EP #33: 4 Ways Designer's leave money on the table

Welcome to the Designers Oasis podcast. I'm your host, Kate Bendewald, interior designer, mama, and CEO of a thriving interior design business, built on authentic word-of-mouth referrals. It wasn't that long ago that I stepped away from my corporate architecture job to build my own dream, one that would allow me more time with the people that I love, the ability to serve my clients at the highest level and to make a great living. It wasn't always easy, and I've made my share of mistakes along the way. Fast forward to today, and I've learned a thing or two. This podcast is for you - the inspired, creative, ambitious, and let's admit it,  occasionally overwhelmed interior designer who shares this dream of transforming lives by transforming homes. Join me and my guests each week as we walk through practical ways to build an interior design business you love, and help you transform your client's lives. You can do this. 

Hello there, my friend. Welcome back to the designers Oasis podcast. I am your host, Kate and I am thrilled to be hanging out with you today. Today we are talking about a topic that is near and dear to my heart. Because from a personal perspective, this is a topic that I have struggled with in the past. And it has taken a lot of work to kind of uncover some of maybe some underlying reasons or some subconscious behaviors that I was doing that was costing me money and my business. Or maybe maybe costing me money in my business isn't the right word, but missing out on opportunities. Today, we're talking about leaving money on the table in your business, and designers do it all the time. So today, I'm hoping that we can address some of those missed opportunities. leaving money on the table is all about that it's about missing out on opportunities to earn more money to make more money.

I truly believe that oftentimes this is simply because their blind spots, they're just parts of running a business that maybe we are not aware of that we need to be doing. But the bigger reason, and I believe the most common reason is because we find ourselves playing small. Our actions are motivated by fears and insecurities, maybe even low self worth or scarcity. And so when you start to become aware of these subconscious behaviors that are causing you to stay small and play small, you can start to uncover new opportunities. And I want you to ask yourself, what would happen in my interior design business? If I started to take up a little more space? If I continuously looked for ways to move the needle, even in small ways, a little more each and every day? What would happen? How would those little needle moving actions or conversations or behaviors add up over time? I believe that doing that can add up to some really amazingly beautiful success. And so I want us to start to think about today, some of those opportunities that we might be missing, to earn more money and leaving money on the table. 

So the first one that I want to talk about today is you don't have a follow up strategy. So a follow up strategy is whatever methods you use to follow up with your clients, whether that's emails or phone calls, or both. Whether they're manual emails or automated, so you you have to come up with some kind of a follow up strategy in your business. I know that and and this is especially true for those designers who are particular You're literally busy right now, it's so easy when we get busy. And we get caught up in the day to day, the hustle the checking things off of our list, meeting deadlines, working with our existing clients to forget to follow up with somebody in a timely manner. So maybe you sent a proposal and you didn't hear back from your clients. And then you didn't check back, you didn't check back in in a timely manner. And so you just chalked it up to well, they didn't want to work with me, or they thought the proposal was too high or whatever. 

So you you've you've got to be checking back in with your clients. And I tell my designers that I work with inside the membership. It's not a no until you hear them actually say no. So a non response isn't always a no, maybe a client wasn't quite ready to start working with you, when you had your initial conversation. I have had this happen to me numerous times over the years, some false starts to projects, or they were reaching out because they were budgeting for what what is it going to cost for me to work with a designer for this project. And they just didn't have they weren't ready to start right away. Just a quick side note, one of my favorite tools is boomerang for email, I use Gmail. And I know that boomerang for Gmail is a thing. If you are, if you use a different email service provider, I think Boomerang has some other works with other email clients. But what I can do on a particular email, let's say I get an email back from them, and they say thank you for the consultation, we're going to spend the next couple of months kind of figuring out our next steps and planning so on and so forth. I've had this, especially when working on historic projects where maybe they have to go through some permitting processes or working to get on the Historic Register. It may be months or even a year. So obviously I'm going to respond, let them know, absolutely, I'll check back in a, you know, the beginning of the year, maybe. So then, in Gmail, I can say using Boomerang, send this email back to me on January 5, or whatever the case may be. Obviously, you can also put this as an email reminder, excuse me as a calendar reminder on your calendar to follow up with somebody but you need to be able to follow up with them. 

