And about that whole belief triad that really helps you
unlock what needs to happen during that sales process.
When you are making a presentation to a client about
your services, is what's going through their mind is not is
Rebecca Worth $40,000? They're not thinking that I'm
not going to be thinking that. What I'm going to be thinking
when I'm going to make an investment like that is am I,
Miriam, Worth spending $40,000 to get this job done?
Is my time worth it? Am I worth it?
I, the customer. And that's more of an extension
on believing in your customer. Because if you're over here
rattling away about why your services are so worth it, blah,
blah, blah, blah, blah, you're talking about yourself, blah,
blah, blah. And they're over here thinking,
yeah, but I don't know if I should spend that on myself.
You're now listening to design. Curious, a place where you.
Creative One are here to learn about.
What it really? Is like to be an interior
designer and I'm your host and mentor.
Rebecca Ward. If you're worried about how to
succeed in a creative. Career.
If you're ready to learn your next steps to become an interior
designer, and if you want the satisfaction of doing something,
you. Love every day you.
Are in the right place. Grab a coffee, a notebook, and
let's dig into today's episode. Hello and welcome to episode 188
of Design Curious Podcast. Today on the podcast, I have
Marian Schulman. She is a luxury.
Market messaging and pricing strategist for creative
entrepreneurs. She's also the.
Author of Art Preneur the. Step by step guide.
To making a sustainable living from your creativity and she's.
The host of the. Inspiration Place podcast.
Which is. Top 1% globally with features in
Forbes, Entrepreneur, Igniting Creativity and Where Women
Create Miriam helps creative entrepreneurs position their
work as premium and reassuringly expensive.
So that they. Attract clients who value.
Taste. Certainty and execution, not
discounts. So I think you're going to enjoy
the conversation with Miriam talking all about.
Creative Careers. And all that's.
Involved with that so. Let's get into it.
Hi Miriam, welcome to Design Curious podcast.
It's great to have you on today. Well, thanks for having me,
Rebecca. It's such an honor to be here.
Yes, and I'm very excited to talk with you because you have
such an important message for creatives, artists, interior
designers, which is applied arts.
So why don't you tell us? First of all, I know you have a
lot of things going on and we'll talk all about that too.
But first of all, how did you get into this position where
you're at where you can help people with their mindset?
OK, so I'm going to try to make the long story shorter.
So I always wanted to be an artist, like many people who are
listening right now. But I was told you couldn't make
a living that way, and I believed them.
So I took the practical route. Sound familiar?
And I went to work for Wall Street, not exactly creative,
but lots of money. And after 911 happened, I knew I
couldn't go back to that world. And that's when I quit my job.
I was pregnant with my second child.
I still didn't believe I could make a living from my art
though, so I was painting on the side.
I took a job at a gym as applies instructor, but while working
with the gym, they were teaching me how to sell personal training
packages. And that's when I had my aha
moment because I saw that what they were teaching me I could
use to sell anything, including my art or as we're going to talk
about today, including interior design services because sales is
just sales now. That was over 25 years ago and
about 20/19/2018, 2018 is when I started my podcast and people
said, Miriam, would you show me how to do this?
But within a year of starting my podcast, I also started a
coaching program. So I've been coaching other
artists for about the last six years as well.
Great. So what's the name of your
podcast so we can check it out? The Inspiration Place, Ben.
And I like that. So wherever you're listening to
Design Curious, you'll be able to find the inspiration.
Place. Wonderful.
Great. We'll put a link to that too so
people can check that out. So you've been coaching and
podcasting now for many years? Yeah. 26 now.
Yeah, now we've like started really diving into YouTube,
which I'm really enjoying that community though 'cause as you
know, we're back with a podcast, you don't necessarily get the
feedback. And on YouTube I can talk to my
audience, so I find that super fun and I can show them pictures
of what we're talking about. Really.
Fun. So once you kind of walk through
maybe what are the main hang ups that you're seeing creatives
struggle with as they are trying to approach a passion career,
you know, OK. You know, it's the same whether
we're talking about visual artists like that.
I work with interior decorators and really, to be quite frank,
most other beginning entrepreneurs as well.
The same things come up over and over again.
I think the biggest hurdle to get over is that cheaper is
easier to sell. It is not.
That's a myth. Do you want to go there first?
Yes, let's do that because I think there's a lot to uncover
there. Oh yeah.
OK, so there's really two things that will help people understand
why cheaper is not easier to sell.
The first thing is that if you're talking about a product,
let's say a loaf of bread, now some people think, oh, if I
price it less, maybe they'll want mine more.
Well, if you're talking about Wonder Bread versus Petridge
Farm, yeah, maybe if one is cheaper, you might be more
inclined to buy it. But if you're bringing a loaf of
bread over to a dinner party, you're probably not going to
want to bring the loaf of bread you bought at the supermarket.
For what? What?
What do you think? A loaf?
I don't know what a loaf of bread costs like. 6 bucks anyway
it's. Going to be cheaper at a
supermarket than if you go to a bakery.
Like a bakery, it's probably 20 bucks, right?
But you're not thinking, oh, but I really want that cheap Wonder
Bread. No, you're going to the bakery.
You're spending that because you don't want to look foolish.
You want to present. You want an experience.
It tastes better. It's a better thing.
But there's lots of examples like that in our lives where
we're not comparing the prices of two things to make a
decision. Like you would never say no, no,
no. I really should bring over the
loaf of Wonder Bread instead of, you know, going to the bakery.
Yeah, you're just not OK. So like, you know, maybe for the
class mom, you might bring the Entenmann's into slaving all
day. That's you know.
Like the whole Nother podcast? Yeah, OK.
But if there's other places too, like if you're hiring a
babysitter, are you looking for the cheapest babysitter?
No, no you're not. You're not saying right, Right,
right. Or your fur baby.
If your fur baby needs some sort of expensive surgery, your vet
says it's going to be $2000. You're not going to go look for
someone who could do for a $97.00.
So we do that. A lot of times in our
businesses. We think people are going to
make a decision based on price. They're not going to trust you
as much if you're so much lower than everybody else.
It's like wine. They're going to assume the more
expensive wine is better. That's mindset shift number one
about cheaper is not easier to sell.
Yeah. And I think also what we run up
against designers often, especially when you're starting
out, you're trying to get more clients and maybe you're having
a slump and the first thing you think is like, oh, I'm too
expensive, I need to lower my prices, you know?
No, no. OK, so that's the first thing.
But the second thing, and this is less about how much you're
charging, but how you're presenting your services.
So I'm going to make this very applicable to interior designer
and decorators. People are looking for the
biggest transformation. So interior decorators are
saying, I'm, I charge whatever it is, $60.00 an hour, $150.00
an hour. That is not as appealing
necessarily as somebody who's going to say for $3000, I'm
going to give you a design plan that covers all these things
because people are looking for what's going to give them the
biggest transformation. So even though it's $3000
versus, well, could I get away with just a couple of hours,
They don't know what they're going to get for those few
hours. Right.
Yes. So to make this a little clearer
for especially for people who are in like my type of world,
physical products and I always like to use the furniture
example. So it's so funny that I'm here
today. So artists like to think, oh, so
it's easier to sell a $400.00 small painting than it is to
sell a painting for $5000. And so I say to them, is it
because if somebody had an empty living room, they're probably
going to buy the $5000 sofa before they buy the $400.00 end
table. So again, they're not making a
decision based on, oh, this is 5000 versus $400.00.
They're saying what is going to make the biggest impact right
now and a piece of art that goes over that sofa, even if it's a
few $1000, they rather have that and spend money on that than a
$400.00 painting that goes in their bathroom.
Right. Yeah, That's a good point.
Really good. Yeah.
And often times the consumer is making more of an emotional
decision than just a logical one too.
So it's appealing to that. Like you said, the $3000 gets
them the transformation. Like that's what they're wanting
to feel at the end of it, right? They have that kind of guarantee
that that's going to happen. Exactly.
And so, you know, maybe and I'm making numbers up because that's
not my. World.
But like, maybe it's $3000 for a design package for one room.
Is it 10 or $15,000? Are you going to do my whole
house for me? Well, I'd much rather do that,
you know, because I'm going to get everything.
So if you got to think what's going to give them the biggest
transformation, don't be afraid to offer that.
So one thing I want to jump to that I talk about in my book is
the belief triad. Can we talk about the belief
triad 'cause this is really important.
OK, so the belief triad, there's three things.
One is belief in yourself. We've heard that everyone is
coming. The podcast has probably said
you have to believe in yourself and you have to believe in your
art or your skills, your design. The third part that I never
heard anybody else talk about, so This is why I wrote about an
entrepreneur is belief in your customer.
Now this is what it looks like, yes.
So remember the scene in Pretty Woman where Julia Roberts goes
to Rodeo Dr. and those mean sales people won't wait on her
because they don't think she has the money.
And we all think we're not that mean salesperson.
But every time we're judging our customer by thinking, oh, they
won't go for $15,000 and don't you don't even discuss that with
them. You know, whatever that big
package is, you don't offer that big transformation.
You are acting like a mean salesperson.
You're not believing in the customer, so you have to believe
in the customer more than they do in themselves.
And so that is really part of that whole pricing trilogy is 1
understanding that people think more expensive is better.
People want the bigger transformation and they want you
to believe in them. Yeah, that's an interesting
approach. I hadn't heard that before, So I
like that. Yeah, believe in the customer
and let them make the decision too.
I was like what they can afford and like you know, or show them
more than what they they think and let them explore it, but not
like making that judgement ahead of time.
For them, don't be judgy, don't be like the mean sales people,
like let them see everything you've got.
I like that. OK, so we're going to find this
in your book. It's called Art Preneur.
Art preneur. Yes, and I'm not here to sell
books to you today because you can get it at your local
library. Honestly, it was it's Hush like
Harper Collins. You can get it from your
library. You can get the.
E-book Awesome, cool. All right, So what?
What are some other pitfalls that we find with?
Creatives OK, so staying on that same vein about trusting our
customer. One thing that and about that
whole belief triad that really helps you unlock what needs to
happen during that sales process.
When you are making a presentation to a client about
your services is what's going through their mind is not is
Rebecca worth Rebecca, can you give me some real numbers?
I'm not just pulling out fake numbers from a hat.
What would be like a a number that somebody would charge for a
design package? Most average ones are about
40,000 for OK the I do yeah. OK so I was way off all.
Right. So let's say the customer is not
thinking, is Rebecca worth $40,000?
They're not thinking that I'm not going to be thinking that.
What I'm going to be thinking when I'm going to make an
investment like that is, am I, Miriam, worth spending $40,000
to get this job done? Is my time worth it?
Am I worth it? I the customer?
And that's more of an extension on believing in your customer,
'cause if you're over here rattling away about why your
services are so worth it, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, you're
talking about yourself, blah, blah, blah.
And they're over here thinking, yeah, but I don't know if, if,
you know, I should spend that on myself.
Yeah. 'Cause it's a.
Point like. I hadn't thought of it from the
client's perspective of like they're spending that money on
themselves. I mean, obviously we're
improving their space and everything, but it is a choice.
Like you would like if you're going to get a massage or
something and you went like the full package of like $600.00 or
whatever it is, you know, you're like, I deserve this.
This is worth my time. It's going to make me feel
better. It's going to improve, you know,
like all the things that just thinking about myself and not
really like the service provider, you know.
Exactly. And it's not always even the
exact words that you say. So I do have that in our
preneur. I have an overcoming objections
chart where I say this is what the client is saying, but this
is actually what might be going through their mind.
And then I give you some like ideas and scripts of how to get
over it. But it's not even the exact
words. If you have that attitude, that
energy when you're having those conversations with them about
how they and you're feeling good about them and you love your
buyer, you love that client and you just want this for them
because you love them so much, that's going to come across.
Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah.
Like you're in it to help them. Yeah.
So that's what you're selling? Yes, so and so a couple of other
examples that will bring this home.
Nike, when you look at commercials, they're not selling
sneakers, they're selling motivation.
Just do it. Right.
That's what they're actually selling.
Yeah, right. The hair care.
L'Oreal, they got the slogan. They got this right a long time
ago. Their main competitor was
Clairol. Clairol's hair color slogan was
like, oh, does she or doesn't she?
And L'Oreal knew they were more expensive, so that's when they
came out. I'm worth it.
Yeah, I like that. Yeah.
So it's less talking about like Nike's not saying we make shoes
that last forever or, you know, like we make them the best shoe
around. They're not even talking about
the product. They're not talking about the
product, they're just selling motivation.
And that's what a lot of people do wrong is if you're selling a
trip to Hawaii, don't tell them how many people fit on the
plane. But that's what we do, you know,
we end up doing that like, oh, well, with this, you know,
package you get, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
No, no, no, sell them on Hawaii. How amazing Hawaii is, how warm
it is in Hawaii. You know how good they're going
to feel in Hawaii. Yeah, the dream, yeah.
I don't know why. Why is there that disconnect
between cause like creatives can envision and dream and like have
these great ideas, but then when it comes to getting someone to
purchase that from them, like all of a sudden it's all bottled
up and we like, you know, say the wrong thing.
So in our I'm going to get a little woo for a moment.
Is that OK? All right, in our soul we have
like 4 components and half of it is like is the creative side.
And that is concerned about the how and the what.
And as creatives we live in that how and what.
The other half is The Who and the why.
But here's the key difference. So I want the listeners to hear
me. It's not your why, it's not I
love designing, it's your customers.
Why? Why do they want this?
That's what you have to tap into.
That's what Nike got right. Nike knows that it's really hard
to motivate yourself to run. Yeah.
No matter how good your sneakers are.
Right. OK, I love that.
Really good. Thanks, Miriam.
So I think there's a lot to be learned from you.
And so let's share where listeners can find you.
