Ali Faulkner on building a team that’s passionate about the client experience

Trade Tales

Ali Faulkner, founder of AEF Interiors, shares how her background in high-end hospitality shaped her client-centric approach to interior des

Key takeaways

• Outsourcing social media significantly increased Ali's inbound leads.
• Working with a sales coach improved the quality and confidence of her client calls.

Main topics

• Building a client-centric business model
• Scaling through strategic hiring and team structure

Notable quotes

"It's not about the what, it's the how we do the great design that matters to me."

Conclusion

Ali Faulkner's journey from hospitality to interior design illustrates how foundational experiences shape

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:01) great and incredible design is expected when you hire an interior design firm. It's not about the what, it's the how we do the great design that matters to me. Speaker 1 (0:14) Hi, I'm Caitlin Peterson, the Editor-in-Chief of Business of Home. Welcome to Trade Tales, where I'll be talking to interior designers about the challenges, pivots, and perspective shifts that come with growing a design firm. My hope is that you hear your own why echoed in these stories, or an idea that sparks your own breakthrough. Speaker 2 (0:35) I Speaker 1 (0:36) hope it helps you realize that even when entrepreneurship feels lonely, you're not alone. Speaker 1 (0:42) My guest today is a designer whose first career in high-end hospitality has played a crucial role in shaping the firm she leads today. She tells me how everything from her firm's back-end operations to hiring and onboarding are crafted around delivering the ideal client experience. I can't wait to share it with you. But first, a quick word from our sponsors. Speaker 1 (1:14) Mark your calendars because Fall High Point Market is coming up October 17th to 21st. For home furnishings professionals everywhere, this is Speaker 2 (1:23) where business Speaker 1 (1:24) gets done. Designers and retailers can source thousands of products, meet the brands behind them, discover new opportunities, and gain insights to strengthen their businesses. Turn five days at market into your smartest investment all year. Register for Fall High Point Market. at highpointmarket.org. This episode is sponsored by Minted, a curated art and design marketplace powered by independent artists around the globe. Specializing in prints, Minted offers a variety of mediums and sizes, all available with premium custom framing options, which allow interior design professionals to use this art destination for projects big and small. Minted's exclusive trade program offers complimentary art proposals, insider discounts, and free domestic shipping on all member orders. Join today to get recommendations for your next project at minted.com slash trade. Speaker 2 (2:34) People ask me, like, where are you from? And I'm like, I'm a mom. I went to three elementary schools, three middle schools, and two high schools. My dad was in commercial and residential real estate. The half of my weekends growing up with my parents, the fun was like rolling down the stair railing, checking out open houses. My mom also, growing up, was an accountant for more trade vendor side, so like furniture. And she had a furniture store and she used to do the books and go to High Point every year. I think the other part to this is going to, you know, all these different schools and moving so much, I just naturally became like an extrovert and an outgoing person and someone who wanted to connect with people. Speaker 1 (3:20) That's Allie Faulkner. She studied at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where her people skills translated into a promising career in hospitality. That became crystal clear when she landed a job managing a five-star hotel. Speaker 2 (3:36) I got like the frickin boot camp of like every celebrity, every CEO, like any person that's on TV would stay there. And it was like the ultimate ass kicking in like luxury service. I ended up working at Deloitte, traveling, you know, the world and doing that for two years. And I was living out in the Midwest and I had an opportunity here in Southern California. It was like. five private equity tech dudes, they were like, you know, we bought this multifamily building out in Nashville. You know, we spent a bunch of money on building a brand and, you know, we need someone to help us like, first of all, create a proof of concept for this hotel concept that we're going to build out in Nashville. And then we want to grow and scale this brand. Like, will you join us? I really took a chance and it was interesting going from, you know, these large companies. And then I decided to Speaker 1 (4:22) join a scrappy startup with like five people. Speaker 2 (4:25) Without that experience, I don't think I would have had the courage or the visibility to understand that you can do anything that you want. Speaker 1 (4:37) Allie had a hand in building the property's business model from the ground up. It was a transformative experience, but one that came to a sudden end during a round of layoffs less than two years later. While she searched for her next opportunity, a new project offered a welcome distraction. Speaker 2 (4:54) During that time, my husband was like, OK, while you're trying to find a job, here's $25,000. Speaker 1 (4:59) Why don't you renovate the kitchen while you're looking for a job? And I was like, surely this can't be that hard. Speaker 2 (5:04) What broke me was like when I was walking downstairs and I was about to go on like a call for an interview and the tile guy comes up to me, he's like grout color and grout size. And I was like, you're speaking Greek. You have eight heads. I have no idea what the hell you're talking about. So I'm running down the aisles of Home Depot and I'm like Arctic gray, Arctic white, cool white. And I'm like, man, there's got to be a better way. And Google was like, you should have hired an interior designer. And I realized that there were 2,500 of them within 25 miles of Costa Mesa, California, which is where I live. And I was like, wow, okay. So that means there's a lot of competition, but that also means that there is a crap ton of demand. And I was like, you know what? I've served this clientele in another fast of their lives. Like, again, I served them in hotel, but I served them in their home. This light bulb moment started to click for me of like, am I willing to bet on myself? Could I know enough to be dangerous to figure out how to start an interior design firm? Speaker 1 (5:59) In 2019, Allie launched AEF Interiors. I wanted to talk to her about how outsourcing social media caused her inbound leads to multiply, how working with a sales coach transformed her calls with prospective clients, and how she's building a work environment that allows employees to create accountability for themselves. Speaker 1 (6:27) I want to start by talking about your team. You have full-time employees on staff now, but that wasn't always the case. How did you land on the team setup that you have today? Speaker 2 (6:38) Yeah, I think that... Man, I mean, in the beginning, I definitely didn't have this model, right? I had like part-time people because... That's what you can afford. And that's what you think you need, right? Correct. Yeah. But then you start to realize like, I don't want to say that part-time employment means part-time commitment, but it's very hard to be fully committed to something when you are part-time. I definitely went through like... you know, my first hire was like a design assistant. And then I brought on someone that was a, you know, junior designer. And I, and I stuck around in that junior designer world. And I think it wasn't till like 2023, which was about three, you know, three and a half years into the business. And I was like, okay, I really need to get a senior designer in here. If I want to continue to attract and market to these larger scale projects, we need the talent that's going to be able to. handle that size work. And so I definitely, I don't, I actually know Caitlin that you're very familiar with her. Renee from Tandem. Speaker 1 (7:43) Yeah. Speaker 2 (7:43) Such incredible, my gosh, that girl's so brilliant. And I started consulting with her on strategy probably in like 2022 of like, I probably had like two people on my team and I was like, how do you build an interior design firm? Like what are the different like people, infrastructures that I could go about and how should I think about this? And she really was the one who helped me understand this like pod structure. Now I don't have the pod structure in place right now, but it was something, it's something that I have in mind as I continue to grow this firm of like, you know, build out your senior team and then grow these like design teams under them. And so that's the hope and trajectory for the business. But I will say that At one point, I think we had three designers and marketing in-house, and now we just have two really qualified senior designers. I think that the compensation range, we've been willing to grow. Instead of having three of them, now we have two of them, and we're just opening up what we are willing to pay to really get that level of experience and talent on the team. So while we've gotten smaller, And leaner, I think that... The spend is the same. Yeah, the spend... Yeah, exactly. But I just found that investing, if I wanted to attract... If I wanted to have top talent, you got to attract it. It is marketing. And I do think I've done a little bit of chicken before the egg if we want to talk about hiring because do you hire that... person at that expense when you have that level of work or do you bring them on before and they align with your culture and your values of like growth and they grow with you? And so if you're trying to attract that person at that price point, you have to make