A series to get your creative juices flowing for your interior design firm’s blog. Read the introduction here.
Choosing towel colors. How to use a spa-like approach or to accent with your bath towels.
5 favorite pedestal sinks.
Photo: Better Homes & Gardens
How to tell good upholstery from bad. Possibly show pictures that will educate your reader on what they can look for when selecting a piece of upholstery.
Effects of glazing cabinetry. How different glazes change the natural colors of woods.
Choosing the right area rug. Size, style, and more. Do you put the sofa legs on it?
Photo: Apartment Therapy
Be sure to check back next Monday for five more blog post ideas!
Whenever I ask people what their main concern and block is for social media, a majority of them say producing content. This is true. All of a sudden, businesses that never had to write before are now tasked with being editors and journalists for their online diaries. Blogging offers great opportunities to establish yourself as an expert, show your company’s personality, and be more searchable, but it can be overwhelming to think about coming up with a new idea 2-5 times per week.
In 30 minutes, I developed 35 ideas for blog posts for your interior design firm. I realize I am leaving this to you to do the hard part—the writing! Most of them are residentially-inclined, but I know that they will spur ideas for the commercial folks too. You are more than welcome to use these blog post ideas verbatim. However, you will also be thinking about your own spin so don’t let these limit your creativity. Hopefully this list will help you think of even another 35 things that you want to write about. If it does make you think of some posts, will you share them in the comments? Remember that posts don’t have to be long, but they have to be interesting. What is interesting to your reader? They’ll tell you by what they retweet on Twitter, link to from their own blog, or comment on your blog. It’s a learning experience and you’ll probably end up being surprised at what they most want to hear about.
I’ve divided this list into groups of 5. It will give you enough to think about for the week and we will post them every Monday for the next 7 weeks.
1. Pantone color of the year and its uses. Show ways that it can be used as a base color or as a subtle accent.
2. Outdoor living rooms. The change in fabric technology and options are amazing. Highlight this or something similar for your reader.
Photo: Martha Stewart
3. Window treatments and appropriate uses. Educate your reader on the different window treatment designs and when each might be used.
4. Ceiling fans– not from your first apartment. Choosing a fan with style.
5. Painting floors. What to consider with color and sheen.
Photo: Design Sponge
Stay tuned for five more blog post ideas for interior designers, every Monday!
For those of you who have iPhones and frequently want to take pictures to post on your blog, Facebook page, Flickr, or other platforms, you may have previously been disappointed in the quality of the photos. In many cases, the contrast and color of the iPhone photos do not do the design justice. There are two iPhone apps—AutoStitch and Touch FX—that I recently started using that have significantly changed the quality of the photos that I can take with my phone.
AutoStitch:
AutoStitch allows you to take multiple overlapping photos that you can then “stitch” together for a panoramic view. This is great for getting more of a room into the pictures.
One part of the image, before AutoStitch
And again, after AutoStitch
I am typically very stingy with spending money on apps, but I found the $2.99 for this app to be a well-spent business expense. Now, when I take photos of any of our design projects in process or when I want to photograph the entire vignette at High Point Furniture Market, I am not limited.
Touch FX
For 99 cents, this photo editing app for your iPhone is also business money well spent. I find most of my iPhone photos to lack contrast in color. With Touch FX, you use your finger as a brush to touch up your photos. You can also use your “brush” to make your photo sepia, black-and-white, posterized and more. I particularly think that the “Contrast” tool is the most important for taking design photos and really punching up your colors and textures. In the photo below, I used the contrast tool to doctor the left-hand side of the photo and the right hand side is untouched. You can see the brightness and difference.
Left side– Touch FX contrast tool used; Right side– untouched
Todd Whiting, one of our GDM advisory board members, is the creator of Touch FX so that is how I found out about it. I must say that I went kicking and screaming to actually spend money for an app (even an app made by someone I know- sorry Todd). However, I can honestly say that these two apps, often combined, have made a huge difference in the caliber of photos that I can take and post with just my iPhone.
Alexandra and Amanda have just arrived in New York City to enjoy a few days of meetings, great events, and of course– fun. (Would you expect anything less?)
Kicking off today is House Beautiful’s “Kitchen of the Year“ in Rockefeller Plaza– an event full of cooking demonstrations with celebrity chefs, tastings, kitchen design tips, and a fully rendered “Kitchen of the Year” designed by Jeff Lewis. After the daytime activities conclude, Alexandra and Amanda will attend House Beautiful’s “Kitchen of the Year” opening night gala! For more details, watch the video below– and be sure to check Twitter for updates and photos by Alexandra and Amanda.
