How To Scale Your Interior Design Business

We can't build anything like a fee structure until we've got a really solid process for the delivery part of it. I think that a lot of the designers that I work with kind of look at the end result being completed project and then they just start out without having a really clear roadmap for how they're going to go through.

If you're a designer looking to grow and scale your practice, you are in the right place. Today I'm joined by Andrew Mitchell. He's actually the founder of the Design Design Coach. He's a seasoned interior Designer with over 25 years of experiences and he's seen the highs, the lows of business ownership and now he supports solo and small design business owners help to build and scale their practices. I think what makes Andrew quite unique is his passion for process as well. Like he's a lover of systemology. That's how we connected recently. He invited me to go speak to his audience and today I wanted to turn the tables and interview him and get him to share the best practice systems and processes for designers. So we'll look through the lens of the critical client flow and tap into Andrew's deep knowledge and experience and identify, well, what are the best practices. Now, Andrew still runs his own design agency, so we'll be able to kind of work with that as the business. But without further ado, just like to welcome you to the call, Andrew.

Thanks, David. It's wonderful to be here and appreciate your time and our group really loved speaking to you earlier this week.

Yeah, awesome. Well, maybe if we start off because we're thinking about the critical client flow, which you know quite well, if we think about your design agency and we think of the ideal client, like who would be that dream client for you that pays the advertised prices, refers friends and family and is a pleasure to deal with. And we'll just perhaps start there. I'll jump over to my iPad and we can kind of go from there.

Wonderful. Well, as I said to you a little bit earlier for, for me when I'm coaching designers, I think this element is really critical to get right so to understand exactly who your ideal client is. For me personally with my design practice, I love to work, I love to collaborate with architects. So at this stage, 25 years into my business, I'm probably working more with larger scale projects. So whether that's a new build or a renovation, probably in the Melbourne's north northern suburbs or inner east suburbs, right down to the, the coast where you are, the peninsula. So around Mornington, Sorrento Portsi. So beach houses down there. My clients are professional.

So generally either or like husbands is in a pretty high paying.

CEI CEO type role. And maybe the wife works as well, or maybe it's just a single man.

And probably more than anything, my ideal client actually sees value in the process that I have. So I have a very clearly documented process for running a project.

And I share that with my clients from the very beginning. So it's important to me. My ideal client is someone who's, who's invested in that process because otherwise we can work together for two, three years. And if we're not on the same page as far as that process, then we're going to be butting heads an awful lot.

Now, would you say you work with architects but the actual client is like the person who's doing the renovation, isn't it? So that's the working professional, probably a husband and wife in some of those locations that you were saying basically in Melbourne.

And are there any other sort of things that you think about, like, I mean we're talking about CEO, so they're going to have.

Potentially some savings and you know, looking for a certain standard of living. And that's kind of your ideal client.

Generally the people that we work with are time poor, so I need somebody to take control for them.

Yeah, perfect. And typically, what is the first product or service that they might start off with you? I know there may or may not be a lot of repeat business in your work, but I'm thinking like they're coming to you primarily. Like if we thought about a renovation or a new build or if you had to pick one, what, what would be your ideal for that person?

The ideal would be a new build. So working from the ground up. So from the very, very early stages being. Quite often the clients make the mistake of thinking designers come in after you've worked fully with the architect. But the ideal scenario is that you've got both. So we're working as a team to design the house from the outside in and inside out.

Yeah, perfect. I can imagine that's going to be quite a large project. Is there a step before, like we can either think of the entire build or is there like a step where you have a dream home discovery session or something where it's kind of like that first chunk that you sell that we might be able to compartmentalize as a place to start?

Yeah, I've got a smaller, I've just recently launched actually a service offering that's like a review of architect plans. So they might come to me. They've got something that's more at concept stage with. They've been working with an architect and they can come to me for a very sort of contained service offering that's pretty much done over the space of days rather than years. And it's a review of the plans. So looking at it from serviceability, functionality and maybe some esthetic.

Preferences as well. And I just sort of review the plans with regards to what their brief is. So love it.

