The Dear Dakota blog series where I provide complimentary consulting and advice to interior designers is a members-only feature. If you’d like the ability to submit your questions and get the chance to have me answer them on the blog, please become a member of The DTS Files.

If every project feels like a custom job and your workflow is all over the place, you’re making business way harder than it needs to be and I have a GUESS as to what’s happening.

The secret to scaling isn’t doing more—it’s doing less, but in a smarter, more strategic way.

Ready to stop reinventing the wheel with every new project? This is EXACTLY where I would start if we worked together 1:1.

When presenting your design fees to a potential interior design client, do you send the proposal first and the contract later? Or do you send everything at once so they have all the details before signing?

Some interior designers separate these steps. Some do them at the same time. Some send a contract out later, like mid project (🙀). Others don’t use a contract at all (🙈).

Obviously—the last two? NOT good strategies.

If you want a process that protects your business, builds trust, and keeps projects running smoothly, the proposal and contract go hand-in-hand.

PS: I’m not an attorney and this is not legal advice. This is based on my experience working 1:1 with over 100 interior design businesses.

Keep reading for my advice on when to send these two documents.

You’ve finally made it to the end of a project, the furniture is installed, everything is in place… and yet, something feels unfinished. The excitement you expected from your client? Yes, they love it, but there’s still something left to be desired.

And, maybe they don’t fully realize it, but you do. Because YOU know the power of styling.

When styling and accessorizing aren’t part of your interior design process, the project never truly feels complete. Read more to learn why.

In our blog post, Color Theory Part 1: Color Language and Color Attributes, we explored some basic color theory. Here, we will delve into how colors interact with one another and talk more about how interior designers make color selections effectively.

There is a lot to say about how colors interact together. And this is at the heart of how interior designers put together color palettes and schemes. That is where the artistry happens. And the interaction of multiple colors together can be extraordinarily visually impactful, eliciting strong human emotions and reactions.

Keep reading for the second lesson from Dr. Gloria on color theory and how it impacts your design process and client onboarding.

As an interior designer, you started your business to design—not to focus on marketing and sales. But when you decide to go out on your own, sales and marketing are CRITICAL if you want to book clients.

I've talked to a lot of interior designers, and I know most of them don’t enjoy having sales conversations. They get nervous. They trip over their words. And next thing you know, they’re discounting their services, throwing in extras for free, and practically handing over the keys to a new car while they’re at it.

But here’s something I believe so firmly in (I mean, I built my entire business on it, so obviously, I believe in this):

If you have a solid client experience process in place, you shouldn’t have to "sell" at all.

Yes, you read that right. When your process is seamless, proactive, and aligned with your ideal client’s needs, people should be 90% pre-sold before you even get to the dreaded "selling" phase.

*Now, I’m not saying you don’t have to market. You do. You should always be marketing. But I’m saying you won’t have to SELL.

Remember sales and marketing are two different things.

Let’s break this down.

Join The DTS Files to keep reading.

Interior designers generally have a very good color sense. It’s often one of the reasons they’ve pursued a career in the field in the first place: they can manipulate color choices and materials into very pleasing combinations. It’s quite an uncanny ability and one most people (non-designers) really struggle with.

In my years of teaching interior design college-level courses, I have grappled with the relevance of color theory in developing color competence. This is for several reasons, not the least of which is the overriding question of theory versus application. I’ve pondered these questions:

• Is it important to understand what analogous, complementary, and triadic color schemes are, when NO interior designer I have ever met begins building a palette based on these as goals?

• The color wheel—as a framework for understanding color relationships—is important for artists and painters who mix paint pigments to arrive at secondary and tertiary colors, tints and shades, but how relevant is it really for interior designers who typically select from already manufactured fabrics, paint colors, rugs, and wallcoverings?

• There are no absolutes with color application, no definitive rights or wrongs. As with any creative pursuit, a successful design may result from breaking or bending some of the standard strategies and manipulating variables in innovative ways. Therefore, how can color theory be taught in a way that allows freedom from restrictions?

So, in my teaching, I have always struggled to understand whether teaching color theory is really building false parallels between theory and application. 

When interior designers don’t actually make color choices based on theory, how important is color theory really?