Our guest blogger this week, Terri Taylor, has 32 years of experience in interior design and construction. Besides running her award-winning design studio, Terri is an interior design business coach, supporting entrepreneurial design business professionals with a unique mix of proven design business systems and inspirational tools to create meaningful success(www.designbizblueprints.com). Terri will present a free, CEU-accredited business building seminar in Los Angeles on July 27 at Robert Allen | Beacon Hill showroom at the Pacific Design Center. See Robert Allen's Facebook page for all details.
Terri Taylor
For many years we have relied on product mark-ups to be fairly paid for our creative ability and organizational services. It is no wonder. We love beautiful furniture, gorgeous fabrics and drop dead lighting. We get excited and talk to our clients about it!
While this has been profitable for many of us through the past years, the unintended consequence is that the client has come to believe that the “magic” of interior design is in the product they buy, rather than the experience of co-creating their uniquely individual space with a talented designer as their guide.
Here is the problem. Now that product has become available to anyone who is willing to diligently search the internet, designers are having trouble getting paid what they are worth.
What is the answer to this problem?
We must educate our clients as to the true value of the services that we provide. It is our job, perhaps it is our duty to inform our clients and the public as to the real truth about the benefits and value that we provide.
The burden is on us, as designers, to shift the public perception of interior design value being product-based into one of appreciating the value of the design experience. We need our clients to understand and value the expertise, knowledge and unique creativity of a good designer.
Once our clients understand what we really offer, we can charge what we are worth and not have to rely on product sales to fund our paycheck.
This means that right now, today, we must begin to shift our mindset so we can begin to build our profit into the design fee portion of our job income.
Designers often say to me me; “How do I talk to clients about the value of using an interior designer? What is it? I only know about talking about color, space plans, great fabrics and furniture.”
We actually bring a lot of benefits to the table if you stop and think about it.
Here are 3 simple ways that designers bring extraordinary value to a design job. Be sure to use these when talking about and selling your design services to your clients.
Tip #1 Experience: The client’s experience of co-creating a space that is uniquely theirs with the help of a professional designer is a journey of discovery. A dynamic guided journey of discovery of themselves and what the world has to offer while forming a design that is beautifully exclusive. An experience of this nature is not to be missed.
Tip #2 Value: Value is the new luxury and we as designers have the knowledge, experience and understanding to be excellent judges of quality versus dollars spent. This places us in a position of being “good stewards” of our clients' budgets and guide them to spend wisely.
Tip #3 Time: The ultimate luxury of time is given to clients to spend on themselves or with their families. They don’t need to spend their weekends driving to furniture stores looking for the right pieces. Their designer, hard at work, researches and looks at 212 different chairs to find the 2 that are the very best to present to their client.
Be sure to watch this blog next week for part two with more tips on “How to Get Paid What You Are Worth”