How to Stop Clients from Derailing Their Own Project (Without Feeling Like the Bad Guy)

Let’s be honest: most client chaos isn’t intentional.

It’s not that your interior design clients WANT to make your life harder or slow their project down.

They just want to make sure their project turns out as great as it possibly can. And they, more often than not, simply don’t know how the process works or what is normal/not normal.

And what happens when they don’t know?

• They go rogue and start shopping on their own, sending you ideas to “help you”.

• Or they delay approvals because they’re waiting for their sister or best friend to weigh in.

• Or they suddenly want to be looped in on every single update and delivery schedule, micromanaging the very process they hired you to handle for them.

Sound familiar?

The truth is interior design clients unknowingly derail their own projects all the time. And unless you set expectations clearly from the start, the entire experience can turn from elevated to exhausting. 

Fast.

The good news?

It’s almost 100% avoidable. (When is it NOT avoidable? When you’re letting bad fit clients infiltrate your pipeline.)

Here’s how to keep your clients in check (for lack of better words) while making them feel totally supported throughout the entire process. Or, as I like to say, “How you can make Nos sound like YESes.”