# 91 | 3 Things I Obsess Over with Interior Design Clients

Welcome to the Designers Oasis podcast. I'm your host, Kate Bendewald. If you're tired of one-size-fits-all all advice to running your interior design business, you're in the right place. Join me each week as we dive into topics to help you run a thriving interior design business. Without the hustle. We'll talk about the business of design, but also mindset and mental health because I know when you thrive, so will your life and business. It wasn't that long ago that I stepped away from my corporate interior design job to build my own design business so that I could realize my own creative dreams, have more time with the people I love, and serve my clients at the highest level, while making more money than I ever could have working for someone else. It wasn't always easy, and I made my share of mistakes along the way. Fast forward to today. And I've learned a thing or two. Since then I've built multiple six-figure interior design businesses on authentic word-of-mouth referrals with many repeat clients. And I want to share it all with you the ambitious, inspired, and I get it occasionally overwhelmed interior designer who shares this dream of transforming lives through the art of interior design, You can do this. Thank you for letting me spend part of this day with you. Let's get to it.

Well, hello, my beautiful friends. Welcome back to the Designers Oasis podcast. I'm your host, Kate Bendewald, and I am so thrilled to be hanging out with you today. Thank you. Thank you so much for choosing to spend this time with me. I am really excited to to talk about today's topic. I'm sharing three things that I obsess over with my interior design clients, we're going to get right to it. The number one thing that I obsess over when it comes to clients is making sure that we're a right match, that we're a right fit. It is critical that you vet your clients for a right fit to ensure that you not only have what it takes to support them, but that they're a right fit for you and the direction you're taking your business, otherwise you have the potential to be facing an uphill battle with a project or a client that's not a right fit, and that's not good for anyone. So what makes a right fit client? Well, there's a couple of things that I am looking for specifically. You may have some other things that are different from this, and that's great. These are a couple of the things that are super important to me. Obviously, their project goals is going to be one of the biggest ones, and one of the things specifically that I'm looking for in a right fit client is, what are their long term goals for their home? Meaning, are they intending to stay in this home for? Is it possibly their forever home, or because, for me, that's a good thing, or are they more interested in resale value? I'm going to pass on that project. I want to work with clients who are willing and ready to invest in a home that is uniquely theirs and they're going to love for a really long time, if not a lifetime. Okay, so I want to understand their project goals, and for me specifically, I'm interested to know what are their long term goals and hopes for staying in this home. Okay? The other thing I'm curious to know is, what attracted them to me in the first place. Was it my portfolio? Were they attracted to what they saw? That's a good thing. Were they referred to me by somebody? If so, I want to know who it is. What was my relationship like with that person? How did it go? Right? I want to understand how they found me and what attracted them to my work, because I want to work with somebody who's really excited about the creative process and they're attracted to design and specifically my portfolio. That's really important to me. The other thing that's super important is to understand, do they have a realistic budget and timeline for their project? So in the discovery call, that is the opportunity where we typically lay out a typical timeline. So usually, I'll say a typical design process for us is six or more weeks. Depends. Depending on what else we have going on in our design calendar, in our schedule, and also, of course, the scope of work for the project.

Are they prepared to take the time that it takes to do it right? And within my process, if I lay out my timeline, and I lay out my process, and somebody is more interested in negotiating my process with me or my timeline, that's a pass. Every single time I have stepped outside of my timeline or my process, it has not gone well, and so I've gotten much better. It didn't used to do this in the beginning, but much better at pushing back on that and saying, Listen, I know this is exciting for you. I know you want to get this across the finish line, and I really want to be the one to help you do that, but it's really important to me that we have the time to do it right, and we have the time to do this within the process that I know works, and I know this works because I've done it for years and had very successful experiences with my clients, and this is how I do it, and this is how long it takes. And if you're willing to trust me and come along with me, then I think we need to take it to the next step. But if you're looking for something that is on an abbreviated timeline, I don't think I'm going to be the right designer to help you. Okay, so very important to have realistic conversations about timeline. You need to go into these conversations understanding what is your existing workload, when can you start, and how long is it going to take, so you can have those early on conversations and not waste anybody's time or disappoint somebody after the consultation. And then also the budget, right? You need to check their budget with their wish list, and this, again, is going to be done in incremental stages. Right at the discovery call, you might have a big picture idea of their budget and a big picture idea of their wish list, and you need to gut check that. Does it feel like it's in alignment?

