Show Notes

Kayla: Welcome back to the Designer Practice Podcast, and I’m your host Kayla Das.

In today’s episode, Carolyn Boldt, Vice President and Director of Design of Crossfields Interiors and Architecture, will discuss the importance of practice office design for client attraction and retention.

Hi, Carolyn. Welcome to the show. I’m so glad to have you here today.

Carolyn: Thanks, Kayla. Thanks for having me.

Kayla: So, before we dive into today’s episode, please introduce yourself, where you’re from, and tell us a little bit about what you do.

Carolyn: Okay, I’d be happy to. My name is Carolyn Boldt, and I am the co-owner of a company named Crossfields Incorporated, and we are focused on interiors and architecture, and we do virtual interior and architectural design all over the world. But definitely all over the United States and Canada, and our focus is on holistic healthcare practitioners.

Kayla: Amazing. I am not a designer. So, when people ask me the questions of, “oh, how should I design my office?” What’s the best for client retention? I’m like, I have no idea. I do not have a knack for that. So, I am so excited to have you on here to discuss this element, which is very important, with respect to office design.

So why does practice office design matter? Why should we care about the setup?

Carolyn: So, my question back to you would be, do you understand the impact an image has on your perspective. And you guys are in mental health. So, there is a psychology of space. And it’s very important to understand that element because it will either help support who you are and how you show up for your patients: attracting new patients, retaining patients, referral patients, et cetera.

It’ll also could hurt you if you don’t pay attention to it. So, I’m on a mission to help people pay attention to it so that more people are healed and healthier because you want people to come to you. So, it’s part of your whole branding.

Kayla: So, going off the branding piece, like how does it help us with client retention and client attraction?

Carolyn: So, think about if your office could be like the package of who you are. And so, you have worked really hard to have a practice and most of you have a focus that you’re practicing, a specialty and a mission and you also have an ideal client if you’re doing your marketing.

So, if you think about all that goes into marketing, we call it branding, which is not your logo, but it’s who you show up as, your personality of your company, not the personality of you. Although most of you are kind of synergized together, but it’s the personality of your company.

So, if you have the personality of your company and you have these keywords around it, or these key ideas around it. And a person walks into your space, and that space does not represent what you’re trying to show up, you’re going to be working against yourself. So that’s the key thing.

Kayla: You know, that makes sense. And depending on what kind of practice you have; you might have a very different setup. For instance, if you are a physiotherapist who works with athletes your office space is going to look very different than if you work, say, with kids and play therapy. So, I think that this is really important because if you were to go into a mental health therapist office and they had all this physio stuff around, you’re probably not going to get the same feel as you would if you were to go into an office space that’s serene or like inviting in that respect.

Carolyn: Exactly. And if you don’t mind, let me just play a little bit in some scenarios. So, we bring in retail design and hospitality design, when we think about healthcare design, in the part of attracting and retaining patients. As well as just general healthcare, there’s a psychology of healing in your space, that we can talk about also. But in the idea of retail design, when you as a person that’s going to go shopping. Okay. Not as a practitioner, but just as your regular self, going to go shopping, and you’re looking for something. When you go into a store, if the environment of that store does not match up with your expectations of what you’re going to purchase, there’s a disconnect.

So, I’m going to go to 2 extremes and you guys have Walmart there in Canada. So, we’re going to use Walmart. There’s no criticism to Walmart. They make a lot of money. But they are purposely designed to match up with the idea and the psychology of a low-price leader. So, it does feel a lot like you’re walking into a bargain shop. There’s a lot of merchandise. There’s a lot of ads. There’s a lot of display. And you’re in a hunt, of sorts, like you’re in a garage sale, you’re in a hunt to find what you’re looking for and you’re looking for that deal. So, that whole environment, the lighting, the flooring, the fixtures that hold the merchandise, all of those things are purposely chosen to support their brand, being the low-price leader.

We’ll go the other extreme and you go a high-end department store or high end designer store, even let’s just go to the whole extreme. And it’s a whole different environment. You can even envision it as I’m talking to you, right? You walk in and all of the items are spread out. They’re like pieces of art. It’s very opposite.

So, when you think about you as a practitioner. It’s like your environment. The choices on what’s done in that environment are either going to support what you’re trying to market or what you’re not. And then we’ll go on and talk about hospitality design because hospitality creates culture. So retail is your first impression and hospitality is more of your long term. They cross over a lot. So, they’re not that distinct. But if you let’s just play with us there.

So, think about, I’m going to go on a date and what restaurant am I going to go to? You don’t just think about the food. You think about that atmosphere that’s created. Now, if you’re going on a date and you happen to be bringing all your kids, it’s going to be a whole different choice, then it’s going to be just the 2 of you and you want that romantic, intimate, quiet space. Or if you’re going to a sports bar, you want to watch your favorite sports. It’s going to be a different environment. So that environment that you’re creating can be very purposeful when you’re creating an office for your patients. And those are two extremes, but that’s the big picture of the purpose of your design for your space.

Kayla: That makes complete sense. And you might have already touched on some of these, but what are the benefits of having a well thought out office design? And then also, what are the limitations of not considering office space when starting a private practice?

Carolyn: Well, I’m going to start with the very first thing, we’ve been talking about the environment and it very much about the aesthetics of the environment. But whenever we design a space, we start with the function. So, we adhere to form follows function because if the office space doesn’t function well, it’s going to raise your operation cost. So, it’s going to lower your net revenue, so you want it to operate, well. You want to make sure that every inch of your space is utilized the way it needs to be. Things are not too big and you’re wasting money on them. Things are not too small. And it’s encumbering what you want to function in the space. So, there’s just the right amount of space.

