Interior Design Schools Get an "F" on Business Education
Interior design schools are flunking when it comes to teaching business skills.
One Magic Christmas divx There’s a crisis in the classrooms at America’s nearly 150 accredited interior design schools.
Dirty Sanchez: The Movie hd Those schools are doing a crummy job of teaching the business side of the business.
They don’t provide adequate career training. Many students graduate unfit and unprepared to succeed because they lack basic sales and marketing skills.
The result? Many flounder and fail financially.
The problem isn’t so much what the schools teach. It’s what they don’t teach.
They don’t offer courses — or, at least, enough courses — on business management, fees, contracts, customer service, communication skills, accounting, and strategic planning.
Their graduates join firms, or start their own, with little idea how to price their services, market themselves, manage their time, close sales, overcome price objections — and the list goes on.
That’s not to say the schools don’t offer an ample curriculum.
Catalogues are filled with courses on topics ranging from faux finishing to furniture, from textiles to technical drawing, from color to codes, from hospitality design to historic preservation.
But just try to find courses on how to sell those skills and services and products. Good luck locating programs on the business of design.
Bottom line: many design schools hinder rather than help their students when it comes to career development.
They dump their graduates into a highly competitive marketplace that requires the kind of sales and marketing insights they didn’t learn in the classroom.
It’s time for administrators at those schools to get down to the business of teaching business.
For design schools to be relevant, they have to get real.
Fred as you may remember as I spoken to you several times. I give a lecture open to Professioansl and students on Just this subject. I’ve been doing it for over 20 years. The Seminar is called “Are you in the design Business or the Business of design.” Designers and design students have amental block an duse it as a cruch by commenting I’m creative i don’t need to undertans business . Guess whatA very creative designer can loose out in the profitablilty department and a just good designer who knows how to run a business can be extremely profitable. Clients want talent but they want a well run project as well. .the Mantra is IT”S A BUSINESS”and profit is not a dirty word it’s the essence of a business You need to factor in this profit in your overhead budgetingt. Eraniing a living is not having a succesful Business. To do this you need to understan marketing customer service read abalance sheet on & on & on all thehtings you mention in your opening statement.
Comment by Michael Love — June 16, 2007 @ 6:34 pm
Of course design schools are not teaching vital business skills to students; either are business schools! It’s called the school of life, isn’t it? And no one can really learn it in school, unfortunately. There’s no substitute for experience in the real world. It is also true from my experience (having done a university fine arts degree and lots of design training) that art and design schools have a long way to go to go to include adequate instruction in practical business principles in their curricula. Even teaching proper business correspondence and resume writing would be a good start!
Comment by Wisnoski — June 16, 2007 @ 8:47 pm