You're not going to have all the details, and you're not going to know exactly what the final budget is going to be or what the final scope is going to be, until you do some discovery work, including a consultation, right? But even through that process of the consultation right, I need to be getting much clearer on their goals and their budget and make sure that it's in alignment. And we use past data to really inform whether we see their budget and their wish list as being a fit. Okay, I'm also curious to know, is this a strict, hard and fast budget, or are you willing to do some discovery work to understand really, what it costs, and that's a really good thing. I want to be able to work with clients who I'm not going to run off and take advantage of their budget if it is flexible, but it lets me know that I have the ability to present ideas that maybe wasn't in the original scope, things that they didn't even know that they wanted until I came in and I'm like, Yeah, but what if we did this? And all of a sudden they're like, Ooh, I love that idea. Let's do it right? That wasn't in the original conversation, but we can make space for it as the design starts to unfold. And I want to work with clients who are able to get excited about these ideas, and if they can make it work financially great, and if they can't, that's okay, too. But at the at least at the very outset, I want to know that they have a budget that is workable with their wish list. Very important. The other thing that I'm that I look for when it comes to deciding is, if this is a right fit client, is I want to get a general sense of their personality. Okay? Obviously this starts with a discovery call, and then usually the next step is a consultation. What? Once I've vetted them and understand that we feel like we're a good match and we've got some potential here, right? So then we move into the consultation, and for me, that's going to be two hours in person with this person in an active design session. And you can tell a lot about somebody in those two hours, most people are a pretty quick read. Are they relaxed and easy going? Do they feel trusting? Right?

Trust is vital. Are they curious about the process, or are they trying to control and dictate the way it's going to go? Do they seem excited about the process and working with me? Right? You want people to feel excited about working with you. You want people to trust you. You want to work with people who feel like they trust you and that they're relaxed and EasyGO, and I understand that it's you're gonna there are gonna be times this has happened to me in the past where you feel like you got a good sense of somebody, and then, whoops, somebody slips through the crack and you see a little Jekyll and Hyde moment. It's not a fail proof system, but it for sure that two hour consultation before I'm going to commit big turn, big picture, long term, to working with somebody. I want to spend some time with them, and I want to get a sense of their personality and see if we're a right fit that way. These projects, you guys, these projects are intimate that you are in people's home, in their marriage, in their money. These are some of the most personal aspects of. Somebody's lives that you are inserting yourselves into by request, so they're hiring you to do this. But just you cannot underestimate how personal design is okay. You gotta work with somebody whose personality is a match with yours. Now I just listed some of the things that were important to me, but maybe you have a different personality and you prefer to work with somebody who is more powerful and dominant, domineering, and that's somebody that you can really get excited to work with. Great. I love that you do what works for you. The point is make sure that you build in time to get to know them a little bit before you fully commit to a long term project. Really important. And if along the way, you start to pick up on some red flags. Just know, a red flag isn't an automatic No, it's an opportunity to get curious. I have talked about this at length before. I have an entire episode on it. In fact, I will link to it in the show notes. So if you do see red flags, remember it's not an automatic note. It's an opportunity to get curious, understand what's behind it, and then make your decision. The bottom line is, don't try to round peg, square peg, round hole. It. When it comes to clients, these are long term relationships and a very personal experience working together, and I want to work with somebody who feels like they could be a friend. Okay, so right fit is the number one most important thing that I obsess over when it comes to my interior design clients. Number two is communications.