Now, the other thing that you might not be doing and your follow up strategy is keeping a paid waitlist. So let's say you've gotten a verbal yes from a client, and they say yes, we'd love to proceed and work with you, this is a great opportunity for you to secure their spot on the calendar. And the way that I recommend doing this is to take a non refundable deposit. Depending on the scope of work, you can decide what amount makes sense for that project. It's non refundable, no matter what. However, the guarantee the promise that you give to them is that in this works really well if you know about when they're ready to start, let's say it's going to be in a couple of months, that you go ahead and you put a calendar date together, you set a date for your your initial kickoff call. So if you're busy, and you don't have time to take a client right away, this is a great opportunity, as well, even if it's a situation where you know whether it's, you know that the client isn't ready to work with you, but they want to or they're ready, but you don't have capacity, you don't have the ability to work with them because you're busy taking care of your other clients. So building a paid waitlist is a very simple way to keep that pipeline really secure. The exception to the non refunded opportunity option is if for some reason, you can't keep that commitment. So I actually when we moved to Texas, I did have to refund someone's retainer, because we were moving and it wasn't the kind of projects that I would be able to do remotely. So obviously in those scenarios that that that is refundable, but so keeping a paid waitlist is a great thing to incorporate into your follow up strategy. 

Okay, so the next thing I want to talk about is giving your clients only what they asked for when you know, it could be better. I'm gonna use an example of when I first engaged when I first hired a housekeeper a number of years ago and she still works for me today and I absolutely love her and her team and I'm so grateful for them but I was young I had never had a housekeeper before somebody that came and did kind of that deep cleaning on a regular basis. And so I was really kind of tentative about it but you know, and it was a stretch for us financially to to hire this but it was at a time where I was growing in my career and I was just I didn't have the time and I didn't want to spend the weekends cleaning the house I wanted to hang out with with my little baby. So but when she came for the for the to walk through the house so she could give us a quote I just I said oh really all you need to do is just sweep and mop and wipe down like these surfaces and, and maybe the bathrooms. And that's it, but you don't need to do anything else. And she looked at me and she said, Honey, listen, if I just do those little things, only those things are going to be clean, and you're never going to feel like you have a clean home. The only way that we work is to do top to bottom and every single room. And that's the only way that you're going to feel good when I leave, that everything's clean. And I said, You know what, you're right, I just tell me what it's gonna take and do it. And in the first time I had my house professionally cleaned, I knew instantly what she was talking about, it wouldn't have felt clean, if only certain aspects of the room or the home were clean. So what she did in that moment was, she could have just said, Oh, okay, I will just do these things. And I'll charge you less whatever, because that's simply what I asked for. But she knew that I would have a better experience and better results, if she gave me the thing that I really wanted, which was a clean home. 

So maybe you have a client that comes to you and says they just want to work with you for design only. But they'll do all their own ordering and purchasing and project management. Sometimes that's exactly the right fit for a client. But if your client comes to you and ask for that, and you know, they are a busy professional, maybe they're raising kids, maybe they're heavily involved in their community, where are they going to find the time to all of a sudden manage this additional project. So if you know what your clients actually need, it is in your best interest and your clients best interest to at least give them the opportunity to consider it, they can always say no, but why not go ahead and cast that vision for what it could look like if you were to take that on. Because you have a tried and true process. You know how it works, you're efficient, all of those aspects of what you do that makes you so good at your job, at least cast that vision, let them consider it. And even put that as an add on a feature or possibility in your proposal which they can accept or decline. That's just one example. Here's another example. You have a client that comes to you, and they want to do a kitchen renovation. But you're in that consultation, and you're looking at the kitchen, which yes, it needs a full gut renovation. But immediately adjacent to that is an outdated dining room that, you know, once this renovation is done, that that room is all over again, all of a sudden gonna be a sore thumb, and it might not stick out right now. But it would make so much more sense to do those spaces together and have them be this cohesive space. So you can even though your clients only asking you for a kitchen renovation, you can take what you're seeing with your eyes and what you're hearing when your words from your client. And you can tell your client I know this is what you're asking me for. I think you'll have a better experience. 

