Dear Dakota,

One thing I am struggling with is knowing when the right time is to no longer work from home.

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A designer submitted a question that represents the frustration a lot of business owners contend with — how to free yourself from time-consuming and distracting (and sometimes incessant) phone calls during your workday, yet still be responsive and supportive to clients throughout the design process. Please note: this is NOT about getting potential clients to stop calling you (although, I have personal opinions on not giving anyone access to you until they’ve been screened…different post for a different day; this post is how to get paid clients to stop calling you all the time if that’s now how you prefer to communicate.

Join The DTS Files for my advice and insights.

Do any of these sound familiar?

“I have 456 unopened emails in my inbox right now”

OR

"Clients are constantly emailing me."

OR

"My clients only want ME to respond to their issues, even though I have a team."

Yeah. I get it. Happens all the time. Clients want YOU and only YOU, even if it means higher billing, longer lead times, more team communication, greater inefficiencies, etc. You chose the profession of interior design because you love solving creative problems. But email seems to take up most of your workday sometimes, right? 

I’m thrilled to introduce our first guest blog contributor, Darla Powell of Wingnut Social. 

Darla is more than just an award-winning interior designer, podcast host, social media speaker, and former police detective. She’s also an adept unraveler of marketing secrets. Her down-to-earth style delivers smart, actionable information that’s relevant to real business owners—because she is one. Darla shares her expertise on Wingnut Social, a digital marketing and social media agency, with topics ranging from social media mastery (what really engages followers?—it’s probably not what you think), to how to build your brand from the ground up (how did she go from retired cop to one of the top five interior designers in Miami in less than sixteen months?—secrets will be revealed). 

Darla shares her advice for making posting on social media less time-consuming, and for how to develop a social strategy when you have no time.

I recently had the honor and pleasure of joining Odile Smith of The Biophilic Hub for The Biophilic Hub Summit. Odile helps interior designers and architects transition to nature-centered profitable businesses, and she and I talked about building a successful marketing strategy to effectively target and reach new audiences in your interior design or architecture business: those who care deeply about the environment and its survival. 

When it comes to interior design projects, transparency in pricing is key to establishing trust and ensuring a successful collaboration between you and your clients. When I say transparency, I don’t mean you should pass along your trade pricing, disclose proprietary to-the-trade vendor information, or explain how you came to your (or your team’s) hourly rate.

Yeah, no. ← and if a potential client requests this information from you … RUN.

Or if a … clears throat … “business coach” puts out a blanket statement that it’s illegal to charge markup … RUN.

What I’m saying is …

ear Dakota,

I do flat fee billing and am a huge advocate of “the fewer invoices the better.”

The question is: how do I invoice? 

I love the invoice capability of my product management software but it lists each item by price. I can’t decide if this is a good thing or a bad thing. I love the idea of high-low design and sometimes it takes one expensive piece to make the space.  I always panic when I list prices individually in case the client will see the expensive item and give pushback (even though the total is coming in on budget.) They will see the price of an individual item and think it’s too much to pay for whatever item it may be.

I’m curious how others are invoicing. Are they sending a general invoice with only final pricing, or are they itemizing each item listed with an individual price?

What have you seen work the best?

Join The DTS Files for my insights and advice.