Great communications ensures your client has the right information at the right time. Clients feel supported and can develop a sense of trust in you if you haven't caught on, there's a theme here. Trust is vitally important. So what makes great communications? Let's start with the timing of communications. Timing is super important when it comes to making sure that you don't overwhelm your client with unnecessary information at the wrong time. For example, you wouldn't want to front load your clients with massive amounts of information about how the project installation is going to go at the beginning of a project, right? That is not the opportunity or not the right time to get into the nitty gritty details, because you have you will overwhelm them period. There is a right time to give them those details. The beginning of the project is the right time to give them an overarching view of what that's going to be like. Okay, by the time you get to the installation portion, they will have forgotten everything you said anyway, and you're going to have to repeat it. So here's what to do instead, you're going to share the high level information at the start of the project, and then as the project progresses, you will drip out relevant information and details to them at the right time understood so time your communications at the right time. And that doesn't mean if they come to you and they have a question about the installation and you're, you know, in concept design, that doesn't mean you should avoid answering their question. If they're curious, by all means, dig in and give them the information they need, but don't preemptively do that just to try to look like you've got all your ducks in a row. They're going to see that you have your ducks in a row. At least most of them just trust yourself and just trust that information will be fed to them at the right time. The other thing that is super important about communicating with your client is to always be setting expectations. Always be setting expectations. No dead ends in your communications, meaning at the end of every touch point, at the end of every client interaction, you always need to be letting your client know what's next.

Here's what to expect next. Here's what to expect at the site survey, at the design presentation at the over the next coming weeks, at the install, after the install, this is where you're going to drip out that important information. One of the things that I learned from my career in high end hospitality through college was the importance of anticipating your tables needs before they ever have to ask. And that's something that I carry with me today in my work with my clients, is to always be anticipating their questions and concerns and try to get in front of them. You're not going to do this every time, and that's understandable and totally okay, but the more you work with clients, the more you're going to be able to predict their questions and anticipate what are their questions, what are their concerns, and get in front of them and answer them before they ever have the opportunity to ask. And when you do that, you. When you do that, your client will feel like you can see into their minds, and that develops a sense of trust in you. Okay,

I have a resource for you related to this. It's one of these tools that we developed for our clients that's the what to expect next. It's called the renovation reality client guide. I will link to it in the show notes. You can find it in our shop. This is a Canva that document that you can customize for yourself. But let me explain what it is and why we use it. There are many opportunities to set expectations, and sometimes a simple email is all it takes. But one of the things that we started to notice was that there's this critical point where we end the design and wrap up the design portion of our work together, and we start to move into the implementation portion. And this is where we start to get into construction and demo and ordering and all of that. And there's a lot of moving parts. And this is when clients can start to feel a little bit like, oh, there's a lot going on. I can't keep up what's happening. And I wanted to get in front of that and reassure clients, this is what's going to happen. This is what it's going to look like. Yes, you're going to feel some moments of maybe a little bit of uneasiness, especially if you've got clients who are living inside of a home or a project during renovations, this is less of an issue in new construction, but needless to say, this was an opportunity for us to present a what to expect next document that helps our clients feel supported as we start to enter this renovation portion, and this is especially important if you're involved in a kitchen renovation, where clients are going to continue to exist in the home during the kitchen renovation, because that is very disruptive to daily life, and it just shifts a lot of things. So this renovation reality guide is what we created for our own firm, and we now use it with our clients, but I made a version of it available for you to customize and put your own branding on. It's the language is already there. You can take and tweak any of it, but it's already filled out for you, and you can just customize it with your own branding. So that's called the renovation reality guide. We'll link to it in the show notes, and that's available on the shop. So always be setting expectations. The doors to the interior designers business blueprint open September 6. There has never been a better time to join. I want to share with you an email I received from a new student inside my program, the interior designers business blueprint. Kelly said, I just want to take a minute to share how much you have helped my business since I joined. I had processes coming in, but I had so many holes, and I really hadn't done the hard work of sitting down to evaluate my ideal client or shift my mindset around my own value. I've adopted so many of your resources, and I now have a solid workflow going when I sit down to work each day, I know what needs to be done and exactly what file to open to get it done. I jacked up my prices beyond where I was initially comfortable, but knowing that the experience I'm now providing the clients is worth the money, I haven't had anyone say no yet, and I'm getting projects to completion, photo shoots completed, and I'm ready to really tackle my marketing strategy. Just a big thank you for all you do. I'm so incredibly to have found this program, and I'm committing to this incredible year of growth. If you're like Kelly and you are looking for clarity and confidence and a helping hand in growing your interior design business, join us inside the interior designers business blueprint, where you'll get access to powerful on demand trainings, the best community of big hearted interior designers who are ready to cheer you on and to help support you live Q and A sessions with yours truly to get the A's to your cues, along with templates, tools, resources and more. If you're an ambitious interior designer who's ready to stake your claim, I've got a seat waiting for you. Head over to designers oasis.com. Forward slash blueprint and join now before the doors close again for this season again, that's designers oasis.com. Forward slash blueprint or grab the link in the show notes below. Doors open September 6. I'll see you there.

