The IIDA’s Recognizing Excellence Awards Gala is being held this weekend in New Orleans, masquerade style. The theme this year is “Unmasking Great Design,” and Alexandra Gibson will be there to tell you how to “Unmask Great Business.”

As a precursor to this event, you can download a free resource guide on why content and education should be essential elements of your website.

Resource Guide: Why Content and Education are Important on your Site

About the event:

JAX Riverview Room
600 Decatur St.
4th Level
New Orleans, LA 70130

“The Recognizing Excellence Awards (Re:Awards) Gala is a celebration and awards ceremony announcing the winners of the individual professional service awards and design competition entries. The Individual Awards honor and recognize the contributions of individual Delta Regional Chapter IIDA members over the past year. The design competition will celebrate outstanding examples of designed interior spaces from the Delta Regional Chapter IIDA members by recognizing the work of peers, promoting public awareness of design excellence, and elevating the interior design profession. This year’s Re:Awards theme of “Unmasking Great Design” celebrates the Pride of Delta Regional in a New Orleans style masquerade theme. Participants are welcome to use the provided mask in the invitation packet. Or, show off your creativity and design talent for the mask competition during the event!”

My crystal ball predicts a mild recovery in 2011.

The tax bill passed in December 2010, and economic indicators are stronger for remodeling. The affluent are spending again.  However, they are more cautious and value-driven than before.

What can you do to grow your business?

1. Specialize. Create a specialty niche that capitalizes on a growing trend. It doesn’t mean you’re limited to doing that work, but it makes it easier to market your business because you will be known for that specialty.  Neurosurgeons make 265% more than family practice doctors.  Kitchen and Bath designers make much more than the average interior designers based on NKBA statistics and our findings.
2. Create your own economy. (Some interior designers are swamped, congratulations to you!)  Why?  They spent their year marketing consistently.  They revamped their websites, reconnected with past clients, used social media, increased their visibility with public relations and generally worked hard.  Action:  Create a 12-Month Referral Program for your business.  One for past clients, one for current clients, and one for referral partners.  Automate it with software like Constant Contact, Send Pepper or AWeber.
3. Increase your visibility. Self-promote or hire a publicist.  Create a 12-Month plan for Advertising, PR and Marketing.  Make sure you have a Facebook Fan Page, Twitter Account, Optimized LinkedIn profile and an updated website.  List your business on the Search Engine Maps for your area.  Optimize your website to include the words, “interior design your city” on more than one page, create a blog and post at least once a week (make sure it is attached to your website) to increase your website traffic.  Set a target for your media exposures.  Don’t stop until you have commitments for the number of articles, public speaking opportunities, TV or radio interviews.  Write blog posts for your local on-line newspapers.  Get involved in your community.
4. Joint venture. Find people who are in allied businesses and co-promote.  If you’re not a specialist in window treatments, kitchen or bath design, partner with someone who is.  Develop a relationship with a remodeler and create joint articles or press pitches about the latest trends.  The media loves to hear about trends.
5. Systematize your marketing. Some wise person said, “you never know which day you missed marketing that caused the phones not to ring months later.”  Inconsistent marketing creates inconsistent results. Market, Market, Market.  Marketing makes selling irrelevant.  Analyze what you’ve done in the past. If you didn’t get a result after spending thousands of dollars on advertising, STOP. 

Create a successful 2011!

While you were busy preparing the financial statements of your company, you overlooked a very important factor. Don’t worry because this doesn’t refer to any miscalculation of your revenues or assets, rather you had skipped an integral part of your success: the interior design of your office. Don’t roll your eyes thinking that designing an office is a negligible and an irrelevant expenditure because getting some interior design ideas for your office is important.

Rogers Design Group (Office Design Ideas)

Decorating your office is as important as decorating your bedroom or your drawing room. It can have a very positive impression on your customers as well as your employees. Plus, it could be an indirect way to boost your revenues. The minute ‘revenue’ was included, your interest must have developed, so before you lose it, let’s have a peek at the corporate side of interior designing.

Designing the interior of your corporation includes designing your offices, work rooms, boardrooms, and other spaces inside your office premises. It may cover everything starting from your office bathroom to your conference room.

Interior designers who specialize in designing commercial interiors usually work with corporate clients to create professional yet tasteful environments. An office will give a professional touch with appropriate office furniture, carpeting, flooring and lightening, along with the regular office items such as proper electric systems for computers and other office equipments.