And that would be a good one for us to kind of go through with the critical client flow with the idea of delivering that. Because I'm imagining the more arctic plan reviews that you end up selling, the more high quality leads and someone who's probably going to go on with your services after that because it's a nice little productized offering that they can get a sample of your work and style and then from there decide, oh yes, I want to work with Andrew long term.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, perfect. All right. Now when we think about how you capture the attention of those working professionals and the rules for the critical client flow typically are let's capture what you're currently doing, not what you would like to be doing. But in this example, because I know you coach a lot of other designers, I'd love to just lean into the idea of what's best practice. Like if you were to wave a magic wand and say they would have all of these pieces, we'll kind of work from that position. So generally, what do you think a highly functioning design practice might have in place for that lead generation? I'm imagining word of mouth is probably a big one because it's quite a visual product.

But yeah, word of mouth with, you know, repeat and referral business. So trying to incentivize also.

Existing clients to refer us on. So a referral incentive program.

Yeah.

Definitely. Social media plays a big part where a very visual medium and images are very powerful. So Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn.

Yeah, perfect. And some of those old.

This keeps jumping around, but I'll.

Just grab this here.

LinkedIn.

Insta.

Yep. So there might be one of those. Yep. Any other typical ways that a designer would generate leads?

Yeah, look, a lot of designers will communicate to their audience via an newsletter. A regular EDM going out.

Yeah.

Is there anything else like. Yeah, how. How would they get in front of those working professionals?

Definitely SEO and you know, Google searches important and probably just a. A final one that's probably is. Does have quite a bit of weight and influence in our industry is awards and media.

So yeah.

Yeah, perfect. And then once someone comes across your work, what and that inquiry comes in, obviously every different method that we just outlined there, they might come in slightly differently. But is there, is it usually an email filling out a form, a phone call.

An introduction email? You know, maybe it's all of the above. How do the leads normally?

Yeah, definitely all of the above. Yeah, yeah, I think a combination of direct. Direct calls, yeah. Email inquiries.

Website, potentially filling out a inquiry form.

Yep. Perfect. Now again, thinking about the architect plan review.

What'S off the back of that phone call here or email? You know, there's probably some initial qualification to go. Oh, is this someone worth exploring things a little bit deeper? What, what generally happens after that? Is it you jump on a Zoom or a call and you kind of have a bit more of an, a sales process or exploring what it is that they're after?

Yeah, definitely. Either a discovery call or a discovery Zoom is even more ideal, I think, especially.

For me learning recently and evolvingly learning about the power of AI. So having a Zoom that can actually capture and record all of the information that's. And it actually summarizes everything perfectly. So I think doing it via Zoom is a really powerful way to do it, but also traditional. Just getting on the phone and having a chat to someone on the phone and qualifying them.

Yeah, perfect. And then after the zoom, again with the architect plan review.

If we're selling them into that after we go. Yep, they're a good fit. What normally happens? Is it a proposal or do we send them a link to go, oh, great, here's what the next step is or I think you're going to be a good fit for this. What, what does that next step look like?

Yeah, there would be definitely a follow up email summarizing with a.

Booklet or just some sort of graphic representation of all of the inclusions with a link to the website to sign up directly.

Yep.

And then is that just something.

Like a paid upfront in full or is it a 5050 and is it just like, you know, by effectively they're buying a product straight from your website?

Yeah, absolutely. 100% paid up full? Yeah, upfront, yep.

And then once they make the purchase, what happens with regards to like the onboarding? Is there anything. And when I think of onboarding, I'm thinking both for the client and for you, once you know, okay, well we're moving forward on this. Do you have a project management platform that gets set up or is there a, a CRM where they get entered into or you know, and maybe there's some questionnaires and things that you collect from them. Further, generally what happens before you actually do the work? Is there anything that you kind of do to. To further prep?

Yeah, there'll definitely be a questionnaire, a digital questionnaire that would be sent out and that's to gather all the information about the brief for their projects. Obviously this is a sort of a small service, so as opposed to what we would do for a full scale project, this is a lot more condensed. So yeah, questionnaire to find out everything there would be.

All of their files would be set up. Just a simple client file set up on our Dropbox.

With links shared with the relevant team members.

Yeah, yeah, for this service, that's pretty much it.

Perfect. And then there's the doing of the work. You collect everything, they fill out the questionnaire and you set everything up in the back end and then there's actually doing the review. So.

Do the review.

And is there some sort of deliverable at the end, like a report or something, you know? Yeah, okay.

Yeah. So there's, there's simple stages involved in the delivery would be that.

