Design Industry Trends – Shifting Priorities and Practices

Over the next couple of weeks, we’ll explore a few important industry issues based on an article at BusinessOfHome.com. In it, author Caroline Bourque shares insight into the results of a survey of some 900 interior design firm owners relative to shifting design industry trends, priorities, and practices.

It should go without saying (yet here we go saying it anyway) that the past few years have been some of the most challenging in the history of the design trade. From what some believed to be the end of the design business to a relative boom in business, challenging times persist. Whether you find yourself dealing with twitchy clients or coping with ongoing supply-chain issues, the survey reveals a few other hills to climb moving forward. (Gee, thanks!)

Labor Challenges Persist

As this snapshot of the design businesses reveals, Top of the Pops so to speak appears to be hiring. “The survey found that roughly a third of firms increased staff size in the past year, with slightly more planning to do so in the coming year. Meanwhile, nearly half of all firms attempted to hire staff during the past year, even if they weren’t successful with design assistants and interior designers as the most in-demand new roles.”

The major challenge in the current labor market seems to be the increased expectations of the candidates, “with priorities that include health benefits, flexibility, engaging leadership, and much higher compensation.”

“Candidates today have higher expectations of new positions. In some cases, the survey found entry-level candidates with one to three years of experience requesting salaries in the mid- or higher-level range, up to $50,000 rather than the former entry-level standard of $30,000.”

“In turn, designers seeking new hires reported a lack of candidates that were available: qualified, affordable, and a good cultural fit for the firm … which, coupled with many designers leaving established firms to start their own businesses during the pandemic, puts the onus on firm leaders to adjust their own practices to attract and retain new talent.”

For smaller firms whose owners often struggle mightily to compete in the marketplace, both a lack of candidates and demands for greater compensation will require them to focus on culture and values. This will likely include honesty, customer service as a value, a focus on creativity, and making the workplace fun.

Design Fees, Margins, and Profitability

Stay tuned for more insight on design fees, margins, and profitability we’ve gleaned from the article and survey soon. For now, we believe you have plenty to think about from what we’ve shared above.

If you have questions about these design industry trends and how they are affecting your business, Ted remains available for business consulting to the trade. Simply… Contact TD Fall today.

Building Trust Online – The Ultimate Challenge

Apparently, it’s not at all uncommon for contemporary Americans to have trust issues these days. (Pew Research) Whether we distrust each other, our government, or corporations, trust is on the decline. This makes building trust online difficult at best, and always challenging.

And, as with any relationship, once trust is lost – it’s likely gone forever. So, be careful. Not only is building trust with prospects difficult in the world of internet marketing, but keeping their trust is just as challenging.

The internet is an impersonal environment for shopping (or most anything else). It cares not for your needs and wants, or for those of potential clients. It simply sits there, always waiting and seeming omnipotent when, without our active participation, it’s impotent.

What does this mean for the typical online marketer? It means that you must actively seek the trust of visitors to your business website. You must create valuable content for them and build your reputation as an expert. You must be active on social media. You must show empathy and understanding of their pain points. You must actively listen and communicate, responding to comments and questions in a timely fashion.

You know, just like a face-to-face relationship!

Now, with some help from an article titled 16 Effective Ways Business Can Build Trust Online at Forbes (a very trustworthy place), we’d like to share a few of the ideas for building trust online – and keeping it.

Building and Keeping Trust Online

“Human beings already have a hard time trusting people they can't see. An online space can therefore be the worst possible place for a professional to try to build consumers' trust.”

• Show You Really Understand Your Audience – Demonstrate that you really do understand your audience, their challenges, hopes, fears and what they put up with. And then be direct and honest about why that matters to you, why they matter to you, and what makes you and your team stay in the game every day to make a difference for your audience, to help them achieve their dreams. That clarity, truth and focus will build trust.

• Speak Your Voice – Allow your voice of truth to shine; don't hide behind an avatar of what you think people would like of you. Be you. Customers want to know that they are speaking to a human being with real emotions and a real voice. Our unique voice draws people who are like us. Think about why we go back to a particular shop — it's because in that place we were conversed with in a way that we enjoy.

• Be Consistent and Follow Through – Be consistent, take responsibility, and follow through! If you want to build trust online, you must “show up” consistently. Have a clear point of view and/or position and don't appear scattered. When you receive negative feedback, take responsibility and acknowledge issues or shortcomings. Vow to do better, then follow through and improve.