Sometimes, you don’t just need to fill in your office space. Rather, simply arrange the existing furniture in an appropriate manner to give it a different look. Before you decide on how your office should look, review your company’s goals and objectives. You can’t close your eyes and bring your office some casual furniture when your work requires you to act formally. It is important to have a clear idea on what type of visitors or clients your company is expecting or hoping to attract.

Clients are like company guests who can bring either profit or loss to your financial statements. So, if you make your clients happy, surely they will please you by contributing to the profits. To take extra care, make them comfortable. This can be done by having a waiting area which is decorated perfectly to match the corporate environment, but is riveting enough that it doesnít allow your clients to move unless they sign a contract or close a deal.

After you have dealt with your client’s needs, you must also consider your employee’s preferences. They are the ones who will make the deal work out for the clients, thus compelling them to visit the company’s waiting room again to close some more deals. A deal or contract which was induced by a pleasant corporate environment ends well only when your employees are given a comfortable environment. The goal of professional interior designing is to provide a perfect corporate environment that is cozy yet conducive to efficient working habits.

Lighting is included in your corporate interior designing. Lights too bright or too dim can affect their productivity and can be the result of your company’s doom. Depending on what’s most suitable, add some pendant lighting, wall sconces, or ceiling lights.

As interior designing can influence efficiency and productivity, it should be considered closely rather than being classified as an extra expense.

Content provided by Design Shuffle – a social media site filled with interior design ideas from top tier design talent around the world.

Now that you’re monitoring your online reputation with your new snazzy tools, can you remember that interior designer from Tucson who had the bad review written about her?  In my first post of the online reputation management series, I spoke of a designer that was raked over the coals (possibly deservedly or possibly not) for being unprofessional and inept.

If someone says something negative about your business online, what should you do?

Let’s face it, if you are a retail business or a company that gets a lot of traffic, you will probably get some bad reviews.  However, WHENEVER POSSIBLE, be sure to respond to those reviews or mentions.  A bad situation can actually be turned 180 degrees with offering a solution or offering to help.

Here are a few things to know about bad reviews online:

1. The writer may feel like they can hide behind a computer screen and when you publicly ask them how you can help make it better, they will back down and be sheepish.  You will also come across as looking good because your answer will be paired with their criticism.  For future onlookers, you will look like you tried to find a solution and that’s all most people want.
2. You may have legitimately done a very bad job and then you need to apologize and let them know that they are right.  Then be sure to list what you are going to do to make it better.
3. Go on the PR offensive.  Typically, there are plenty of people/clients out there thrilled with your service.  If the only person that has ever written about you online wrote something negative, appeal to your happy customers and clients, asking for their honest reviews.  Most of them will be glad to oblige and 5 positive reviews will quickly drown the negative.

In the very rare cases of libelous material, respond to the writer privately and ask them to take the material down.  If they don’t, figure out if you want to consult an attorney.  This happens very, very rarely so don’t lie awake thinking about it at night.

After deciding to go to Tucson for Thanksgiving, and extending my trip into the earlier part of the week, I decided it would be high time to visit those nice designers and knock on some doors.  I typically do not consult for just a few hours, but I wanted to reach out and introduce our company to an area that I felt we had not yet built much brand awareness.

How did I find the interior designers in Tucson?

I looked online…much like potential clients would.  LinkedIn was a valuable tool for me to search by and, when I came to the second designer in my LinkedIn search list, I found that her website didn’t link properly.  This led me to run a search on her name and up popped trouble.  Trouble was in the form of a very negative online review about this designer’s professionalism and abilities from a potential client.  This negative review was not emotionally written but carefully cited objective details, including a lawsuit.  Yikes.  Now I realize that there are two sides to every story and we have all had our share of bad experiences and bad clients.

However, what worried me more is that this designer may not know that this review is out there.  If I were a client, there is no way that I would contact her when there are so many others in the list.  As someone who works with designers, I was even unwilling to call on this woman because I figured that I did not “need the trouble”.

The sad truth is that we are all much more willing to write a scathing review when we’ve had a bad experience than we are to write a review if the experience exceeded our expectations.  That reality is not going to change.

Are you monitoring what people are saying about you online?

See my next two posts about tools to monitor your online reputation and what to do about a bad review.

As a designer, do you find yourself asking “what do they have, that I don’t?”  What makes a well-known, or celebrity designer, stand out from the crowd, receive accolades, book contracts, and the like?  You work your fingers to the bone, burn the candle at both ends to visualize and design thoughtful, beautiful, sophisticated spaces, just as they do.

The difference just might be their mastery of the social media whirl, their presence on the major Social Media platforms; Twitter, Facebook, Ava Living, LinkedIn, or their focus on up-to-this-very-minute trends showcased in twice-weekly blog posts.