And then there’s the right amount of flow of how things work in the space, whether it’s from your front door into your different practice spaces. Or whether it’s just at the front desk and how your front desk person would operate and have everything they need. So, all those efficiencies create function, and that has to happen first. So, you can already see if it functions well, it’s going to save you money. If it doesn’t function well, it’s going to cost you money. So, the first thing we want to do is make sure that that foundational operation.

And then we can, just like you would think about marketing, then you start to think about the aesthetics. So, function has to do with operations. The aesthetics have to do with your attraction and your new patients and your sales and your marketing and all of those things.

Kayla: I really love that you included that function piece because yeah, you’re right. Sometimes when we create office spaces, we’re thinking, how can I make this as beautiful or as pretty or as appealing as possible, but if that’s going to add additional time on your day or it adds additional say clutter. So maybe you have a big plant and that’s like in the way of you being able to look out your office and see if a client is waiting. That’s probably not the best function, even though that plant might be beautiful. It’s probably not really the best use of space.

Carolyn: Yes, it’s not the best use of space. And another place of function that happens a lot is bottlenecking where you’ll have patients coming in and out. It depends on what kind of practice you have, right. And how impactful that is. But that can slow down your day and can slow down how many patients you actually can see. And that can add up, it can add up a lot if the function doesn’t work. So, you understand in your coaching with your clients and things, how important that is.

Kayla: Is there anything that say virtual therapists should consider when it comes to office design? Since the pandemic, a lot of therapists are actually online and might think, ” well, I don’t have to worry about that because I don’t necessarily have an office space other than my bedroom.” What would you say to that?

Carolyn: Now we don’t practice that. We don’t do virtual design, but having studied this, I make sure that in our situation, all of our designers, our sales, everybody are virtual. And what that backdrop looks like, Is part of your impression. Okay. So, I love the zoom. You can change your background stuff, which is wonderful unless you move a lot and then your ears go away and your hair changes colors and things of that sort. So, our design staff and our salespeople, I don’t let them do zoom because they move too much. They move too much. They’re moving things and they’re moving pieces around. It’s distorted. It breaks your mind.

So I would just say, it still is your impression. So, make sure that your background looks good. Make sure you have good lighting. Make sure that you can hear it really well. I mean, we can only do so much for the Internet. But the best that you can have, you just want to make it easy. You don’t want to create barriers in the way of the best that you could be.

Kayla: I love that. So, what things should therapists and coaches consider when designing or organizing their office space for client attraction or retention?

Carolyn: So, we’ve talked about a lot of that, right? We’ve talked about the first thing you need to know is who your ideal patient is, and you want to design for them, not for you. But at the same time, what’s your brand? How do you want to show up? So, you have to marry those together, okay? And make sure that your image, that you’re showing up, because you can’t ever make a first impression again. One time.

Then we already talked about the flow and that has to be considered. So, if you put those 2 together, then that is pretty much the main keys that you need to consider in any kind of design, those function altogether.

Kayla: Do you have any additional advice, insights or tips for listeners about how to create an office space that attracts clients and improves retention rates?

Carolyn: So, the very first thing we tell our clients to do, so the very first thing we do is we talked about form follows function. So, if you’re going to start a new space. You first need to determine how many square feet you need. So, you don’t just guess. You don’t just base it on what your buddy did.

You also need to do that so that you’re prepared to go look for space. So, we have six steps in our process and the first step is just determining your square footage requirements and the aesthetic vision that you’re trying to create. So, we call that our step one and our goal there is to give the advantage of you get really, really clear on what you’re looking for. And it helps you find space faster. It helps you find space that you know is going to match up with your business plan. So, it’s square footage based, like I said, and it’s also image based. Because there’s all different kinds of spaces you can go into and so if you don’t kind of know where your vision is. You can get really lost, really overwhelmed. So, it’s helping you from being overwhelmed and being more on focus. So that’s step one.

And then step two, you’ll actually go through the process of finding a space and going through that space planning exercise, et cetera. So, um, I know that in the future, we’re going to have a podcast where I get really, really into the whole process, but those are the two main things. It’s just being prepared upfront before you go look for space. As opposed to finding space and then trying to figure how you fit into it.

Kayla: Amazing. So, Carolyn, you have a free resource that you’d like to share. Can you tell us a little bit about what it is and how it can help listeners?

Carolyn: Yes, I’d love to. So, we created a resource that we actually use as designers ourselves, and it is we call it the five point designer checklist. And it’s like the first five things we would look at when we evaluate an existing office space on how that image shows up. And it’s intended to be a, as I call it a checklist, but it’s actually to be used as a tool to walk through your office and look at and ask the question, how does this show up. One of the things I want to say, though, we first recommend right off the bat. It’s you don’t do it yourself. You have a trusted advisor walk with you. Because you don’t see the same things that they see you’ve lived in it too long. So hopefully that’ll help your listeners.

Kayla: Great. So, to sign up for Carolyn’s 5 Point Designer Checklist, check out kayladas.com/carolynboldtchecklist

that’s kayladas.com/carolynboldtchecklist

Or you can simply scroll down to the show notes and click on the link.

Carolyn, thank you so much for joining us today on the podcast to discuss why practice office design matters.

Carolyn: Thank you so much for having me here. I just really enjoyed having the opportunity to share my message.

Kayla: Thank you everyone for tuning in to today’s episode and I hope you join me again soon on the Designer Practice Podcast.

Until next time, bye for now.

Credits & Disclaimers

Music by ItsWatR from Pixabay

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