it compelling, right? Like how do you, are you going to grab them? So yeah, I'm very happy with where we're at now because where I'm at. now in 2026 versus maybe where I was at in 2024, the way that I describe it is like, I'm so much less in the day-to-day and able to work on the future days of the business with less people now than I was in 2024. Speaker 1 (10:00) How else did that difference in hiring top talent show up for you? Speaker 2 (10:06) I think a lot of owners are scared in the beginning to like hire someone with more experience than them. Are they going to run away with like... It's going to become their style. I think there's a lot of scarcity around hiring people who know more than you. And I think that working at the startup that I had before, I look at startup models and they don't hire inexperienced people, right? They hire people who are experts at their craft. And I think it took me a good... four and a half years in the business to start to really like for it to start to click in my head of like, man, I really need to continue to pour into hiring people who know more than me because time is such a big resource. And I think that when we're, when we're starting out, we don't see our time as our money because it's just like, it feels so expendable. But, um, as I thought about, like, I want to attract this caliber of project and I need to be able to like, back it up. Like if I'm going to go pitch to like these architects and these builders, like I need to be able to say like, yep, we've done 20 new builds before. Like I wanted to have that level of confidence to say that. And I knew that the only way that I could really do that was by investing in the talent that I was bringing onto the Speaker 1 (11:27) team. Can you talk a little bit about the ops side of the business, your director of operations, the procurement? So I, Speaker 2 (11:35) Went into that operation side of the business with the advice of Renee. As I mentioned, she was really early in helping me understand how I could set up my firm and figuring out what the next role was. And that actually was the exact role that she told me to. She was like, we really got to get you a procurement person in there. So a little bit of background and context. When I was working at the startup company, was shopping at a local home store. And at that local home store, I didn't have any friends moving out here to Orange County. I just knew the five guys pretty much in my office. I would go into this home store, especially when I was unemployed, practically almost every week, desperately wanting to make friends and make my house pretty, right? I'd become kind of friendly with the manager of the store. And I was like, yeah, I'm really thinking about starting an interior design firm. And she's like, don't. And I was like, what? Why? She's like, people get so pissed if their furniture isn't in by the holidays. And I was like, what? That's the hardest thing about this business? I'll figure that out, right? Anyways, fast forward to now. That person, the person who said, I would really consider not Speaker 1 (12:41) doing this, Speaker 2 (12:42) was my procurement coordinator and now is my director of ops. Oh, Speaker 1 (12:48) I love Speaker 2 (12:48) that. Yeah. So funny. So funny. you know, I had known, so Julia, she's my director of operations. She was the one who ran that home store. We had always kind of like kept in touch while I was like building my business. And I brought her in knowing that like, hey, this is the role that we have on the team. But I ultimately know that I'm going to want a director of operations to help me run this business. And if you're willing to... grow with me. This is the role that I can offer you right now. So the intention was always to bring her into this director of operations role. But she started in this procurement role, which was really great too, because she had experience in it as well in between the job of running the home store. She had done procurement for another interior design firm. And so then we moved her into this director role in 2024. I will say, not necessarily because the business needed it, but like... it wasn't where she was thriving. The procurement role wasn't where she was living. And it's hard when you are a working mom to be in a role that it's hard to leave your kids and go to a job that you're not ultimately thriving in. We both cried. In 2024, we both cried. I was like, man, she's quitting. This is so terrible. We both cried on Zoom and we're like, Speaker 1 (14:09) okay, it's for the best. Everything's fine. And Speaker 2 (14:12) then I put my leadership pants on later that day and I was like, you can't just like make it easy for her to leave. Like, what are you doing? And it was kind of one of those situations where like, I just had the belief that like the business was, was going to continue to grow. And she was going to help me figure out how to like grow the business to where we could backfill