Think about those clients. That again, you love to work with that you have partnered well with in the past, and to reach out to them in an informal way and let them know that you're thinking about them, that you do have the space right now to work with them and that you can onboard them very quickly because you have worked with them in the past.
Hey, y'all, you're listening to the designer within podcast episode number 22.
I'm John McClain and welcome to the designer within podcast, the business minded podcast created for creative entrepreneurs by a creative entrepreneur. That's me. I know firsthand the challenges, but also the victories that can come with our careers. And I'm here to sip and spill the tea with you. It's time to dive deep within yourself and redesign your own business and your life from the inside out.
Together we will uncover secrets and share valuable insights. So prepare for a transformative experience, my friend, because it's time to unleash the designer within.
Hey everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the designer within I am your host, John McClain. If you're a regular listener, welcome back. If you are a new listener and we've gotten a lot of new ones lately, I'm so happy you found us. Please tell your friends about us. We love to share the good news. Share the word about interior design and the business of interior design.
And we can just help each other out, which is the entire purpose of this podcast. Speaking of helping each other out, let's talk about what we can do to help each other out at the end of the year. Right? So it's the end of the year. We're probably wrapping up a lot of things. Maybe you've had a busy year and it could be slowing down.
I know I've spoken to a lot of designers lately who have felt a bit of a crunch in. This time of year and the pipeline is not as busy. For 20, 24. And I can say for ourselves, we are the same way. Our pipeline is not as full as it normally is for the first part of the year.
So I would like to just sort of give you some reassuring words. Have a comfort if I can. And also some methods to maybe combat that and figure out a way to not only bring in new business, but maybe some ideas of other avenues of revenue streams that perhaps you haven't thought about not only could it bring more money to your firm, it could be just a fun, new adventure for you and your team to dive into.
So let's talk about ways to add to your bottom line, even in the short term, by the way, some of these are longterm revenue streams, but they can also work pretty quickly as well. So let's talk about those.
First and foremost, do you guys know that I love to nurture existing clients. I love to take care of the clients who have served us and who we have served over the years. And really treat them well and not let them sit out there and forget about them. you want to make sure that you are touching base with your previous clients and you do that in a lot of different ways.
We love to do our newsletter, which you've heard us speak about. it's a very sort of nonchalant way to keep in touch with our wonderful past clients and of course, new clients as well, but it just really keeps you top of mind and in front of them now, Now that is a very simple, almost passive way of doing it.
I want you to become a little more active in it, and let's be a little more proactive in reaching out to past clients. let's say this. You've had a very busy year. We've all been very busy for the past year or two years, even three years since the pandemic and all of the craziness that went along with that. and you probably had very little space in your pipeline to bring in new people. You probably couldn't fit in smaller projects. You probably were only taking on perhaps larger, full home projects, full harm, renovations, new. New build homes, new constructions, that sort of thing. And you probably had limitations on the type of projects that you brought on.
Chances are now you might have more leeway in considering the type of projects that you bring into your company. So I would like for you to start thinking about how to advertise that. How can you bring in those smaller projects that can fill that void and that space that you have? So if you are between, let's say two larger projects, maybe you're just wrapping up a very large project now.
And you know that in February, perhaps you're doing a start, a new, large renovation. You got a couple of months there that you can play with. That would be a great opportunity to fill that space with a bedroom remodel, with a decorating job, with a kitchen refresh, with any little smaller type scale project that you could fit into that timeframe.
I want you. To think about any past clients. That have asked you to work on their home and perhaps the scale of the project. Wasn't what you were taking on at the time. And now you have the bandwidth to do that. Reach out to that client, and I don't just mean reach out passively. I would love for you to pick up the phone and call them. And actually speak to them live. That is the best way. That is the most proactive way that gets the most results when it comes to a sales call. And that's exactly what we're doing here. This is a sales call. And I know you probably hate that term and don't enjoy doing those things, but it's just a part of what we do as business owners.
I invite you to pick up the phone, especially those clients that you loved working with, right? I'm not saying call the ones that you don't enjoy, or maybe ones that you didn't have such a great time with, but definitely pick up the phone and call the ones that, you know, understand what you do, how you do it and love working with you and vice versa. The best part about that is, is that they're going to understand how you operate.
You're going to understand how they operate and the onboarding process for that is going to take a lot less time. So if you have a client that you've worked with on their entire home, And now maybe they're wanting to renovate or redecorate maybe the room above their garage.
