Most interior designers reach an invisible ceiling that holds them back from greater success. To reach your potential, there are certain truths you need to accept. They’re not always easy, but they’re honest. From setting boundaries to no longer letting yourself bottleneck your own business, these five lessons will free you from your limitations and give you the time and energy needed to create beautiful designs.
Community is Better than Competition
In a society built on boundless growth and rugged individualism, it can be tempting to view other design firms (especially ones that serve the same area or audience as you) as fierce competition. But the honest truth is that there is plenty of room in the market. This becomes even more true when you accept the differences between your businesses. Chances are, even if they have similar styles, any two design businesses speak to a different base of potential customers―there isn’t 100% overlap.
So how do you view your “competition” if not as rivals? Instead, treat them as collaborators. Building a local network of designers can be the rising tide that lifts all boats. If you’ve taken the time to define your ideal client profile, then you probably come across projects that don’t really suit you. But it feels bad to turn away a client and say you can’t help them. With a network of other designers at your fingertips, you can instead refer those non-ideal clients to a designer who is more appropriate for the project. If everyone is committed to helping each other, you should get plenty of jobs passed on to your firm as well.
Beyond just sharing clients, this supportive network can also be a wealth of knowledge. Everyone has different levels of experience and backgrounds. Chances are, everyone has something to share and something to learn. Don’t be afraid to give away what you may see as proprietary information. Chances are, you’ll be better off maximizing peer-level support than hoarding your secrets.
Hourly Rates Protect Your Profit
It’s time to move away from the trap of fixed fees. Many designers start by offering fixed fees for projects, but this can quickly turn into a major profit leak for you. When you use fixed fees, you end up subsidizing projects with your own money, rather than the client paying for them. So why is hourly the superior method? Let’s dig into it.
Scope creep is a real factor in almost any project, interior design or otherwise. Whether through additional demands from the client or as a result of estimates gone wrong, it’s easy for a project to balloon beyond its original scale. Hourly billing removes this as a concern altogether. Instead, the cost is passed to the client, who is the one paying for things, after all. In your project estimates, you can include a range or buffer so clients aren’t caught by surprise if the scope creeps up. But this change will be great for your financial sanity, creating a well-oiled machine where revenue is tied to the team’s work, not a best guess that you made at the start of the project.
Firm Boundaries Attract Firm Clients
Remove the phrase “I’m sorry” from your business vocabulary. Setting boundaries around your work may seem like a quick way to lose clients. After all, refusing to answer the phone after a certain time, waiting several days to respond to an email, or sticking strictly to talking business during a meeting all sound rude and dismissive. Why would someone want to work with a designer who does those things?
Your ideal client, that’s who. Not answering the phone after normal working hours, replying to emails within 48 hours rather than 48 seconds, and sticking to the meeting agenda are not rude; they are respectful to everyone’s valuable time. Decisive and direct clients will appreciate your boundaries because they have their own. They don’t want to work with a submissive, weak designer (unless they do, in which case you probably don’t want to work for them!); they want to work with someone who will communicate clearly and efficiently, leading with business savvy and confidence.
We’ve seen plenty of designers who spend a lot of time as the de facto therapist for their clients, spending as much time on their project as on their personal lives. Some designers love this aspect of the job, and you don’t have to avoid it entirely. Just make sure the social calls aren’t affecting your bottom line, the pace of the project, or your own mental health.
Revenue is Vanity, Net Profit is Sanity
Being able to tell people you have a million dollars in revenue seems like a desirable goal. But it’s a lot less impressive if your expenses are also a million dollars. At the point, design is a high-stress hobby, not a source of income. That is why net profit is the real number you should be worried about. Revenue in a vacuum means nothing because it does not include the necessary expenses of your business. Net profit is how much is left over, which you get to deposit in the bank or reinvest in your business.
If you’re only worrying about revenue right now, there are a few changes you can make to focus on the right data. Track your cash flow―how much is going into overhead, furniture orders, and paying contractors, as well as when payments come in for a finished project. This can give you an idea of what times of the year are leaner than others, and you can save or prepare accordingly.
Audit your business for leaks in your profit. This can include using fixed fees as we mentioned above, but it can also include inefficient software or unnecessarily repeated work. This will help you focus on maximizing net profit by attacking expenses rather than trying to just increase revenue.
You are the Bottleneck
Many founders are the face of their business, the main point of contact, and the most experienced designer. This sounds great, but it has the major downside of you being the bottleneck. Everything must flow through you, whether it’s approvals or client phone calls. This eats into your time during the workday, leading to long hours and limiting your ability to take a vacation.
You need to be able to delegate tasks to your team and get out of the weeds of day-to-day tasks. When your staff can take matters into their own hands and be proactive action-takers, it leaves you with more time to do the things you’re best at. For any project, start by setting the creative direction, then let your team take it from there, and finally put on the finishing touches for the final reveal. Try to keep your hands out of the meat of your projects, and instead rely on progress dashboards and weekly updates from the project lead. Trust the team you hired to do the job you hired them for!
These five lessons aren’t just about running your business better. They are foundational to creating a legacy business that can operate even after you decide to leave. Stop working “in” the design, and start working on the machine as a whole. If you’re stuck in the day-to-day tasks of your business, you’re limiting your growth. Ready to master these lessons? Fill out our program application form today so we can lend a helping hand.