With Labor Day around the corner, what better time to consider laboring less and making more?

If you’re working too hard, you’re not working smart.

So many interior design professionals these days have an “around the clock” working schedule.

They’re the ones whose  “workday” never ends. They’re still going at it late into the night — and into the weekend.

How can you find time for family, friends and fun when you spend all your time working?

There’s no reason why design professionals should have to put in those kind of hours.

I know lots of designers, decorators, window fashion pros, kitchen and bath specialists, retailers and others who earn big, big money working normal hours.

Or less.

You can, too, if you manage your time more effectively.

That means focusing on the 3-5 tasks each day that are most likely to increase your profits. It means determining which of your design services will generate the most income in the least amount of time.

And it means reaching out to those clients who can most easily afford those services.

Working too hard for too little?

That, according to the Work Less, Earn More audio program,  could mean you…

Waste your time. You’re “busy,” but you’re not profitable.

Give away your time.You don’t bill for all of your time, all of the time.

Charge too little. You don’t attach enough value to what you do.

Look for love in all the wrong places. You work with clients who can’t afford to pay what you need to earn.

Don’t know your business. You’re unaware of what brings in the most money.

Don’t control your business. You’re more apt to play “Let’s Make a Deal” than say: “This is how I charge.”

Don’t delegate. You don’t call on others to do what’s too menial — or too difficult — for you.

Don’t “maximize” appointments. You’re sacrificing income by not asking enough upselling questions.

Fred Berns offers sales and marketing coaching services and products to interior design professionals.

As in, “What’s in it for Me?”

Follow-up emails to those prospects must immediately spell out the benefits they’ll get from hiring you.

You’re wasting their time — and yours — when you open your email by saying what a “pleasure” it was to meet them.

Even worse is when you open by thanking them “for taking time out of your busy schedule” to meet with you. That’s sounds  apologetic and subservient.

You’re much better off reminding them in the opening sentence that your firm can handle all of their remodeling needs.

Or that you can install within a week the motorized window treatments they’re considering.

Or that you can save them time and money by providing them with a floor plan for all of their corporate offices.

Spell out the benefits, and describe a new action you’ve taken since your meeting — such as pricing the carpeting they inquired about.

That will motivate those prospects to want to meet with you again.

Fred Berns is a sales and marketing trainer for interior design professionals and design industry partners worldwide.

The solution: raise the price issue before they do.

Conventional wisdom is that talking about your fees too soon will force a prospective customer to rule you out before you fully explain your services.

But, if you question their ability to pay, that can be a good thing. It can save you time now – and save them sticker shock later.

Determining the budget for your prospects can be difficult. If you can’t qualify them, try disqualifying them.

Begin by saying: “Let me tell you what I can’t offer you. I can’t offer you the lowest price for… (this floor plan, these wall coverings, etc.) If they balk, “disqualify” them. Politely explain that there’s no point continuing the conversation.

If they can’t afford your price, you can’t afford the time.

If they don’t protest, inform them what you can offer them.

Like the benefits of your 20 years experience working with, and solving problems for hospitality firms. Or the kind of personalized, customized service that’s unavailable from cheaper competitors.

 Or expertise about window treatments that are safe for children – and will increase their home’s resale value. Or access to a full array of highly-skilled subcontractors.

Disqualifying enables you to rule out those prospects seeking the lowest price for design services and products.

And it helps you connect with those who can afford to pay the kind of prices, fees and margins you need to make to reach your financial goals.

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

Maybe so. I’ve published this article before.

I’m re-running it because so many design professionals continue to struggle in this uncertain economy with getting their foot in the door of higher caliber clients.

This article, based on information in the the Audio Success Series , is well worth re-reading.

If the right clients aren’t coming to your table, you need to serve them appetizers first.

In tight times, convincing new prospects to agree to major projects is challenging. That’s where the appetizers come in.

“Whet the appetites” of wary prospects with introductory programs that can lead to major — and multiple — projects. Introductory programs like:

+ Buy the Hour Consultations, in which individuals seeking “only advice” can get yours — for an hourly fee.

+ 45-Minute Makeovers, where you provide a quick “capsule” of their design and remodeling needs.

+ Room Reviews, in which you focus all of your attention on a single room.

+ Interior Design Energy Audits, where you supply a checklist of energy saving tips for everything from window treatments to lighting systems.

Each of these “get to know you” programs is an easy first step to take for even the most skeptical prospect.

Once you get your foot in the door, you can upsell, cross-sell and ask questions that can lead to long term, and lucrative relationships.

Fred Berns is a business coach for interior design professionals around the world.

It’s a time of transition in the business of interior design, and there are a whole lotta changes going on.

Your prospects are changing. The Web has made them wiser.

Never has it been easier for them to buy elsewhere the design services and products you sell. All those choices have made them choosier.