The other thing that is going to help you have really clear communications is to always think about how you can be reflecting back to your client their own words. Reflecting back helps you. Sure that you heard correctly what you think you heard, and it helps validate that to your clients, okay? And I want you to get into the habit of repeating them, repeating clients own words, back to them. And you're not only going to do this in conversations, but you can also do this in the proposal. So if on the Discovery call your client uses words like frustrated, overwhelmed, I'm not good at this. Write those words down. They are important, and you are going to bring those words back into the proposal and use them in that introductory letter to reflect back to them what you heard. Now the client's not keeping tabs on the fact that they said, I feel overwhelmed, or I feel uninspired, or whatever words they may have used, but you kept track of it, and when they see and read those words reflected back to them on paper again, they're going to be like, Oh my gosh, she gets me. And it is because the you get them, it's not artificial. It's because you get them, because you're doing active listening. Okay, so active listening and repeating back to the client in their own words. You don't want to paraphrase, you want to use their own words. I can't emphasize how important that is. Reflect back to them what you've heard. And you can do this in conversations, but you can also do it in tools like the proposal in written word. The last thing as it relates to communications, which I obsess over is I just say no to default language. What do I mean by this? Programs like QuickBooks, HoneyBook, dubsado, whatever sort of project management or scheduling software you might be using a lot of times, they will have default template language that you can use for emails, for confirmation, emails, for paying invoices, that kind of thing. Nah, we're not doing that. We're not going to use the default language in there, because that is not your brand. It is very important that you find every automated email that you have set up in your business, and you customize this language to match your brand tone of voice. If you're just getting started, I want you to keep in mind this is going to be something that you're going to do a little bit further down the line, there's your initial emails, your invoice confirmation, your scheduling confirmation. Those are easy ones to do. There's a lot of these that can be done. Let me assure you, there are so many emails that your clients might get that you have an opportunity to customize to your brand voice.

If you're just getting started, I want you to just do a few of the basics right now. If you're a little bit more established this is something that I highly encourage if you haven't done to start to implement right away, is to customize that language so that it's going to be in your brand tone of voice. And if you haven't gotten clear on your brand tone of voice, I want to encourage you to do this now. A little side note. This is something that we this is one small aspect of the interior designer's business blueprint. I have exercises that help you get clear on what does your brand sound like. Very important. You want it to be consistent across your website, your social media, your invoice email delivery, your scheduling, your confirmation emails, your end of week emails, it all needs to sound like the same person is talking, okay, so just say no to default language. Customize your your default language to match your brand voice, and do that now, if you want a tool to fast track this, we have an email template suite with over 90 professionally written emails that covers every stage of communications for any sort of regularly sent emails, whether it's automated or whether it's here's a template, and you customize it so it's everything from sending an invoice to how to follow up to a client when there's no reply to how to reply to a when a client's not a good fit, or notifying a client of an issue that arises, asking for testimonials and more. So keep in mind this email template suite, again, there's over 90 professionally written templates that you can take and tweak. Some of them. Many of them are going to be those automatic, automated emails that you have default language for that you want to customize. And then there are going to be many of them that are not part of an automation, but are going to be a one off email that you would customize. So I wanted to mention that again, we're going to include a link to that in the show notes. We also have a coupon code for our podcast listeners. So if you are listening to this, check the show notes, because I've got a coupon code that I'm going to include if you want to get your hands on this.