If we go all the way take it all the way to the end, whatever the case may be. The other way that this might show up is that you end a project without discussing future projects. Think about outdoor areas, think about private areas. So if you've helped a client with you know, you're helping clients with maybe the first floor those main public spaces were entertaining and guest entertaining happens and guests come What are there other opportunities to help them with other assets, other aspects of their home that they might not be thinking about? They really want. There is a an efficiency of scale, when you're designing multiple spaces at once versus doing it room by room by room. So if your client has hinted about other spaces, you might want to have a conversation with them about how it is more efficient and therefore cost effective to do multiple spaces at once. Because then your project managing them all at once versus doing them in little bits and pieces. Some projects have to be staged, I totally understand that. But when you're in conversations, and you're doing these home visits or site visits, if you're commercial, looking for other opportunities to help them even if it's beyond what they're asking. So that pitfall is all about if you only give the clients what they're asking for without giving them the opportunity to consider how it could be better if if they expanded the scope of work.

So the next pitfall that I see is pretty obvious one is under charging for your services. So under charging for your services shows up in a number of ways, probably the most obvious one is you underestimate your time. So if you're not tracking time, and I will link to some podcast episodes, specifically about tracking your time and auditing projects, so that you can put out proposals that are based in reality that are based in actual numbers of how long things take. So that'll be a resource for you in the show notes. But the big idea here is, if you aren't auditing your projects and tracking your time, then there's a very high likelihood that you're going to be sending out proposals to clients that under estimate for your time. Now I am personally a fan of charging a hybrid method of billing to your clients where you do flat fee for all of your design work and then hourly for implementation. And the reason behind that is because you have more control over your design work where as an implementation, when you start dealing with trades and ordering and project managing, there is so much that's out of your control. And so, but it doesn't matter whether it's flat fee, whether it's hourly, or whether you do my preferred method, which is hybrid, you still have to be able to put out a proposal that is going to accurately reflect how long it's going to take. And so under estimating your time is a big way to miss the opportunity to earn more money. 

So here's an example. Years ago, when I was doing hourly proposals, what often would happen is I would send a proposal that had an estimate for I'm gonna use round numbers here 100 hours for project. Let's say that beginning to end, right. Let's say that our team myself that our team, we ended up going over on hours. So then you're stuck with this conundrum of well, do I build a client for all of the hours because it took what it took, right? And it was just an estimate? Or do I not build for that time, right, and then I am not getting paid for that time. Neither is good. Because on the one hand, if you build them for the time that you go over, it doesn't matter how clearly you've communicated this everywhere that it's just an estimate, it's just an estimate, at some point, going over on those hours, is going to start to strain the relationship between you and your client. The other option of not billing your client for the time also isn't fair, because you're not getting paid for the work that you are doing.

So that's a big reason why I'm a fan of the hybrid method of billing, but even on that with flat fee. So the incentive is that you and your team, give yourself a budget for designing and you have a certain number of hours allotted to do this. And you're rewarded if you come in under hours, right? Because you've been paid for that. If on the other hand, you end up going way over on hours. That is something that you have to absorb and so it's really important to audit your projects and understand how long things take and sometimes you're gonna miss sometimes you're gonna nail it, but the more you do it, the easier it gets but under estimating for your time, it's a big missed opportunity when it comes to leaving money on the table, I just mentioned another one, not billing for all your time. Let's say you are doing a hybrid method of billing. And you go to run your, you're doing project management for a client, and you're in that hourly phase of work. And you go, and you run your time report to send them an invoice. And you're personally shocked at how many hours you spent that month doing, or your team spent that month doing work on behalf of your client. And you say to yourself, oh, this just doesn't feel right, they're gonna scoff at it. 

