Welcome to Return on Design, the podcast where beauty meets strategy and interiors become assets that perform. I’m your host, Rachel Niederhofer, designer, investor and builder of high impact spaces that deliver real results. Alongside my husband, I run both a design firm and a real estate investment company, where I live at the intersection of creativity and ROI every day. Each week, I’ll be unpacking what most people overlook: how strategic design decisions can grow your investment, elevate your lifestyle and unlock the full potential of your property.
Most people think collaboration means more expenses, bigger invoices, and more time. It is actually the opposite. Learning how to build a strong team is what saves money, because the most expensive part of any renovation or investment project is the mistake made mid-project, and the right team is what keeps those mistakes from happening in the first place.
Learning how to build a strong team is not about hiring the most people. It is about hiring the right ones, setting clear expectations with them, and building the kind of relationships that make them want to work with you again on the next project.
Collaboration is not an expense. It is how the biggest wins in design, construction, and real estate investing actually happen, because they come from having the right people in the room from the start, not from adding people on top of a project that already went sideways.
It can look like you are spending more upfront on planning and the right partners. What you are actually doing is paying ahead of time for the mistakes that never happen. Those mid-project corrections, the ones that show up once walls are already open, are where money actually leaks out of a budget. Knowing how to build a strong team from the first conversation is what prevents that cost from showing up later.
On large corporate projects, spending six to eight months planning before six to eight months of execution routinely saved two to three months on the back end. The planning time was spent discussing what would happen if specific problems came up, so the team already had an answer the moment one of them did, instead of figuring it out live. That same discipline shows up in Return on Design: the planning itself is part of the return.
Failing to plan is planning to fail, and no plan survives contact with an actual renovation perfectly. The projects that go smoothly are not the ones where nothing goes wrong. They are the ones where the team already discussed what to do when something does.
On one kitchen renovation, the initial design and strategy were strong, but roughly a quarter of the time, construction surfaces a situation that requires a pivot. Because a backup plan already existed within the original design structure, the team could shift quickly without adding scope or cost.
The same thing happens on a smaller scale. A planned tile layout can run into something a tile tradesman catches that the designer didn’t anticipate. The fix is a quick phone call and a fast decision, not a redesign, because the team is aligned enough to solve it together instead of starting over.
On one shower project, an unanticipated issue could have cost roughly three times the original plan if it had turned into a full gut job. Working collaboratively with the tradesperson on-site instead produced a creative fix that solved the real problem without the bigger demolition.
Clarity is where a strong team starts. Everyone needs to know their role and how it affects everyone else’s, the way a shortstop and a catcher both know their job on a baseball team without being told twice. Trust comes next: you hired someone for their expertise, so let them use it instead of micromanaging every decision.
A team is only as strong as the weakest member of the team.
Return on Design, Episode 10
The best team members think from a problem-solving initiative. They don’t just bring you a problem, they identify it and bring a resolution with it. And when something does go wrong, the people worth keeping on your team are the ones who own it: they say what happened, propose the fix, and follow through.
The same patterns show up again and again on projects that go over budget or run long, and they are almost always about the people, not the plan.
None of this means you need the biggest team or the most expensive one. It means building the team with intentionality, because the better your team, the more freedom and profitability the project actually has.
People who think from a problem solving initiative already, those are your A team qualifiers, the people who can not just bring you a problem, but bring you identify a problem and bring you a resolution.
And in building that team, you know, in building that team, I’m going to say sometimes there are hiccups. Yeah. We’re human. We make mistakes. But if we can learn from them and we can get past that and go on, I think we can build some of those teams. And it’s the guys that are willing to say, hey, I messed up here, we can fix this, we can continue on, and hey, this is kind of the solution I’m proposing to it. Yeah. Those are the ones that a lot of times develop, truly develop into your A team because they’re willing to stand up.