Your clients are changing. The uncertain economy has made them more demanding, and more inclined to put off until tomorrow the projects they used to order today.

Your marketplace is changing. High end clients are becoming younger and hipper, much more attuned to texts and tweets than showhouses and shelter magazine ads.

The market, once exclusively local, is going global.

E-commerce and virtual tours enable you to make money while you sleep. “Wow!” websites now have more impact than polished portfolios.

Your profit centers are changing. Even tight-fisted prospects are paying a high price for advice.

Interior consultation is becoming as — and maybe more — profitable than interior design.

Technology is changing.

Take home and office automation.

Are you benefiting from, or merely bewildered by the trends: from security to sound systems, monitoring to motorization, HVAC to health care, lighting to locking, remotes to robotics, video gaming to video conferencing, pet feeding to plant watering?

Tuning into Trends

Challenged by change?

Some ways to become adept at adapting:

+ Differentiate Yourself. You’re an original. Promote yourself accordingly

+ Sell “Now” as Well as “Wow.” Say: “This is the best time to invest in my design services because….”

+ Serve Appetizers. Get your foot in their door by offering a “Room Review” or other introductory program

+ To Improvise, Advise. Offer “buy the hour” consultations, then turn those contacts into contracts.

+ Talk Tech. There’s big money to be made in selling newer, bigger, and better toys.

+ Digitalize Your Design. Go global by offering downloadable floor plans, tipsheets, special reports, etc.

Fred Berns is the world’s foremost business coach for interior design professionals and design industry partners.

Time was when your reputation, alone, could assure your future prosperity.

Times have changed.

Welcome to the dawning of a new day: a day with more gifted, extensively educated, widely acclaimed, multi talented, highly qualified, award winning design professionals than ever before.

With that kind of competition, it takes more than your skills to meet your financial and other goals. It takes Big Thinking.

Big Thinking, as in, pursuing higher end clients. Bidding on bigger and better jobs. Proposing larger scale deals.

Big Thinking, as in seeking more referrals. Reaching out to more prospects. Marketing yourself in more high profile publications.

Big Thinking, as in networking with and speaking to more prestigious groups. Aligning yourself with more established allied professionals.

And, Big Thinking, as in setting higher fees.

That kind of big thinking will be your competitive advantage.

90% of design professionals — even those gifted, extensively educated, widely acclaimed, multi talented, highly qualified, award winning ones — think small. Outrageously so.

They’re so focused on day-to-day details that they don’t get the big picture. They aim way too low.

Reach higher, and think bigger, and you’ll reap far greater rewards.
Fred Berns is a business trainer and coach for interior design professionals worldwide.

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.

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.

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.

Can you handle another year of declining sales and disappointing revenue, of smaller and fewer projects, of working more for less?

Even if you can, do you want to?

If not, tune into a Jan. 26 tele-seminar entitled:
“10 for ’10: The Ten VERY BEST Ways to Turbocharge Your Design Business in 2010.”

Register for The “10 for ’10” Tele-seminar, and you’ll learn ten strategies that can immediately turn your business around, and dramatically increase your sales and profits.

You’ll discover something you can do to get longer term and more lucrative projects.

And something you can say to close twice as many sales, and convince clients to buy NOW.

And something you can create that will attract more high caliber prospects.

And something you can offer to turn those contacts into contracts.

And something you can do to instantly get more recognition and respect.

And something you must STOP doing immediately in order to substantially boost your revenue.

For more information and registration details, click here:  http://fredberns.com/teleseminar/

Remember:  The “10 for ’10” Tele-seminar IS OPEN ONLY TO THE FIRST  35 WHO REGISTER.

Fred Berns is a sales and marketing trainer and coach for interior design professionals around the world.

Now that a challenging year is behind us, consider this: What’s it going to take to make 2010 your best year yet?

Good answers to some basic questions.

You don’t need slick advertising or a glitzy new web site or trendy new product lines to make this your “career year.”

You need answers. Answers to questions about goals, what’s working, and what needs to work better with your design business.

Many design professionals never consider the kinds of issues raised below. That’s why they’re so unfocused and unprofitable.
 

What do you want to be when you grow up?

No-Service-Just-Online-Design.com? Home Depot? Under A Buck Blinds? If not, stop trying to act like or compete with them.

Create your own unique message. Target your own market. You make a great you, but a lousy somebody else.
 

Why you?

Competition has never been tougher. It’s never been easier to buy elsewhere the design services and products that you sell.

What do you offer that your competitors — especially the lower priced ones — don’t?  Don’t say “good customer service.” Every other design professional in your area talks about the same thing.
 

Who’s Lovin’ Ya, Baby?

Kojak, the TV cop, raised a key question there. Who are your blue chip clients? How have you built rapport with them? How do you stay in touch with and generate additional business from them?
  

How Do You Find the Fatcats?