That is a challenge that I see so often with designers. And so I believe that there's a mindset shift that needs to happen there that you built every penny for every hour you spent. The exception to that obviously, would be, you know, if if you were working on something, and you know, you weren't efficient at it, then you went down a rabbit hole that, you know, was not something that the client should have to pay for. But if you can say, you know, ethically that all that time was spent for your client working on behalf of them, saving them time, money and mistakes, then, by all means, go ahead and invoice them for every penny. And then the third way that I see designers under charging for their services, is you don't charge a premium for your other services, such as designer for a day, your consultations or design only work. So in my opinion, you know, you obviously want to have a baseline hourly rate that you charge. If you charge that same rate for a consultation, or designer for a day, or even design only, you're giving your client your absolute best pricing at a discount really is what's happening there. And so I'm not going to jump into like percentages, or what I think you should necessarily be charging, because everybody's a little bit different. But you know, think about doubling tripling or quadrupling your base hourly rate for those other projects that are smaller in scope, a consultation, sometimes it's just a consultation. And that's it and you don't move forward with a client designer for a day. If you're spending, let's say six hours with a client, that means that's six hours that you're not tending to your other full service clients, where your email is getting ignored or neglected. And there should be a huge premium on getting your undivided attention for six solid hours. So think about ways that you can charge a premium for some of those types of services that I just mentioned.

And the last way that I see designers leaving money on the table, is you are not asking for referrals from your best clients. So no dead ends, okay. I in the designers always has membership talked about this all the time, no dead ends, whether that's an email, a conversation, a consultation, there's always going to be a call to action. In this case, I'm talking about referrals. So do not end a project without taking the time to say to you, you know, would you want to do this with a client that maybe wasn't a great fit? I'm gonna say pause and think about that a little bit. It depends on the situation, and you're the best judge of that. But if you've worked with a client, and they've been fabulous to work with, chances are their friends, their colleagues are also great people, no guarantees, you can decide that for yourself once you meet them. But that's a great place to start. So find an opportunity to ask your client say, hey, you know what, I have thoroughly enjoyed working with you. And my hunch is you're good people, you probably also hang out with other good people. Do you have any friends who you might, who you think might need my services. This could be people who recently bought a home recently got married, maybe they're merging homes, maybe they are downsizing, maybe they're newly empty nesters. Maybe they just had a baby. Think ask them to think about anyone in their world that may have had a big life change and just say, you know, I would love it if you would share my name with them. So you do what feels good in terms of your guardrail of promoting yourself but I want you to, I want to urge you to not play small there just to be really direct and say I'm looking to grow my business. I'd love to work with more people like you. It would really help me if if I could either get an introduction or if you could Share My name with somebody that you think could possibly benefit from working together. And the other thing that I want you to also say to them or to think about rather, as we as we wrap up here, you don't necessarily need to wait till the project is over to make these asks, I think that once you have, depending on the project, let's just take full service. 

For example, once you have gotten to a place where you've proven yourself, you've met your deadlines, you've delivered on your design presentation. And maybe you're in that like project management phase, and things have gotten started. And maybe you're on that, that little that waiting period of like, okay, everything is ordered, and it's going to be six months or a year before we are going to get to install. You don't have to wait until that install rolls around to go ahead and have this conversation with your client. But I do think it's important to make sure you've gotten to a point where you've built some trust. And they are really, you know that they're going to be an advocate for you and one of your biggest fans. So that's all I have today. I know this was a lot, but I really want you guys to be thinking about, number one, taking up more space in your everyday work, and life and conversations being a little bit more aggressive and what you go after, right and don't let scarcity or fear or feeling of you're not good enough to keep you back from having these conversations. There is no arbitrary milestone that you're going to hit that's going to all of a sudden, make you feel like, oh, once I do X, once I get published, once I you know, have a bigger portfolio or whatever, these arbitrary deadlines that you might be setting for yourself that's going to, you know, you think you're gonna magically do those things. And all of a sudden, you're just gonna have like, be bursting with confidence to go after these bigger conversations, start doing it now. Just find these little needle moving activities that are going to help you because those are the real things that are going to help add up to bigger success in your interior design business. So I love you guys. I am so happy to be hanging out with you today. I will see you next week on another designers Voices Podcast episode. Bye for now. 

Thank you so much for letting me spend part of this day with you. If you're loving this podcast, please share it with a friend who you think might also love it. Or perhaps you can take just 30 seconds to open your podcast app and leave us a five star rating. And if you have just an extra minute, go ahead and leave a review. This helps me so much and it helps other designers like you to find the podcast. It also adds fuel to my motivation to keep making great episodes just for you. However you choose to help. Please know I appreciate you so very much. Thank you, my friend. Have a wonderful rest of your day and I'll see you next time