Processes and Product Sales for Interior Designers – The Design Paradigm

Discovery and lead management

What end result are you aiming for as you wrap up the initial discovery call with a prospect in relation to the conversion of the call to a booked consult appointment?

The initial consultation

We are not giving them all of our ideas or handling this as a working meeting though. If you struggle with this, or want to elevate the potential opportunity for landing big jobs from the minute you open your mouth at a consult – this is a great focus for you

Onboarding and internal integration

Consider whether your questionnaire gets to the heart of the psychology of your clients needs, or is it just a wishlist for their perusal? Challenge them to think bigger and dig deeper

Schematic Design

From the first Scope of Work presentation we share with a prospect right on through to the finishing touches on an install day, there is logic to presenting your overall vision and the interrelationship in the elements that make up your design ideas with specific clarity

Design Development

There’s no need to have a system here that’s strict, but, it is important to consider how your process impacts and incorporates your team, subs, and personal level of excitement about any project that comes across your desk.

Winning the presentation and how to not make it about budget

Focus on the show stopping presentation and not the myriad of details so important to us but less to the client. Wow them with solving their problems and bringing a vision to life and you will never have a single issue with a client again.

Setting up systems 

How? From the ground up, just like any good design! Work with us in determining the best way to structure your processes into an organized outline that brings a project from A to Z. And as a bonus we’ll work in the details of tracking time, budgeting a job, organizing project details and specs, capturing your project management.

Pricing and procurement

Differentiating what you offer as a designer to your client carries a lot of weight when product knowledge and access to resources is concerned. Fostering vendor relationships, developing excitement about the “hunt” for new finds at market, and genuinely knowing your stuff backwards, sideways and upside down all cater to this.

Logistics

 Certainly the heavier side of procurement and a facet of interiors where procedures and organized documentation are KING – here we’ll talk about freight, receiving, claims & RGAs and knowing where the line is between your responsibility and everyone else’s.

Making money on soft goods and how best to manage it

Window treatments and custom bedding and pillows are big product categories for us (we are fabric whores, after all!) so learning how to (1) get great fabrics incorporated on every job (2) economizing the budget to ensure you can do window treatments no matter what and (3) developing a process with your workroom that is detailed and efficient so that this can be a lucrative revenue source for you is so important!

Furnishings sales and all the things you thought you knew

Part of our job in this industry (especially in a firm where there’s weight put on the expenditure your client will invest with your company) is to offer a wealth of product knowledge and here we’ll deep dive into how to say what should be said when you need to excite, reassure, and impress your clients with what you know and how you know it!

Market Daze 

What many do not consider  is how quickly a trip to market can pay for itself with the right mentality and attention to your workload. Learn to lay the groundwork with clients to excite them about the scavenger hunt you are about to embark in on their behalf.