Case in point, Tobi Fairley, known for her signature look of fresh simplicity that is both beautiful and functional, launched her blog in September 2008.  Today, it is read in 95 countries!  She is dedicated to timely updates of her business Facebook page, which has just about 3,200 fans, and at least 3-4 tweets per day.  All of which allow her to remain engaged and committed to her base, potential clients, and any publications looking for content.  She has been showcased in House Beautiful, Traditional Home, Better Homes & Gardens, along with other local and national shelter publications.  She is seen as a taste-maker and a trend-setter.

But all of this takes time, energy and the search for trends and topics that are interesting, and if that candle is burning while you are hard at work on a project, how do you do it all?  Gibson Design Management, and our sister company, OttoPilot Media, are experts in Social Media.  We know how to move the pieces around the gameboard to maximize your visibility and your fan base.  We would welcome the opportunity to answer any questions, and help you through the Social Media maze!  Please contact Martha for details.

A series to get your creative juices flowing for your interior design firm’s blog.  [Link to earlier posts: Introduction/first set, numbers 6-10, numbers 11-15, numbers 16-20, numbers 21-25, and numbers 26-30]

1. Promoting a post that you liked on another blog.  If a fellow design blogger posts a great post on her blog, show her some love.  You’ll get reciprocity and build goodwill.
2. Great finds from High Point or NeoCon. Talk about trends.  Show your favorite pieces.  Show what’s new.
3. Canopy beds.  Talk about the history of the canopy bed and how it translates into today’s interior.
   

   A dreamy canopy bed. Photo: Elle Decor

4. Green upholstery options.  Vendors that are now offering green upholstery.  What to consider and how to know if something is truly green.
5. Considering Living in Place when building your home.  Design of passageways, thresholds, roughing in an elevator, and more.

Plus two extra for the end…

• Historical uses of crown moldings.

Crown molding frames a pretty window seat. Photo: Traditional Home

• Splurges + steals- mirrors, cocktail tables, beds, etc.  This is your typical magazine article showing the Versace dress with its hefty price tag (that is absolutely to die for) and a BCBG dress that achieves the same “look” at a more affordable price.

We hope you enjoyed the series and found a few points of inspiration for your interior design firm’s blog.  If you found any of these suggestions particularly helpful, or if you’ve created any innovative posts for your blog,  please share your ideas with us! We’d love to see what you’ve come up with.

A series to get your creative juices flowing for your interior design firm’s blog.  [Click to see the introduction and first set of ideas, ideas #6-#10, ideas #11-#15, or #16-#20!]

1. A definition of trims.  Educate your readers and expand their vocabularies (tape, braid, lipcord, etc.).
2. Your latest project and an interview with the client.  This could even be a video.
3. Multiple arrangements for the same living room furniture.  Show 5 or 6 basic pieces and how they can be arranged in a basic room to show a very different look.
   

   Interesting furniture arrangements create new life in a living room. (Photo: Elle Decor)

4. Appropriate height to hang art.
5. How to choose a tile grout color.  When to use contrasting grout.  What to think about regarding maintenance.

Stay tuned for five more blog post ideas, coming next week!

A series to get your creative juices flowing for your interior design firm’s blog.  [Click to see the introduction and first set of ideas, ideas #6-#10 or ideas #11-#15.]

1. Complimentary colors you might not think of.  Stretch your readers’ minds.
2. A day in the life of an interior designer.  Let them know what designers (especially you) really do.
3. Flooring for the bath.  Options and maintenance issues to consider.
4. To hide or not to hide the TV.  State your opinion.
   

   The TV: to hide, or not to hide? (Photo: House Beautiful)

5. 10 favorite settees.  Settees could also be cabinet pulls, shutter colors, countertops, or desk accessories.  10 could be 6, 7, 13, or 20.  You get the point.

Check back next week for five more blog post ideas!

A series to get your creative juices flowing for your interior design firm’s blog.  [Click to see the introduction and first set of ideas, or take a look at last week's second set of ideas.]

1. New technology for the home.  If you are up to date on the latest and greatest of home technology, educate your reader.
2. Designing a home office.  How to make a comfortable home office space.  Discuss storage.  Maybe discuss small spaces.
3. Accessorizing a cocktail table.  How to use height and arrangement to show your style and personality.
4. To pool or not to pool- that is the question for your drapes.  State your opinion.
5. Choosing a fill type for your throw pillows.  What are the different options?  What is appropriate in which applications or styles?

Photo: Pottery Barn