Dear Dakota | How Can I Build A Consistent Flow Of Clients For My Interior Design Business?
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WRITTEN MAY 2023 | UPDATED APRIL 2026
Dear Dakota,
How can I build a consistent flow of clients for my interior design business?
We received this question via The Weekly Install®, and let me tell you, it’s a common one we hear from interior designers; if you've asked this yourself, you're not alone. I know it can often feel like you’re in "feast or famine” mode, and it's scary when there's nothing in the pipeline for the upcoming quarter.
So, if you're currently struggling with having no leads in your pipeline and no upcoming interior design projects booked, ask yourself this:
Are you sick of hearing yourself talk about your services and how you can help your ideal clients?
Have you talked about it so much in your newsletters and social media posts and in real live conversations that you are annoyed with yourself?! You feel like, OH MY GOSH, people will block me because all I ever talk about is this one thing.
If you answered yes to both of those, then cheers 🥂!
You're doing a great job. You SHOULD feel repetitive in your efforts to market your business. Repetition improves the clarity of your message and adds to your power of persuasion.
Sometimes, a message won’t fully sink in until a potential client has heard it several times or until circumstances have shifted so that it now makes sense or is relevant. So, it is crucial that you consistently let your audience know how your services can benefit them.
If you answered no to either of those, (that you don’t feel you’ve been talking enough about your services), it's time to reallocate your time (or budget) to marketing.
And if you answered yes, but you're still not getting any leads, then you, my friend, have a marketing problem. 🤷♀️
But don’t worry; there are easy ways to solve this. Let’s dive into these six ideas in more detail:
Know what benefit you’re selling and who you’re selling it to.
Define your services and then only sell those services.
Become known for something.
Let potential clients know when you can start - and create a true sense of urgency.
Create an amazing client experience for your clients from start to finish.
Always be selling.
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01. KNOW WHAT BENEFIT YOU'RE SELLING AND WHO YOU'RE SELLING IT TO.
A big mistake I see many interior designers make is sharing DIY content when they are trying to attract a luxury, done-for-you client. The client who will hire you to do multiple rooms soup-to-nuts is not trying to figure out how high to hang lights.
Why?
Because they don't have time or desire for that, and that's why they want to hire you.
So if you're not looking for DIY clients, don't talk about DIY topics. A DIY client may not see the value in your services and a done-for-you client will think you only work with DIY’ers.
Here are some more examples:
If you don't want to work with clients who want to shop at Home Goods with you, don't post pictures of yourself shopping at Home Goods for clients (even if you do shop there for some accessories).
If you don't shop retail for your projects, don't post pictures of stuff you bought at Target or Pottery Barn.
If you don't want clients who are looking for "a discount," then don't talk about how working with you means they get a discount on furniture.
Instead, you might try these approaches if you want to attract more full-service projects:
Pay attention to the pain points prospects are describing during discovery calls. Then, in your marketing, describe how your full-service process alleviates those.
Share more pictures of completed full-service projects in your portfolio and marketing.
Fully describe the value you provide in your full-service process within your marketing, so clients understand the extent of how you will help them.
Talk about the ease and simplicity your past clients experienced while working with you, because of the full-service process you provide.
Within your marketing, talk about and show the lifestyle that clients will enjoy once their space is complete.
It is important to remember that YOU should not be the focus of your marketing message. It should not be so much about your credentials, your experience, or your know-how.
Instead, focus attention on the experience and result your clients will receive in working with you.
Your clients are hiring you, YES, because of the quality and your reputation, but they are also hiring you because of what the design you deliver will say about them, how it will make them feel, how it will allow them to be the person with a beautiful home—the one you’ll create for them.
Does your ideal client dream of knowing how high to hang lights? Or do they dream of coming home to a completed and beautiful space that represents them fully and supports them in their everyday life? A functional, cohesive home where they love every single thing that surrounds them.
Here’s the thing: you should be talking about your services and clients until you are sick and tired of hearing yourself talk about them.
And if you are not sick of hearing yourself talk about your services and how you can help your clients, YOU ARE NOT MARKETING YOUR COMPANY ENOUGH.
Guess what? When we write our Instagram posts, blog posts, or content for The Weekly Install® each week, I sometimes think, “Geez, aren't people tired of hearing about this? I'm always talking about the client experience. Surely, they must be annoyed with me.”
But then I talk to clients who say they look forward to The Weekly Install® every Friday, interior designers who email to tell me they get so much out of the blog, or other business owners who message to say how even though they're not an interior designer, they’ve received so much value from my content.
If I sat down with you for a 1:1 meeting, could you honestly tell me you're marketing your services enough?
If I looked at your newsletters, blog, social media, etc., would I see consistent calls to action and aligned content that speaks to ideal clients with the project types you want?
