You can’t earn the right income from the wrong clients.

Are you’re working with clients who can’t afford you?

In challenging economic times, too many interior design professionals say “yes” when they should say “no.”

They accept small jobs with high maintenance customers more interested in bargain basement prices than fine design.

If you’re stuck with these bottom feeders, you’re fishing in the wrong waters. When you mix with the minnows, you miss the big fish.

Working with the wrong customers is a formula for failure, if ever there was one.

How do you know if you’re keeping the wrong company? That’s easy.

Ask yourself if your current clients can afford to pay the kind of money you need to make to meet your 2010 financial goals.

If not, you’re lookin’ for love in all the wrong places.

You’re better off eying eagles than tracking turkeys.

Promoting yourself to higher caliber clients is way smarter than serving smaller ones who are more trouble than they’re worth.

The idea is to find prospects who value your services, and can and will pay any price for them.

How do you bond with these higher caliber prospects?

Some suggestions, from the new Digital Audio Success Series:

+ Revise your marketing materials so that you look the part of a design firm serving the heavy hitters

+ Add a page to your website devoted exclusively to them

+ Submit articles to print and on-line outlets that high caliber prospects read

+ Network with, and speak to groups they belong to

+ Align with allied professionals already serving the high end market

Fred Berns is a sales and marketing coach for interior design professionals worldwide.

The windows may be the best way these days to gain entry into the homes and offices of high end prospects.

One of  the easiest ways to introduce yourself to a classier clientele is to discuss their window treatments.

That’s because so many prospects nowadays  are so focused on reducing their energy bills. Good  window treatments can help them meet that need — and qualify customers for federal tax credits.

Take the Hunter Douglas Duette Architella collection, for example. Architella shades can save up to 50% of the energy lost through the window, and customers may qualify for a $1500 federal tax credit.

Granted, window treatments may be a very small part of your product mix, particularly if you present yourself as a “full service” design professional.

But many leading design professionals have been successful using window coverings to whet the appetite of  promising prospects, and then selling them the main course: the full service project.

Fred Berns is the world’s leading business coach and trainer for interior design professionals.

I heard a shocking statistic yesterday: 46% of architecture firms have cut staff in the last year.

If you’ve been one of the victims of those job cuts, consider this: your circumstances may have changed, but the main person you report to hasn’t.

You are, and always have been, your own boss.

Lose your  “employee” mindset, if you haven’t already.  No matter who signs your pay checks, you and only you control your destiny.

I’m reminded of a conversation I had a while back with a Canadian marketing manager for HOK, the global architecture firm.

“Nowadays, selling yourself is a survival tactic,” he told me. “This is a very nomadic industry, where firms grow and disband quickly. You can’t rely on a firm to manage your career for you.”

If it’s taken a layoff to make your realize that, consider that the cost of learning a valuable lesson.

Think of yourself as the CEO of your own personal corporation.

In addition to overseeing the finances and marketing tasks for that corporation, you must serve as its sales director.  In your role as CEO, you need to be prepared to make the personal sale wherever and whenever you can.

Some Personal Sale guidelines included  in my book:  Sell Yourself! 501 Ways to Get Them to Buy from You:

Create a killer commercial.
Develop a 100 word message that presents you as a unique, one-of-a-kind design professional. Include your “only.” (e.g., “I’m the only architect in this area who….”)

Document your deeds.
Maintain a written record of key accomplishments, sales, and career milestones. This “paper trail” will help you substantiate your success.

Establish your expertise.
Become – and promote yourself as — the information source in your specialty area. Talk about what you know, learn what you don’t. Share your insights in articles and seminars.

Maximize your marketing materials.
Develop a “Sell Yourself” portfolio that includes a personal promotion photo, a bio sheet, articles by and about you, lists of your services and clients, testimonial letters, and more.

Present yourself with polish.
Take a class to polish your presentation skills. Master eye contact and body language. How you deliver your message is as important as the message itself.

Communicate with confidence.
Be positive in the words you choose to use, and accentuate the positive about yourself and your services. Avoid such credibility killing phrases as: “It’s only my opinion…”

Fred Berns provides personal coaching for architects and other interior design professionals around the world.

Using the right words  to promote yourself is critical. But avoiding the wrong words is, too.

This came to mind recently when a flyer showed up on my doorstep from a local window fashion professional.

“Our window treatments qualify for the energy tax credit of up to $1500!!!,” the headline read.

So far, so good.

But the section at the bottom of the flyer raised doubts in my mind about this local professional.

“I’m NOT the pushy ‘buy now or else’ salesman,” he pointed out, adding that he avoids “arm-twisting or gimmicky sales tactics.”

Until he used those words, I hadn’t even thought of those annoying selling tactics. After he did, I did.

It was another example of  design professionals using phrases that weaken the impact of their words.

I discuss “credibility killers” in my book entitled Sell Yourself! 501 Ways to Get Them to Buy from YOU. fredberns.com/Products_SellYourself.html

Here’s a partial list of credibility-killing phrases that I’ve heard design professionals use:

+ “ It’s only my opinion…”

+ “I may be wrong, but….”

+ “You might want to think about this…”

+ “This may not be true, but…”

+ “You may not believe this…”

+ “Take this for what it’s worth….”

+ “To be honest with you…”

Fred Berns is a business coach for interior design professionals and design industry partners worldwide.

You and Marlene Oliphant have something in common: photos on your website.

The difference is, her photos have captions. Chances are, yours don’t.

Marlene, a Glendale, CA. designer who is a coaching client of mine, has an explanation for every one of her photos at www.marleneoliphant.com.

There’s the caption for the “country French kitchen with red, toffee and cream cabinet finishes, copper sinks and hood and a bleached wood floor.”

