"‘Just start and figure it out as you go" with Interior Designer, Becc Burgmann

Photo Credit: The Stylish Life Project)

Interior Designer, Becc Burgmann is a country girl at heart, but is just as comfortable riding a horse as she is in heels meeting designers in Paris! Becc believes in the saying ‘jack of all trades, master of none’, so she’s changing the ideology of the Australian Design industry by specialising in the design niche only Hamptons, Parisian and Country Style interiors on large scale renovations and new builds, and teaching others that specialising is ok!   

Can you tell our readers about your background?

I was born and bred on a cropping and cattle property about seven hours northwest of Sydney. Growing up I thought my life was set, go to university, become a primary teacher, marry a farmer, and have 3 kids by 30. University yes, primary teacher yes, a move to London to teach yes… but on city life, I was absolutely sold and this threw a huge spanner in the works! The love of interiors I’d been ignoring started to really surface… and that made me very uncomfortable!

Returning to Australia, I taught at a beautiful private boys’ school. One day early on, I was standing there just looking at the most perfect class of Yr 3 boys while they were working and thought this really isn’t where my heart is. I would much prefer to be designing spaces and knee-deep in a renovation. For 10 years, I tried to ignore the yearning to move into interiors full-time. I’d bought my own investment and done work to it, helped friends re-design their own homes, and just immersed myself in interiors outside of teaching every opportunity I could. After about 10 years of trying to find something in teaching to passionately love, including by this stage studying externally the Certificate of Advanced Educational Leadership at Harvard – just to try and challenge me – I couldn’t do it anymore. Personal things that year also made it the most challenging year I’d ever had, but it was plain as day, it was time! I wrote my resignation letter, said a prayer, and as a single lady, walked away from a secure, permanent 6-figure salary to start my interior design business. Interiors I knew, business I did not!

What inspired you to start your business?

There were a few things that inspired me, my faith is the biggest one, and really accepting that I need to ‘put on my big girl pants and do it, it was time! I was unhappy at work, I felt like I was ‘acting’ going to work every day to a job that didn’t in any way shape, or form light me up. I felt claustrophobic between 4 walls and just had a yearning to follow my dreams and really REALLY be living each day doing the thing that did light me up. I didn’t want to get to 80 and regret trying! There was no person or thing that inspired me specifically to start, I just knew it was time and that this was happening… now!

Where is your business based?

Sydney, Australia, but I consult nationally too.

How did you start your business? What were the first steps you took?

I stopped studying the certificate at Harvard and started studying a certificate in design, just to say I had a ‘piece of paper’ if anyone asked (FYI no one ever has except people contacting me who are interested in studying the same certificate I did to find out more about it!) I completed this externally within a few months because it just came so naturally.

Turning your passion into a viable business is a whole different thing, but working for someone else was never even on the cards, I wanted to be my own boss! I needed a business mentor, but I wasn’t interested in spending semesters or years at TAFE or university either, knowing I’d probably only use 50% of it. I both needed and wanted someone who would tell me what I needed to know… no rubbish, no unnecessary assignments. I wanted a dive into the deep end mentor – that I got! I worked with a brilliant business mentor for five months who worked with me from ‘Yep, I’m starting a business to it’s an up and running business in this short time.

I have since over the years now done many short courses ie in marketing, spoken to many people (I’m not afraid to ask people out for a coffee and pick their brains), I read a LOT and most importantly I also follow my instinct of what works for me. I do not want to be like other designers. While I love and respect them, I couldn’t care less what they’re doing in their own businesses.

What has been the most effective way of raising awareness for your business?

I would 100% say being obviously in love with my work and a genuine passion for just wanting to help others through doing what I love! I get told all the time, ‘you’re so enthusiastic, you just light up when talking or teaching others about interiors!’ Through this, a lot of my work is word of mouth, but I have then begun growing an online presence (and a long way to go!) on Instagram through showing my projects, ideas, inspiration, etc within the design niche I specialise in. I haven’t tried to do it all at once, I chose one platform, Instagram, and started there.

What have been your biggest challenges and how did you overcome them?

Definitely around valuing my skill set and charging accordingly. There is a mentality I think we all begin with and that’s ‘I’ve only been in business 1 year, so I charge one-year experience worth’, but you soon learn this is rubbish! I’ve met builders with 2 years experience who have more skills, knowledge, and ‘can do’ attitude than builders with 30 years experience who are so set in their way (and their way only) of doing something it’s frustrating! I now have no problem putting the right value on my skills. If someone wants to begin negotiating prices, I’m suddenly ‘now booked up’ because you aren’t my client and will probably be a headache all the way through. Pass!

How do you stay focused?

I’m very self-driven and motivated and as ridiculously hard as this journey has been (picking myself up after a big cry and telling myself now get on with it!), it’s been the most incredible, most rewarding, and uncomfortably humbling experience. On the rare moments, I think I can’t do this, I imagine being back stuck between 4 walls and I pull my head in pretty quickly and tell myself to figure it out pronto! I’m here, this is it right now, I don’t have a backup plan… it’s full steam ahead!

How do you differentiate your business from the competition?

I specialise in the design niche – Hamptons, Parisian, and Country Style. At first, people used to say ‘why don’t you do everything, what if your clients don’t want or like any of those interior styles?’ My answer was simple, then I’m not the designer for them! Doctors specialise in different areas of medicine, tradies specialise in different trades on building sites, why should I not design in a particular interior style niche? This is the ideology I want to further make a mark on in interiors in Australia because I think very few are there with this mentality and I want it to become more normal. People now do know me for those 3 styles and I love that, I’m an expert in these areas and I’ve learned not to doubt myself! 

What has been your most effective marketing strategy to grow your business?

Definitely word of mouth for me personally.

What's your best piece of advice for aspiring and new entrepreneurs?

My best piece of advice is ‘just start and figure it out as you go!’… followed by ‘do you want to look back when you’re 80 and smile because you tried, or live with regret?’ There is SO much help, support, and advice available, but just start somewhere. Your website won’t be perfectly straight up, you’ll forget to tag people on Instagram and contracts will be refined again and again… you’ll never stop learning and always find better and more effective ways of doing things… but just start! I can’t stand procrastinators, they aren’t my people!

What's your favorite app, blog, and book? Why?

My favourite books are books that have more interior pictures than words... and within my niche. I don’t often want to know about the designer behind them because it’s not about them, I want to just admire the space and how it makes me feel looking at it. Haha app, honestly, my bible app, it’s full of advice!

What's your favorite business tool or resource? Why?

My design program, easy! It makes life so much easier in explaining the layouts of new spaces as most clients aren’t visual at all, which is why they engage me.

Who is your business role model? Why?

Richard Branson because I love his fearlessness…. Period… and always with a smile. FAIL to me means First Attempt In Learning… not only knowing this but truly believing it, makes you unstoppable.  

How do you balance work and life?

I love what I do so much that it’s sometimes to my detriment. But, I make sure that even though it’s my passion and love, I also love my friends and family so making time to be with them is also paramount as time is the most precious gift. I also try and do a bushwalk on a Sunday as I love being outdoors. 

What’s your favorite way to decompress?

Definitely a bushwalk or catching up with people.

What do you have planned for the next six months?

Marketing is actually a focus for the next six months, in particular being more proactive about reaching my dream clients on social media, not just relying on word of mouth. Also, sharing my skills with a wider audience in some capacity and generating other streams of income.

How can our readers connect with you?

The best way would be by Instagram @becc_burgmann or my email becc@beccburgmann.com.