• Be Transparent and Available – Things that build trust offline will work online, too. Be yourself; most people can sense phony. Be transparent. Ironically, if you are hiding something, it will show. Be honest and avoid claims you cannot back up. Be available in other ways than just online, be accessible and approachable. Be a raving fan of your customers. They are much more likely to trust you if YOU cheer for THEM!

• Create A Sense of Intimacy – It's all about your relevance. Use the time to create a sense of intimacy, showcasing your credibility and insight into their issues. Your value and ability to deliver will invite at least a follow-up conversation.

• Live Out Your Brand Promises – Be trustworthy. From top leadership to the front line, be whom you claim to be. Live out your brand promises, day in, day out, even when it's challenging. Do the right things. Online and offline, your customers will be sure to share when you deserve trust, and when you fail to deserve their confidence.

• Interact on Social Media – Interact more with customers online. We often forget the social part of social media. Trust is built in small actions over time, and each online interaction is an opportunity to build (or destroy) trust.

The challenge for building trust online is obvious: not only establishing your reputation but living up to it. It’s just that simple, and just that difficult.

With more than 25 years of experience in the trade, Ted can offer you valuable reputation management and trust-building tips as your business consultant. Simply… Contact TD Fall today.

Client Attraction Tips - Do You Know Who Your Ideal Client Is? (Or Should Be?)

What is the key to client attraction?

Regardless of past success, client attraction remains an important element of your business, leading to increased referrals and long-term growth – as well as a steady revenue stream.

Attracting new clients requires two basic steps: creating or enhancing your brand; identifying and appealing to your target audience. Being recognized as an expert in your niche, one who can offer solutions is critical to your success. However, it’s just as critical to understanding the needs, wants, and desires of potential clients. In other words, HOW you present yourself is as important as WHAT you have to offer while knowing WHO to target is as important as knowing WHY they will benefit from your services.

First, let’s focus on creating an ideal client profile, shall we?

Identify Your Ideal Client

To become a client attraction magnet for your business, you have to be able to step into your ideal client's head. If you can create a clear profile of who they are and what they need or want, you’ll be able to speak to them in a way that will make them WANT to work with you!

You can repeat this process over and over again when creating new products or services. The result is marketing materials you can use in multiple ways.

To accomplish this, there are several questions you’ll need to answer:

• Who is your Ideal Client?

• What are their Pain Points?

• What are your Solutions?

• What do they need to Know/Learn/Do to find a Resolution?

• What is their Ultimate Why for Seeking your Help?

• What is their Ultimate Outcome?

• What will Success Look Like?

Ultimately, your goal is to answer the most basic question of all for them, “What’s in it for me?” If they can’t identify a benefit from working with you or from buying your product, they won’t.

When you’ve completed your Ideal Client Profile, develop one simple sentence to put it all together, what’s often called an “elevator statement”. When you’ve finished, you’ll discover a stunning type of clarity around who you want to work with and what you can do for them! Your elevator statement can then be used in multiple ways: in conversation with a potential client, in networking situations, as material for your home page – and as inspiration for blog posts, articles, newsletters, and list-building materials.

If you have more than one ideal client, work your way through this process again to create a new profile. It’s just that easy, and that hard.

Once you’ve created your unique, identifiable brand and developed your ideal client profile, you can begin to generate content that enhances your identity and speaks directly to your target audience, enabling you to enhance client attraction to a new level.

With more than 25 years of experience in the trade, Ted can offer you valuable client attraction tips as your business consultant. Simply… Contact TD Fall today.

Your Strategic Marketing Foundation Bears Quite a Load

Everyone says you need a strategic marketing plan, right? In fact, you may feel like you're getting hammered with that little bit of advice (including from us). Then you find out you need a marketing foundation to build it on. That’s not so bad; until you discover the foundation has parts that need to be included.

Wait, wut?

Since when does a foundation have PARTS? It’s like, a simple slab of concrete with a few load-bearing walls. There are no parts to a foundation! Are there? Argh!

Turns out, as long as we don’t take it too literally, there kind of are parts to a foundation. Plus, and more importantly, we have to remember the purpose of a foundation: To distribute the load of the structure – your marketing strategy – over a large bearing area to bring the intensity of loading within the safe bearing capacity.

In other words, as a metaphor, your strategic marketing foundation must be able to bear a pretty heavy load or your marketing plan may collapse. Then where are you?

With a metaphoric roof and four walls crushing your hopes and dreams of success! (Youch!)

Identify the Parts of Your Marketing Strategy

Now that we understand how the foundation of your strategy supports your marketing plan, supporting and keeping it functioning properly, let's take a look at some of the component parts you need to put in place.