Welcome to Return on Design, the podcast where beauty meets strategy and interiors become assets that perform. I’m your host, Rachel Niederhofer, designer, investor and builder of high impact spaces that deliver real results. Alongside my husband, I run both a design firm and a real estate investment company where I live at the intersection of creativity and ROI every day. Each week I’ll be unpacking what most people overlook, how strategic design decisions can grow your investment, elevate your lifestyle and unlock the full potential of your property. You’ll get real tools, proven strategies and unfiltered conversations with industry experts who are doing it right. So if you’re ready to invest with purpose and leverage design as a powerful tool, this podcast is for you. Most people think that collaboration means more expenses, bigger invoices and more time. But in actuality, building a strong team that can collaborate will actually put more money in your pocket.
So the biggest wins that we’ve had in business and design and real estate have all come from having the right people in the room at the start. Collaboration is not an expense, but it’s leverage.
So on today’s episode, we will be breaking down how to build a strong team, how to collaborate with others on the project to ensure a smoother process and multiply your time and money. Why collaboration matters, you might be asking. Truth be that when you actually put in the time and energy to build out strong relationships, collaborate with other builders, tradespeople, agents, stagers, whatever it might be, designers for sure. It will actually make your entire building process or renovation process go smoother. Having the right people, the right tradespeople, the right experts who can lend to each category is going to definitely have a multiplication effect when it comes to your results, your time, your energy, your sanity, and for sure the money you’re investing in your project.
And fewer mistakes. True. And those fewer mistakes that are made because you had the right people to come in and everybody was on the same page in alignment of what the vision, what the goal was for this project. Those fewer mistakes are where your money is actually saved. It seems like you’re spending more in planning, but what you’re doing is actually being ready for those spots in the middle that cost the most.
Yeah, I mean, no one builds anything great alone, the saying Rome wasn’t built in a day. I mean, real comprehensive projects take team effort, planning, execution, collaboration, not just with your tradespeople, but also with your the owner. So whether you’re the homeowner working with the team or you’re the investor, being proactive and working with the right people in their field of expertise is always a win-win.
Yeah, we’ve said it many times before, trusting the process. It is a process to lay out the plan. Yeah, you know, I’ve had projects I’ve worked on back in, you know, some like corporate work, you know, multi-million dollar projects, and we would spend six, eight months planning the project to then go spend six, eight months in the actual execution of it. But those six months that we spent planning probably saved us two to three months in the execution because we knew if we had this issue, we could pivot here. We discussed many of the pain points of if this project, if this problem were to arise, how can we adjust to it versus in projects where those discussions weren’t had, cost us huge in the end of trying to pivot and make it right in the moment.
Mm -hmm, yeah. I mean, I can think back on the projects we worked where, you know, we had that pretty extensive kitchen renovation. And we had a goal like sort of a point A target of this is really what we want to achieve. And that initial planning and fourth thought collaboratively helped us devise like a really good strategy. But then you get into the thick of the construction process and, you know, probably 25% of the time, you could run into a situation where you have to pivot. And having that plan B already within our strategy approach helped us pivot faster, knowing like, okay, if this initial plan doesn’t work out, like this would be plan B, and we kind of already have the baseline of the design structure so we know we can shift quickly if we have to. Another example.
Well, with that, though, like, you know, if somebody comes, if your designer comes at you with a, hey, if we have to do this, we can tweak here. I’m going to tell you right now, failing to plan is planning to fail. Because no plan has ever gone 100% the way it was laid out on paper. There’s always something that has to be tweaked a little bit. But if you can’t account for some of that, you’re planning to fail from the get go.
And that can be on a large scale or small. I mean, I’ve had times too where I want to plan the tile application a certain way, like maybe, you know, in laying a design within the subway tile as one example. And then something comes up that I didn’t see that the tile tradesman saw. And now it’s a phone call of, hey, what do you want us to do? And being able to pivot quickly, not add more cost or scope to the work. And yeah, I mean, it matters for sure, because it can snowball. We always talk about that snowball effect.
Yeah. When you’re a designer and your contractor are aligned on the project and plans are in place, even sometimes yes, that backup plan, what you’ve paid for in the planning process saves you those mid project changes. And that truly is where your money is set.
