Warning: This Post May Help You Get Interior Design Clients
Two events will happen in your interior design business that will require you to know how to get interior design clients.
a) You just started your interior design business and you need to get interior design clients because without them you only have a hobby or,
b) You have interior design clients, but they are all a-holes.
Dream Them Up
One of the questions I get all the time is: how do I figure out who my clients are when I haven't had any? You need to dream them up. And if you have a shit load of a-holes clients, the same advice applies.
Whether you are starting out with a brand new business or it's an established one, your business will evolve. You will constantly be refining who this dreamy interior design client is all the time. This person will evolve as you and your business do.
I'm also a firm believer that we get what we ask for in life. So why not ask for the best interior design clients ever? It's not like you don't have a say in who you work with, in fact I would actually dare you to be really picky about it.
HOMEWORK: WRITE A DIARY ENTRY AS YOUR DREAMY INTERIOR DESIGN CLIENT
For instance:
Dear Diary,
OMG. I think I'm gonna hurl. My cousin, Lulu May is coming to visit. You see she and I grew up together. After my mother died I was sent to live with Lulu May and her family.
Their family was wealthy and we lived in a castle. Okay, it was a mansion in Beverly Hills, but as a small child I thought it was a castle.
That home holds a special place in my heart. It was exquisitely decorated by my Aunt Zelda. She and my mother had this natural talent to decorate like it is as easy as riding a bike. I wish!
Back then, Lulu May was a snot. She still is. She would bring kids from high school into our home and give them tours. She held up an umbrella and everything to lead them around.
Later she went to college and became a la-ti-da fancy pants professional who knows taste. Something I have none of.
I wish my mother was here to help me, but she isn't. And it's not like the decorating gene made it to me. I couldn't decorate to save my life. There are things I see that I like, but pulling it all together is so overwhelming.
What am I going to do? She's due to arrive in a couple of months from her European vacation and I can't have her looking down her nose at me. Not anymore.
I need a home that shows how far I've come. A home that represents my success. A home that makes Lulu May choke on her sophistication.
Love,
Gwendolyn
One of the best parts of this exercise is that is goes deeper into their emotions. While she may be 35, that's not how you will close the sale. It's about understanding her motivations for hiring you.
When you know what the motivation is, you know how to connect with her and use her own words in your copywriting. Genius, right?
Create A Dream Solution
Don't create a design package. Create a design experience!! I would rather pay you money to experience the "Ultimate Mother's Hideaway" where you design a woman-cave that I can hide in and drink wine. If you offer me a room design, I could give to shits.
Get creative in thinking about what this end result feeling and emotion is.
Emotional words to focus on: Bliss, Calm, Enchanted, Playful, Passionate. Words mean a lot in selling. Get descriptive.
Do Something Different
I'm sure you're tired of it, but one of the best ways to get clients is to drive traffic to your website, right? So how do you do that? Well it's not by writing a blog post called "The Top 3 Pieces Of Furniture You Need In Your Bedroom".
Yawn.
You only live once and who gives a shit if you start to express yourself online as you would in real life instead of living this designer persona we see all over the effing place.
I want to read "The Top 3 Pieces Of Furniture You Need To Have For A 50 Shades of Sexy Night". While I'm not some S&M chick, I would still love to read that. That'd be entertainment right there.
Shake this world up a bit. We're getting a bit stale here, don't you think?
Hola! I'm Alycia Wicker and I help online interior designers grow their business.
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