Our Ten Favorite Blog Posts For Interior Designers in 2024
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In 2024, my team and I wrote 49 original blog posts for interior designers (this one makes it 50). That’s a big dip from 2023, when we wrote 90 original posts (based on our own experience!!). What can I say? We love nothing more than sharing insights to help interior designers improve their business operations and client experience.
While we didn’t write as many blog posts this year, we introduced plenty of new ways to help interior designers through our trainings in The Workroom. This year’s highlights included:
Beyond Retail: Increase Revenue + Profits by Selling Wholesale Furnishings
Elevate Your Design Presentation live training
Permits to Punchlists: Essential Construction Training, Management, & Pricing Tips for Interior Designers
And I can’t forget to mention the three cohorts of our signature program, The Designed to Scale® Method. What an honor to help so many designers through my tried & true framework.
If you haven’t had a chance to dive into those resources linked above, I highly recommend checking them out. In the meantime, don’t miss our 10 most popular blog posts of 2024. These are the posts that resonated most with our community of interior designers—each one thoughtfully crafted, 100% human-written, with no shortcuts or AI assistance here.
And, of course, a huge thank you for being here, reading my blog, The Weekly Install®, The Design Brief™, and my Instagram posts.
YOU fuel everything we do.
Alright, let’s count down the top 10 posts of the year.
#10 | Dear Dakota: How to Protect Yourself From Contractor Mistakes as an Interior Designer
The role between interior designer and general contractor is clear…so long as you stay in your lane (which many designers, for some reason, toe the line!). Not you, though.
Read this post to learn what you are (and aren’t) responsible for on a construction project.
#9 | The Design Brief™ | What’s New In Residential Building Codes for Single Family Homes in 2024
Gloria, DDC’s in-house certified interior designer, tenured professor, and self-proclaimed “codes nerd” could write the book on residential building codes. Oh wait, she did!
But for real, if you’re an interior designer, you can’t NOT know these.
#8 | How to Grow Your Interior Design Business When You Are Buried In Client Work
I get it. You started your business to do the design work you love - but then you got so busy doing the design work you forgot to do your business work (you know, like prioritizing the big picture and future growth). Here’s how to grow your business even when you’re buried in client work.
#7 | The Design Brief™ | Why the Terms Master Bedroom & Master Bathroom Have Fallen out of Favor
Whether you’ve been paying attention or not, you really can’t miss this lesson on why the terms master bedroom and master bathroom have fallen out of favor.
#6 | Guest Expert Series | The Three Numbers Interior Design Business Owners Should Focus on, by Caroline Van Wassenhove, CPA for interior designers
Part of being a good CEO? Making decisions based on data. And where do we get data as business owners? From the numbers. These are three to focus on as an interior designer.
#5 | What Interior Designers Can Say Goodbye To As They Move into CEO Role
This was a fun one to write as these are 13 things I’ve said goodbye to and it’s made allllll the difference.
#4 | Dear Dakota | How to Manage the “Not-Quite” End of Renovation Projects?
Four things to do to make that messy, not-quite-done-but-so-ready-to-be-done end of a renovation project feel much more organized and buttoned up.
#3 | So You Want to Make $[INSERT YOUR GOAL REVENUE HERE] This Year? Here’s How to Reverse Engineer Your Financial Success.
I will say this until I am blue in the face: the numbers give you answers. And when it comes to hitting your goals, if you know what you want to make, you can easily map out the actions to take to get there.
Sure, the daily actions may not be easy (most people struggle big time with consistency and playing the long game), but having a plan and clarity? VERY nice.
#2 | How to Reduce Risk in Large Interior Design Projects with Lots of Unknowns
This post should be required reading for all interior designers who take on large projects (especially if you are tired of billing hourly). This post just about broke our website, but I’d be doing you a disservice if I didn’t also remind you about our feasibility study post.
#1 | How to Get More Interior Design Clients in 2024
Five things you can do to get more interior design clients, plus a peek into 15 things I do every day/week/month to market my established business (I practice what I preach).
Oh, and PS, my tips don’t include anything about offering discounts. Yeah, no.
We’re excited to continue to bring even more business operations advice, client management tips, and educational resources to interior designers in 2025. If you have a topic you’d like to see, be sure to join The Weekly Install® and submit a question or topic for our Dear Dakota blog series.
Cheers to you and your business; my team and I look forward to supporting you in 2025
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