They will also be meeting with ultra-talented GDM member Ondine Karady at the event, whose 50’s movie- inspired kitchen, “Bumblebee by the Beach,” which was designed for House Beautiful’s “Uncompromising Design“ video series can be seen below. Alexandra and Amanda have just updated that Ondine’s video has been playing on the big screen in Rockefeller Plaza throughout today’s event– congratulations! Tomorrow, Ondine’s kitchen design will continue its reign in the spotlight at cooking demos and more sponsored by Jenn-Air.
Credit: Ondine Karady for House Beautiful
Tomorrow, Alexandra and Amanda will attend the Word of Mouth Marketing Supergenius Conference hosted by Gaspedal for some educational nourishment. The event will feature how-to crash courses in Word of Mouth (WOM) Marketing, brilliant speakers, and real-world case studies.
If you happen to be in New York, head over to Rockefeller Plaza to partake in some of these exciting events. Even if you’re not a design enthusiast, there’s sure to be something for everyone to enjoy!
Again, stay updated on Twitter and follow Alexandra and Amanda as they journey through New York! More to follow…
Practical, judicious and well-dressed, Scarlett O’Hara embodies more than just the charm of a Southern belle. Her character gives us plenty of business-savvy lessons to work with– applicable to any time period, and regardless of proximity to the Mason-Dixon Line.
Here are four lessons to be learned from Scarlett:
Be resilient. Scarlett did not have an easy go of it after the Civil War. She was forced to work the fields and manage the house after the death of her mother and the onset insanity of her father. Furthermore, she had not a penny to her name and was deeply indebted to the tax collectors. However, she pushed through. We’ve all lived through the last 2 years of a terrible economic storm. Even without poor market conditions, businesses will go through very tough times. Resiliency, and will power, can often be the only thing to push us through the difficulty when it seems like everything is going to mud. Sometimes it is about putting one foot in front of the other when things are really dismal.
Dress the part. When Scarlett goes to Atlanta to visit Rhett Butler in jail and ask for money to pay the taxes on Tara, she dresses the part despite being destitute (and wears the velvet drapes that Mammy fashioned into a gown). As Thomas Fuller said “Good clothes open all doors.” When you want something from someone—a sale, an investment, etc.—you need to look and act like you will survive without it. Dress the part, inside and out.
Think about it tomorrow. Some days are overwhelming. If you think about eating the whole elephant in one sitting, you will be sick thinking about the enormity of your task. Not everything has to be done today. Don’t bury your head in the sand but give yourself a break and realize that you are one person with the same 24 hours that everyone else has. As Scarlett says, “I’ll think about it tomorrow.” Some days you should do just that.
Don’t be foolish chasing after something that is not meant to be. Occasionally, we all really believe that a certain product or service is what is going to be our savior for our company. We continue investing money and time, putting other lucrative services and products on the back burner. Be honest with yourself about what areas of your business are really producing revenue. Focus a majority of your efforts there. Don’t spend your business life chasing after Ashley when Rhett is really the best fit.
While waiting for a pretty significant writer’s block to clear up, I thought a dip into my Twitter stream might help refresh me a bit. Even though it is against the general “how-to’s” of Twitter, I have focused my following to design, marketing and artistic tweeps— so that the noise doesn’t become too overwhelming. Well, lo and behold: when I really focused, some great new, inventive and interesting ideas and products revealed themselves. And, miraculously, the writer’s block vanished.
Below is a selection of some “twinspirational” Twitter finds.
@LadyFabrics (visit their website): Gorgeous, 100% natural, sustainable, biodegradable fabrics.
A wide array of colors from Lady Fabrics
@Alluminare (visit their website): Fully customizable fabric, wallcovering, pendants, lamps, pillows and so much more! Wonderfully interactive.
Fully customizable lampshades and more on Alluminare's website
@tracyhiner (visit the website) This is NOT your average wallpaper, it’s Art, and yes, with a capital A!
Two examples of Black Crow Studios' artful designs
@modernica (visit the website): Uber-cool furnishings that would make the Jetsons’ swoon.
Ultra modern chairs from modernica.
@HomeDecorNews (visit the website): A lot of something about a lot of everything for the design industry, from the DIY-ers to professionals.
@myperfectcolor (visit the website): Anything and everything you would ever want to know about Benjamin Moore paint.
The moral of the story: inspiration comes from many sources, Twitter being only one of many!
Starting in 2007, the market for interior designers turned into quicksand. The credit markets tightened, and projects that typically went to designers were brought in-house both residentially and commercially.
HGTV and the Internet created more competitors in the middle of the market from the consumers themselves, and frankly, for most designers, those weren’t and aren’t your best clients anyway.
