LuAnn Nigara, 34 E Northfield Road, Livingston, NJ (2026)

09/12/2026

Guess what? Your calendar is a snitch.

You can tell me you're working on being the CEO, but pull up your calendar from last week and let's see what it has to say. Were you spending time making decisions that move the business forward? Or were you answering every email, fixing things someone else could have handled, chasing down information, and squeezing in the work that actually grows the business whenever you could find a spare hour?

Listen, I've been there. When you're the owner, there will always be things that need your attention. But if your calendar shows that you're spending all of your time in the business and none of it on the business, that's information you need to pay attention to.

Your calendar doesn't care what your intentions were. It shows you where your time actually went.

So take a look at last week's calendar and ask yourself: Does this look like the schedule of the CEO I say I want to be?

Because the business you want next year needs time on your calendar this year.

09/12/2026

Want to grow your design firm? The bigger question is: Is your business actually prepared for that growth?

For this Best Of A Well-Designed Business episode, I’m bringing back my Power Talk Friday conversation with Eileen Hahn about what it takes to intentionally scale a design firm from $2 million to $5 million.

At this level, growth doesn’t happen by accident. It takes strategy, leadership, the right people, and some very intentional decisions about where you’re going and how you plan to get there.

If you haven’t heard this episode before, now is the time.

And if you have, listen again with fresh ears. Your business may be in a very different place today, and something Eileen shares might be exactly what you need for this season of growth.

Go to https://loom.ly/vqNk9ks to listen to this Best Of episode with Eileen Hahn, or wherever you get your podcasts

09/11/2026

Can we all admit we're a little tired of our screens?

Don't get me wrong. I love what technology has made possible for us as business owners. We can listen to a podcast on the way to an install, take notes during a webinar, save an idea for later, and connect with people all over the world. I certainly wouldn't have built the community I have without it.

But this fall, I want you to think long and hard about something else: getting in the room.

There is something different about sitting with other serious business owners and having a real conversation. You hear the question you didn't know you needed to ask. Someone says something that makes you realize you've been tolerating a problem for far too long. You meet a person who changes what you believe is possible for your business.

And maybe most importantly, you physically step away from the day-to-day and give yourself dedicated time to work on your business instead of spending another day working in it.

That's why I'm so excited about what's ahead. Next week I'll be in Greenville for CURATED: The Business of Design Conference. After that, Vin and I will be back in Jersey with Managing for Profit. Then in October, I'm off to High Point for a spectacular week that includes the 10th birthday celebration for A Well-Designed Business.

And I'm just getting started.

So yes, keep listening to the podcasts. Keep taking the notes. Keep learning wherever you can.

But every once in a while, put down the phone and get yourself in the room. You never know which conversation — or which person — is going to change the direction of your business.

Check out the Events page through the link in my bio to see where I'll be next. I hope to see you there. 💚
👉 luannnigara.com/live-event/

09/10/2026

“The efficiency and quality of the information pertaining to numbers in my company, suggestions and next steps. It was great.”

This. This is exactly what we built the Boardroom for Creatives to do.

Because when you have questions about the numbers in your business, you don’t necessarily need six months of coaching.

You need someone who knows what they’re looking at, can get to the heart of the issue quickly, and can tell you what to do next.

That’s Staci Davidson.

Staci is an operations and financial systems expert who helps interior designers make sense of the part of the business that can so easily feel unclear or pieced together.

Pricing. Profitability. Margins. Cash flow. Bookkeeping. Financial systems. And the operational systems underneath all of it.

And here’s what I especially love about this testimonial: efficiency.

This business owner came in with questions about their numbers and walked away with quality information, suggestions, and next steps.

That is 50 minutes well spent.

If the numbers in your business have you saying, I know I need to understand this better, but I don’t even know where to start, book a session with Staci inside the Boardroom for Creatives.

Bring the numbers. Bring the questions. Leave knowing what to do next.

09/09/2026

100 people.

That number caught my attention when I learned about NEDCON.

Attendance is intentionally limited to 100 founding attendees.

A smaller room gives you the opportunity to have real conversations.

But you have to use it.

Don't go to a business event and spend three days talking to the same people you already know.

Introduce yourself.

Ask the question.

Sit next to someone new.

Talk about what is working in your business and what isn't.

Listen to how another business owner solved the problem you're still trying to figure out.

Being in the right room is valuable. Participating in the room is what makes it worthwhile.

NEDCON is October 5–7 in Hoboken, NJ, and I'll be the guest speaker on Wednesday, October 7.

There are only 100 seats.

If this is a room you want to be in, don't wait until the room is full to decide.

Visit https://loom.ly/8EMSHb8 to learn more and register!