All of the preceding begs the question of exactly what that foundation you’ve worked so hard to build will be supporting:

• Identify your ideal client – Who do you want to work with and whom do you think will want to work with you? Have you answered these questions? You need a profile of precisely whom you will be targeting in your marketing plan. Without it, you're going to be all over the place with your messaging.

• Create your unique customer avatar – Success is in the details. An avatar helps you take that profile to the next level and makes the ideal client real to you. Instead of trying to appeal to some kind of vague “them”, the focus of your marketing message will be on individuals with an identity, the real human beings who will benefit from doing business with you.

• Hone and build your individual brand identity – Who are you? What do you have to offer? How do clients relate to you? All of these questions (and more) must be answered as part of establishing yourself as an expert in your niche. That is where brand identity comes from.

• Narrow your target market to engage them more effectively – You simply can't be all things to all people (and you must stop trying). While it might be nice if every person on the planet wanted what you're offering, that is simply not realistic. You need to fully commit to the ideal client profile you’ve created and accept that your client avatar includes your entire audience.

• Build your initial market strategy on these foundational steps – Wow. That looks like a lot of market research and planning, doesn’t it? It sure does. And, once you complete it, you'll have a concise, straightforward approach to basic marketing concepts and the foundation of your strategy. Yay, you!

Truly, nothing that lasts can be built without a solid foundation. Plus, considering the stress and confusion of the past couple of years, overcoming uncertainty and even fear of failure moving forward could be really tough. The solution then is to take bold action that will enhance your online reputation, build brand awareness, and engage with your target audience in ways that lead to conversions!

If you’d like to learn which sorts of strategic marketing foundation and strategies will work in the interior design and luxury furnishings industry, Ted remains available with practical, industry-focused strategic marketing tips. With more than 25 years of experience, he could be an invaluable resource on whom you might rely to grow your business.

For business consulting to the trade… Contact TD Fall today.

Strategic Marketing Tips – Some proven things you can do for yourself

In a recent article from the online marketing gurus at HubSpot, they shared their 20 Best Marketing Tips. When it comes to strategic marketing tips, we tend to offer our thoughts based on industry-specific needs. The data and expert opinions shared in their blog however are focused on a broader, longer-term view of online marketing success.

Both approaches are valid, so long as one applies the tips to their specific marketing strategy and industry.

Now, because we are us, we’ve decided not to share all 20 tips but have chosen our favorites instead. FYI… We may also pick a few of our least favorite tips to share. Why? Well, again, we’re us! (Opinionated, much?)

What is an Inbound Marketing Strategy?

Outbound marketing is all about promoting your products and services to a targeted, or broad-based, audience. Your website, blog, email subscription list, and social media platforms are all examples of an outbound marketing strategy.

“Inbound marketing, on the other hand, “centers around meeting consumers on the channels they’re already on. Employing the strategy follows the ‘attract, delight, engage’ model, helping you create content tailored to your different audience segments at their respective place in the buyer's journey. 80% of marketers plan to keep the same or increase their inbound marketing budget, and 11% of marketers say it will be their biggest investment in the next year.”

This approach requires that you do a little more research to find out where your targeted audience hangs out, whether online or at your local Starbucks, and tailor your marketing message specifically to them. In other words, if you love Twitter but they’re all hangin’ on Facebook, well… Time to de-Tweet yourself.

Brief Videos Generate More Interest

There is no denying the power of video marketing. The question though is, what form should your videos take?

“Short-form video is the second most effective media format … Marketers also say that it’s a worthwhile investment for lead generation (86%). This trend shift aligns with the attention spans of audiences that are much more fast-paced, so shorter forms of content get right to the point and allow audiences to consume and then move on. Hence, TikTok’s popularity, as it relies heavily on short-form video.”

Stated simply, consumers tend to have the attention span of a hamster, so… Give ‘em what they want: brief answers to frequently asked questions and explanations of who you are and what you can do for them.

Audio Can Be as Powerful as Video

We believe the increase in audio consumption such as podcasts by consumers may have less to do with a short attention span than it does with the trend toward multi-tasking. Again, this is a way to meet your audience where they are. That is, many folks are reading, typing, scrolling, or even chatting while also listening to something online. It’s tough to watch a video AND multi-task so they use their ears instead of their eyes.

“Whether it be a podcast featuring your business founders, or different Twitter Spaces discussions about business-related topics, consumers in 2022 will hear audio from businesses more than they ever have before. HubSpot found that 80% of marketers plan to invest the same amount or increase their budget in audio content and podcasts in 2022.”

