Are Your Interior Design Clients Intimidated By You?
Great information from Gail Doby, Chief Vision Officer, Design Success University
Are Your Interior Design Clients Intimidated By You?
We are sharing a few tidbits from the Interior Design Summit every few weeks to keep you thinking about the content and how you can apply it to your business.
This week’s topic is “Affluent Client Psychology – What You Need to Know” with Karen Fisher. What I found intriguing, as did many of you, is that most clients are intimidated by designers. They are worried that you will think they have no taste and that they are unworthy! Wow! Even after 21 years in the business, that surprised me.
If you read the ASID survey of clients, 44% of them selected designers because of their personality and the fact that they felt comfortable with the designer. What that means is that it is your job to make them feel at ease and let them know that you are their guide, or “design mother” as Karen mentioned. No one wants to feel intimidated, and if they do, your project will not go smoothly.
Here are a few points that I thought were extremely good and because they were so subtle, it doesn’t hurt to repeat them:
- Be very careful not to ask what someone does. The message that gives is that you are trying to gauge how much money they have.
- Tread lightly about budgets. Non-designers rarely know what things cost, so if you can give people ranges of costs so they can estimate in their head what their budget should be, this is usually quite effective. I usually use a rule of thumb that your furnishing budget could be between 10 – 50% of the price of your home depending on your taste. If you can talk about ranges, then you can generally get their feedback about how much they are willing to spend.
- Listen carefully and ask subtly probing questions. No one wants to feel that they are part of the Spanish Inquisition. Ask questions to elicit their feelings about the space and how they live in their home. If you have an idea book for them to review, I like to give the husband and wife different color sticky notes and let them jot a few thoughts about what they like or dislike in pictures. This helps to engage them visually and kinesthetically, so it is a good tactic to use.
- Send a thank you note. They’ve invested their time and egos into the meeting, and just a simple hand-written note can do wonders to make them feel that you are interested in their project.
- Always sell the dream. Your client has fears, desires, aspirations and goals. Help them feel that you are the one to make that happen. Everyone is looking for leadership.
We wish you the best as the year ends. It has been an interesting one in so many ways, and we thank you for being a part of Design Success University. ShareThis
Author: Kay Alessi
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