Well, first we would set up a time for the actual online Zoom review of their plans. And I would spend time personally about two hours reviewing the plans and looking through in conjunction with the questionnaire.

And compile a list of suggestions for ways that the plans could be.

Improved on to meet their specific brief. And then we would have the actual Zoom call where we spend two hours going through the plans, the recommendations and then following on from that zoom report. Zoom meeting would be the report. So that would be delivered to them within 24 hours.

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And then after the report, then from there there might be.

Some ongoing. If they decide to kind of continue working with you, there's either that it's either like a handover.

And we say here's what you've ordered or how else might we be able to help you through this process?

Yeah, there'd definitely be some suggestive upselling to.

Request whether there were any further services required. Obviously the idea of this.

Plan review is to give the client a bit of a taste of what our services, our entire services could entail. And there are limitations on what we can. We can't do fittings and fixtures specifications, we can't talk really too much about materials because there's a whole process that we have to go through to be able to help with that. So I guess it's about educating the clients at the end of that architect's review about our potential additional services.

Yeah, perfect. When working with some of the clients that you coach typically, where is the biggest pain when you look at this as far as like areas that they'll often drop the ball on or do poor work in?

Yeah, I think first and foremost, and it's probably the same with a lot of businesses, the attention area.

Yes.

I think people just get stuck, especially in our industry, people get stuck on, on Instagram, not even social media generally, but Instagram being the only source of new leads.

Yes. Yeah.

They forget about everything else from a business development and client relationship management.

And.

Even forget about sort of nurturing existing clients. Yeah, yeah.

And it's quite common especially, I know you work with a lot of solopreneurs and very small teams where you get this, you know, feast or famine where when they've got work, they're busy focusing on doing the work and then the work comes to the end and then they need to focus on getting the work.

Yeah.

And then they get the work and then they do the work and it's, it's kind of very, you know, we're fine on the way up.

But then we're not so great on the way down because we don't have a client ready to go. And it kind of creates this up and down performance where marketing is one of those things that needs to run 24 7. Like this needs to be constantly running and sometimes that's hard if you're wearing a lot of different hats. So they're often strong, let's say on Insta, but it becomes obvious, like I'm sure a design practice owner who's watching this right now, if they look at this picture and then they go, oh, we don't have enough leads. And then they genuinely think about their lead generation methods and then they say, well, really all we do is Instagram and we wait for word of mouth. It's very obvious why there aren't consistent leads flowing into the business.

So are there any other ones that you think might be secondary or other areas?

I think, I mean, this is also just sort of indicative. This service flow is indicative of a larger project as well. So there's similarities that go across. So I think the conversion from that discovery call.

Yes.

To the actual signing of contracts to the client. So that conversion from sales to money is a big thing for a lot of designers because they're creatives. They don't see themselves as salespeople. They don't see themselves as.

As people who have the capacity to be able to formally undertake some sort of conversion strategy. So I think it's better for designers to have some sort of processes in place that make it easier for them to do that.

Yeah, it's definitely quite common from the solopreneur when they're starting up their business. And designers really any sort of creative, they're often very good at the technical work, as in they know how to do the work of design and get great outcomes there. But as we know, there's a lot of other skills required to run a business that delivers that technical work. And you probably uncovered two of the biggest ones, probably that designers struggle with, which is the marketing side of things and then the sales side of things.

But in reality, and we talk about this idea of the metaphor of the human body, that the human body is a system and there are the subsystems underneath that, skeletal and respiratory and cardiovascular. And if one of those systems is not performing, then it brings down the overall health of the body equally. In business, your business is a system, there are these subsystems, and marketing and sales are two very important subsystems. And if they don't deliver that to the business, then it's going to bring down the overall health of the business. So it's. Yeah, I think systems are a great way for the business owner, that Solopreneur, when they might not be feeling very strong in a particular area, at least they've got a checklist or something that makes sure that they do the basics that they know they need to do to make sure at least their business is healthy. Are there any other common challenges or, you know, particularly from the work that you do with the different designing from designers with your coaching background that you kind of see. Yeah. How do you work with someone and when do you think about putting system and processes in place? Like, is that something you do right from day dot or where, you know, do you start with the mindset? Where do you Usually start, I think.