So that room, you know, is a smaller scale project, but that client already knows you and you already know them. The onboarding part of that process is going to be super quick. They're going to know exactly how you operate your company. They're going to know exactly what systems and processes you have in place.
When you do the presentation, how long the presentation takes, how long the preparation before the presentation takes, how long the install takes, all of that sort of vagueness that people wonder about when they're hiring a designer, these past clients already know that about you. So reach out to them and invite them now to possibly. We bring in that smaller project.
And by the way, it doesn't even have to be a project that they mentioned to you. Right.
So, if they have mentioned a specific project to you definitely reach out to them and ask them if they're ready to move forward with that.
Now that you have some time to do that. And you know, it's a very subtle way of doing it. You don't want them to feel slighted that you were not able to work with them before, so be cautious in your words, but let them know that you were very, very busy with large scale projects and you now. Have some space for them.
And you definitely want to reach out to them first to find out if they still need your services for that smaller scale project, that you would be very happy to do.
Secondly, and in that same vein, I want you to think about clients that you did work with in the past, who have not expressed the interest of a new project or a project in the past, but you just want to specifically reach out to them. Maybe you have a client again, that you know, that they were expecting a new child down the road, or they were going to have a family member move in with them, reach out to those clients , send them an email, let them know. That you are checking in with them.
You would love to find out more about what's going on with them. and if you can be of any service to them in the realm of interior design, you are here and ready for them, and you have availability right now.
So think about those clients. That again, you love to work with that you have partnered well with in the past, and to reach out to them in an informal way and let them know that you're thinking about them, that you do have the space right now to work with them and that you can onboard them very quickly because you have worked with them in the past. next step. I want you to think about their real estate market, right? So the real estate industry is going through some interesting times at the moment. And we're recording this in November of 2023. And interest rates are not the prettiest. It does say the least they are pretty high.
I know a lot of realtors who are having issues. And certain areas with getting traffic and getting homes to sell and homes are sitting on the market for a little bit longer. So I invite you to reach out to real estate agents and ask them what you can do to help them.
Can you go into their office to speak to their group of realtors and let them know that you are here. You can provide services to their clients. You can provide services to them. And you can take this as far or as simple as you want you to create a simple workbook or a guidebook that you can turn into a PDF. And give that to the realtor and to the brokers agents and let them pass that out to their clients.
And it could be things like your top 10 tips for selling their home. Here's how to declutter your home. Anything that you feel would help them from an interior designers perspective would be beneficial to them. Your logo is on every page. Your contact information is there and your branding and your information is going to go out in front of these real estate agents.
And you are going to help people in the process. Something else that we like to do is what we call a real. Estate refresh. And this is where we go into a client's home or a potential client's home. And this can either be with the realtor or just with the client alone, but it is essentially a home that is needing a refresh and it's not selling.
And this can be a quick or a bit of a longer term project, but nothing like a full renovation or a new build or a longer term like that. It's more of possibly six weeks, eight weeks, something like that. But the choice is yours, depending upon the level of difficulty with the project and how much work you actually have to do.
At the project is for instance, needing paint. And you can make paint recommendations, change some light fixtures, pendants the declutter. Maybe you need to, you know, change some railings out on the staircase. Again, the level of difficulty in the level of work is going to be up to you and the client. But this real estate refresh is a way to bring in some revenue to your company and also to help this client's home that could possibly have been sitting on the market for a while to now sell.
We started this service a while ago. And we had a client's home who had been on the market for around two years. I want to say. And we came in and we changed some life exteriors. And of course we repainted and we decluttered and we, you know, did a lot of things that were very, very impactful. Uh, in this refresh hardware changes, that sort of thing.
And then the home was. No kidding you guys. The home, it was on the market for I think, another month and then it was under contract. So there is a very big power to this because you are the professional and you are bringing in your skillset to help this client. Which makes you look very good to the client.
It makes you look very good. To the real estate agent and makes that realtor look good to their client as well. If that realtor was the one who brought you in this could also lead to other projects down the road, That particular client of ours bought another home and we totally done it the entire home renovated it completely.
And that was a huge, huge project for us like that published in magazines and was a great success for everyone. So the longevity of this smaller scale project can most definitely turn into a larger scale project for you down the road. And that smaller amount of revenue initially can be a larger amount of revenue down the road.
