Design Business Freedom Podcast
Interior Design Markups, Day Rates, and Flat Fees
Key takeaways ✔ Every purchase goes through your firm. When a client insists on purchasing, your contract hands them full responsibility for receiving, inspecting, damage, and returns. Internet sources get treated like any other source. Purchase order, receiver, procurement management fee. ✔ There is no industry standard markup. 15 to 20 percent is too low.…
From $70,000 in Debt to Six Figures and Debt-Free in 18 Months
I did not start my design business from a position of strength. I started it $70,000 upside down. No savings to fall back on. A cramped apartment, too many credit card bills, a whopper of a car payment, and jobless because I had been let go from Ethan Allen. (A quick aside: never argue with…
Steal Back 10 Hours Every Week: A Better Workflow for Interior Designers
Synopsis ✔ You cannot manage time. You can only manage your behaviors around time. ✔ Time-shrinking thoughts like “I’m so busy” and “I’ll never get it all done” become your reality, because you live into your expectations. ✔ Track every waking hour for one week in 15-minute increments. It will reveal your revenue rabbit holes…
The Interior Design Welcome Kit That Wins Clients
Here is the reframe that changes everything about your welcome kit. It is not a thank-you gift you hand over once the ink is dry. It is a marketing tool you use before your client has committed to anything. That one distinction is the whole game. When you deliver a welcome kit after they have…
The One Word That’s Sabotaging Your Interior Design Profits
Your talent is not what decides the size of your projects. Your words are. I have watched gifted designers undersell, under-charge, and talk themselves out of the very projects they most wanted and deserved. Not because of their portfolio. Not because of their process. Because of the vocabulary they carried into the room. I taught…
Stop Hiding in Your Interior Design Business: How to Get Seen, Found, and Hired
Here’s something I see in interior design businesses all the time, and it has nothing to do with your talent. You’re hiding in your business. Not on purpose. But you’re hiding all the same. And hiding means you’re not being seen, you’re not being found, and you’re not getting hired. Let me share how I…
The Perfect Design Contract: Protect Your Profit, Your Practice, and Your Peace of Mind
I have seen too many designers flying without a net. That is what I call it when you work without a contract, or when you work with one that has no real protection in it. I understand why. Agreements can feel scary and uncomfortable, mostly because they are written in legalese instead of plain English.…
9 Proven Ways to Fill Your Interior Design Pipeline with Ideal Clients
Most designers run their business job to job, project to project, client to client, with no wait list and no queue. That puts you on a potentially very unpleasant roller coaster. Roller coasters belong at Six Flags. They are no fun at all when the ride is your cash flow and your profit. Your pipeline…
Attracting Ideal Interior Design Clients: The 4 Intel Types Most Designers Miss
If you are not marketing specifically to your ideal client, you are marketing to a population. And marketing to a population is profoundly ineffective. For the first five years of my design practice, I took every client who showed up. I was not selective. I was not discerning. My workload was insane, 80-plus hours a…
