To-The-Trade Episode Summary
Sharon Sherman of Thyme and Place Design has spent more than 40 years working across both interior design and kitchen and bath. That dual vantage point gives her a sharper read on one of the industry’s most persistent problems: designers, showrooms, and manufacturers all want to succeed together, but they keep missing each other.
The episode opens with a contrast that sets the tone. When Sharon first walked into the D&D Building in New York City, she immediately felt the aloofness. Then she walked into a kitchen-and-bath showroom and was greeted as a person. Two sectors, two entirely different cultures. That gap, she argues, is still shaping how the trade ecosystem functions, or fails to.
The conversation covers how dramatically the market has shifted since COVID. Clients are changing. Procurement is changing. Showrooms are consolidating or closing. And brands that once thrived on volume business from large commercial accounts are now trying to court individual designers, often without understanding what that actually requires.
Sharon is direct about the disconnect. Brands spend enormous money on events, catering, PR installations, and speaker fees, then walk away saying designers didn’t show up or weren’t supportive. But designers showed up. They just weren’t being spoken to. The mistake, she says, is leading with what a brand wants to tell designers rather than asking what designers actually need.
She uses her own experience to make it concrete. She visited one company’s showroom repeatedly over several years before placing her first order, which was $45,000. Her rep never once reached out. By the time the rep finally appeared, Sharon had already placed multiple large orders. The showroom was thriving from her repeat visits. The brand representative had no idea she existed. That, she says, is the dysfunction the industry keeps tolerating.
What designers want is simple to describe and apparently hard to deliver: to be welcomed, not sold to. To be inspired. To build actual relationships. To receive solutions that make their projects better and their businesses more profitable. The last point matters most. Good relationships that don’t support profitability aren’t sustainable for anyone.
Sharon’s own vendor strategy reflects this. She carries roughly 25 accounts across furniture, flooring, wall covering, and accessories. Not a hundred. Twenty-five, because she can support them consistently and they know her well enough to advise her in return. She describes a showroom contact who knows her so well that she can tell a client, without Sharon present, whether Sharon would love something or whether she could find something better. That kind of relationship doesn’t happen by accident, and it doesn’t happen quickly.
The conversation also addresses the direct purchasing question honestly. Building a strong vendor list matters, but buying direct is only profitable when the infrastructure is in place to handle returns, receiving, inspection, and repairs. Without strong existing relationships and enough purchase volume to matter to the brand, things that go wrong stay wrong. The showroom relationship is sometimes the more profitable choice once you account for all the hidden costs of going direct.
She makes a strong point about what designers bring to brands that doesn’t show up on purchase orders. When designers share installation photography with manufacturers and hand over the copyright, that is real marketing value brands can’t easily produce on their own. One cabinet company Sharon has worked with for over 20 years credited her early product recommendations as the origin of their best-selling door style. She received a handwritten thank-you note when she recently placed a major order. That’s the bar, she says.
One of the episode’s most useful frameworks is what Sharon calls the dinner plate analogy. You’re not going to farm everything yourself or fish your own lake. You’ll have large vendors for core products, local showrooms for regional sourcing, and one or two specialty makers for the pieces that finish the room. Managing that mix intentionally, she says, is a business strategy, not an accident.
The episode closes with Sharon’s forecast for the industry. She sees a growing divide between what she calls conveyor belt design, spaces filled with manufactured, interchangeable products, and painterly design, environments that are curated, specific, and deeply considered. Legislative trends are already pointing in the same direction: fast-furniture bans in the UK and silica restrictions in California. The market is sorting itself, and designers who build the right brand partnerships will be positioned for the premium end.
Sharon regularly works with designers across interior design and kitchen and bath, cross-training those with expertise in one discipline to be competent in the other. If you’re an interior designer looking to expand into kitchens and baths, or a kitchen and bath designer looking to broaden into full interiors, Thyme and Place Design is where to start. You can also follow Sharon on Instagram.
Timestamp Guide
00:00 – Welcome and episode context: showrooms, brands, and the trade ecosystem
02:14 – The D&D Building vs. kitchen and bath culture
03:12 – How the market has changed since COVID
07:45 – The biggest industry challenges and the Rochester tile showroom story
11:36 – The $45,000 order and the rep who never showed up
12:23 – What designers actually want: welcomed, inspired, profitable
14:09 – Direct purchasing risks: returns, receiving, and when things go wrong
17:06 – Designers as maestros managing moving parts clients never see
18:46 – Sharon’s focused vendor strategy: 25 accounts, not 100
20:30 – How sharing photography adds value to manufacturer relationships
24:30 – Brands misreading designer support and why it happens
33:57 – The cabinet company, 20 years, and the best-selling door style
35:36 – Egos and arrogance as relationship killers
39:33 – AI, technology, and keeping the human element in client service
43:08 – The dinner plate analogy: managing your vendor ecosystem
48:04 – What’s coming: conveyor belt design vs. painterly design
51:00 – Sharon’s cross-training work and closing
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