And there’s one for the mountain home master bath featuring a “heated slate floor and a two-person shower. The window seat conceals a warming drawer for heating towels.”

And check out the photo of the dining space. The caption explains that the “ultrasuede dining chairs clean up easily from wine spills, and the Italian glass table has extendable leaves.”

Because of their captions, Marlene’s pictures have something which most interior design website photos don’t have: meaning.

If you don’t include captions, I gotta problem with the photos on your website.

The photos may be pretty, but they don’t seem to serve a purpose. They’re a waste of my time and your money.

That’s because you don’t explain what you’re showing me — and why.  What’s your point? What do these pictures prove? Why should I care?

Your website photos will have greater impact if you give me guidance. A little caption can say a lot.

Fred Berns is an interior design industry  sales and marketing coach and trainer.

The median income for U.S. interior designers with at least eight years experience is only $72,120.

For those with 4-6 years experience, it’s $50,501. For those with an experience level of 2-4 years: $43,374.

My source for those numbers: a report released by Salary.com.

My word for those numbers: “disappointing.”

Disappointing because design professionals work way too hard to earn that little.

Disappointing because they know so much about so much — from classic to contemporary — and don’t get adequately compensated for it.

Disappointing because they’re three times as skilled as professionals in other fields who earn six times more money.

The income numbers should give you a clear message: it’s time to quit.

Quit giving away your time and expertise. And negotiating your fees. And working with clients who can’t afford you.

Quit wasting your time on non-income producing activities. And taking on projects that are more trouble than their worth.

Quit thinking small.

Fred Berns coaches interior design professionals worldwide on how to increase their income, and promote themselves more effectively.

Forget, for a moment, what your income is. Focus, instead, on what it can be.

Your income this year can be substantially higher.

And it WILL be if you follow the steps in my new FREE report entitled: “10 for ’10: The Ten VERY BEST Ways to Turbocharge Your Design Business in 2010.”

This report, based on my recent sold-out tele-seminar, explains how to achieve much bigger profits, land much bigger contracts and connect with much better clients.

Download this FREE report, and you’ll learn ten strategies that can immediately turn your business around, and dramatically increase your sales and profits.

Some are sales strategies. Some are marketing strategies. Some are time management strategies.

All are shortcuts to greater success in your design business and career than you’ve known before.

This report will help you take charge of your interior design business and career, and make this your best year.

For more information and download details about the FREE “10 for ‘10” Report, click here: http://www.fredberns.com/10for10/

Fred Berns is the world’s leading business coach for interior design professionals.

When you work with large commercial clients, multiple contacts are as key as meaningful ones.

For years you work with a big client– a firm responsible, say, for hospitals, or banks or shopping malls. The design projects and the orders and the money keep pouring in. You couldn’t be happier.

One day, your key contact — the person who brought you in – - quits. The company never hires you again.

Whose fault is that?

It’s great to have a key contact at a corporate client. But that’s not enough.

A key contact can get reassigned.

Or get fired.

Or retire.

Or die.

If you haven’t connected with others at the firm, then see ya later.

You’re gone, too.

Your future with a corporate client depends on how many people in the company you know — and how many know you.

In this era of downsizing, outsourcing, turnover and change, it pays to “go deep” within the company.

Some tips on how to to do that:

Seek contacts from your contact – Ask the person who brought you in for names of others you should know.

Aim high — Request that all of the senior managers and vice presidents attend initial brainstorming sessions.

Gab with the Gatekeepers — Network with office managers, secretaries, executive assistants and others in tune with daily operations.

Bond with the Brass — Seek onging input throughout the project from top decisionmakers .

Play Pool – Set up your “next shot” by discussing additional projects and other services you can provide.

You can never know too many people within the company.

Fred Berns, a trainer and coach, is among the biggest names in the business of interior design.

Asking more questions ges your more business. Just ask a physician.

The most financially successful doctors do the best job of finding their clients’ pain, and prescribing remedies.

Make this the year that you play doctor.

Make this the year that you spend more time identifying your clients’ needs, problems and pains when in it comes to design, and then offering solutions.

Some examples of “pain questions:”

+ What’s your biggest challenge when it comes to updating your corporate offices?

+ What’s your biggest concern when it comes to remodeling your vacation home?

+ What’s your major fear about tearing out all of that carpeting in the lobby?

+ What would it cost you if you don’t install more energy-efficient window treatments?

+ What do you see as the biggest problem in the design of the employee break room?

Questions like those will convince prospects that you care, and will get their focus off your fee.

Fact is, most prospects are more interested in coming up with solutions to their design challenges than they are in paying the very lowest price for a designer.

Fred Berns is a business coach and trainer for interior design professionals worldwide.

If bigger sales and higher profits are on your mind, Baltimore is the place to be on Feb. 13-14.

Baltimore is the site of the  Exciting Windows! annual conference, for which registration is free.

The two day event will offer programs on topics ranging from building your sales to internet marketing, and will feature such industry experts as Grace McNamara, the publisher of Visions magazine.

Exciting Windows! is a franchise organization which bills itself as “America’s only nationally advertised full service” company whose professionals “come to your home with all window products – blinds, draperies, shadings, and shutters.”

Franchise owners will be on had at the conference to share their success stories.

Speakers will discuss how to target customers who have money and want to buy NOW, and such internet marketing ideas as interactive websites, email campaigns, social networking and search engine optimization.

When you register for free, you get your choice of two online classes, valued at $300, at Window Coverings University.

For information and free registration details for the Exciting Windows! annual conference, contact Steve Bursten at steveb@excitingwindows.com.

Fred Berns is a sales and marketing coach for window fashion specialists and other interior design professionals worldwide.