And as I said, you can come in and do the work. For the client and bring in all the trades people with general contractors, if you want, or you can just simply come in for three hours, four hours, make those recommendations and then give them everything that they need to purchase your recommendations and let them fulfill the plan, the difficulty again, and the level of how much your involvement is, is totally 100% up to you. But I do encourage you to. Sort of tap into this possible slowness of the real estate market in your area.
And at the same time, you're helping out your local realtors. You're establishing relationships with them and you're helping your bottom line.
The next point I want to bring up is additional services. Add on services to what you already provide to your client. As a, for instance, so you are possibly doing a renovation and then a furnishings of a client's home. So you're to redesigning the home with new floor plans, you are selecting the furniture, you're selecting the lighting, the area, rugs, the tables, everything, et cetera.
And you get to the end of the project let's say the client needs all of the other things. Why don't you think about adding that on as an additional service to your client? They need dish where they need serving. Pieces, they need all the accessories that go along with making their home finished.
They might even need pots and pans. They might even need all of the bathroom accessories that they possibly do not have. So think about all the things that you are leaving off of your design installation, and possibly add that on as an add on service, as you get to the end of the project, ask your client, I noticed that your bathroom rugs were looking a little shabby. I noticed that, you know, perhaps you're moving into this new home and you want to possibly get new dishes and new serving pieces. Do you want us to shop for those because we have great sources for them.
I just, and then you could tell them that you were just at market. And you saw this great source for serving pieces. And that you worked with a lot of vendors who have great pieces that you think that they would enjoy and ask them what they feel about you adding that on to the service that you've already done. If they love what you've done with the design of the home, and they truly need those things, chances are they're going to let you add that on.
We have done second homes for clients where they have moved into the home with literally nothing. They have nothing for the house. And then of course we designed the home and then our little add on service that we bring to the client is that very thing. We add on televisions. We add on pots and pans.
We add on a toilet plungers. We add on a towels. We add on all of the dish towels, anything that goes into the kitchen.
Spoons forks knives, all of the things that you need in a house, you can provide that service for your client, and you can make sure that it has a cohesive look to it for the rest of the home.
And of course we are going to have the best resources to find the best pieces, because that is what we do. \
I invite you to think about areas. of a client's home that you can do these little ad-ons, that will make a difference to your bottom line and will also greatly benefit the client by giving them something that they needed.
and that they might not even know that they needed before you recommended it.
As you all might know, I've mentioned before interior design is actually my second career. Well, technically a third or fourth career. If you count all the little jobs that I had between there, but my major career before it was an advertising and specifically. In advertising sales.
And when I was doing this, I learned a lot about sales and one of the things I learned was, and, and I, and I sort of relate it by the way, to, when you go to a fast food restaurant. And they always say, would you like fries with that? it is just that little ad-on that is adding on to your order.
Of course, it seems like a little bit at the time, but to that company's bottom line to that restaurant's bottom line. Would you like fries with that is adding on another, whatever, $2 to that order, but it's also adding on that's $2 per person and that's multiple people per day and thousands of people per cities and all the things.
So that is really increasing the bottom line of that. That restaurant. And if we do that with our own companies and kind of find a way to mimic that methodology of would you like fries with that?
We can start adding on things that will not only benefit our clients. But will benefit us as well. And we have for the client a completely finished home down to everything that they need. Every drawer that they open is completely furnished with exactly what they need. And our revenue has been increased by helping people and by serving people, which is a win, win, win in my book.
the last point I want to drive home to you. And this is a very simple one is just give yourself a raise.
Sounds simple. Right? and actually it is I want you to reevaluate your pricing model and you don't have to wait until January that doesn't have to be a new year situation. You can do it right this second. Look at your pricing. Ask yourself, if your profit margin, not your quote-unquote markup, not what you're adding on to your pricing of products.
Ask yourself if your profit margin is enough to sustain your business. Whether you are charging hourly for your design or whether you are charging flat fee for your design services, if you have not raised your rates in a year, A year or two, you are probably below what you should be charging.
And I don't care what area you live in. This is all based upon what you are delivering to your client. I want you to evaluate what deliverables you are bringing to the table for your client. If you're providing a full service design plan for your clients. And you are giving them a luxury service.
You should be charging accordingly for that.
And I want you to ask yourself if you're charging enough. I love to reevaluate my pricing model. At least every six months. That's tends to be the time when I like to go back and check everything out. Things change very quickly in our industry. As you know, shipping rates change tariffs are added. storage rates for warehousing delivery rates, all of the things that are in fluctuation there crease our bottom line.