Do an audit on your marketing for the past month.
☐ Review the last month of posts, blogs, newsletters, and marketing activities. And if you aren’t sure what marketing activities you should be doing, you’re welcome.
☐ Did you include a call to action in each one, and what was it? Did it support your goal of getting leads?
☐ Would the content be something your ideal client would read and say, “YES, I NEED TO HIRE YOU,” or “OH MY GOSH, YOU ARE IN MY BRAIN. I NEED YOU!” thus inspiring them to reach out?
☐ Or would they think, "Oh, cute shoes." or “Cute pup!”
☐ Are the project images you’re showing (on your website and marketing) ones you want to book more of? Are they project types that will resonate with your ideal clients?
You’ll very quickly be able to see the real problem at hand based on the results of your audit.
02. DEFINE YOUR SERVICES AND THEN ONLY SELL THOSE SERVICES.
If you are communicating that you can do anything for anyone, you're likely excluding a HUGE chunk of people who may be interested in working with you. This may defy conventional wisdom. Isn’t it better to communicate that you have broader skills and can fulfill everyone’s needs??
NOPE!
Why not?
Because when it comes to the home, we want specialists. We want to hire someone who has worked on homes in our area and price range with our expected level of quality, who can implement a certain stylistic quality, and who is familiar with the best of the best of everything to make our home amazing.
Just like you wouldn't hire a handyperson to do fine carpentry in your client's $10MM beachfront home, you probably wouldn't hire a kitchen and bath designer to furnish your living room. You want to find the person whose specific skills meet your needs.
Communicating that you can do everything for everybody does not speak to high level design skills or to impeccable execution.
So package up what you do and be clear about your service offerings. Don't just list all the things you can do (and definitely don't list them as if you're talking to another interior designer or an architect. No jargon, please!).
Once you package up your services, specify who is a good fit for each service (if you offer more than one). Make sure your website and investment guide are spot on in describing what each service entails and how your ideal client will benefit.
Make it soooooo easy for someone to see themselves in a service with you, as your client.
Say NO to projects you don't want/don't like doing, and instead, talk only about the services you offer and the project types you DO WANT.
For example, if you want to sell more of your new construction design services:
Talk more about how you work with clients on their new construction homes.
Reach out to local builders and architects and interview them for your blog.
Only show pictures of your construction projects.
Share more behind the scenes shots of visiting construction sites, making material selections, talking with contractors, and prepping for presentation day.
03. BECOME KNOWN FOR SOMETHING.
Ahhhhh, niching. The niches are in the riches. I believe this to be true. The more you niche, the more of an expert you become. The more of an expert you become, the quicker you are able to do/troubleshoot/solve things. The more of an expert you become, the more you establish yourself as the go-to in your area for that one thing. The more of an expert you become, the more people will pay you
But don't fall into the common misconception that the only way to niche is through narrowing down on the clients you'll work with. Nope.
You can niche your business by a number of criteria:
By project type - renovation, new build, furnishings only, kitchen and baths
By client type - bachelors, empty nesters, young couples, growing families
By style - traditional, contemporary, modern, moody, sophisticated
By budget - small budgets, large budgets
By home type - vacation homes, VRBO, yachts, industrial, high-rise, historic
By product type - retail only, custom only, vintage or antique only, sustainable only
And guess what - I’ll bet you can fairly easily identify project types you’ve most enjoyed and excelled at. Look back at your past work and identify patterns within any of these criteria. Then, once you can identify project correlations (and if the idea of focusing on that specific niche is appealing), call that niche out in everything you write, share, promote, and say about your company.
You should even update your professional bio and your website SEO to call out that specific niche.
And once you’ve niched down, it becomes so.much.easier to come up with endless ideas for your marketing.
For example, if you want to niche down and design only oceanfront second homes/vacation homes, you’ll focus on:
Creating content around beachfront living.
Creating content around navigating the second home process.
Sharing information about things to consider for a second home that a client wouldn't need to think about for their primary residence.
Showing photos of beachfront homes you have completed.
Highlighting how you manage the project from start to finish as “the boots on the ground” while your client lives out of state in their primary home
See what I mean?
04. LET POTENTIAL CLIENTS KNOW WHEN YOU CAN START - AND CREATE A TRUE SENSE OF URGENCY!
Your availability for starting a new project is a critical factor in whether a potential client will say yes or no to working with you. If you're booked six months out, the client who needs help next week isn't going to be a good fit.
Conversely, if you truly only have limited availability and only X number of spots left for the year, that scarcity will create a sense of urgency and encourage someone to book with you now rather than wait.
So, use your capacity and project timelines to call in people with similar timeline expectations.