And really, I mean, we haven’t experienced this necessarily personally, but I’ve seen where there can be the wrong team together. And it actually can be quite a detriment to the client, where maybe the builder or the contractor and the designer can’t seem to collaborate and work together well. And that can add tremendous stress, slow down the project. So not just the effort of collaborating, I would say, but even the next level of like, together, cohesively making sure it’s the people who can actually work together, not everyone can. I mean, we see it in it with agents that can be so difficult, they don’t ever want to, might be stuck into a different topic there.
But yeah, I think your team, you know, a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. A team is only as strong as the weakest member of the team. And sometimes the wrong teammate in the project can cause a whole lot more problems. And just not that they’re bad at what they do, it’s just that they’re not the one that can work cohesively in that unit.
Yeah, I mean, even as one more story, you know, in our investment business, we’ve had situations where we brought in maybe a new team member, and they just couldn’t acclimate with the existing team and ended up costing us more time. Yeah. And we had to pivot.
Yeah, so I mean, with that, how do you build the right team? Some of the best teams are built with clarity. You’ve got to clearly communicate what your role and function is. And everyone, surely everyone on the team knows their role, what their job is, and how their role affects everybody else. You know, if you throw a sports metaphor in there for, you know, baseball team, the shortstop’s not your catcher, it’s your shortstop. Your pitchers, your pitcher, not your center fielder. They know where they’re going and they know what they do and they do their job so that the entire team functions together.
Yeah, we have seen bad teams on multiple levels, like extremes of investors who were actually not really managing their own projects. They put too much weight into their contractor who only wants maybe their defined team involved. That’s usually a recipe for disaster. We’ve also seen it on the end of building, you know, and
Another aspect to that team though is trust. Oh, it’s huge. You have to be able to trust your team. If you can’t trust your team, if you’re constantly double checking or micromanaging them, then we have an issue. You know, you’ve hired people for their expertise. Hopefully. Hopefully. You should be. Yeah. But if you’re hiring somebody for their expertise, then that’s what you’re, then let them do that. Let them do what you’ve hired them to do.
I feel like this is more of a conversation towards industry than it is individual, just in my opinion. Because you need a project manager. Yes. And every project needs a project manager. But if you’re a homeowner, it’s really not your job to be building out the team. It’s your point of contact, your project manager that should be building out that team. And that’s what we do for our clients. But then on the investor side or professional side, you have to take ownership of your project. That is how you’re going to maintain control, really. Be able to keep a better grip on the monetization aspect of your project. And it happens way too often where investors are not hands-on enough. They don’t know enough about the space. They’re not overseeing their projects enough. They’re spending way too much money and they’re losing control due to timelines that they should be able to manage it better. So, how do you build that team? If you’re an investor or even a builder or contractor, how do you build that team of people who are loyal to you, who are available?
I mean, how do that honestly come from setting the standard up front? This is the expectation that we talked about clarity, communication, collaboration. I’m hiring somebody for a specific job that that’s what I’m expecting them to do and I’m expecting them to bring their expertise into it. I also don’t micromanage how they’re doing it. As we’ve talked about before, I’m not telling my mechanic how to fix my truck. That’s what I’m paying him for. But at the same time, I’m working to build a team that is going to work together, work with me and understands what I need and what I need it. And as an investor, as a project manager, I’m looking for people that are willing to work with me for more than just this project. Because I want this guy that I can call today and call him next week for the next project.
Yeah, like cast that vision. We’re building a long-term relationship. Exactly.
Yeah. He’s catching wind of, this is my goal. As a homeowner, you’re looking for an industry professional, be it your designer or if you’re just working, if you are just working with a contractor, somebody who has that same team.
Who can solve problems.
Who can solve the problem for you.
Who has solutions. Yeah. I know for me, too, as a female in the space, just even as a designer, working with new teams and expanding relationships, as I’ve gone into new geographical areas, it has been critical to set that precedent very early on of how the project’s going to function, what the order of operation is. And that has actually helped me define who I want to work with, where I can weed out pretty early on. Are they going to be able to respect me as a level of leadership over the project? Is that going to be something that they can get on board and collaborate with? If not early on, you’ve got to definitely get that out of the scenario because that will hinder the project.
