About
I'm Laura. Designer, entrepreneur, and mentor.
I'm also mom to a brilliant boy and an adorable puppy, an Earl Grey addict, and an aspiring guitarist with rock star dreams.
I got tired of seeing surface-level solutions to foundational problems and decided to do something about it.
Your vision and creative voice are the starting point for everything in your business. That’s where the strategy truly lives.
What makes me different than other interior design business strategists and coaches is that I’m not a strategist or a coach.
I’m a mentor. I help you build your entire business ecosystem, not just the process, not just the business side of the business. Your creative vision and your goals are the starting point. Everything gets built from there. The creative is where the business strategy starts.
create impactful growth.
create impactful growth.
I often hear designers say the three things they want most are better clients, higher profits and less chaos. Yes, but why? If we look past the surface, that’s not the end game. What you really want are the transformations to your life and work that those things make possible. Impact, influence, fulfillment and freedom. We don’t do surface level here. We build to meet your real goals.
This is about doing the work that changes peoples' lives, including your own. It's about levelling up so you have the means and resources to do transformational work. Whether that’s bigger budgets for more impactful design, structural changes that support your team, or higher profits that support your family and community. This is about creating a business that gives you the capacity to have an impact on others and do the things that make you proud.
01. IMPACT
create impactful growth.
create influential growth.
This is about rising into leadership, with your team, your projects, and within the industry. It's about being recognized for your work, in whatever way is important to you, and building a strong brand that attracts aligned clients who value what you do. It's about inspiring others through knowledge, leadership and excellence, strengthening relationships, and creating greater impact.
02. INFLUENCE
For a creative person, fulfillment means something different. Of course, you want to enjoy your day, your team, and your clients. But you also need to be challenged creatively. You need to produce exciting and meaningful work, and grow as an artist and designer. So you need a business that's built to create those opportunities, give you creative freedom, and open the space in your day, and your bandwidth, to think, breathe, and create.
03. FULFILLMENT
create fulfilling growth.
create freedom.
04. FREEDOM
This is about your life. Your time. Your family. Your legacy. You started your business, in part, to have control over these things, but somewhere along the way that control slipped. But your business doesn’t need to own you. By building a stronger foundation that’s designed to support your success, you’ll regain that control. You’ll have the profits to enjoy the lifestyle you want, and the structure to hold your business so you can be fully present in your life.
Your at-a-glance guide to what LSI Workshop is all about
THE QUICK LIST
WHO LSI WORKSHOP IS FOR
Interior designers & decorators with established businesses who are ready to get off the plateau
THE GOAL
Better clients, less chaos, higher profits, longevity
THE REAL GOAL
Impact, influence, fulfillment & freedom
HOW WE GET THERE
Recalibrate your foundation to support the next level
The foundation
An integrated and aligned ecosystem that incorporates both the business and the creative to support goal-driven growth
WHO IT'S NOT FOR
Students, recent graduates, brand new business owners or employees
NOT THE GOAL
Extra work & overwhelm masquerading as growth
REALLY NOT THE GOAL
A business that owns you as it gets bigger
WHAT WE DON'T DO
Use surface level quick-fixes to solve a structural issue
NOT THE FOUNDATION
Systems and operational silos.
Also not the foundation: you, your time and your bandwidth
CHAPTER 1: ONCE UPON A TIME...
I was an art director, building brands and marketing campaigns.
I spent the first part of my career living in Boston and working as an art director, graphic designer and stylist. With a Masters degree in Marketing Communications, I developed brands, designed marketing campaigns, and built experiences that told powerful visual stories. That creative foundation shaped the next chapters. It had a lasting influence on how I built and ran my design firm, and continues to bring perspective to everything I create at LSI Workshop.
MY STORY
the abbreviated version
CHAPTER 2: STARTING OVER AND BUILDING MY DREAM
My client's puppy, Steve
Enter Laura Stein Interiors
(LSI for short)
Back home, in my 30's and living in my parents' house, I started my design firm from my brother's old bedroom. I'd gone back to school for interior design, but no one had taught me how to run a business. I didn't care. I had found my passion and I was going to make it happen. I had to figure it out on my own. And I did. I had a gorgeous studio. A fantastic team. Wonderful, high-profile clients. High-end projects. Publications. Awards. Seven figures. I got where I was going, and I loved every minute of it. Until I didn't.
CHAPTER 3: WHICH BRINGS US TO TODAY
A fresh perspective,
a new beginning and
LSI Workshop
After more than 20 years building and running a luxury design firm (and a lot of self-reflection), I realized I was no longer in the right place. I had achieved what I set out to, and I was ready for the next chapter. I wanted to help more people, have a bigger impact on the industry, and find a new challenge that was more aligned with who I am today. I also realized I had something new to offer – guidance, experience, and the wisdom that comes with failure, success and hindsight. And so LSI Workshop was born. To mentor, support, and inspire, and to give back to this industry that has given so much to me.
I'll always be a designer. It's in my blood. But LSI Workshop is the place I'm meant to be now, and I hope you find it's the place you're meant to be too.
Older and wiser
A FEW FUN
FACTS
NOW FOR THE IMPORTANT STUFF
I always knew I would do something creative, but I didn't find my passion until I was in my 30s.
History, art, architecture and travel are my inspiration. My best advice? Study what came before you.
I used the same pink on this site on the inside of a client's dressing room millwork. Her husband told me it was hideous. I love it.
Dark chocolate, dry rosé, Earl Grey, London, Paris, the Blues, grunge, Hemingway, black blazers, The Princess Bride, community, family.
Sign up and get a free copy of my Client Experience Audit, a sneak peek into the same framework I use with my mentorship clients to recalibrate for impactful growth.
Plus... you'll get my newsletter, The Workshop Journal delivered right to your inbox! It's full of fresh insights, resources, and behind-the-scenes notes on growing a design business you're proud of.