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If you’re an interior designer who feels busy, capable, and talented, yet unsupported, inconsistent, or drained by your business, this episode is for you.

In this episode, I explore why so many designers experience frustration, feast-and-famine cycles, scope creep, and a lack of confidence around pricing and boundaries, even when work is coming in.

This is not a conversation about doing more, trying harder, or fixing your mindset.

Instead, this episode looks at the foundational structure of your interior design business, the services you offer, the boundaries you’ve set, and the clarity (or lack of it) that quietly dictates how profitable, sustainable, and supported your business feels day to day.

Whether you are fully booked, working on one-off projects, or experiencing inconsistent enquiries, I explain why the same underlying issues often show up, and why they are not personal failings, but structural gaps.

A key focus of this episode is scope creep, why it happens, how unclear service definitions and blurred boundaries create it, and why designers often freeze when it comes to raising variations. I reframe scope creep as a foundational issue rather than a client problem, and explain how clear services and boundaries protect both the designer and the client.

The episode also explores the identity shift required to move from running an expensive hobby to leading a structured, profitable design business, without losing creativity in the process.

If this episode resonated, I am hosting The Designer’s Blueprint Bootcamp, a free, five-day live bootcamp designed to help interior designers rebuild and strengthen the foundations of their business.

Dates: Monday 23rd February – Friday 27th February

Over five days, you’ll explore the core areas of your interior design business that influence clarity, confidence, boundaries, and sustainable growth. I will guide you through identifying what needs to be built, refined, or reset so your business can properly support you.

You’ll receive:

• Practical insights
• Business resets
• Guidance to help you step back and make aligned decisions

VIP UPGRADE OPTION

There is an optional VIP upgrade, limited to 7 women, which includes:

• Two live evening hot-seat coaching sessions during the bootcamp week
• Direct support in implementing the work into your own business
• Personal guidance translating the foundations into real-world action

VIP details are available on the opt-in page.

Join the free Designer’s Blueprint Bootcamp HERE

Continue the conversation and connect with Lisa-Marie HERE

Feel free to DM or tag Lisa-Marie after listening to the episode.

And as always if you have loved this episode we would love for you to leave a review and if you screenshot this podcast and share it on your socials, tagging @Design_Boss_Diary in then we have a special gift waiting just for you.

See you in the next episode you lovely lot! xx

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In this insightful and deeply grounding conversation, Lisa-Marie Elkhadraoui is joined by Cleo, a financial coach and money trauma specialist, to explore the often unspoken relationship women have with money and how generational beliefs quietly shape financial decisions.

Cleo shares her personal journey from accountant to financial coach, explaining how money trauma shows up in women’s lives, from under-earning and avoidance, to fear around investing and wealth building. Together, they unpack why financial education is not just about numbers, but about confidence, values, and rewriting inherited narratives around money.

This episode opens up honest conversations around paying yourself properly, building sustainable wealth, and creating financial freedom without shame or secrecy. It is a powerful reminder that women are not risk averse, but risk aware, and that with the right education, mindset, and support, wealth becomes something we can consciously build, rather than something that feels out of reach.

• What you will learn
• What money trauma is and how it affects women
• The impact of generational beliefs on wealth and self-worth
• Why women are stepping into greater financial independence
• The importance of financial education for long-term change
• Building healthy money habits, starting with paying yourself first
• Investing in a way that feels aligned and accessible

This episode is an invitation to gently examine your own relationship with money, without judgement. If you have ever felt uncomfortable talking about finances, unsure about investing, or disconnected from your earning potential, this conversation will help you feel seen, informed, and empowered.

Building wealth is not about perfection or privilege. It starts with education, awareness, and the courage to rewrite the stories you inherited.

Dive into Cleo's Instagram HERE

Connect with Cleo on Linkedin HERE

And as always if you have loved this episode we would love for you to leave a review and if you screenshot this podcast and share it on your socials, tagging @Design_Boss_Diary in then we have a special gift waiting just for you.

See you in the next episode you lovely lot! xx

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Welcome to Day 30 of the Christmas Advent Calendar podcast and we are bringing another inspiring episode with another fabulous guest. I’m your host, Lisa-Marie Elkhadraoui, Business coach and mentor, empowering women through business strategy and soulful mindset work, and today’s conversation is one that every woman in business needs to hear before stepping into 2026.

Joining me is the brilliant Claire Lockey, a woman whose insight, clarity, and grounded wisdom is reshaping how women see their worth, their skills, and their ability to create powerful income streams from the expertise they already have.

This episode is a truth-telling moment, a perspective shift, and an invitation into your next level of confidence and unapologetic ownership.

Claire and I dive into a conversation around value, your value, and how often women minimize, dismiss, or dilute the skills they’ve worked years, sometimes decades, to build.

We talk about what really holds women back:
Not lack of talent.
Not lack of ideas.
But the quiet belief that what they know isn’t enough.

In this episode, Claire and I explore:

• Why women consistently undervalue their skills and lived experience
• How to price based on transformation, not time or task
• Why your worth is never determined by whether a client buys or not
• The power of personal branding and positioning yourself as the expert
• The importance of resonance and relevance in your marketing
• How fear and imposter syndrome block expansion and how to dissolve them
• The mindset shifts needed to step into your highest earning potential
• Why YOU are the unique selling proposition in your business
• How recognising the value of even your “non-doing” tasks can unlock new income streams

Dive into Claire’s website HERE And her Instagram HERE

Her Skills Blueprint HERE

Claire Is also one of our global speakers for our retreat Reset, Realign and Rise starting on the 18th May 2026 in Ibiza which is a 5 day retreat set on the beautiful white Isle of Ibiza. We only have 4 tickets left so please get in touch for more details.

Join Lisa-marie and the women in the Design Boss Diary family, follow on Instagram HERE and find more about how you can work with Lisa in 2026.

Join me in Birmingham on Friday 23th & Saturday 24th January 2026 for a luxury two-day retreat, Strategy & Soul.
Two days that will prepare you for your most powerful year yet.
Find out more HERE

This and other episodes are on our YouTube channel HERE

To celebrate Season 2 of the Advent Calendar Podcast, I’m giving away six incredible prizes:

• 4 women will join me in London for a private in-person strategy session + lunch in an exclusive location (worth £1,000 each)
• 2 women will receive a fully-paid ticket to The Visionary event in Birmingham (worth £540 each)

To enter:

1. Leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify
2. Screenshot your review
3. Share it on your Instagram Stories and tag @Design_Boss_Diary

Every review + share counts as an additional entry, no limits.

This is your chance to begin 2026 with clarity, strategy, and a powerful reset.

And as always if you have loved this episode we would love for you to leave a review and if you screenshot this podcast and s