Yeah. And another thing for me is the alignment on final goals and understanding that the team, my contractors, the guys that I’m managing on a project, they win when I win, too. And I win when they win. They don’t win just because they build hours. They build me for a project. But they’re winning because they know that they’ve provided the service to a standard and a level that is going to earn and demand more in the end, especially for me as an investor or in our design aspect. I want to be able to call the same guy, the same tile guy. Let’s just, for example, to come do your house as my client, but also this house over here that I’m doing for me, that I’m investing in. I’m not just going to call you for the one-off. I don’t want to just call you for the one-off. I want to be able to call you again and again and again. And I want, and that teammate needs to understand that’s who I’m working with.
Yeah, that consistency and building that rapport, that working relationship, I think one more thing I would add to that, too, is building that a team is working with being able to define who can pivot and be fluid and who can’t. Because there are times when we might, as an investor, need to evaluate something within the scope of the job that might require a little more creativity in terms of problem-solving and having someone that can think in that realm, like tile-wise, the shower that we’ve had on a project where we had to reassess something we weren’t anticipating on doing that could have cost us three times as much as it did. Because we had to be able to work collaboratively with the tradesmen of, hey, this is our goal. How can we creatively solve this issue without just a complete gut job? And people who are more fluid are people you want to hold on to because they think more conceptually and they’re open to being challenged on a way that maybe they haven’t done something before. Yeah, which that type of characteristic that you find in your A team members, their willingness to be creative in problem-solving and have that fluid response when needed is key because it’s really about you being able to lead them down a path. I’m flandering on that.
You’ve got to be able to lead. And leading doesn’t mean micromanaging. If I have to tell you how to do everything, then what good are you to me as a teammate?
Right. Then you’re just executing labor. Yeah. Your A team should be adding value to your strategy to that bottom line.
We always say you’re the CEO of your project, which means you need to be able to communicate the numbers, the timelines, the expected outcomes, not necessarily always how to do this piece. I think you need to be at least from our standpoint as investors and designers, we have to have a good level of understanding of how to do it, but it doesn’t mean I’m necessarily the expert in doing it. Exactly. I always loved managing some of these big projects and it’s like, oh, a problem arises and my team comes to me with, hey, here’s the problem and here are a few solutions that we see based upon what we have, what we know, and what we’ve done in the past. From your aspect now, what do you think and how do we go forward so that we can quickly make the shift that was necessary and do it effectively, efficiently and time cost and all aspects of the project so that we are able to continue moving forward.
Yeah, people who think from a problem solving initiative already, those are your A team qualifiers, the people who can not just bring you a problem, but identify a problem and bring you a resolution.
In building that team, I’m going to say sometimes there are hiccups. We’re human, we make mistakes, but if we can learn from it and we can get past that and go on, I think we can build some of those teams. It’s the guys that are willing to say, hey, I messed up here, we can fix this, we can continue on and, hey, this is the solution I’m proposing to it. Those are the ones that a lot of times truly develop into your A team because they’re willing to stand up, they’re willing to make the adjustments, they’re willing to take on and they sink.
Yeah, which is actually a perfect identifying mark of who’s not qualified to be on your A team. People who are not, who are the opposite, who lack the character to fulfill the job, to follow through on what they say, to be available. Unfortunately, I point that out because it’s a very real mistakes
We’ve made in this collaboration journey of figuring it out.
But if something happens and let’s say our electrician misses something and then we call him and he answers and he’s like, oh, I’ll be there to fix it immediately. He is now in that list of good team collaboration versus somebody who didn’t complete a job and now they’ve ghosted you and they don’t want to answer the phone and you never see them again. The industry in itself is too small for that type of behavior anyways because word gets around. That really brings us to our next point of how to avoid mistakes like some of the biggest pitfalls when it comes to collaboration. I think the number one for sure is ego. People who are egocentric typically do not make good collaborative partners.
And by that is the guy who, I can do it all.