Where and when do you get your best clients? What marketing strategies work best for you? What are you MVP (Most Valuable and Productive)promotational activities?

 What’s Makin’ Ya Money?

What are they buying? What’s your most lucrative product or service? How much of your income comes from your design consultations? From product sales? What percentage of your sales comes from residential clients? From commercial clients?
 

Who’s on Your Team?

Who do you turn to for help when the going gets tough, as it did last year? 

Do you have–or can you create–an advisory board with a financial advisor, a lawyer, a business coach? Who are your mentors? Are you aligning yourself with top clients and/or allied professionals?

Fred Berns is a trainer and coach for interior design professionals around the world.

The question: How can I work with better clents?

The answer: Ask your better clients.

Your best customers can and will help you build a higher caliber clientele.

They can introduce you to people they know who appreciate fine design and quality products. And can afford them. And who want to establish a long term relationship with a design professional.

All you have to do is ask.

Your best customers can be your best marketing representatives.

They can give you testimonials and referrals. They can tell you which local organizations to get involved with. And which local publications to submit articles to.

Maybe they can even introduce you to local realtors or builders or facility managers.

All you have to do is ask.

And there’s no better time to ask than now. The holiday season provides a fine opportunity to take your best clients to lunch, and  seek help from, as well as give thanks to your best clients.

What better season to express your appreciation for their business? And, what better setting in which to ask for their suggestions on how to build your business?

+ Four Magic Words

“I need your help.”

Those are the words I advise my coaching clients to use when they take a client to lunch.

What surprises these design professionals is how positive is the response.

They’re amazed how flattered their customers are to be asked, how eager they are to help, how willing they are to make personal introductions, to track down information and assist in any other way they can.

Your best customers know you, and like you and want to help you. Often, they have insights about the high end market that you don’t. They can answer the questions that you can’t.

You best customers can and will open doors for you.

All you have to do is ask. 

Fred Berns is  a sales and marketing trainer and coach for interior design professionals around the world.

They’re interior architects and space planners and specifiers and project managers. But they’re not recipients of priority treatment.

Yet.

You know you’re not a priority when clients cut back on their interior budget. And put projects on hold. And constantly bicker about your price. And wait 90 days, or more to pay you.

Those are the challenges facing many design professionals here in the Middle East, and elsewhere in Asia and Europe.

They’re the same challenges confronting interior designers in the U.S. and Canada.

How to make yourself a priority was a major focus of my seminar here at the conference of the International Federation of Interior Architects and Designers(IFI).

I touched on the same theme a few days later in my presentation at INDEX, the Middle East’s largest interiors trade show.

Getting more respect, recognition and income in this uncertain economy involves attaching more value to yourself and your design services and products.

How?

By explaining how you make your clients money, and save them money and time.

Point out, for example, how you supply office furniture and lighting that will make their employees more productive.

Explain, too, how you provide the expertise and personnel to get projects done more quickly and efficiently.

You make yourself a priority when you identify the “pain” and problems clients have with their interiors – and then propose remedies.

And when you differentiate yourself from competitors, and establish yourself as a uniquely-qualified, one-of-a-kind expert in your field.

And when you share success stories and testimonials from satisfied clients.

Among the speakers at the IFI conference was Ross Lovegrove.

He’s the award-winning industrial designer credited for creating the walkman for Sony, computers for Apple, and other products for companies ranging from Airbus Industries to Motorola.

He told the audience that he travels around the world, and clients gladly pay whatever he charges for his products… “because they’re mine.”

Here’s a guy who believes in himself and, as a result, his clients do, too.

He’s made himself a priority.

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

Madeline Lester thinks not.

Madeline, ex-president of the International Federation of Interior Architects and Designers(IFI), believes that inadequate communication skills is among the biggest challenges facing design professionals today.

“Too many designers can’t articulate the process,” Madeline, an Australian designer with 35 years experience with residential, commercial and retail clients, says. “Then they submit their bill for 50 or 60 hours, and the client doesn’t understand what they’re paying for.

Madeline contends that design professionals must be far more “strategic” in how they present themselves and their projects.

“How we interpret our work is greater than the end product,” she points out. “It’s not enough to show color boards and sample boards. We need to show and explain the process we go through.”

Madeline, who is on the program with me as a speaker at the IFI conference in Dubai Nov. 9-15, also believes that designers in this challenging economy must do a better job of communicating what makes them different and unique.

She notes that one outcome of the “very tough time” facing design firms worldwide is that principals at larger firms are handling more mundane tasks.

“You see senior managers doing the work themselves–working at the drawing boards and computers and managing projects from start to finish,” she says.

IFI (http://www.ifiworld.org)  is an organization representing 70 member groups and 65,000 interior design professionals in 45 countries.

Fred Berns provides business skills training and coaching to design professionals around the world.

That business truth is important to remember next time you’re tempted to cut back on marketing.