High-end projects stayed fairly steady until the economic debacle of October 2008, and then many of the projects slowed, stopped or didn’t start at all. Especially in markets tied to the financial markets like New York, the wealthiest clients lost their jobs and their sense of security if they were in jobs associated with money and wealth.
The commercial market was devastated by the credit crisis, and according to economists, the concerns aren’t behind us yet.
Even with this perfect storm, some designers were very busy. Why? They adapted to the market shifts, changed their pricing strategies, developed an online presence, spent as much as 10% on marketing, focused on a niche, learned how to differentiate themselves better, and didn’t wait for the phone to ring. They took these conditions as a challenge and they worked even harder than before.
If commercial and hospitality is your preferred area of business, you’ll want to focus on renovations. If you can show companies that an investment in renovation can lead to more dollars at the bottom line especially if they depend on consumer spending, then you have an opportunity to build a logical reason why a company should invest. The commercial designers that become a marketing partner with their clients differentiate themselves and become a valuable solution-oriented team member instead of an expense.
If your specialty is residential design, bathroom and kitchen renovation is still steady. The budgets might be smaller, but there is work in this specialty area.
A kitchen renovation featured on the Traditional Home blog
Some designers created packages of services they offered on their websites. Why did that work for them? The consumers wanted (and demanded) to know the investment required .
Other designers offered Value Based Fees because consumers resisted hourly fees. ASID surveyed consumers a few years ago and approximately 70% said they wanted fixed fees. Designers who offered this option found that it completely shifted their role from an hourly wage slave to a trusted advisor, and that helped many designers kick-start their businesses even during the last several months.
You could be the greatest designer, but if people don’t hear about you consistently, then your business will struggle. These days, you need great photography, a great head shot, articles about you in magazines, online and in newspapers (third party endorsements), a web presence including a website, blog and social media and search engine optimization of your website and blog.
And, if you don’t have a written business plan, marketing plan, vision and strategy for your business, it’s time to get busy and take action. Referrals and networking may have worked in the past, but they are less effective than ever, so that means it’s time to rethink and reposition your business.
Tomorrow is National Martini Day, but today is National Splurge Day (or National $plurge Day). It’s probably fitting that a drinking holiday comes the day after a huge spending holiday. You will likely need a drink after the fortune that you spend, or at least think about spending, on a great day of stimulating consumption.
I asked a few of our team members what they would splurge on today.
Martha's splurge- a vacation ending in Savannah, Georgia
“I would upgrade the rest of my flights in 2010 to First Class. I might also buy some new Ferragamo shoes so I’m flying in style.” – Yours truly (Alexandra)
“Prada shoes.” – Andrea Gibson, Advisor
Amanda's splurge- An Apple iPad. Photo: wired.com
On this spending day, I also started thinking about what I would really want to splurge on for Gibson Design Management or any of our other companies. (more…)
I’ve been an interior designer for over 20 years, so I’ve had plenty of time to make these mistakes. Here’s a startling statistic (and I’ll bet it is higher during this recession) – 62.8% of all new businesses fail within 6 years according to the U.S. Census Bureau, and 96% fail within 10 years. That means you’re lucky to be one of 4 out of 100 to make it past 10 years…or is it luck?
What if you could avoid the mistakes that these business owners made?
I’d like to see you avoid them, and if you’ve already done a few of them, now you can learn what not to do so you don’t waste your valuable time and money:
Not having a written “ideal client” profile – If you don’t know who your ideal client is, how can you tell other people who they can refer to you? If you’ve ever had the client from &%$&, (or more than once) the key is to know what you don’t want in a client as much as what you do want.
Not knowing the lifetime value of your client – If you’ve been in the business even a few years, you can add up your billings and divide by the number of clients to get your current lifetime value. You should also look at how long they stay as a client. These two metrics are critical in your business planning and if you have this data as part of your Business Dashboard, it will help you grow your business. (more…)
If you are in the Mid-Atlantic region you know what I speak of when I refer to the weekend’s blizzard as Snowpocalypse (or Snowmageddon). It was major snowfall, even for this Idaho girl. We ventured out briefly to trot around the city and take pictures of the sites in the snow, but most of the time was spent inside, catching up on some much neglected business book reading.
A view from the back of the very white White House
Snow maiden sculpted near the Capital
The view up 11th Street NW
Heavy snow means tree casualties
Washington Monument through the fog
There’s no better time to catch up on some past due business reading than when you’re snowed in. If you’re like me, you probably have several books in the rotation, plus a couple that are on your desk or nightstand that are in queue. My most recent conquest:
