Our dirty little secret.

There is something that could be called our dirty little secret - many designers feel like they don’t know what they’re doing. Sure, they can design, but the running of their business feels overwhelming, beyond their expectations and capabilities. Many designers end up winging most parts of running of their business.

Now this doesn’t always end up horrible, sometimes experimentation is a good thing and can result in better ways of doing things. And often we have to “wing it” because there are not really any standards of doing business in the interior design industry.

But winging the same processes, again and again and again, always doing things a little different each time with no rhyme or reason - that’s recipe for disaster. Not to mention unhappy, confused, or let down clients.

So, it’s time to stop winging your design process.

Three steps to success

There are three overall steps to being successful.

1. Knowing and understanding your client.

2. Having a simple process.

3. Delivering on that process.

So let’s talk about why each of these steps work well and build your successful business.

Step 1 - Knowing and understanding your client.

This is the backbone of any business. It’s also important to know and understand yourself, this balance between your zone of genius and YOUR ideal clients is the magic. Just like friends or a mate, there are people who are just going to “get” you, like your style, and think your great - those are the people you want as clients. Alternately, you aren’t for everyone and you can’t waste your time with people who are, essentially, other designers’ clients.

Knowing your clients deeply, their wants, needs, desires, secrets will help you do your best work for them. When you understand where to find them, you know what style of designer they want, you know why they are attracted to certain parts of your business.

For example, your ideal clients may like that you explain deeply your thought process behind each big selection. They may want to understand your why for the design plan. Or maybe they want to know nothing, they just want it beautiful and with little input from them. Your design process should be aligned with your ideal client, because the approach to working with these two very different clients will be different. You get into trouble when you start catering your design process to each client.

Step 2 - Having a simple process.

Once you know and understand your clients (and yourself) you can begin to think about a design process that makes the best sense for both of you. Is there a long pre-planning period? Do you work in a lot of hand-holding? Do your clients want a really complete design plan before they start buying or is it more organic? Maybe they’re sticklers for their initial budget or maybe they want to see some “stretch” options for important pieces. Do your clients want to have a lot of information prior to working with you (like in a very detailed new client packet) or are they the type that wants to hang out and get to know you socially first?

These are the things that will make you stand out as a designer, this aligning your design process with them in mind to provide a great experience for your ideal clients (and those other designers’ clients may not relate or like it and that’s great).

For interior designers, the design process outline can be very similar: first contact, consultation/in-person meetings/ design planning/ purchasing & expediting/ installation. However, how you build out that process to best serve your client and you is, again, what will set you apart and make you stand out.

So take the framework of your design process and start committing it to paper. Write it down. Adjust. Where are the sticking points? What works well, what can be improved. You are designing a process, you are no longer winging it for each client. Make it easy to follow for you and the client. It should not be too complicated that you’re confusing yourself and/or them.

Step 3 - Delivering on that process.

Now that you know and understand your clients and have a simple process, you execute. You deliver that process again and again - not only will this make it easier on you, making your business run more efficiently, but it provides peace of mind to your clients that you know what you are doing.

Stop for a minute and think about hiring a service provider - how would it feel if you weren’t sure of the next steps and they also weren’t sure what was going to happen next. They fumbled around and seemed to be figuring it out as they went. This probably would make you feel nervous about the result. You may question their competence and wonder if they are wasting your time and money. This is how your clients feel when you wing you design process.

So get your process in place and stick to it.

If something isn’t working with your process make an intentional adjustment. So you are still following a plan. Whatever you do, don’t let clients take the lead here - you are in charge.

Let me know in the comments: Do you still wing your design process? Or maybe you have a rough outline, but maybe need to tighten it up a bit?

About The Author

Hi! I’m Capella and I’m an interior designer who helps fellow designers build their businesses. Forget secrecy and competition, I believe designers should support and uplift each other. By helping and boosting one another, we can elevate the business of interior design together! Hang around a bit and I’ll share all the business “secrets” no one else wants to talk about.