How To Make Money As An Interior Designer (and do what you love)
Isn’t this a great question? How do we make money doing what we love in the area of interior design? We hear often to follow our passion. Or, if you do what you love you will never work a day in your life. While these can be true, there is a bit more that needs to be added to make the plan work. Here are my recommendations for having a profitable business born out of passion.
Identify What You Love Doing
What is it that you love about interior design? Within the umbrella of all that design has to offer, which services and products seem to interest you the most? Begin by writing down all the tasks you are excited to do. Then identify if you want to offer a product to your clients and what that might be. Is there a specialty area where you want to focus? Do your research and be as specific as you can. Feel free to experiment to see what you love and don’t love, and give yourself the grace to change course if you thought you would love something and don’t. Once you land on your ideal service and product offering, learn all you can about how to best sell and provide the outcome both you and the client desires.
Sell to the People Who Value What You Do and Let You Do It
How you value your work, your team, your brand, and yourself matter. Have you clearly defined that? If not, stop now and do it. People respond to what we put out into the world. Our goal is to understand our value and worth in business and to assign a fair price for a transfer of product and service. So, we first have to be very clear about our values. Once we are, our search is for people who are in need of our product and service, who value what we bring to the table, and are willing to pay for it. They also trust our process that we have been very clear about (hint hint). They allow us room to do our best work. This takes some effort to find the right people, but it starts with each of us defining how we work and who would appreciate that product and service and for what rate. Then acting on it.
Create A Process And Follow It
A solid company with a solid product and service offering has many solid processes in the background making it all happen. This is the magic behind the curtain. Create a process you and your team follow – Every.Single.Time. This allows you to know where you are all along the way. Set and manage expectations internally with your team, and with the client. Monitor progress and stay in front of problems that might arise. And if you get that feeling you should break your process and you are trying to tell yourself it is okay – usually, it is not. Every time I have broken my process it has come back to haunt me. Be careful when you create a process, allow flexibility, then stand on that process.
If you need assistance with any of the three areas above, please consider joining The Designers’ Inner Circle. We address each of these areas and give you support along the way to building an interior design firm that you love and that makes you money.
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