Business coaching for interior designers -The Design Paradigm

Defining your product

The most important first step of any you take and so often not thought out. This is a process not unlike bringing a product to market and involves researching the competition and properly discussing the attributes of your product. You will develop these attributes in the workshop and then learn how to “demonstrate” these attributes in the marketplace to leverage and differentiate you from others

Flat fees and minimum expenditures

The game changing way to set up your business that has helped catapult so many designers into higher profits for their business. This is not a gimmick or a quick and easy thing to do. It is a business model and a layered approach to guaranteeing your profit. So many misunderstand this business model. Learn from the firm that has been doing it for 10 years.

Projecting income and growth goal mapping

You have to dive in and learn how you use this information to help you (1) structure better business principles with how to price your projects, (2) organize your costs so you understand how much of a nut you have to crack every month to be “open” and (3) develop a framework for yourself and your team of definable goals that stem from this other data. 

Pricing Your Services and Using the Calculator

Our calculator for flat fees, min expenditure and most importantly – your profit is second to none. The toughest thing for any design firm- learning the best formulas to price services. Once you have defined your product though in our very first segment, this will be much easier. We will walk through exactly how to use our calculator and it is a winner! 

Data Analysis and How to Make it Work for Your Pricing

It starts here. I know. I know. It is work ! Being able to master this course will ensure you can define predictability in the operating costs of your team for upcoming projects and ascertain if a prospect’s budget is tight, what you are or are not comfortable with when it comes to adjusting your fees or commitment level in an expenditure! 

Fun with Financials

P and L’s and Balance sheets. Cash flow. So many things. And no, you do not have to be a CPA to understand enough to not get hoodwinked–or surprised. No matter your long term goals or the size of your firm – this course is a MUST! . 

Legal Considerations

This is a smorgasbord of important and critical info-and key elements of any contract including the flat fees, min spend and importantly these days, a termination clause that protects you. We ALL have to cover our tush right?! Here is the nitty gritty where we cross all our T’s and dot our i’s because we do not want one thing getting past us. 

Creative Creating

What was sufficient to get you to this point is likely not enough to keep you here – and this is the crux of what we’ll focus on here. The creative process is never linear and certainly not mundane or about maintaining a “look” or “style” for your firm. Learn how to aim higher and develop the space and mindset for that work to take

Elements of Design 

We’ll work to outline the scope of your creative process from an internal perspective and then establish how that translates to the client perspective – how can it be defined in deliverables? How to live by the correct positioning for thoughtful, wholistic design presentations and design rationale? Training your clients to think this way reinforces the idea that what you do requires deeper analysis and evaluation of architecture, flow, and function (beyond which their inexperience can comprehend!)

Selling the Vision and not the Parts and Pieces

There is logic to presenting your overall vision and the interrelationship in the elements that make up your design ideas with specific clarity to how one piece impacts and draws from another. 

The Budget Strategy & Conversation

Establishing trust with your client is critical as you undergo this step in your design process. Building on our topics from Section 1 (see…I told you it was layered) we will be addressing how to approach the budget from the second you have spoken with a prospect and how to present the costs of a project with a wholistic mindset.

Creating Your Signature Visual Proposal & Review

Gamechanger alert. If you have not coached with Cheryl in the past and learned this, it is amazing what it will do for you. Learn how to outline & visually demonstrate the immeasurable heft of what you do for your clients in a succinct and professional way that they can understand.