This is a perfect strategy for the shy online marketer, the person who hates seeing themselves in videos, and so, refuses to use them despite their power as a marketing tool. (See, we gotcha’ here.)

Respect Your Audience

The “information age” in which we find ourselves has informed not only business owners and marketers; it’s done the same for consumers. (Well, a good portion of them anyway.

“David Ogilvy is famously quoted as saying: ‘The consumer isn’t a moron; she is your wife’ … Ogilvy built his advertising empire upon deeply understanding his target audiences. Although his comment may be dated, the core principle holds -- your customers are smarter than you think. It will only serve you to do extensive market research under the assumption that your customers are doing their research, too.”

To presume your clients and prospects are completely ignorant of the interior design process or the value of luxury furnishings is to disrespect them – and lose them as a client. And yet, with the pace of change we’re seeing in various technologies, along with innovations in materials and manufacturing processes, you must also realize that consumers often “don’t know what they don’t know.”

Our Least Favorite Marketing Tip

While we absolutely agree with the HubSpot experts that, “Now, more than ever, consumers lean on trust as a leading factor when deciding whether to do business with a company.”

Where we disagree with them is their suggested approach to building trust. The appeal of  “brands that champion social responsibility and take a stand on important issues” is, in our opinion, limited. It can also be downright dangerous.

What do we mean by this? The phrase “social responsibility” has become greatly politicized over the past decade, to the point that it has lost all semblance of ethical value to some half of the country’s population. Because of this, business owners should take care not to be seen as pandering and/or “virtue signaling” to an audience who may resent it.

Just our two cents. (Or, did we overpay?)

Where to Learn What Works

Remember, there’s plenty more where these ideas came from at HubSpot.com.

But, if you’d like to know what actually works in the interior design and luxury furnishings industry, Ted remains available with practical, industry-focused strategic marketing tips. With more than 25 years of experience, he could be an invaluable resource on whom you might rely to grow your business.

To learn more about the lines we represent or for business consulting to the trade… Contact TD Fall today.

Designer Business Tip – Check Out Homeowner Design Tips

While this blog is focused on the interior design and luxury furnishings industry, we believe it’s important to occasionally take a look at what the so-called “experts” are telling consumers. After all, they are the end-user and ultimate target market for most of you so it behooves you to have a sense of the influences that shape your thinking.

Plus, can’t hurt, right?

Good Housekeeping Interior Design Tips

For example, as recently as the end of last year, GoodHousekeeping.com was promoting cool grays and monochromatic colors in their featured living room design suggestions. In addition, they were promoting multi-use spaces, versatility, flow, and comfort. (Among quite a few others.)

Certainly not the most innovative of ideas yet, as an influencer since well before the term was invented (they’ve been around for nearly a century-and-a-half), GH continues to be a trusted source for American homeowners. Designers who ignore them do so at their peril.

HGTV Living Room Design Tips

A relative newcomer to the scene, at least compared to Good Housekeeping, HGTV has moved smoothly from television to online influencer. Their website, HGTV.com also tends to be at the top of the Google search results for homeowner design tips. And, not long ago, they too were enamored with contemporary looks and shades of gray.

Beyond these basics, they presented everything from Art Deco settings to rustic, southwest, or coastal feels for living rooms. Whether eclectic or traditional, however, a few things were consistent: comfort, high quality, outdoor exposure, and lighting to fit the mood of every room.

House Beautiful Design & Decorating Tips

More recently, the folks at HouseBeautiful.com jumped on the bandwagon with some decidedly trendy (if not downright “out there”) design and decorating ideas for homeowners. Perhaps the most insightful of their suggestions though is the use of texture, whether furniture, rugs, or wallcoverings to “transform a generic space” and turn it into something special. (No arguments here!)

They do not ignore the power of paint when it comes to changing a space, be it on walls or ceilings (which so many homeowners ignore). They also strongly suggest the use of colors the homeowner likes, while taking a few chances on something new here and there. Lighting is important to them, as is simplicity and adding one’s identity to the space.

Versatility and function have become hugely important for homeowners in our post-pandemic world. As have comfort and a sense of “being home.” These qualities are all reflected in the various homeowner design tips we found in our online search. Ultimately, the best designer business tip we can offer is to pay attention to what consumers are being told they should do.

If you're struggling to keep up with all of these sources, or just feel like you could use some guidance from an industry veteran, Ted brings more than 25 years of experience to business consulting for the trade. To learn more… Get in touch with TD Fall today.