Nate Berkus Shares the Lessons Behind His Enduring Success

On the surface, Nate Berkus and I couldn’t have more different businesses. He designs multimillion-dollar homes and commercial properties. I implement CRM and AI software systems and advise small businesses. But after talking with him, I realized we’ve learned many of the exact same lessons about growing a company, keeping clients happy and building teams that last.

Berkus founded Nate Berkus Associates — a design firm that specializes in luxury residential interiors and select commercial projects —  more than 30 years ago and has since catered to the rich and famous, frequently appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show, judged and hosted numerous TV shows on HGTV (most recently The Nate & Jeremiah Home Project) and has won numerous industry awards for his renovating, furnishing and custom interior work.

I can’t claim to have such a storied career. But I write, speak and consult. Berkus and I both built our respective companies — his has about 50 people, and I have about 10 — over about 30 years.  Here’s what we’ve learned.

Build teams and delegate

Great companies scale by not having the founder do everything.  Before my father passed away in 2005, my company was just me and him. After his passing, I started to hire people, build teams and delegate projects.  And that was when I started to make money. Berkus learned a similar lesson.

“Entrepreneurs eventually have to let talented people represent their brand,” he told me when I interviewed him on a recent Paychex Thrive podcast. “The founder’s job shifts from doing the work to creating systems and hiring people who can deliver the same quality.”

Clients want Berkus just like they wanted me on their projects.  But they can adapt, and to Berkus, the owner or founder can still stay involved, but at a distance.

“The client knows that I’ve always looked at it before it goes out the door,” he said. “If somebody that represents me is suggesting something, it’s because I’m suggesting it as well.”

Keep your toe in the water

Although my firm now has more than 600 clients and I spend a great deal of time travelling, I still retain one long-term client — a 150-person paper and film manufacturing company in Bucks County, Pennsylvania – where I visit just about every week for a few hours. I love meeting with the three brothers who own the business (we’ve grown old together), chiming in on the various issues of the day, reviewing their financials and being useful as an advisor. And it keeps me in the game. The stuff I learn there I take to other clients and in my writing and speaking activities.

Berkus is the same. His media schedule is way more intense than mine. Still, he believes in staying close to his core business, even as the demands of his success have pulled him in different directions. He says that the business that made your reputation should continue informing everything else you do, as it does for him.

“I was a designer first and will always be a designer,” he said. “I didn’t feel like I’d have the credibility that I wanted unless I was still very much involved in the day-to-day design process with my firm and clients.”

The customer isn’t always right

The more years I’ve spent implementing technology and advising clients on financial matters, the more I’ve grown in confidence. Berkus, too. Both of us have learned that we know what we know, and what we know a lot of our clients don’t know, regardless of how much they think they know. Got that? Both of us are pretty adamant about saying “no” to a client when we don’t agree with an approach.

“Of course, we don’t just say no without a reason,” he said. “But over the years, we’ve built a foundation of principles, and we require our clients to respect our process.”

Too true. A client wouldn’t be hiring my firm or Berkus’s if they could just do it themselves. They have to understand that they’re paying us for a reason — our expertise and experience to truly know what’s right.

Be accountable

Regardless of what we both know, we both still make mistakes. And another thing I’ve learned is to be accountable.

When I was a young accountant, I made a major mistake on a spreadsheet that I prepared for a client. He noticed it and kept questioning me, and I kept deflecting, avoiding his calls and making up excuses. To this day, I still regret behaving that way. People make mistakes. Grown-ups own up to theirs.

Berkus agrees and has learned that being accountable usually solves more customer problems than just making excuses. Customers can accept problems. They rarely accept defensiveness.

“I like accountability,” he said. “I found myself as a customer being diffused almost instantly when somebody says, ‘You’re right, and here are my ideas to navigate it.’”

Finally, it truly is all about your people

I speak and write about AI, and my company implements AI applications.  You’d think I’d be one of those guys saying that AI is going to replace humans and that you can automate just about anything.  Baloney.

My firm relies more on our people than ever before. I need solid, hardworking, committed professionals to help me roll out solutions that help our businesses.  And I prefer to hire people smarter than me. I’ve only become comfortable with that approach over the past few years.  However, the brightest entrepreneurs — like Berkus — understand this concept at a much earlier age.

“Strong entrepreneurs know what they aren’t good at and let others handle it,” Berkus said.

And they know what’s important: treating people the way they want to be treated.

To that end, Berkus’s company offers significant flexibility and job recognition. He also finds it important to recognize employees for their loyalty and dedication, giving gold watches and Chanel bags to longer-term workers when they reach their work anniversaries.

“I’m not a cheap boss,” he said.

He is not. Neither am I. We are business owners who have been doing this for a long time. We’ve made our mistakes. But we care.  And I think the results show for both.

On the surface, Nate Berkus and I couldn’t have more different businesses. He designs multimillion-dollar homes and commercial properties. I implement CRM and AI software systems and advise small businesses. But after talking with him, I realized we’ve learned many of the exact same lessons about growing a company, keeping clients happy and building teams that last.

Berkus founded Nate Berkus Associates — a design firm that specializes in luxury residential interiors and select commercial projects —  more than 30 years ago and has since catered to the rich and famous, frequently appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show, judged and hosted numerous TV shows on HGTV (most recently The Nate & Jeremiah Home Project) and has won numerous industry awards for his renovating, furnishing and custom interior work.

I can’t claim to have such a storied career. But I write, speak and consult. Berkus and I both built our respective companies — his has about 50 people, and I have about 10 — over about 30 years.  Here’s what we’ve learned.