INTERIOR DESIGNERS
What are you really selling?
Capture the true value of your design.
Make clients happier. Make more money.
The Valuing Design Project
is an exploration of how to make interior design more profitable while delivering more value to our clients. (hint - it starts with truly valuing yourself as an artist!)
We use business principles and consumer behavior studies to forge a path forward - don't be a shopper, be a designer!
Don't lower prices, raise the value. Don't play a losing game, play one you can win.
The business model we all practiced even just 10 years ago no longer works for us or our clients. I believe we have lost sight of our true value and are failing to deliver the design our clients come to us to provide.
There has been a concerning trend of designers racing to offer the lowest price in a market environment where we are the least able to responsibly do so. The way we present product invoices and sell our design leads clients to expect price matching to the lowest price they can find online. We not only lose sales, but clients do not get the designs they paid for.
I've been so fortunate over the last few years to be exposed to the work of a brilliant business coach, Sean Low, and to ride along as my equally brilliant step-daughter, Roisy Rickel, makes her way through the Foster School of Business at the University of Washington. As I talked at home about changes in this industry, Roisy sighted studies and principals she was learning about at school that supported ideas I was learning from Sean. We are pooling our experiences and knowledge here to bring you solid data about why we think you should restructure what you sell, what you do, and who we are as designers.
If we as designers and other creatives intend to go forward with relevance we need to re-define our value. I'm not sure where this project will go, but wherever it goes I hope it is of value to you and our industry as a whole.
Renate Ruby
Founder of
Adorn | A decor destination
Brume | A furnishings destination
Bespoke, by Adorn | custom label program only available to designers
CHOOSE HOW TO ENGAGE
Read the blog posts
The first time I wrote down all of these ideas it was 15 pages....I think bite sized blog posts are maybe a bit more user friendly.
Participate in a virtual or
IRL round table discussion
If there is interest, I hope to hold some small group discussions. I want to create a format that is easy for designers to use.
Read the source material
Please check the links page to read some of the material that influenced my thinking about this topic.
One on one support
I'd be happy to have a phone or face time chat with you if you want to talk more. For now, I'm not charging for this!
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