Meet Trailblazer Kellyn Dean-Schneringer

Today we’d like to introduce you to Kellyn Dean-Schneringer.

Kellyn, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
Art and Design have always been passions of mine, which eventually led me to obtain a BFA in Interior Design from the University of North Texas in 2006. The classroom and internship knowledge I gained during this time has proven to be invaluable in my career as a Designer.

Immediately following graduation, I accepted a position with an Interior Design firm in Dallas, TX, Fourth Dimension Designs, which specialized and excelled in the corporate hospitality sector of design. Under the guidance of Wanda Deener and Betsy Kersting, I was able to focus on hotel and restaurant design for more than 8 years. Working at Fourth Dimension Designs allowed me to experience and have a hand in all aspects of the design process from beginning to end, which has been extremely helpful in my transition to owning my own company.

Both of my parents are successful business owners themselves, so I have always had a burning desire to follow in their footsteps and launch my own business. After starting Kellyn Dean Interior Design in 2011 to help family, friends, and referrals with residential design, organic growth exploded, and I am now able to focus 100% of my time and energy on my own company.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
There is absolutely nothing about starting your own business that is smooth. Around every corner, you encounter an obstacle that you have never had to deal with before. Hopefully, you only have to deal with each one once, but the good news is once you tackle the one in front of you, you know how to deal with it if it were to come up again in the future.

Personally for me, being an artistic-minded person, I really struggled with the business management aspect of my company. Things like Accounting and Marketing are things that will always be more difficult for me than designing a project. When I first started my company, these things were the furthest thing from the front of my mind, I just wanted to design. I learned very quickly that to survive and be successful, you have to be organized in all facets of the business.

My advice to anyone, especially women in the design industry, would be to take an extra class during college that incorporates Business Management or find someone that owns their own company that’s willing to help mentor you, and really pick their brain on the back end side of their business so you are as prepared as you can be.

Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about Kellyn Dean Interior Design – what should we know?
I spent my first nine years in the field focusing on Hospitality Design and a big portion of that was renovating hotel guest rooms and public spaces. I loved this aspect of design because you can really have some fun with space and do some eye-catching elements that you might not get a chance to do outside of the hotel setting.

I believe one of my strongest skills is relationship building and guiding clients through the process to help them realize their vision of what they want in a design. Over my first nine years in the industry, I began to crave more face to face, one on one interactions with individual clients to really give someone the space of their dreams. With my business now, I am focusing on Residential and Commercial interior design and I am really enjoying being able to learn my clients’ individual personalities and helping them realize and construct a space they will love.

Spending time with my clients to really figure out what they envision and how to accomplish it while staying within their budget is something I take very seriously. There are many ways we can reach a design goal, and I want everyone involved to be comfortable with every decision we make along the way. I’m very emotionally invested in my projects, probably to a fault sometimes honestly, but that is just the person I am and I really care about my clients.

What’s the most important piece of advice you could give to a young woman just starting her career?
As women, we are natural people-pleasers, I feel like, and in order to run a successful business, you need to try to push this away for the most part. You do need to have a level of compassion and flexibility for your clients and their needs, but you need to make sure you are thinking of yourself and the future of your business at all times. It is though, easier said than done, and I am still working on this aspect myself!

Do you feel like there was something about the experiences you had growing up that played an outsized role in setting you up for success later in life?
I think growing up getting to watch both my parents’ dedication to their own businesses and seeing all the late nights and hard work that they put into making themselves a success all on their own really stuck with me without me even realizing it.

Having them as role models really instilled in me that, this is how you live your life to the fullest and this is how you show yourself that you can do anything you put your mind and heart into! Whatever you do, do it with all your heart… always in the back of my head!

Contact Info:

• Address: *New Office Address Coming Soon*
  120 St. Louis Avenue #137
  Fort Worth, Texas 76104
• Website: www.kellyndean.com
• Phone: 817-996-9014
• Email: kellyn@kellyndean.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/kellyndeaninteriordesign
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kellyndeaninteriordesign

Image Credit:
Kellyn Dean Interior Design, Kellyn Dean Photography

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