Okay, so we've talked about right fit. We've talked about clear communications. The last thing that. But I want to share with you that I obsess over with my clients is getting their feedback. Your clients feedback is the absolute best resource when it comes to improving your client experience. Clients can help you identify blind spots and ensure that what you have communicated is understood by your clients. Okay, so let's talk about this. We will. I want you to be getting feedback all the time, not just at the end of a project, at a project survey. I want to share with you some examples and ways that some touch points in which you can get real time feedback from your clients. Let's start with a discovery call after you have listened to their project needs and you've shared how you work before you ever go into pricing, ask your client, does this kind of service feel like what you're looking for. To help you get from point A, insert client's own words back to the one we just talked about, to point B and again, insert their own words. What do they want to what do they want to have experience at the end of the project? So asking, before you ever start to talk about pricing, does this kind of service feel like what you're looking for that's getting feedback, because maybe they didn't quite understand the way that you described the way you worked, and there was a misunderstanding. So if you're not clear on that, you've missed the opportunity to clarify how you work. How important is that before you ever get into pricing, because they're going to shut down, they're not going to listen at that point, because they're they're they don't believe that you have the right thing to help them. Okay, so make sure that you are looking for feedback in these real time conversations. Here's another example inside the design presentation. So not going to get into the full details here, but in my program, the interior designers business blueprint, I share exactly how to present information to clients in the right order and how to present it in a design presentation.

One of the things that I recommend is to start by reviewing the form or the layout, whether it's a furniture plan, whether it's a floor plan, whatever, whatever you're working on, review the layout first. So we're not looking at samples, we're not looking at material selections, we're not looking at the colors yet, not time for that. Why you only want them to look at the functionality first and ask them for feedback, otherwise they can get lost in the details of the materials and the rest of the design if you don't first get clarity on that layout. Does this look like what we talked about? Does this feel like this meets your project needs? Does this feel like it has it reaches the goals that you're you're hoping to achieve? Just looking at it through a functionality lens, first ask for feedback, and then once you guys feel like you're in a good place, you can move on to the material selections and the rest of the information. Of course, when you're done with that, you can ask them for feedback as you go. So if you're doing multiple rooms in a presentation, ask for feedback on each space before moving into the next area. I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to get real time feedback in a design presentation, and speaking of setting expectations, which is one of the things we talked about a moment ago, setting expectations with your clients, about what they what you need from them in a design presentation is very important. So one of the things I kick off design presentations is by saying, and I even send this in an email, the the I think it's a day or two before, and I say what to expect. I need you to show up with your decision making hat on. What I don't want to happen is for the client to sit there nodding, not saying anything, and I can't get a read on them.

