Whether you’re just starting out on your journey or you’ve been in the game a long time, you should always be striving to improve your interior design business. One area that you can always be refining is the management of your business. No matter where you are in your career, remembering these tips can help you run your interior design business successfully.
Crunch the Numbers
Yes, an important aspect of being an interior designer is selecting custom draperies and choosing accent pieces that really tie a room together. But that’s not all there is to it, especially not if you’re running your own business. Your math skills need to be sharp—whether you’re working on a client’s budget or determining your own marketing budget for the following year. Don’t lose sight of your business as just that: a business. Your ability to crunch your numbers will not only help you keep your business afloat—it could even become an integral part of your reputation among clients who need a designer who can manage a budget.
Time Is Money
It’s a well-worn saying, but one that still rings true: time is money. Your time is valuable and that’s why you need to manage it well. Interior design professionals work hard—but that doesn’t mean they’re working smart. Be sure that you’re evaluating all of the costs of a task; time is a huge factor that many professionals fail to consider because they feel they’re too busy. How can you make sure you’re working smarter, rather than harder? Evaluate tasks based on how long they’ll take, and then make an informed decision about whether you should complete it, delegate it, or defer it. This is especially useful for smaller tasks, like answering emails or doing research to keep on top of the latest trends.
Free Is Good
The Swedish have a saying: “free is good.” It’s a mantra that every interior designer should adopt when it comes to marketing. As many companies have found out, advertising in the glossy pages of magazines can run up quite the bill: not only do you need to pay for the space, you may also end up paying someone to put your ad campaign together. Interior designers should take advantage of free or low-cost advertising wherever possible. Carefully curated social media feeds and a slick blog or website will help you showcase your work to a wide audience. While not every one of those people will become a client, every click, favorite, and retweet is a free endorsement of you and your work. Of course, the best free advertising you can get is through satisfied clients who refer others to you. Ensure you do good work and form good relations with clients and you’ll see the benefit of this “free” advertising, no glossy posters required.
Enter the Digital Age
Are you still scribbling notes on a pad of paper, or keeping a list of your clients on a Rolodex? If so, get yourself into the modern era. You might have a blog or be all the rage on Instagram, but are you using technology to help you manage your business? Powerful management tools are available to help you run your business, and they’re just a click away. Use scheduling apps to keep track of appointments, and send an instant response to emails by setting up auto-replies. Project management software can help you keep track of where you (and your whole team) are in a project and accounting software will help you streamline your bookkeeping.
