Do you ever find yourself looking around at your more successful interior design peers and wondering who you can take for coffee and ask: “So, how did you do it?“

When I was starting an interior design business, I set up a lot of these conversations – I wanted to hear how others had gone from zero to multiple 6-figure and then maybe even 7-figure businesses. 

I wanted to know how they:

➡️  Charged their clients.

➡️  Structured their team and delivery processes.

➡️  Dealt with tricky clients.

➡️  Kept going even when things felt really tough.

The feedback I got was amazing and helped transform my interior design business. I want to share some of the things I learned and what I wish I had known before starting an interior design business.

Know Who Your Interior Design Services Are For

You might be the best interior designer in your area, but without a clear idea of who your clients are, your interior design business will just be one in a sea of many others. You’re likely to be overlooked in favour of more established studios, or ignored because people glance at your website or social media but aren’t sure if you work with clients like them so they quickly move on.

I know the idea of specialising can feel scary, especially when you’re just starting, but every part of your business will align with this intention, so it’s important to be clear! When you know who your ideal clients are, everything else flows:

• Brand strategy and positioning
• Content for social media or your website
• Service suite and messaging around each service you offer
• Marketing plan
• Sales process
• Operational processes 
• Systems and technology
• Pricing strategy
• Structure of your team
• Legal documents 
• Accounting processes 

Take a deep breath! I know this is a lot. But when you are clear on who you are here to serve, everything on that list becomes a whole lot easier. 

You Have to Market Your Interior Design Business 

I know if you’ve never done it before – whether you’re just starting an interior design business, or if you’re an established interior designer and have been running your studio for YEARS – it can feel super uncomfortable to put yourself out there. 

This has a lot to do with old beliefs and narratives many of us bring from childhood into our businesses – 

“Who are you to call yourself an interior designer?”

“Who do you think you are, ‘showing off’ like that?”

“You’re not good / experienced enough.”

Please know that these kinds of beliefs are very normal and also very common among interior designers. 

But marketing yourself is an essential part of starting an interior design business. A lot of interior designers rely on word of mouth and referrals, which is a fantastic part of your marketing strategy. And when you put in the effort to create great connections and relationships, it can work well for you. 

When I was building my interior design business, collaborating with other professionals in the industry really helped my business to grow (and I helped their businesses as well!) They always say it’s who you know, and the interior design industry is no different. I connected with individuals in related industries (as well as fellow interior designers) and we referred leads to each other, worked together on projects, and often collaborated on photoshoots or client projects. 

These are some of the professions I networked with:

• Real estate agents
• Architects
• Home builders and contractors
• Project Managers
• Property developers
• Photographers (specializing in interiors)
• Other interior designers

However, even though referrals are fantastic, they are only one part of your strategy – you can’t rely on them as your sole source for lead generation.

There are many other effective ways to market your interior design business, such as:

• Advertising (for example: online, on social media, or using Google Ads – or offline, creating a flyer or postcard and posting it in the key areas you would love to work in)
• Online directories, especially ones specifically for interior designers
• Claim your business on Google and gather reviews
• Networking clubs
• Building a professional website and having an SEO strategy
• Industry awards
• Speaking at events
• Press coverage
• Podcast guesting
• Email marketing
• Social media marketing (organic)

Now, this is a lot of places to be visible, so I always say to my clients – focus on 1-2 main marketing channels and really commit to them – put in a lot of effort and it will start to pay off! Then, you can add other marketing channels to your strategy or hire a marketing professional to help you expand your efforts and grow your visibility in more places.

Don’t Skip Good Interior Design Business Software

An interior design-specific client management system is a must-have for helping you keep track of all the moving parts of a project and provide an incredible client experience.

Your clients are busy people with high standards. That’s why they have hired you!

So don’t subject them to a client experience that makes them work as hard as you are!

That means:

• Proper payment systems – no manual invoices!
• A dashboard for client communication – not messaging across email, WhatsApp, and text, which means you’re likely to drop balls
• Project management tools to make it easy for clients to share feedback
• Schedules for all the FF&E (fittings, furnishings, and equipment) you’re specifying, ordering, and installing – making it super easy for you to see items, communicate with suppliers, keep track of pricing, and see the status of orders. 