Yes. Nobody can do it all. They may have a network, a Rolodex if you will, as they should of partners that they can collaborate with to get things done.
Remember the jack of all trades is a master of none. True. So the guy that says he can do it all may not be able to do the best job for everything.
And we’ve learned the hard way on that.
I’ve hired him before on accident.
It costs us money. It costs us time because at the end of the day, no one’s going to work harder on your project than you. No one’s going to work harder than the one who has all the financial money invested in it. As investors, I mean, we’ve learned like, okay, yeah, this guy bit off more than he could chew and we fell for it. We’re going to clean up the mess.
He didn’t delegate or I didn’t delegate enough. So therefore wound up biting me. And you hurt your potentials. Second, hiring based on personality versus abilities. Yeah. You know, I really like, I just really like it. There’s something about him. There’s something about him. You know, there might be, but there’s still a point where you’ve got to be able to get the job done.
Yeah. Yeah. And we’ve talked about that before in our designer episode, like you cannot hire for personality alone.
No, they have to be able to produce.
And that that comes for all trade applications. Yeah. Yeah. And I would even propose that some of our most successful projects are when we work with people who, you know, we can challenge each other. It usually produces great growth where versus if everyone just go along to get along, it’s usually not as.
Usually hasn’t turned out in the best, in result there. Yeah.
And also I feel like that’s a good testament to people who are truly experts in their field is they usually have enough fight in them to, you know.
That’s going to work or that’s really not. Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, we’ve seen that across all trades that we work with really. Yeah. And I would say another maybe second runner in collaboration mistakes is silence. Silence costs money. Whenever you just don’t respond or you start to disengage, it can be very problematic for the progress of the project. I mean, we’ve experienced this with design clients and industry partners like, you know, as investors.
The silence becomes an assumption. Yeah. And assumptions cost money. And, you know, as the old saying goes, when you assume, you make an ass out of you and me. And it doesn’t end well. Yeah.
It just doesn’t. I mean, it’s, there are times, you know, some people struggle to express how they feel more than others. Yes. And we’ve really tried to strive to allow our clients and our partners to be themselves authentically, so that they have that level of confidence when they can actually tell us, even if they feel uncomfortable or whatever.
And there’s a difference between, I need a moment. Yeah. And I’m just retracting and being silent. Yeah.
I’m just totally deflecting.
There is a difference and we need to make that clarification. You know, there’s times of give me a moment. I’m overwhelmed. Figure, to process a little bit more. And then we can, we can go ahead versus just to hold up. Yeah.
That can definitely be a, what would you say, progress killer. Yeah. You know, as an interior designer, I can have the most beautiful design on paper, all the renderings, and it’s amazing. But if I don’t have a collaborative team to execute it, it means nothing. And the same is true, you know, as an investor, you can have, you can have bought the property at the best price. You can have a great rental budget, but any budget can get blown through if you don’t have the right team to execute the plan. So.
Or you can have the greatest team in the world, but if you don’t have the right plan. True. It’s vice versa. I mean, collaboration, you know, is a hidden profit center. I totally agree. And the job. Yeah. Because if we can’t come up with the correct plan, then you’re going to spend money where you don’t need to spend money costing you more in the end, and you’re not going to get the return on a design. Right. But if you don’t, and if you can’t give the, you could have the greatest A team in the world, if you don’t give them a plan forward, then they don’t know what to do and they’re not going to, it’s not going to produce out.
So true. The better your team, the more freedom and profitability you’re going to have. So building out those teams with intentionality is essential.
You know, investing in people who think strategically, who communicate clearly and, you know, also share your standard of excellence.
Yes. That’s so good.
You know, that’s, that’s the, that’s part of the collaboration efforts and building that team is, we’ve got to be on the same page and more ways than one.
Yeah. So if this episode has left you feeling inspired to build out that A team, collaborate strategically and maximize your return, make sure you like, subscribe, and leave us a review.
Remember to follow along with us on social media and tune into the next episode. And we look forward to seeing you again on the next one. Thanks for joining.
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