Navigating Interior Design Business Development
The interior design sector has gone through a lot of changes over the last year, but continues to move forward and in many cases, is booming. I am seeing a lot of growth despite the uncertainty, and for many of you, the need to grow your business is becoming more evident. It is different now though. As we all have gone through a purging process and come to terms with the things we need and the things that are not truly important, rebuilding our lives and our businesses more intentionally has become paramount.
This is the time to retool, reorganize and build our firms more strategically. Today I want to focus on the foundational aspects of your design firm. We’re going back to the basics so you can visualize your business development as a whole and then map out your growth track.
That clarity is going to serve as the roadmap for your year ahead. It will be better this time, more organized, polished, efficient and in many ways, easier. Your energy will be more on point and your team and processes will truly facilitate the level of service you know you are capable of. The first step in constructing a better business is breaking it into its pieces and understanding how your plan fits into the bigger picture.
Do you remember Maslow’s hierarchy of needs? Maslow was a psychologist that created a pyramid of 5 levels of development. He asserted that in order to rise to the next tier, you had to satisfy the level below.
I realized years ago that the same premise applies to interior design firms and I created a hierarchy of needs for our industry. As you develop your firm, this model will help you to understand your gaps, next steps and the overarching construct of your business, a bit like the blueprint for your firm.
Over the next few days, I’m going to break down each level and section within each level. You can use it to plot your moves as you navigate business development.
The FOUNDATION level of the hierarchy of needs is all about setting up the infrastructure and systems that will enable you to incorporate a team, outsourced support and utilize well all manner of resources, into your firm. Without this foundational work, getting your processes and payroll dollar to translate into efficiency and profit will be very difficult. Things will feel disjointed and disorganized. Too much will be in your brain and getting team members to click in, be proactive and experience long periods of high levels of concentration will be unattainable. Setting up a well-conceived foundation enables all the transactions of business to actually be absorbed well and processed effectively.
In the next post I will discuss the foundation of your business. Stay tuned!