Dear Dakota: Do I Really Need An Investment Guide, Or Can I Just Send My Hourly Rates To Potential Clients?
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We received a question from an interior designer via our Dear Dakota series, and this topic is so important as it relates to sharing your pricing with potential clients.
There is a fear that if you send a detailed services guide or investment guide that you’ll “scare off” clients or seem “uppity”. That thinking is ALL wrong.
This interior designer wrote:
“Do I really need an Investment Guide? Can’t I just send my hourly rates to potential clients via email?”
My take?
YES!! YOU CAN’T “JUST” SHARE YOUR HOURLY RATES.
When you share with a potential client that you bill at, say $200 per hour, and your junior designer bills at $125 per hour, this is you sharing pricing in a vacuum.
These.Rates.Means.Nothing. 😵
Potential clients have no idea what goes into that hourly rate, how efficient (or drawn out) your process is, how many people are involved at every step, how long your process is, what additional costs there may be.
All they see is a number with no context. And when clients are left to fill in the blanks, they usually fill them in with worst-case scenarios.
Not ideal when you’re trying to fill your pipeline with dream projects!
The whole point of providing this information to a potential client is to support them in their decision to hire you and move them forward through your process.
If you only share your hourly rate(s) and no other information:
But about how many hours will MY project take?
Will I be paying mostly the firm’s owners' rates, or the junior designer’s?
What might be the starting point or upper limit in design fees I should plan for?
Not to mention, you’re also putting the burden of calculation on the potential client, which makes the process feel harder for them.
Clients aren’t designers. They don’t know how long sourcing a sofa takes versus drafting a floor plan. They just see a dollar amount.
Enter your Investment Guide. 👏
What an Investment Guide does is shift the conversation from what you cost to the value of what they’ll get.
For example:
If you bill flat fee, you can say: “Full-service design fees begin at $5,000 per room.” Instantly, a client has a ballpark for what their project might cost.
If you bill hourly, you can still give context: “Projects typically require a minimum of 30 design hours per room, which averages about $5,000 in design fees.”
From there you can layer in more:
An overview of your process so clients know what to expect (there is SO much value in your process!)
The level of services you provide and how you’ll help them achieve their goals
Ranges for furnishings and finishes, based on past project data
Testimonials that highlight the value of working with you, not just the pretty result
With an Investment Guide, instead of staring at a rate sheet, your client sees a roadmap. They understand the baseline investment, the kind of experience they’ll have with you, and the outcomes they can expect. That builds confidence and is a HUGE differentiator.
How An Investment Guide Benefits Interior Design Business Owners
An Investment Guide isn’t just beneficial for potential clients. It’s good for you too. Here’s why:
It helps filter out bad-fit leads before they ever hit your calendar.
It keeps your messaging consistent, so you’re not reinventing the wheel in every email or discovery call.
It saves time by answering the same questions upfront, instead of you repeating yourself over and over
It shortens the sales cycle, because clients come into your first call already understanding the value you’ll bring
Remember: your Investment Guide is a sales and marketing tool.
It helps screen out bad fit projects and move good fit ones through your process more quickly while building trust and establishing expertise along the way.
Hourly rates (or flat fee rates), when shared without any other context, only tell part of the story. An Investment Guide tells the whole story.
Check out our Investment Guide for Interior Designers here (and get our bonus Consultation Guide with purchase).
