Dream clients are attracted to confidence.
Not that you need to be arrogant or rigid, but you need to have
clarity. And so that's why we defined
those boundaries at the beginning.
You have clarity around your professional contract, your
onboarding process, invoicing promptly, you communicate
clearly, and you show up prepared.
And even if you're new, you can howl all of these things and you
don't need 50 projects to operate professionally.
You just need structure. You just need one project.
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 183
of Design Curious Podcast. Today on the podcast, we're
talking about getting your dream client something that everyone
wants, of course, whether you're seasoned or starting out.
But what kind of tell you the best way to approach that if
you're starting your career in interior design and starting
your business? Before we get to that, I wanted
to share how grateful I am for you guys to be here listening
week in, week out. And I'd love to hear from you to
leave me a review that just lets me know that you're there and
I'm listening to you. So I recently got a review from
a listener, Bridget, who reached out to me actually on Instagram
1st. And just to let me know, and I
had her leave a review on the podcast as well, just because
her words just really made my day and let me up.
And it's just reinforced the reason why I'm doing this
podcast and coming here week in and week out.
And then people are listening. Of course, if I have people come
through the mentorship, I hear that.
But you know, if you're just a listener and going on with your
day, I'd love to hear from you. I know Spotify it.
You can't leave an actual review, but you can go onto
Apple Podcast and leave one for me there.
So here's what Bridget had to say.
She said. Rebecca is one of the reasons
why I decided to quit my job and become an interior designer.
I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do.
Last year, after being in the fashion industry for almost 8
years, I decided to listen to Design Curious and it convinced
me. I'm now in school at NYSID or
NICID in NYC. Congratulations Bridget on
following your passion. I'd love to hear more stories
like this just to be able to support you and shout you out on
the podcast as well. All right, let's start talking
about dream clients. So dream clients are really
built through clarity, boundaries, and belief.
So let's unpack that a little bit.
You have to define your boundaries of your business
before you get your first clients.
And of course, I'm saying this, and if you've already have a few
clients and you haven't done that yet, that's OK.
But if you're looking to get started, doing it before you
have clients is really the best approach because this is where a
lot of designers get it backwards.
They kind of wait until their client pushes them and then they
react. And then instead of a dream
client or a dream project, they have something that they're
starting to resent. And a lot of it boils down to
that they've had their boundaries crossed that they
never iterated to the client in the 1st place though.
So we want to approach it like you are designing a project, you
are designing your business. So you have to set up first of
all, your framework. So what are your non negotiables
when you want to work with a client?
And this will be different for everyone, but you want to think
about some of these specific details like what are your work
hours? How do you like to communicate?
Is it e-mail only or are you OK with getting text messages from
your client? It's OK to say no to that.
You don't have to be available in every single way, but you get
to decide what your preferred methods are.
Do you have a consultation fee? Yes.
The answer to that is yes. And then you need to tell them
that you get paid upfront before you arrive on site.
What is your retainer structure like?
Do you have a clear fee structure?
And then on that fee structure, you don't need to negotiate on
that. That is just the way it is.
If they are trying to negotiate, they're not your dream client,
right? Product pricing.
Do you like to have that transparency in there so that
your client knows before they ask what the markup is?
Or do you have a minimum project investment?
You only take projects that have a minimum of 10,000 design hours
or something like that. It can be whatever it is that
you think is appropriate for the business that you want to have.
Other things you can be specific on is the number of design
revisions. Now, you'll especially have this
if you have a fixed fee format because you really need to limit
that scope creep. And then if you have a retail
shop with clients or no, and if you pass on your discounts or
trying to get photography, all of this can be defined before
you have your first client. And then it can be reiterated in
your contract when you go over your contract with these
clients, that dream ones will be totally fine with whatever it is
that you have in there because it is the means to having you
work on their project. So you don't have to be
confronted about it when you're going over your contract.
You just say, this is how I do my best work.
So if they're pushing back with you on that, especially in the
beginning, if you've had a couple of pushy interactions
with them, then that's probably a red flag that you don't want
to work with them. But the dream clients are, they
love the boundaries, they love framework, they love systems,
and they love working with you and they want your vision.
Another way to attract your dream client is to make sure
that your money mindset is correct is right.
We talked about this a lot on the podcast and this is huge,
and so that's why we talk about it a lot.
You may secretly believe that because I'm new I should charge
very little, or people won't pay for my consultations because
I've never done one before, or I need to be flexible with my
weekend time or my evening time so that they will like me and
say yes to hiring me. But that's not the way to
approach it. You need to attract clients who
don't negotiate and who pay promptly and who don't question
every invoice and who don't treat you like a shopping
assistant. So if you don't want all those
things, then you need to instead have the right money mindset and
have those definitions for yourself and also for your
client. You need to know who your dream
client is when you see them, right?
When you recognize that they're checking all the boxes.
And so it's important to take this time to kind of define what
that is. And money is going to be a play
a big part of it. You don't need to negotiate your
worth. And the dream client will
respect your process so that if you have a client come to you
and they're not negotiating, check they're OK with your
process, check if they pay your consultation fee right away.
No drama. Check dream client.
They are going to value expertise.
You walk through the consultation with them and they
said, wow, this is great, let's get signed up right away.
I love what you had to say. Check dream client.
Do they appreciate that the design is a professional and a
luxury service and they're going to let you kind of handle all
the details? Then check yes, that's your
dream client. So if they're not meeting those
criteria, you can say no to working with them.
Your best clients are not looking for the cheapest
designer. They want that clarity.
They want confidence, and they want leadership from you.
We've talked before about being a leader as an interior
designer. You're a leader to your clients.
You're a leader to your trades. So let's have some correct money
mindset that when someone pushes hard on a price at the
beginning, it's rarely gets better later.
So dream clients trust the process and they don't want to
practice design with you. It's not someone who's like, oh,
I always was interested in being a designer.
Maybe I can design alongside of you and learn the ropes a little
bit. No, that's, that's not going to
be a good designer. That's a mentorship and you're
not signing up for that. You need to be leading the
project and your dream client will let you.
So it's all the starts with defining who your dream client
is. So let's get a little more
specific there with that. New designers will often say
that they will work with anyone. Yes, I'll take any job, you
know, small bathroom, room model accessorizing or any commercial
office that might come along. It's not great to be all things
to all people, right? The generalist, we've talked
about Nishin before, but really understanding who your ideal
client is, is going to help focus your energy.
And so who is that client? Who is the type of personality
that energizes me that I want to work with that type of person
that what kind of lifestyle do I love designing for?
Is it doctors or if it it's, you know, second homes, beach houses
or lakeside houses, or maybe it's historical homes or
cottages, you know, there's different things that you can
say that you love doing and those are the types of clients
you want to work for. Maybe it's a stage of life like
we've talked about and this all is related to niche, but it
could be like new parents or it could be aging in place,
physicians, busy entrepreneurs. All of that is OK for you to
define as people that you want to work with and that really
helps, of course, your messaging.
When you say that you want to work with those type of people
on your website and in your social media, it really starts
to attract those dream clients. So once you've identified who it
is that you want to work with and what type of projects do you
want to work on, and you've had all your structure set in place
with your contract and you've already defined your business
structure, your hours and all your boundaries that you need to
have a healthy business and work life balance and integration.
Then you can start to tell everyone without feeling weird
about it, that this is the type of person I like to work with.
That you don't always need ads. You just need clarity and
repetition with your friends, your family, maybe your church
community or your gym friends. Tell your hair stylist, tell
your contractors, your Realtors, the architects and networking
groups, the type of client that you're looking to work with and
they will remember that and start sending people your way.
So you would say I'm focusing on working with blank clients and
if you meet someone like that, I love an introduction.
So I'm focused on working with physicians because I really
understand their needs since I was working in the healthcare
industry before I became a designer.
And so if you meet someone like that, I'd love an introduction
with clients that you've worked with in the past, who you love,
go back to them and say, who else do you know who can benefit
from my services and is a kind and wonderful person like you?
People love to be flattered, right?
And so, and if they loved working with you, they're going
to want to help you to get more clients, right?
They want you to be successful. So those lines are powerful.
And if it feels awkward saying that, just practice it a few
times. It will start to become natural.
And it's great to ask your past clients, especially as you're
closing out a project just like, oh, I just loved working with
you. I wish this project could keep
going, you know, come back when you need to redo the guest room.
But in the meantime, who else do you know that could benefit from
my services? That's kind of wonderful, Like
you. So you're complimenting them.
You're setting a behavioral standard, and it helps to filter
your referrals. Dream clients often come through
warm networks, not cold marketing.
So you want to be talking to everybody and letting them know
who it is you like to work with. And then you want to start
acting like the designer that you want to become.
So dream clients are attracted to confidence.
Not that you need to be arrogant or rigid, but you need to have
clarity, right? And so that's why we defined
those boundaries at the beginning.
You have clarity around your professional contract, your
onboarding process, invoicing promptly, you communicate
clearly, and you show up prepared.
And even if you're new, you can howl all of these things.
And you don't need 50 projects to operate professionally.
You just need structure. You just need one project.
So to operate like the designer you want to be, even if you're
just starting out, you don't need to, you know, scream it
from the mountaintops. Invest in those relationships.
Once you've established all of your foundations in your
contract, your boundaries, and the dream clients will start
coming your way. It might be a process and you
know it's it's a slow lead. Sometimes returning clients can
take several years. You want to nurture these
relationships. That's also why e-mail nurture
relationships are great to have a newsletter that goes out
monthly. You stay top of mind to someone
who might want to refer you to someone else.
You never know when those conversations are happening and
when that lead will come through.
But you want to make sure that you're consistent so that every
time someone reaches out to you, they know what to expect.
The right client will feel safe, you'll feel right, and the wrong
client will feel uncomfortable. It's pushing you out of your
comfort zone. Any red flags going up, you're
going to say no. So you want to make sure your
clients are aligned with you and it's not just haphazard taking
whoever will pay you. And that's how you can really
start to design your business to be the way that you want it to
be. The way that it works for your
life is by clarifying and defining your dream client.
So practicing all these things will help attract those clients
to you and help you to start getting dream clients as you're
starting out in your career. All right, and if you need help
with defining all of those things, of course we do that in
boot camp. If you're looking to start your
business, we definitely build in those foundations.
But maybe you have already started your business and you're
like, oops, I never really defined those boundaries or had
my contract say anything like that and you would like some
help with that, Go ahead and sign up for my design mentor.
Links are in the show notes. I also have that Passion to
Profit webinar replay that you can go and listen to.
And that is it for this week. So stay tuned for next week.
I'll have another great episode 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
rawarddesign.com or e-mail me at podcast@rawarddesign.com.