Four Tips on Running a Successful Interior Design Business
Interior design is a creative industry, and one that can be particularly lucrative if you identify the right audience to pitch to. With the right approach, you can properly weaponise your creative skills and practical knowledge to create a thriving business – but what should that approach involve?
Specialise – But Don’t Settle
The key to a successful business in any industry is specialism. By uncovering a niche in a given market, a business can position itself to best serve that niche – beating out competition with a more general business model, and securing long-term income through a specific demographic of consumer. The same is true for interior design, where a specialist understanding of certain disciplines or materials can serve you well.
This is not to say that you should rest on your laurels, though. There are always opportunities to learn more and to expand your offering; if a client hires you to help design their new kitchen space, but has questions about their plans for an adjoining patio, it would be lucrative for you to know more about their options for paving and layout options. This is but one example, the general theme being that your specialism can be buoyed by general knowledge.
Follow Trends Keenly
Somewhat tangentially related to this, interior design is an ever-shifting industry. New materials and design principles appear regularly, and trends shift steadily over time. Keeping your pulse on the market and its fashions is nothing short of essential for remaining competitive.
Even if you have regular returning clients in the form of property developers or landlords, your methods and ideas can quicky render you obsolete in comparison with newer businesses, if you do not adapt your ideas with the times.
Price Carefully
Another existential danger facing your business is economic in nature. Not only does the current economic situation threaten the expendable income of your client base, but newer businesses emerging in your trade are more likely to undercut your prices.
As such, you need to play a careful game in balancing your prices. They cannot fall so low as to render you indistinct against a growing backdrop of younger, inexperienced businesses – but, likewise, they cannot rise so high as to price your median client out of your services.
Perfect Your Digital Presence
Your business depends on proper marketing to find the right clients – and your digital presence is essential to this endeavour. Not only can your presence on social media platforms allow you to publicise the results of your work with past clients, but also put you directly in touch with potential new clients.
A website is also a crucial part of the equation, being the perfect place for you to create a proper portfolio of your work and testimonials. Having a website is tantamount to having a digital headquarters, where you can advertise your accolades while also hosting your contact information.