Today we’d like to introduce you to Melissa Galt.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Melissa. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
Over 20 years ago, I moved from Birmingham, AL to Atlanta, GA for a job opportunity in interior design with a big name retailer. It was 18 months into that job and I was already planning my startup. Being a person of independent ideas, I have a history of bucking authority so launching my own interior design practice made the most sense. It would give me the freedom to do what I wanted and test out all my ideas without someone telling me I couldn’t do that (always annoying.)
My launch was hastened when I got into an argument with my boss about vacation. She said I didn’t have it, I was certain I did. I was right! I was also unemployed when I got back from my vacation and got my final vacation paycheck. (Never argue with your boss if you need your job.)
I had no clients and no income and had to take a job supervising the catering kitchen at Primrose Cottage in Roswell to make ends meet. I was $70K in debt, living in a cramped apartment with a car payment and a lot of credit card bills. Fast forward 18 months and I was debt free, earning 6-figures in my own design practice. It wasn’t easy, it was about grit, hustle and trying all manner of marketing to get the word out.
My website was among the first for interior designers (this was 1994), and I did direct mail campaigns to get my first clients on board since I knew no one in Atlanta. Today, it’s all about Instagram, Facebook, email marketing, and referrals from my lifetime clients.
Business doubled every year for the first 5 years. It wasn’t until then that I began networking with colleagues. I’d invested my time connecting with clients including teaching design classes to busy professionals at Evening at Emory, Oglethorpe and Spruill Arts Center.
When I began meeting colleagues, I learned that my results were more extreme than usual and my fellow designers started asking me for systems, processes, and marketing tools to improve their business. I added coaching and training the trade to my business practice, and I still coach the trade today through industry events, webinars, small group events, and retreats, and private 1:1 coaching. It’s exciting to see designers I’ve worked with taking their practice to new levels while having the time of their life.
Today, I still love the design and work on 3-5 client projects per year providing 90-day interior design transformations in a soft modern, California contemporary (I was born and raised in Los Angeles), or mission style.
Some say the design is in my genes, my great grandfather is the iconic architect Frank Lloyd Wright. My preference mirrors his warm modern feel with organic materials. The key difference is that I’m more of a coach, guide, and director to my clients, never a dictator. He defined how you live, and I take who you are and infuse your interior with your story, and allow your personality and values to define your lifestyle.
Has it been a smooth road?
I didn’t pursue design as my primary major because I was focused on following my mom’s dream for me. When she died suddenly a year after college graduation, I continued on the path that would make her proud.
As a Purchasing Agent in hotels, if you ate it, drank it, wrote with it or slept on it, I bought it. I was also the turn around artist, taking troubled departments and getting them back on track. I moved every 8 months different cities, states, and hotels including Opryland Hotel and Calloway Gardens. As one of the few women in the field, I was good at my profession and climbing the ladder of success, but I was utterly miserable. My job lacked creativity and hotel work is 24/7/365 even if you are efficient (and I was) and got the job done in far less time.
It took me 5 years to realize I had to make a change. After I read the book, “Do What You Love and the Money Will Follow,” I quit my career. I went back to school for a second degree, this time in interior design. (My favorite part of purchasing had been arranging the storerooms; I saw it as a 3D space planning puzzle. The handwriting was on the wall.) I gave myself 6 months to focus on school before picking up a full-time job in interior design on top of the full-time school. I was on fire with excitement and passion. I still am.
Follow your own path, listen to your own heart. A life spent making someone else proud means sacrificing your own dreams. My mom was an Oscar-winning actress who was passionate about acting from the age of 7. She convinced her parents to let her pursue it and it turned into a wildly successful career.
I lacked the confidence in my early twenties to pursue my creative passions; confidence came with age. (You may recognize my mom, the late Anne Baxter, best known for “All About Eve” with Bette Davis and “The Ten Commandments” with Charleton Heston. She’s been gone 33 years).
On the high side, I got a great college education at Cornell and a phenomenal business background which prepared me for launching my own business. There are lessons in every path you take, no journey is ever wasted.
I also was willing to do whatever it took to get my dream off the ground, including working for $10 an hour nights and weekends in that catering kitchen. Days were devoted to getting my design practice off the ground and finding my first client. You’ve got to be willing to do what’s necessary to get where you want to go. It won’t be grand or gorgeous, it will pay off.
So, as you know, we’re impressed with Melissa Galt Interiors and Prosper By Design – tell our readers more, for example, what you’re most proud of as a company and what sets you apart from others.
There is a honeymoon period in life and business of 90 days. I’ve learned to work within that time frame to accomplish interior design transformations for clients. I believe in designing to live instead of living to design. And with today’s increasingly short attention spans, delivering luxury in less time just makes sense.
My clients are accomplished professionals who are at their best in their careers and want to leave their interiors to an expert who knows what they want and delivers that transformation in 30-90 days so they can get on with life. This includes renovation, remodel, redesign, and decorating.
My mission is to showcase who you are in your interior design creating uniquely personal spaces that serve and support your success.
When I coach the design trade, I also work in a 90-day time frame. I help them marry who they are to what they do so they get more of what they want. It’s not about doing more but instead about uncovering what you love most in your business and magnifying that so that you become magnetic and irresistible to your ideal client. It’s also about getting clear on what you want your life to look and feel like and design your business around it instead of sacrificing your life to your business. The designers I coach call me “Prosper by Design.”
Beyond my work passions, you’ll find me grooving to the latest smooth jazz tunes by Euge Groove and Boney James, indulging in delicious tapa sensations at Eclipse di Luna or Iberian Pig, imbibing a refreshing cocktail creation from Seed, or catching a new movie release. (My record is 6 in one sitting back to back, yes, I love the silver screen!)
My favorite weekend getaway is my 3 bedroom mountain cabin in Highlands, NC when it’s not rented to guests. And I love to travel whether it’s nationally for work or overseas for work and play. Long flights beat short always.
What advice would you give to someone at the start of her career?
Follow your passion and be willing to do whatever it takes to get where you want to go. Never sacrifice your own dreams to follow someone else’s path for you however well-intentioned.
Be the original you were born to be, and know that the passions you have were put inside of you for a reason. Life is made up of moments and each one when used up is gone; time is our greatest non-renewable resource, use it wisely.
Seek out those who will both support and challenge you, let go of those who squash you. There is never any failure only lessons learned and experiences to be had (even when they hurt like hell and are expensive as sin.)
Pricing:
- Interior Design Projects Range $50K – $1M
- Designer Coaching Ranges $1500 -$30K
Contact Info:
- Address: 4062 Peachtree Road, NE
Suite A431
Brookhaven, Atlanta, GA 30319 - Website: www.melissagaltinteriors.com | www.melissagalt.com
- Phone: 404-788-6528
- Email: melissa@melissagaltinteriors.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/melissagaltinterior/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MelissaGaltInteriorDesign/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/MelissaGalt
- Other: http://bit.ly/MelissasBooks
Image Credit:
Robert Thien
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