One unfortunate reality of living and working in the digital age is that it opens wide the opportunity for people to engage in intellectual theft. The National Crime Prevention Council has reported that more than 45% of all U.S. businesses have suffered losses due to intellectual property theft. 

Almost half! 😖

All a person needs to do is visit a website and download or copy some content—whether it’s an artistic creation, written subject matter, or a saleable product.

Often, the creator or business owner is unaware this has even occurred, while the thief benefits by presenting the content as their own without putting in the actual effort or actually owning the content. 

In the two months prior to the writing of this blog, we at Dakota Design Company have identified SIX separate instances where designers have used our intellectual property without permission. These instances included people selling our materials, using our copyrighted content in their competing services, or providing our templates as bonuses inside of their paid programs.

SIX cases. In two months. 

I’m sharing this with you, my DDC community, because I know you care about the integrity and ethical standards of our industry. I’m also sharing because we’ve had to devote significant time and resources to managing these situations, from collecting evidence, engaging legal services, and creating processes to further protect our IP.

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The question of ethics comes up a lot with the creative small business owners we talk to. This is true not only for our clients—who are interior designers—but also with other business owners we interact with who support both our business and interior designers’ businesses (including marketing consultants, brand designers, PR consultants, attorneys, CPAs, bookkeepers, copywriters, HR consultants, photographers, stylists, etc.). 

And, if your business is in the online space, it can sometimes feel like there are NO ethical constraints and stealing is rampant. A small percentage of people even behave as though they will never be caught, or they just blame “their copywriter,” who must have done any infringing or copying without their knowledge. 

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As an interior designer, I know you love the magic of designing a room from scratch, seeing it all the way through to the final installation, and professionally photographing it so you can showcase it in your portfolio. Designers tell me that executing an entire project soup-to-nuts, from initial conception through final staging IS the most fulfilling professional experience they have. 

But, sometimes—whether it’s your capacity and availability at a specific time, or whether your experience level means you don’t do full-scale projects, or whether your current clients do not have those all-encompassing needs—a full-service project format may just not be a service type that aligns with your business. 

Enter: a Designer by Your Side service.  

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Why Talk About Professional Ethics & the Interior Design Industry?

The topic of professional ethics—acting in ways that embrace accountability, responsibility, and fairness—can be a tough (and nuanced) one to wrap your head around. 

Yes, we all (hopefully!) recognize the need to act with integrity in all of our professional exchanges—with clients, colleagues, and industry partners—but there is limited and sometimes ambiguous guidance to tell us how to do that. 

This is a serious and important topic, so I thought, let’s try to tackle it.

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An interior designer recently reached out to us with a frustration. She was in the process of putting together a scope of work for a full-service design project that involved construction, and she was spending quite a bit of time researching the answers to several questions about what could/should be done in this home to meet the homeowner’s needs.

This interior designer didn’t go into a lot of detail about the nature of the questions she was trying to get answers to, but, yes, in a project that involves construction, often there are several considerations that need to be evaluated before the project direction and full scope of work can be developed. 

The interior designer indicated she was putting in a LOT of uncompensated work merely to get a reasonable and workable SOW developed for her client.

Unpaid work???? Uh, no!

In a situation like this, where the appropriate design direction needs to be investigated, and questions need to be answered (perhaps getting conceptual pricing from contractors) BEFORE a SOW for a project can be definitively determined, a designer should ….

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One of the questions interior designers ask us all the time is, “How should I help my client budget for their construction project?”

At Dakota Design Company, we're all about knowing your numbers and ensuring your clients have a full understanding of what their project will actually cost. 

Because let’s be real, there’s nothing worse than starting a project thinking it’ll be $40K, only to find out you’re actually looking at $150K by the time everything's done. 

No one wants to get hit with a surprise like that.

So, let’s dive into this: How do you help your clients budget for projects with construction?

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Dear Dakota,  

I am contemplating obtaining a 2-year interior design degree from a community college and would love your thoughts on whether the extra schooling would be worth my time. Although I am strong in many skills and have a Bachelor’s degree in another field, I do think I could benefit from the extra practice and knowledge that would be gained from school. How can I decide whether going back to school would be right for me?

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As an operations consultant who offers business consulting AND software implementation to interior designers, I can tell you, I’ve heard (and seen) a lot. 

Now, of course, my insight is a bit biased because the interior designers who come to me for help are those whose pricing, processes, software, and behind-the-scenes are simply not working for them. 

But, even before they come to me, I know there is a mindset shift that has to happen. There are SO many (let’s be honest) lies we tell ourselves as business owners and women and I’m here to shed some light (and truth) on what it really means to have effective business systems in place. 

So, if you’re out there doing your designs and feeling like your business is slowly taking the life out of you, it could be because you’ve fallen prey to one of these twenty common beliefs (that are wrong). 

Join The DTS Files for my advice and insights.