It generally, I mean, mindset comes into it at every single level. But what I. What I find probably that comes up the most is that because designers and architects, I work with, architects as well, quite often aren't trained at school about the detail of the process behind the work that gets done and the process that is managing not just the design outcomes, but managing budgets and timeframes as well. They're really important expectations from the client's perspective. So my first entry point is we can't build anything like a fee structure until we've got a really solid process for the delivery part of it.

Yeah.

So I think that a lot of the designers that I work with kind of look at the end result being, you know, a completed project and then they just start out without having a really clear roadmap for how they're going to go through and how they're going to stage that process in a way that the client feels really like they're comfortable and they. And they trust in the process. So they know, step one, this happens, I get a deliverable step. Step two, this happens, I get deliverable. So we're moving them through because this is something like I said before, we can be working with them for one, two, three years, and if we don't have a really clear direction for where we're heading and what the milestones are along the way, clients lose trust, and that's when they start micromanaging and that's when all sorts of troubles arise. So I think my first point is always to get people to get really clear and to document that process for delivering on a project. Yeah.

Working with solopreneurs. And sometimes I have to slightly tweak the systemology approach because originally it was written for small teams, you know, five to 30 staff and Solopreneur, there's probably 80 or 90% of it still fits, but there's a few little tweaks that need to be made. If I'm understanding what you're saying there, you still see a place for solopreneurs and you actually tackle process and the way that they're doing the work as one of the first steps, which is what is it that you're actually doing? Is that.

Yeah, well, that kind of feeds into everything. So when. When they're in practice and they're. They don't have a clear understanding of what the steps. Clear steps are. And they should be sequential. They should. Step two should follow step one. It sounds really simple, but in our business, there's a lot going on There's. There's the specification of different materials and fittings. There's the documentation of things. So creating plans and elevations. There's the quoting side of things. So designers without that really clear staged approach, they'll jump from one thing to the other. They'll start specifying and then they'll be documenting and then they'll come back to specifying and then they'll go out on a shopping trip with the client and then they'll get some quotes and then they'll come back to specifying other things. And that just gets really hectic and confusing for the client, but also for the designer themselves. So the first and foremost thing is to start with that really clear process for delivering on the project. And of course, we're talking about all sorts of different processes for running a business, like finance processes or educating yourself about the products that are on the market, processes involved in that marketing, business development. But first and foremost, the number one thing is they have to know exactly how they're going to roll out a project so they can communicate that to the clients.

Yeah. Which I. I'm very much a believer of that because that's ultimately what the client's buying. And you want to make sure that they have a great experience. So they come back, so they refer and everything starts at delivering value through to the client. Just last question for you. Cause I know you've been in the systemology community and following along for a little while. How did you come across systemology? Was it through the book or online or did someone refer you?

It was through online doing.

Yeah.

And the book.

Jumped out. I mean, it's immediately relatable. Yeah. And for me, it was just a perfect fit. So I started my coaching business seven years ago.

Yep.

And the first thing that I started coaching with people was design process.

Yeah.

And then the things the rest of. I've got all sorts of different programs and. But everything started with process because I knew that that helped me get in control of my business. So I just wanted to start sharing that with other people.

Yeah, perfect. Well, I appreciate you helping to share our message and yeah, looking forward to. To getting the work that you do out to as many designers as possible. Because that's, that's really the key just to. In your space in particular, even though it's very obviously process, because building a house has a stepped process.

But design, it's like marketing. There are certain industries. For some reason, it seems to be a blind spot for many people in that space. And it's creatives. Creatives generally seem to have a blind spot to process. So where you marry up both the creative with the process, I feel like, yeah, you're. You're. You're looking at it through a very different lens that I think every designer needs to look through.

I also think that you coin it perfectly. Is that when you've got the systems in place, it frees you up to think creatively.

Yes.

Because if you're. If you're working chaotically and you're sort of working reactively, then it pulls you away from what the essence of what you're wanting to do, which is that creative work. So.

Yeah. Yeah, love it. All right, well, I'll pop a link through to the design coach. Is that the best place for everybody to keep up with your work?

Absolutely.

Yeah.

We've got a Instagram page, which I'll send you a link to, but, yeah, we don't send out too many communications. It's probably a newsletter once a month just to keep everyone updated. And, yeah, we'd love to hear from people.

Yeah, perfect. Well, thank you again.

Thanks, Davin.