her. So I'm so glad that I did because ultimately like the reflection was, you know, how much longer is it going to take me to get to my desired role? if I don't start making that move now. Speaker 1 (14:48) And Speaker 2 (14:48) that was really scary to do when in a time of the business that you're just like, I bet you in that moment in like February or March, April, we were hiring. So I did have a belief and I was looking at the data, but it's not like we had this huge pipeline that made me believe that I could do this. I just knew that I would figure it out. Like how I've always done things. I've always been extremely scrappy. I mean, anything that I want to do. I basically just tell myself, okay, what type of work am I going to have to bring in to be able to afford that? How am I going to make this work? And just always been willing to bet on myself. Speaker 1 (15:22) You talked about what you needed to hand off to get to your dream role. What is that role and how close are you to achieving it? Speaker 2 (15:31) I feel like I'm pretty Speaker 1 (15:32) much in that role right now. Speaker 2 (15:34) That's awesome. Speaker 1 (15:36) Yeah, I feel really, Speaker 2 (15:37) really grateful. You know, it's been ebbs and flows to get here, but I would say in the last like, two months, I'm sitting in a seat where I'm like, wow. So it's fresh. Yeah, it's super fresh for sure. It was 2025. I started to get to the role. And then September of 2025, we parted ways with a senior designer. And then Julia went out on leave. She went on maternity leave. And so we went from a team of five to a team of three. So from you know, September to February, I was back in the trenches. Yeah. I was, I was like waist deep in the mud again. Speaker 1 (16:22) So Speaker 2 (16:22) I got like a little taste of it in 2025 of like the role that I wanted to be in. But even more so now, because again, the quality of talent that we have brought to this team has really allowed me to like step back and be able to delegate and I think you ultimately have to know which balls are glass and which ones are going to bounce back. And that's the lens that I am really seeing the business through right now of especially even more so learning how to transfer the accountability to my director of ops to see the glass ball. I am looking at my director of ops now to be making the calls, creating the calls. I trust her. And that's new for me. That is a new place to be. And I'm really like proud and grateful for it. And it is about being able though. There's so many things that have gotten me to this place of like having this like level of delegation with only like four full-time people on my team. Speaker 1 (17:28) Yeah. You're making a lot of choices to say, I don't need to see that or this doesn't have to come back to me. Yes. How did you get comfortable with that? Speaker 2 (17:37) Oh, man. Okay. So it's kind of like- Speaker 1 (17:39) Are you comfortable Speaker 2 (17:39) with Speaker 1 (17:39) that? Yeah. Speaker 2 (17:40) Yeah, I am. I am. You know, the glass ball for me is the client experience, right? And so if I am going to expect everyone to be as passionate about this client experience, you got to have like a client experience written down, right? Man, that seems like such a crazy fucking concept to have it written down. So we have all the steps of how our process works out in Asana. That's step number one, right? Because as I realized that- as I brought people on the team, I was like, we got to have some sort of like training of every single step. And I mean, even to the point of like set up the Google drive and it will say like, prepare for a design presentation and it will have eight steps that says, light the candle, have the presentation on the screen, have the client's favorite snacks out, make sure that the email went out the night before of where to park, take the trash out. Like, I mean, that's how detailed I got, right? Because. You can't expect people to come into your organization and be mind readers as much as we want them to be, right? They aren't. But, you know, now I come to a place because I've put all these processes in where I show, like, it was so funny, you know, we brought someone into our organization in the last 90 days and she's like, so like, when does Allie show up? And my other senior designer was like, oh, five minutes before. And it's, you know, and it's because like, and because we have these systems in place of like. you know, I started to realize as I started to delegate, like, oh man, I started to kind of realize these like natural points that I would want to chime in to the design. Yeah. Again, involved in the creative side. And so I created this process into a sauna where it's like, you know, Allie goes on Pinterest. We review it together. You make the floor plan. We review it together. I kind of found these like. natural points throughout the deliverable building process of where I wanted to weigh in. And that's all you got to