Ask me how I know, because I've been in this situation, and it's not fun. And I'm like, what are they thinking? I have no idea. And so now I make it really clear, like, you don't need to necessarily make all the decisions right there with me in real time. Like I understand you might need to, like, let some of this sink in and simmer for a minute. But I need this to be an interactive design presentation. I need you to show up with your decision making hat on. I need you to ask questions. I need you to be honest about what you're seeing and what you love, and if there's something that's falling flat for you, I need to know because then I we can have a conversation. Oh, you don't like X, Y or Z fabric. Well, that's fine. Tell me why. Tell me more. Want to understand why. Here's why we picked this. Here's why we think it works with the rest of this. So you can explain your reasoning and your logic behind whatever choice you're talking about. And sometimes that can be all they need to hear be like, Oh yeah, okay, that makes sense. I see what you're talking about. And if you take that out that it doesn't quite work, right? Because, God knows, you've put so much time and thought and energy and creativity into this, you are showing them the absolute best options, that when you get their feedback, you have the opportunity to not only hear them and address their concerns, you can also share with them the reason and the logic behind the decision, and then you guys can decide together, is this something that we want to scrap and find a Reselection for happens all the time. Totally got it. Or is this something that they just needed to understand a little bit more about your thinking, right? So that client feedback. I can't emphasize enough how important this is in a design presentation. Okay, if they're sitting there and they're not talking and they're nodding, get them to open up, get them to start talking. I need to know we cannot keep going with you, just sitting there nodding. Tell me what's in your brain. Okay, alright, and then the last thing. And again, there's all kinds of opportunities for feedback, but one of the other things that we've done a big change in our business has been super helpful, is doing a mid way feedback survey. So I think everyone listening knows that at the end of a project, it's a good idea to send a survey or feedback form. Hey, how did you enjoy your experience? Anything that we could do to improve, right? Did you enjoy it? If so, can you write a testimonial? That's great, and I don't want you to stop doing that. But also I don't want that to be the first opportunity for you to get some real feedback from your client.

So I want you to consider introducing a midway point feedback with an this is going to give you the opportunity to course correct and improve your client's experience working with you, when you when they see you incorporate feedback, you can almost guarantee that you're going to have a happy client who is going to hire you again, who is going to refer you, who is going to give you a glowing testimonial. I can't remember whether it was this episode or a different episode I recorded earlier, but one of the feedbacks, one of the bits of feedback that we got from a client in a midway feedback form was that the information that we were including about product selections and their client portal was missing some important information that they needed. And we had just started using some new software, so we were a little bit out of our sort of routine of the way we did things, and it brought it to our attention so that we could go back and add that information and resubmit it to the client say, thank you for sharing that with us. Here's the information you were looking for all in one place. To make it really easy, so that they don't have to hunt and peck all over the internet trying to find the information that they were looking for. It improved their experience, and we didn't have to wait till the end of the project after it was too late. Okay, look for an opportunity to do some midway surveying and see what their experience is going how their experience is going for them. For us, we do this after the design presentation, but I want to be very careful to mention this too.

We typically will not send this until after we've gotten the client to approve most, if not all, of their selections, and we've gotten the ball rolling on implementation. The reason we I suggest this is because I think you're throwing too much at a client at once. I need you to approve all these things, and while you're at it, tell us how we're doing. They can get stuck. They can feel a little overwhelmed. They're busy people, so get that really important stuff. First get their approvals, get their retainer, get the projects, the implementation phase started, and then send them that feedback when they've had a little moment to breathe, and get it from them at that point. Okay, I just want to wrap up by saying this that becoming obsessive over right fit clients, clear and timely communications and asking for client feedback throughout their experience is a sure fire way to improve your client's experience and your business overall. Okay, thank you so much for joining me today. I couldn't be happier to be back and recording these episodes with you this season. We've got some more really great episodes lined up for you this season. So make sure that you are subscribed to the podcast so you don't miss an episode. Make sure you're subscribed to our newsletter. We send out the brief every Friday. It's an incredible newsletter. We put a ton of energy and helpful information into our newsletter. So if you're not on that, head over to designers oasis.com, and do that, we also share new products and vendors that we're excited about. So if you're looking to build your Rolodex of trade vendors that you can use in your projects, that's one of our the thing that we get for. Back on the that our readers love the most, so make sure you are on our wait list as well.

All right, thanks for now. I'll see you back here next week. Hey friend, thank you so much for letting me spend a part of this day with you. I'm so passionate about helping designers like you, and I believe in a rising tide that when one of us does well, we all do better. So if you share this attitude of abundance with me, I want you to do just one little thing, please share this episode with someone you think might love it. And if you're feeling extra generous today, go ahead and take just 30 seconds to open your podcast app and leave us a five star rating and review. It's free for you to do, and it helps me to be able to keep making more episodes and resources 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. I'll see you soon.