What a Business Owner Holds That No One Else Can

Why Do Business Owners Make Better Design Partners?

[Randi Lynn Johnson]: Robin, you often say that you love working with business owners. You are a business owner, you think like business owners — but why do you like to work with business owners?

[Robin Pasley]: We've done corporate jobs where we had to work with a board — maybe even a nonprofit, same kind of thing — and that's all fine and good. They're good organizations doing good work and we want to partner with them. But it's different than working with the person who sweats over the business. They wake up in the middle of the night. I totally identify with them — that's part of it. But the other part is that's where I find the heart of the business. Even if they've grown to the level where they have a COO, a CEO, and whatever else, if we can get a conversation with that owner, I find that we can get to the heart of the company and pull out information that is going to be vital to the commercial interior design.

What Does Only a Business Owner Actually Hold?

[Randi Lynn Johnson]: Because if the business owner has done their job well, everyone on their team should be able to say what their vision statement is, what they are about — but there's something special that only a business owner holds.

[Robin Pasley]: I think so. The mission, vision, and values — if they've been training their team well, the whole team can tell you what those things are, or at least find the sign or placard somewhere in the building where they're stated. But it's different when I get to connect business owner to business owner and just listen to their heart — why did they start this business, why did they buy it, what attracted them to the industry, whatever the story is. Then we can draw out elements and weave them into the narrative of the design. This is something you do, like in the process of crafting brand identity through creative design — that first interview, "tell me your story, what's your brand" — and if they don't have it, you help them.

[Randi Lynn Johnson]: So you're able to draw out what you're going to incorporate into the design — and that part, I think, is just unique.

How Does Operations and HR Fit Into the Design Process?

[Robin Pasley]: A CEO, somebody in charge of operations — that's who we often get assigned to in a corporate situation. Maybe it's someone over HR, because they're handling things with people. Those people are awesome and we have to work with them to get the job done. Their perspective is important and we will definitely take that. But the business owner is going to have a richer starting point — at least a rich foundation — for us to build our design from. Then incorporating the functionality: a lot of that does come from operations and HR, because if we're designing a space that's really going to help them keep their best employees, I need to sit down with HR and find out — who are your best employees, where are the weak spots, what can we do with space planning and environment planning to enrich that and make it better? Same with operations: where's the flow, how is your team working together, what have been the bottlenecks, where could we increase efficiency, what's missing — whether that's storage or whatever the situation is. Those people help us. It's not that their positions aren't important. It's just that in a bigger design project, we often get pushed to those people and told "you don't need to talk to the owner" — and we've found it to be vital to stay in touch with them.

[Randi Lynn Johnson]: Yeah — so to bring you in from the beginning. Work closely with the COO or whoever, but you really do value having that first conversation, even just for an hour and a half — which I know is important time for an owner.

[Robin Pasley]: It's important time. But if we look at it through the right lens — like we've talked about, interior design is an investment, not a cost — it's also an investment of their time. If we want maximum output, we have to have the important pieces.

[Randi Lynn Johnson]: Cool. Anything else to add about the benefits of working with the business owner?

How Does Spatial Branding Begin With the Owner's Story?

[Robin Pasley]: Getting to the heart of the business — that piece I mentioned earlier — I think sometimes we find that we can draw out a unique element that might have even been missed in branding previously. That's something unique or special. We always want to make sure that if there are accolades or recognition that company has received — locally or nationally — we're able to feature those things. Sometimes there's an awareness the owner has about the company that isn't mentioned in their mission, vision, and values. It's something unique to their perspective, and I think it's necessary to help us round out the whole picture — making sure we're thinking about what's important to them first. That's really the core of spatial branding: it starts with that founder's perspective, which is something we explored in the episode on business identity and how defining who you are shapes everything that follows.