I have a lot of interior designers who push back on this. They say things like, "I'm not going to post about openings on my Instagram. Amber Lewis doesn't do it. Studio McGee doesn't do it".
Sigh.
Okay, when you become a celebrity designer and have product lines in retail stores across the US and have published books and TV shows and gigantic teams and in-house PR, then sure, stop posting about your openings.
But in the meantime, if you want to call in potential clients, you need to let them know when you have openings and are booking new clients. Always nudge people to do what you want them to do. (Check out the book Nudge to learn all about the simple art of getting people to do what you want them to.)
On the opposite end of the spectrum, I see a lot of interior designers who accept new projects, start right away, and then get buried in work and miss deadlines (or provide a bad experience) because they didn't stagger start dates or pay attention to timelines.
So first, KNOW how long each phase of your design process takes you (not just in hours but also in how many weeks until you can deliver each milestone to a client) and make sure you and your team have the bandwidth for your current client load + current administrative/behind-the-scenes workload + any new projects. Plug everything into a calendar or spreadsheet and determine when you have space for new clients.
Remember, when you overbook, you're not just hurting yourself. You're hurting your team, your clients, your project outcomes, and your reputation. NO ONE WINS.
Once you know when you can start new projects, share that in your marketing. "We're filling up for summer and have space for new full-service projects in the fall. If you're interested in working together, please reach out now to share more about your project."
05. PROVIDE AN AMAZING CLIENT EXPERIENCE FROM START TO FINISH.
Everyone can do better with their client experience.
I am always astonished by companies that have great reputations and reviews, only to find their process to be frustrating and painful, as if I'm constantly pushing and pulling to get the info I need. And if I don't ask the right questions, I'm SOL. Seriously. Makes me question my investment (and the company’s preparedness and expertise) and not want to work with them ever again.
EVERYONE benefits when you improve your client experience.
📝 Check out our client experience templates here and reverse engineer your whole client process (plus, our templates are professionally written and professionally copy-edited for a client-focused and supportive client experience).
If you take excellent care of clients from day one, rather than just at the end of the project when you send them a gift and a testimonial request, guess what?! They'll recommend you the entire time you're working with them. This means you may have someone recommending your company FOR SIX MONTHS, EIGHT MONTHS, or TWO YEARS, depending on how long your typical projects last.
👏👏👏
Take care of them from start to finish. Make the process soooooo easy for them. Assess your contact form, discovery call process, contract turnaround time, and onboarding process. Is it easy? Is it clunky? Does it take seventy-five emails or one? Are people confused? Where are they falling off?
Always stay in front of questions. Give people all the information they need to make buying decisions with confidence.
06. ALWAYS BE SELLING.
I’m not saying this in a slimy, sleazy way. I’m saying you should ABS “always be selling.” Even when you’re busy. Even when you simply cannot add one more thing to your list. This is what helps you to book out your pipeline so you don't experience the feast or famine that is so common in the interior design industry.
What I see too often is interior designers who get so busy they don’t have time to market their services, so they stop marketing altogether.
They ignore their social media or their email list.
They stop doing their networking meetings or coffee chats.
They take days or weeks to respond to inquiries.
They don’t send offboarding emails or request feedback and testimonials
They don’t follow up with past clients or old leads.
They don’t follow up with GCs, architects, or trades they’ve worked with
They don’t outreach to local real estate agents who work in their dream neighborhoods or with ideal clients
Then, their current projects wrap, and they have ZERO leads and ZERO projects in their pipeline.
GULP!!
It’s important to prioritize whatever you need to do to support yourself so you can market even when you’re busy. This might mean:
using a social media scheduler and blocking off one hour a week to prepare posts
hiring someone to write emails or social posts for you during your busy seasons
repurposing your top 10 most popular posts of the year
blocking out a few hours each month to create content for the platform that is bringing you the most leads
scheduling emails to go out to previous clients to check in and ask for referrals (do this easily through software like HoneyBook or Flodesk)
researching GCs, architects, and realtors in your area and spending an hour each doing outreach and scheduling calls and coffee chats
asking GCs and architects for testimonials and referrals
You get the idea. If you want to make consistent sales, you have to consistently market.
Even if you’re booked out, put people onto a waitlist (learn how to do that here), even if it just means making a client wait two weeks to start OR six months. PEOPLE WILL WAIT FOR YOU if they know what to expect!!
So, if you don’t have a consistent flow of leads and clients for your interior design business, it's essential to look at your marketing. This means clearly identifying your ideal clients and the benefits your services provide, and focusing your marketing efforts on speaking to those clients and highlighting those projects and results. Avoid talking about topics that don't interest your ideal clients, and showcase only the projects that will attract more of the clients and projects you want. By following these tips, you’ll see more leads come in and get more traction and engagement on your content from ideal clients.
