Interior decorating has grown 11% in the last five years and will continue to grow as more people work outside the home and earn more money. If you are constantly being asked for your interior design ideas, this could be an amazing opportunity for you. All you need to do is make a few decisions and love to create beautiful home interiors.
The first thing you have to decide is if you want to be an interior designer or just dedicate yourself to interior decoration. It might not sound like a big difference, but it actually is. An interior designer must graduate from an accredited interior design program, and in many states, the individual must take an exam and become licensed. However, if you don’t want to attend school right now or ever, you can choose to be an interior decorator.
Before you sell your interior decorating services, you need to practice. Learn some of the tricks for decorating on a budget and get ideas for the services you want to provide to your clients. Try these services in your own home and offer them for free at the homes of your family and friends. It’s great practice and can help build your portfolio.
To build your portfolio, take before and after photos of every project you do, big or small. You should have fifteen to twenty photographs in your portfolio and letters of recommendation from satisfied clients. It’s also good practice to create design boards for each project and keep them with your portfolio.
Once you have decided to open an interior decorating business, you should call different competitors to get an idea of the services they provide and the fees they charge for their services. This is a great way to decide how to charge your customers.
There are several ways to price your interior decorating services. They include using a flat rate, hourly rate, percentage rate, additional cost, retail cost, or per square foot rate. Most interior decorating companies use the additional cost method for their fees.
To use the extra cost method, you need to contact wholesalers and retailers that offer discounts for interior decorating businesses. This way, you buy everything for the project, from paint to furniture. It then sells the products and its services to the customer for the cost of the products plus the prevailing rate of twenty percent.
Now that you’ve decided what services you’ll provide and the cost of each, it’s time to advertise. Since you’ve contacted vendors, ask if you can drop off interior decorating flyers and business cards at their locations. If these vendors have seen your work and make sure you do, they may also recommend you to their clients.
You should also contact real estate agents, new home builders, business offices, stores, hotels, and just about anywhere that uses an interior that needs to be decorated. Send everyone a letter announcing the opening of your business, make sure there is a name on the letter and envelope, and not a generic “Business Owner” opening. Follow up with a phone call and try to get an appointment to present them with information about yourself and your interior decorating business. Even if they aren’t interested right now, they will be in the future, and you want to make sure they remember you.
You can also offer services in the form of teaching a class on home interior decorating. Many community colleges offer personal enrichment classes for everyone in the community. As a class, ask each person to choose a room in their house that they want to redecorate. By the end of the class, your room should be complete and you’ll have more happy customers to spread the word about you and your business.
Once you’ve started your business, you should subscribe to trade periodicals and visit websites for interior decorating tips and ideas from others in the industry. You should buy books on different areas of decoration and techniques that you can use.
Many of the industry associations will only accept members who are licensed interior designers. Keep this in mind when planning your future goals, but remember that there are also many successful interior designers who are not licensed.
Now that your thoughts are racing about interior decorating, cost, marketing, and keeping up with trends, it seems you’ve made up your mind. She starts calling out the competitors and decorating the houses of friends and family. Open your own interior design business now.