Where do you like to hang out? Well, I'm really having a lot of
fun on YouTube now as I said, so I'm the inspiration place there
and I would love to know what the designers in the community
think about like my I know this is not coming out till April,
but I posted videos earlier in the year about 2026 design
trends and how they affect the art market and what collectors
are wanting right now. I would love for your community
to weigh in and if you disagree with me, I love that even more.
I I welcome all the opinions, so if you like what you heard
today, come find me over on the Inspirational Place on YouTube.
Yeah, I love placing art in clients homes, like getting
some, you know, not reproduced art, but reproduced art is fine
too. But like, you know, custom art,
one of the kinds just to tangent into that area.
Like do you work with your artist to like reach out to
interior designers to place art or do they usually reach out to
more of the end user? Yeah, so.
There's a mixture within my community.
I do have some artists who do have relationships with interior
decorators. One artist who does digital work
and she reproduces it on metal and she has some really great
relationships. Many of my artists who are doing
a more original work, they're forming a relationship more with
the collectors than they are with interior decorators.
It's like a bigger investment. So with a, with a interior
designer, unless you know, it's like that's going to be the same
aesthetic over and over again, so.
Yeah, interesting. Yeah.
And I think that there's a lot of designers and decorators who
also like to do art, you know, like as their their pastimes,
like they'll find other creative.
I'm always encouraging desires to do like other creative
outlets in order to spark inspiration for the applied arts
of the interiors. And so I think there's a lot of
good crossover there for artist application.
So definitely going to check out your book Art Preneur, and I
love what you had to say. Is there anything else you want
to share with listeners who are up and coming designers, new
entrepreneurs, career shifters about this, the sales?
Yeah, yeah. Especially somebody who is maybe
thinking about transitioning from a full time job to doing
something on your own. A lot of times when we're
thinking about making a leap like that, we're looking at what
the risks of of making a change, but there's also risks of
staying where you are. So our brains have evolved for
survival, not goal achievement. So our brain does not want us to
leave The Cave and get eaten by a tiger.
But don't forget there are snakes in The Cave too.
And any woman who has worked in corporate knows exactly what I'm
talking. About but.
But just know whenever you feel uncomfortable, whether that's
raising your prices, asking for a sale, making an offer for like
your biggest package, whatever that thing is, that your brain
will come up with all kinds of reasons why it's a terrible
idea. And you should never, ever do
this. And the more creative you are
and the smarter you are, the better you are coming up with
these stories about why it's a bad idea.
Now, notice I didn't say excuses because it does not feel like an
excuse. It feels real to you.
But just know that's your brain's way of keeping you safe,
and that's at the risk of your dreams.
Yeah, being an entrepreneur is a lot of risk taking and stepping
out into new territory. Being uncomfortable.
Yes. So having to get comfortable
with that uncomfortableness. Yeah, Yeah.
Awesome. I love that.
Miriam, thank you so much for coming on today and sharing.
And I'm definitely going to include links to you so that
people can find you and check you out and weigh in on your
takes on the decorating direction for 26.
So we'll see what we have to say.
Yeah, and I love your designs. I was looking at your Instagram
page right before going live. I love your soft like Gray blue
palette. It's really.
Spoke to me. It's beautiful.
Yeah, blue is one of my favorites.
And so I think I get a lot of clients who also like blue.
And so it's just a self perpetuating circle of like a
lot of blue in My Portfolio. But I love all color, not afraid
of it to incorporate it, but not like it.
I think that my approach to it in my design is a little bit
different than some. It's not a maximalist color, but
it's definitely there and throughout all of the designs.
So yeah, have fun. Well, thank you, Miriam.
It's great talking with you and we'll we'll talk soon.
OK. Thank you for having me.
So if you'd like to reach out with Miriam or listen to her
podcast. Or get her book.
We have links for you in the show notes to find that and.
Don't forget that if. You would like some help getting
into the career of interior design?
I have my design mentor. Available to you as.
An online mentorship platform. There's some learning modules in
there, but then you can also schedule one-on-one time with me
to. Help you with it, whatever
specific. Issue or learning that you want
to. Have for the career.
So that's my design mentor, and then we're going to have another
boot camp coming up in July and August.
So we have the summer session and the winter one we had
earlier. This year was so successful, I'd
love for you. To get in there, if you're
thinking about starting your business, we can get you
launched in eight weeks and it's just the one of the most useful
things you can do I'm holding your hand the entire.
Way so. You're not in it alone, and
you've got other people in the class to go compare notes and
kind of create a community for. You as you're all.
Starting your businesses. Together, which is great.
OK, you can find all that information in the show notes.
Next week I'll have another. Great episode for.
You and until then. Stay creative.
Thanks for listening. If you love this episode, please
leave a rating and a review. This helps me reach.
Other curious creatives like you.
If you have a topic request or would like to contact me.
Simply head. Over to my website
arworddesign.com or e-mail me at podcast@arworddesign.com.