Hi friends! So nice of Charmaine to invite me to post while she is taking a break. I love her blog and she and I have forged a friendship that is an invaluable perk to blogging. I want to talk to you about starting a design business.
My daughter Bethany and I started our blog, Powell Brower Home, in November of last year, looking for an outlet to express our decorating passion. Through our journalling we ended up launching our design business, a long time dream of ours that was quickly realized.
I was in "the biz" before and worked at a very successful national design firm for 12 years while raising my daughter to love all things art and accessories. I represented the company exclusively and sold their line of art and custom furniture, wallpaper, rugs and accessories. There were no eBoards or blog and my first gen (for real first gen) Apple computer did not lend itself to hours of online browsing and sourcing. Only typepad programs on a dynamic green and black screen. My, how things have changed!
I constantly redecorate my home. My husband says he never knows where to sit; the furniture is rearranged so often. Now that Bethany has her own home, we have been feverishly decorating and using it as a test lab for any project we can dream up. And the fun doesn't end there. We love sharing our journies and tribulations on the blog.
The blog has been a fantastic platform to allow people to follow your decor du jour. Your peers and spheres of influence can visibly see your creations and talents and they build confidence in your abilities.
We started out by offering a few free design boards and got some fantastic prospects from that (and invaluable experience). Despite how well we knew each other already, we are constantly uncovering who's better at what. I found that Bethany is the bomb at eBoards (a generational aptitude for sure) and I am better at the artistic rendering of a client's room(s). This symbiosis only builds our credibility and widens our scope.
In my humble opinion, these are the best steps to take in starting your own design business:
Decorate your own home as if you were going to be photographed for a major magazine!
This is your very best advertising. Your home will exude your decorating and design skills and this is the most effective way to reach your audience when starting out! Tell your friends what you're doing and that you'd love their help in spreading the word. 'Word of mouth' is the best advertising and with such a visual product, word travels fast.
Offer a few of your friends a free design board or consultation and always ask for referrals in return. If you knock their socks off, they will tell their friends!
Once you've decided on a name, you need to get a federal tax ID number (TIN). This is necessary not only for your tax accounting, but also to get accounts with vendors and tap into the significant discounts and product lines available "to the trade".
Then of course there are business cards, letterhead, etc. It is really important to attach a visual to your name, like a logo, that you can print on various items which strengthen and increase your brand. This is where the blog has helped us. We are always working to hone our skills and try to appeal to the look that our clients gravitate towards. Not all of our customer base is up on the latest trends and the bold statements of the glossies and blogland. We try to keep a tailored approach in putting out our 'first impression' and peel back the onion as we go. That said, we are well aware that our MS Word-made blog header isn't cuttin' it for us anymore. It was great at first, but we're starting to take off and this would be a good thing to rebrand sooner versus later. But, we continue to make blogging friends and get our 'brand' out there. Repetition, repetition, repetition!
The first thing to take care of once your business gets off the ground is the legal stuff. We listed our company under a Limited Liability Partnership (LLP). This is where two people are partners, and it insures that our business entity is protected legally and does not attach itself to any personal assets or our individual social security numbers.
Register your business name with your city or county, make sure you follow the county codes for operating a business out of your home or office, and also check with your insurance agent so that you are covered when you work as a decorator in people's homes and offices.
Price structure:
You may want to start with some introductory pricing. This is based on your credentials and experience. Once you get some takers you can start raising your prices, but what good are high prices if you have no clients? You will find in doing the virtual eBoards that they take a lot of time, and you will soon get frustrated working for free! So start with something affordable and get the experience. Do a board for each of your own rooms for practice. Research other design professionals (many bloggers reveal their services and prices on their blogs) and find a structure that you are comfortable with. We are always talking to other decorators we meet along the way on pricing and process. It helps so much that many of the designers in the blogworld have an open door policy, especially if you forge a friendship first.
Do what you love and things will fall in place. If you believe in what you're doing, and let others know, the wheels start turning. We redecorate our homes constantly and always post about our new arrangements and our mistakes. We love to shop for decorating items, both online and in stores. This builds our knowledge of what's current and at varying price points. Read about famous designers and eras in design. Know your furniture styles and terms. Get up to date on current vendors and know your products! Also try to lend yourself to any decorating style so that you are marketable to different audiences. Dress the part of a top-notch designer and look like you know how to pull a room together by being fashionable and stylish yourself. You know you're going to get a good haircut when your hairdresser has stylish hair. Same principle applies here.
Ask for Referrals:
People who like your taste and your style, and who are comfortable with your personality, will help promote you. But you have to ASK! You don't have to do anything outside of your comfort zone or smell super salesy, but you do have to put yourself out there to get noticed.
Schooling:
I did not go to school for interior design so I don't believe it's a necessity unless you're looking to work for a large firm right away. If you are willing to put in some effort and work your way into the business through referrals and showcasing your own work, it's definitely possible to do what you love without the extra schooling. I got my break when my artwork got picked up by a national firm to carry in their product line, and through the course of our interactions, I landed a job as a decorator where I thrived and excelled for years. Erin Gates wrote a fantastic article about starting out in interior design and there are many schools of thought (pun intended) on the subject. I personally don't believe you need to major or further your education in design in order to become a decorator. But design school will teach you some invaluable skills such as furniture restoration, history and AutoCAD to name a few.
These are just a few tips on turning your love of decorating into a business. We are busy trying to complete rooms in our homes and get them photographed. Hopefully sharing our journey will inspire others to follow their passion! Hope you stay tuned and watch us grow!
Best of luck with your adventure in decorating!
Nancy
Thank you so much Nancy! These are some invaluable tips!
We are having a blast here in NY/NJ. Heading to the Jersey Shore this weekend and we'll be ending this trip watching the Yankees play the Red Sox!
Have a great weekend everyone!
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