Shea McGee’s Formula for Scaling Her Design Firm

This is something that is relatively new to us because we kept our process pretty much the same. As we’ve grown and our designers have grown with us, there’s a lot more trust there, and we felt confident that we could take this next step to tier out the projects. I attend set meetings—mainly big presentations and site visits, but I am not attending every single one in between. Internally, I meet with our lead designers on the projects weekly and review selections, questions, and things that have come up so that I make sure that I have a pulse on things. For the top tier, I’m involved in every single room and I oversee them while lead designers manage them. The next tier would be I oversee the main rooms, but then the lead designers are doing the additional spaces. Beyond that, we have virtual design; a more junior level of designer works on those projects, and I’m not involved.

To better accommodate the firm’s increased demand, Studio McGee has shifted to a tiered design service approach.

Photography courtesy Studio McGee

I want to get into the partnerships side of your business. You have licensing deals with Target, Kohler, Ann Sacks, and as of last week, a darling tabletop collection in collaboration with Loeffler Randall. What advice do you have for a designer who dreams of having a licensing deal?

Licensing has, historically, been a licensing of one’s name and then [the manufacturer] does most of the creative work and heavy lifting, from product development to marketing. But I am very involved in the creative direction, development, and marketing of the product. Our relationships are very close, but it also means that I’m a lot more involved in them.

When it comes to the contracts, I make sure that I get final approval before the product goes to market, same thing on marketing assets. Every single partnership that I take on requires face time for me—whether those are appearances or marketing days or anything like that—and so we attribute in our contracts the number of times that I need to make personal appearances or need to meet with the brand in person. Because as you get more and more partnerships, all of a sudden your calendar starts to fill up really fast—so we like to attribute that exactly.