If you have ever worked without interior design business software, you know how hard it can be to manage all the tiny details of a project. A system like this gets rid of those clunky Excel spreadsheets and gets all those notes out of your head and into a single platform. It makes your life so much easier! Plus it provides a better experience for your clients while taking tedious tasks off your plate and automating them. You’re busy enough as it is! 

My favourite interior design business software by far – and I have done extensive research! – is Programa, built by and for interior designers it makes the entire design process and delivery of your projects a million times easier!

Invest in a Business Coach

My interior design business really took off when I hired a business coach. I’m naturally a clear thinker, but when I partnered with a coach, it brought an incredible focus and momentum to what I was doing. 

I’ve run a business for 10 years. First my interior design studio, now Design & Align where I coach, mentor, and empower designers to refine and grow a successful interior design business.

And I can tell you that entrepreneurship comes with many challenges!  Yes, there is the joy of being your own boss and the freedom that comes with having flexibility over your schedule. But your business doesn’t feel very freeing when you don’t have clients or money coming in. And the joy can fade when you spend days working on your own or being solely responsible for making the decisions. 

The work I do with my clients combines – 

• A proven business strategy, specifically for an interior design business
• Mentoring from my own experience of growing and scaling a business
• Coaching to build self-trust, create momentum, and achieve amazing results…
• … Like: Better clients, profitable pricing, making that first or next hire, refining an existing team to feel more productive and aligned, creating the systems that make business feel so much easier… and more!

I strongly believe every entrepreneur needs a business coach while they’re growing their business. And once you’ve grown a business, you then need to refine that business – make it more profitable, get it feeling more aligned to the vision you’ve got for your life. 

You don’t know what you don’t know – there is always someone with more expertise and experience than you.  But here’s the important thing. There are all sorts of people you could learn from. That doesn’t mean they are a coach. 

Coaching is NOT “let me tell you what I did in my interior design business” – that’s mentoring.

Coaching is also NOT “here’s a strategy” – that’s teaching or consulting.

And I absolutely do both of these things with my clients.

But the real magic happens in the coaching. Where I bring the depth and experience (like actual certifications from the Association for Coaching and Association of Integrative Psychology) and ask the insightful questions that help you to:

• Recognise where you’re playing small
• Understand why you’re self-sabotaging
• Shine a light on limiting beliefs that are not serving you
• Create new beliefs that feel way more empowering and are in support of you having a successful business
• Shift ‘this means that’ thinking (e.g. “I lost that last pitch so I’ll probably NEVER get another client!”
• Challenge generalisations (e.g. “All clients are a nightmare!”)
• Create a business that aligns with your lifestyle, values, gifts, and priorities.

Because it’s when you can see how you’re getting in your own way that you can change it; that’s when you start experiencing real change in how you’re approaching your business, how you’re feeling about it, and the results you’re getting. 

Free Masterclass: 5-Step Game Plan to Grow Your Interior Design Business

I no longer run an interior design studio. As a mindset and business coach to interior designers, 100% of my energy, attention, and focus goes to helping other designers go from under-booked and underpaid to consistently attracting dream clients, charging profitable fees, and growing their business in alignment with who they are and the life they want to live.

That’s why I created my FREE masterclass – The 5-Step Game Plan to Grow Your Interior Design Business.

I wanted to share the biggest learnings from my work with hundreds of interior designers and the shifts you need to make that will allow you to attract more of the type of clients you love working with, and earn way more money.

It’s totally free and I guarantee will be some of the best time you’ve spent on your business:

​CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE MASTERCLASS

What I realised after spending many years working in the interior design industry is some people would take off really fast, while others would flounder around – doing some decent projects, creating a pretty grid on Instagram, working with some nice clients – but struggling to get momentum and never paying themselves more than a basic wage.

There were a few things that differentiated those two groups of people. Once I recognised what those things were, I started applying them in my own business.  And that’s when I started moving faster: Growing my team, scaling my income without scaling my costs, and creating profit that I could reinvest back into the business. 

Want to know what those things were? Click the link below to watch the masterclass for free –

THE 5-STEP GAME PLAN TO GROW YOUR INTERIOR DESIGN BUSINESS

And let me know when you’ve watched the free training and if this resonated with you – my DMs are always open over on Instagram ❤️ I hope these tips about what I wish I knew before starting an interior design business helped you!

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Let’s Refine & Grow Your Interior Design Business

​Katy x