk through presentation structure, style guides, palettes, and the difference between useful collaboration and infinite options. Jess Ebert's episode turns delegation into a question of longevity, ownership, and what happens when an operations manager starts running the Monday meeting. Melissa Oholendt connects creative direction to money conversations, partnership, and building a firm through change. Alex Kaehler's Ask Us Anything episode considers strategic growth for a designer who does not want to lose direct contact with clients.
The show suits listeners who care about interiors but need more than inspiration images. It is about hiring slowly, presenting clearly, setting client expectations, narrowing options, protecting creative energy, and deciding what kind of firm is worth building. Trade Tales is brisk, polished, and personable, but its strongest moments are practical: the point where a designer explains the exact workflow that made the business easier to run.
Made for: Trade Tales is for interior designers, studio owners, and design professionals trying to make better decisions about clients, teams, process, and growth. It especially suits listeners who want practical business perspective without losing the creative stakes.
What sets it apart: The show stands apart by treating firm operations as lived experience rather than generic advice. Its best episodes turn hiring, presentation structure, delegation, and client intake into specific workflows that working designers can compare against their own.
Business of Home's editor in chief Kaitlin Petersen talks to interior designers about nurturing creativity, finding a firm’s financial footing, setting goals and discovering their own version of success as a result.
Based on 5 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Trade Tales gives interior design's business decisions the same close attention usually reserved for the finished room.
Trade Tales follows the decisions that turn an interior design practice into a functioning firm. Caitlin Peterson speaks with designers about client presentations, hiring, delegation, and the systems that shape creative work.
Trade Tales turns a client questionnaire into the moment your process finally gets guardrails.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A careful, practical guide to making a first full-time hire.
Trade Tales treats a firm's first full-time hire as a real business decision, not a checkbox. It connects the choice to workload, culture, and the other person's career, and the hiring process feels grounded for it.
Trade Tales turns a client-facing design process into a lesson in trust and taste.
Trade Tales treats a client-facing design process as a study in trust and taste inside a design firm. It works best when it stays close to the people in the room: listening, taking notes, then shaping those notes into something the client can actually use later.
A clear look at when collaboration helps a design process and when it starts to slow it down.
An Ask Us Anything episode from Business of Home turns on a design business question: how far a collaborative process should go, and when it stops helping the work.
A practical case for letting the firm carry more than the founder.
The episode takes a familiar design-business question and makes it feel immediate: what happens when growth starts to hurt the work? The guest walks through a sharp turn from more clients to a narrower pipeline, then into the harder problem of building a firm that does not send…
A practical case for keeping design-process structure tight without losing judgment.
Trade Tales takes a familiar design-business problem and gives it a useful shape: after onboarding, how much structure is enough to keep a project moving without squeezing out the work itself?
Real talk for veterinary practice leaders.
Sales systems for serious electrical contractors.
A first full-time hire feels heavy.
The process gets a second look.
A designer hears another process and gets rattled.
Delegation changes the shape of a design firm.
Structure is the question after the yes.
An interior designer discusses how she navigates financial conversations with clients and the business changes her firm has undergone.
A solo interior designer seeks advice on growing her firm while maintaining creative connection with clients.
Interior designers discuss building a design firm, balancing creativity with business, and finding success.
A designer seeks advice on sourcing antique and vintage pieces for client projects, focusing on the approval and purchasing process.
Interior designers discuss how they overhauled their firm's structure to boost team morale after realizing success didn't guarantee happiness.
A designer seeks advice on rebuilding her client pipeline after a sudden slowdown in referrals.
Host Kaitlin Peterson interviews interior designers about the business challenges and strategies behind growing a design firm.
A designer seeks advice on getting her work published, with tips from an experienced designer on navigating media opportunities.
A designer shares her struggle with pricing and client acquisition as she tries to elevate her interior design firm.
A live episode where interior designers answer audience questions about building a better design business.
A designer discusses challenges in expanding her team post-COVID, emphasizing the need for in-person collaboration in interior design.
This episode features Dwayne Bergmann discussing a designer's opportunity to purchase her boss's firm, exploring the process, questions, and considerations involved in such a business acquisition.
This episode features an interview with designer Dwayne Bergmann discussing how acquiring another design firm helped him reconnect with his creativity while navigating the challenges of business growth in the interior design industry.
An interior designer seeks advice on obtaining insurance coverage for client items stored in a warehouse.
Host Kaitlin Peterson discusses building a better design business with interior designers, focusing on creativity, finances, and systems.
This live episode at High Point Market features Arianne Bellizaire and Cortney Bishop answering designer questions to help build a better design business.
A designer shares her struggle with hiring and leadership, and how she rebuilt her firm after nearly closing it.
This episode addresses a designer's question about managing storage and receiving logistics for multiple upcoming projects while controlling costs and maintaining sanity.
An interior designer shares her experience of hitting a wall from rapid growth and deciding to pause her business to find fulfillment.
A designer seeks advice on managing a difficult contractor relationship in an interior design project.
This episode features an interview with designer Adam Hunter, who discusses how setting better boundaries helped him rediscover his passion for his business, drawing parallels between his Broadway background and interior design career.
A designer seeks advice on whether to charge for consultations before clients sign on, discussing fee communication and client vetting.
An interior designer discusses shifting to a flat fee model and rebuilding her business after pandemic disruptions.
A designer seeks advice on holding vendors accountable after a custom chair order goes wrong.
Host Kaitlin Peterson interviews interior designers about business challenges, pivots, and growth strategies.