And if you don't keep a pulse on that, you're going to start to lose money. I want you to evaluate how you are invoicing your clients for not only your time. Also for any warehousing fees also for any freight and delivery. And storage of those things, anything that is invoiced to a client. I want you to reevaluate that, to ensure that your time and that the time that you spend on that within your company for yourself and for your team, if you have a team is being compensated fairly and equitably.
As I said, you don't have to wait until the end of the year to evaluate your pricing, to evaluate your revenues, to evaluate whether you're losing or making profit off of your services. You need to do that on a regular basis. And you do not need to wait until an emergency situation happens where you are in a deficit of money clawing your way out, trying to figure out how to add more money to the bottom line.
I invite you to periodically visit your fees, visit your expenses, make sure that if you are charging for your warehouse fees, as a percentage, if you were charging for your shipping as a percentage, ensure that you're charging enough for that to cover the cost of what you are paying those people for those services, before you pass it along to your client.
And there you have it. My friend, those are just a few ways. That you can act right now and increase the revenue in your company. Hopefully those are some ways that you have not thought about before. If you have other ideas, please let me know. I would love to hear them. Let's share them with each other, DME put them in the comments section on Instagram or Facebook, wherever you see the post.
But I would love to hear your thoughts on what you were doing to add revenue to your company. If things are a little slow for you right now. And if they are a little slow, Hang in there, it's going to get better companies and businesses and especially smaller businesses ride the waves. This is a rollercoaster ride that we're on.
if you're new in business, you're going to see that there are some extreme highs and there are some extreme lows, but everything is even out in the long run. So ride out those waves, think about ways to bring revenue to your business right now. And as we're going to plan for 2024, That's when I really want you to think about long-term planning and figuring out ways to add revenue to your company for the longterm, for larger scale projects and for bigger picture items.
And that is what we're going to talk about on next week's episode, when we discuss 20, 24 and how we're going to wrap up this year of 2023 and our goal planning and goal setting for 2024 and how we are going to achieve those. So hit those goals for 2023. You still have time. I can tell you right now, you can get out there and add some revenue to your bottom line, right?
This very minute, just by adding one or two of those things on that we discussed today.
And, you know, I like to close every episode with a hot take. So the hot take of this episode is to reach out to local realtors in your area and introduce yourself. You do not have to bring in any sort of collateral material, but at least start the introduction process via email or attend the local meeting of your realtor's association and start to network with your local realtors. I can tell you realtors are great allies and you can both help one another out and making each other's business successful. so the hot take is for you to reach out to realtors. I would like for you to reach out to five realtors this week, and that can be on a phone call, a text or an email, and introduce yourself, say hi to ones that you've spoken with before and nurture the relationships with those realtors.
It will. I'll be beneficial for everyone.
Thank you again for listening to the designer within podcasts. This has been a blast again, my friend, if there is a topic that you would like for me to chat about, please send me a message or an email or. A carrier, pigeon, whatever you want to do, but I would love to hear from you and you guys are hopefully learning.
One thing about me is that I am an open book and I will share every bit of knowledge that I have with you to help you grow your business and to help the entire interior design industry as a whole, because I am an advocate for you. Let's do this together. I will see you next time.
Everybody take care And have a great holiday next week.
Thanks for sticking with me to the end of the Designer Within podcast. It means the world to me. If you're ready to dive deeper into the topics that we've discussed here, be sure to check out my online courses and coaching program, Design Success Academy. The Design Success Academy is open right now in my beta launch program.
You can join the Academy for 50 percent off, but only until November 19th. After that date, it will increase to the regular price and the next enrollment will be in January. So, if you want to be a part of helping me shape this new course, helping me put things into the course that are important to you as a designer, things that you want to know, please consider joining the beta course for my Design Success Academy.
The Design Success Academy is a six week program where you will learn things such as my entire project journey, every single process that I use within my company. will be taught to you inside this program. I will also teach you how to choose and price your services in your own design firm. On top of that, you will learn self marketing success, my favorite ways to market and grow your company.
We are going to discuss teams, trades, and vendors. I will be showing you my favorite technology that I use every single day in my company, as well as the leadership mindset that you need to start, run, and grow your boutique design firm. Find out more at DesignSuccessAcademy. com