Interior Design Business Brief Podcast

Resources: * Subscribe to my new YouTube channel for free weekly tutorials. ( HERE ) * Check out the four circumstances in which hiring me as your consultant can create shortcuts to the next level, or avoid the Big Mistake. Click HERE . * Interior Design Business Brief Archives. Click HERE The Interior Designer’s Blue Ocean Most interior designers spend their careers competing in a market they did...

Uniquely Identical? Ever wonder why the harder you work to stand out, the more you seem the same? A few years ago, I stood at the front of a ballroom filled with about 400 hundred interior designers and asked them this question: What makes you so different that your ideal prospective clients will be inspired to choose you? Hands went up across the room, some of them quickly and with real confidenc...

*EXPANDED EDITION INCLUDING DETAILED WORKSHEET AND DIAGNOSTIC * Every interior design firm principal knows that if total sales are higher than total costs, a profit will result. The problem is that mosts of the costs that are truly eating away at your profits, 24-hours a day, are not those found on a P&L statement or any other accounting report. In fact, your bookkeeper, accountant, and CPA spend...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit idbrief.substack.com About Catching a Whale There is no path to financial success for interior designers without occasionally landing large, marquee projects that are many times larger than their average. The problem is that this is exactly the kind of project that can not only make a firm. but can break it as well. Every designer I hav...

Last week we looked at how pricing is the single most sensitive variable in your business, and how every penny of a price increase flows straight to the bottom line. We also looked at “anchor pricing,” the psychology of perceived value, and why the “right” price has almost nothing to do with your costs and everything to do with what your client believes you’re worth. (Perceived value.) This week,...

These stories are all illustrating the same principle, one that behavioral economists call anchor pricing: when a higher reference point exists, the next lower price looks dramatically more attractive than it would standing alone. The jewelry was not underpriced at $20; it was unanchored. Without a higher number nearby to signal value, it read as cheap.… This is a free preview of a paid episode. T...

Today, I want to introduce you to a different and far more sane model. As a case study, I’ll use one of my ActionMap clients who markets just one week a year. Not one week per quarter. One week per year. The rest of the time, she is designing. (Or snow skiing; more on that in a minute.) Her calendar fills itself. This is not luck, and it is not a niche s… This is a free preview of a paid episode....

Every designer has sat through the form-follows-function lectures. It’s one of the foundational principles of the profession — the idea, traced back to the architect Louis Sullivan, that the shape of a thing should be determined by what it needs to do. In practice, most designers apply this rigorously to client projects yet then completely ignore it when… This is a free preview of a paid episode....

We're providing a sample of this week's newsletter-as-podcast for all subscribers. If you'd like to gain access to the full newsletter and podcast, as well as all archives, simply join our growing list of paid Subscribers. This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit idbrief.substack.com

You’ve read all the business books (well, some of them) and listened to your accountant drone on about margins and ratios and blah, blah, blah. But one thing that no one mentions and that never shows up in any financial statement or report, is the one and only thing that will determine whether your 30 or 40 or 50 years of hard work was worth it in the end— wealth! This is a public episode. If you...

I would say that 90% of my interior design consulting clients receive financial statements (at least a P&L) from their bookkeepers once a month. And, I would say that 90% of those welcomed the experience about as much as a trip to the dentist. One client of mine simply tossed them into her bottom drawer, right next to the bottle of vodka she kept in case her CPA or bookkeeper wanted to “go over” t...

There is a particular kind of successful interior design firm that is, by any observable measure, thriving. The principal is busy. The projects are good. The clients are happy. The studio looks the part. Revenue is growing. And yet at the end of the year, after everyone has been paid — vendors, staff, the landlord, the software subscriptions, and the principal herself — there is essentially nothin...

Most design firm principals spend a significant portion of their working lives worrying about things they cannot control. The economy. Interest rates. Whether the luxury market softens. Whether a key client decides to renovate or wait. Whether a competitor opens three blocks away. None of that is controllable. All of it gets an enormous amount of mental energy. Here is what is controllable: four v...

You finished the year with a profit. The accountant confirmed it. The tax bill arrived to prove it. So why is your checking account empty? This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit idbrief.substack.com

The difference between a design practice that creates financial security over time, and one that just stays stuck, begins with understanding the "Cash Flow Hierarchy." This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit idbrief.substack.com