09/09/2026

Your client LOVES the room. Then they ask what every single piece costs… 😬

Suddenly:

“That chair costs HOW much?”

Or…

“Wait, that table was only THAT much?”

And now they’re evaluating each individual item instead of the beautifully designed room they already said they loved.

Kate O’Hara makes such an important point in this conversation:

Sometimes breaking down every single price ruins the magic.

Great designers know where to go high, where to go low, and how to create a room where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

Your client hired you for that expertise.

Let the design be the design.

If you missed this episode, now is your time to listen. Go to https://loom.ly/rPzDYhw or wherever you get your podcasts to listen to episode 1219 now

09/08/2026

“You can say that you’re luxury until you’re blue in the face, but actions and visuals speak louder than words.”

Robyn White is exactly right.

You can tell prospective clients you offer a luxury experience. You can talk about your high-touch service, your attention to detail, and the caliber of your work.

But then they land on your website.

They see your photography. Your logo. Your typography. Your messaging. Your social media.

And in a matter of seconds, they’re deciding whether what they see and experience matches what you say.

That’s the part business owners can have a hard time seeing for themselves.

Does my brand actually communicate the level of business I’ve built?

Does it attract the caliber of client I want?

Or am I saying premium while something in the experience is saying otherwise?

This is where an expert set of eyes matters.

Robyn can help you identify where your brand promise and your customer-facing experience are out of alignment, and what needs to change so the two finally tell the same story.

If you’re wondering whether your brand reflects the business you are today, book a 50-minute session with Robyn White inside the Boardroom for Creatives.

Because luxury isn’t something you declare.

It’s something your client should be able to see and feel.

09/08/2026

What does AI think you offer?

I decided to find out for myself.

I asked Google AI Mode what LuAnn Nigara offers an interior designer who has one specific business problem but doesn't want a long-term coaching commitment.

You know what it recommended?

Among other things, a six-week live coaching program Nancy Ganzekaufer and I offered around 2017.
I had forgotten about it.

It hasn't been available for years.

You know what it didn't recommend?

The Boardroom for Creatives.

The current offer we created for practically the exact person I described.

Holy cannoli.

So we kept investigating. And that's when the real lesson emerged.

What exists online, what search can find, and what AI chooses to recommend are not necessarily the same thing.

And that got me thinking about a question I've asked interior designers for almost ten years:
Do you know your Fred Berns Only?

Today I'm adding another:
Does the public web know your Fred Berns Only?

Your website and public presence need to tell the current, specific truth about the business you're running today.
In this week's A Well-Designed Business®, I'm showing you exactly what we found in my own business, the good, the bad and the outdated, and how to run the same test on yours.

Go to https://loom.ly/aJcIBe8 to listen to Episode 1225, or wherever you get your podcasts!

09/07/2026

“Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.” — Theodore Roosevelt

I’ve worked hard my entire life. And after more than 40 years in business, I can tell you that hard work by itself isn’t the prize.

The prize is getting to work hard at something that matters to you. Something that supports your family, creates opportunities for other people, serves your clients well, and gives you the chance to use what you’ve learned to make somebody else’s road a little easier.

I know running a business isn’t always easy, and there are certainly days when it feels more like work than others. But what a privilege it is to build something you believe is worth doing.

Whatever that work looks like for you, I hope you’re proud of it today.

09/06/2026

For 10 years, A Well-Designed Business® has had one very important standard for the people who sit behind the microphone:

Come teach us something.

Bring your experience. Bring what worked. Bring what didn't. Bring the lesson you learned the hard way so another business owner can learn from it too.

But here's the thing about teaching.

The same lesson can land very differently depending on where you are in your business.

The designer listening in year one has different questions than the designer leading a team in year ten.

That's why you'll hear me stop a guest and say, essentially, "Wait. Let's break that down."

What does this mean for the designer just getting started? What does it look like in a growing firm? And how does the established business owner take the same idea and apply it at the next level?

Because it has never been enough to simply have smart guests and interesting conversations.

I want you to be able to do something with what you hear.

That has been part of the mission of A Well-Designed Business® from the beginning, and this year, we get to celebrate 10 years of learning together.

Join us at High Point Market for the A Well-Designed Business® 10th Birthday Party and celebrate the guests, lessons, conversations, and community that have shaped these 10 years.

And before you come, catch up on Parts 1 through 4 of the A Well-Designed Business® docu-series at LuAnnNigara.com/doc.

Then join us at the party for the exclusive premiere of Part 5.
Saturday, October 17, 2026
4–7 PM ET
Design Master Furniture Showroom
High Point, NC

Go to luannnigara.com/birthday to RSVP for the birthday party and come celebrate 10 years of A Well-Designed Business with me.

LuAnn Nigara

09/12/2026

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