Too many interior design professionals have succumbed to that temptation in recent months as a way to curb expenses in an uncertain economy.

Bad idea. REAL bad idea.

Now is no time to reduce your on-line and print presence, or to lessen your exposure to potential customers.

Now is no time to play Hide and Seek: forcing prospects to seek, as you run off and hide.

Prospects won’t hire you unless they know you.
They won’t know you unless they find you.

They won’t find you unless you market yourself.

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Are you serious about building — or rebuilding–your design business in these challenging times?

If so, stop obsessing about saving money, and start focusing on making it.

Promote yourself with pizazz this Fall.

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Use marketing strategies that will help you differentiate yourself, establish your expertise and create credibility within your target market.

Your articles and columns can help you do that. So can live presentations. So can appearances on local TV stations, and a blog or ezine, and a killer website.

Fred Berns is an interior design industry business coach and trainer.

If you’re facing financial challenges this summer, it’s not the economy’s fault.

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зачем штурмуем мы упорно

Nor should you blame your clients.

Or your competitors.

Or the Internet.
Or big box stores.
Or Dolly Decorator.
Or your contractors.
Or the weather.

Everybody’s got challenges. Get over yours.

I’ve heard too many designers, window fashion professionals, kitchen and bath specialists, showroom managers and others at my presentations this year play the Blame Game.

They’ve cited everything from the Recession to bad luck to their vendors and suppliers as reasons for their disappointing sales.

I’m not buying it.

If you’re facing financial challenges, this is no time for a pity party. It’s time for a planning party.

Stop whining. Start winning.

What’s not working?

When you’re in a slump, troubleshooting questions can get you out of it.

Are you not…

+ thinking big enough?
+ working with the right clients?

+ differentiating yourself?
+ managing your time well?
+ charging enough?
+ marketing enough?
+ asking upselling questions?
+ asking for referrals?
+ hiring the right people?

Seek answers to those troubleshooting questions.

List your five major sales and marketing obstacles, and turn to colleagues, coaches, and even clients for advice on how to overcome  them.

Create a recovery plan with timelines and deadlines.

Success happens by choice, not chance. Choose to bounce back, and you will.

Fred Berns is an award-winning trainer and coach in the interior design industry.

“Got a Life?”

That’s the question I pose to design professionals around North America who tell me about their “around the clock” working schedule.

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They’re the ones whose “workday” never ends. They’re still going at it late into the night — and into the weekend.

How can you find time for family, friends and fun when you spend all your time working?

There’s no reason why design professionals should have to put in those kind of hours.

I know lots of designers, decorators, window fashion pros, kitchen and bath specialists, retailers and others who earn big, big money working normal hours.

Or less.

You can, too, if you manage your time more effectively.

That means focusing on the 3-5 tasks each day that are most likely to increase your profits. It means determining which of your design services will generate the most income in the least amount of time.

And it means reaching out to those clients who can most easily afford those services.

Working too hard for too little? That could mean you…

Waste your time. девственность порно You’re “busy,” but you’re not profitable.
 
Give away your time.You don’t bill for all of your time, all of the time.

Charge too little. You don’t attach enough value to what you do.

Look for love in all the wrong places. You work with clients who can’t afford to pay what you need to earn.

Don’t know your business. You’re unaware of what brings in the most money.

Don’t control your business. You’re more apt to play “Let’s Make a Deal” than say: “This is how I charge.”
 
Don’t delegate. You don’t call on others to do what’s too menial — or too difficult — for you.
 
Don’t “maximize” appointments. You’re sacrificing income by not asking enough upselling questions.

Fred Berns is an award-winnning speaker, coach and author in the interior design industry.

Want to finish this challenging year with a flourish? Then make sure you DON’T…

…meet your customers needs. Exceed them. Good service isn’t good enough anymore.

… wait for customers to come to you. Go to them. In-home selling is hot.

…wait for customers to call. Call them. “Smile and dial” at every opportunity.

…assume your job is secure. The client — or design firm — that hires you today can fire you tomorrow.

…freeze your fees. Raise them. You can set and get any price if you differentiate yourself from competitors who charge less.

…give away your time. Bill for consultation, installation, travel time and everything else.

…advertise. Dare to be different: do articles and news releases instead. Free publicity is the best advertising you can’t buy.

…just think locally. Think globally. Use your website, social networking sites and your blog to position yourself in the international market.

…just be a “store.” Be an event center. HGTV- hungry customers want programs on do-it-yourself furnishing projects, what’s hot and what’s not, color trends, etc.

…compete with big box stores. You offer service and expertise. They don’t.

….fear price objections. Embrace them. They’re buying signals.

…fear “no.” It may just mean “not yet.”

…hold on to hardship. Underachieving employees and unprofitable product lines bring you down. Get rid of them.

…work harder. Work smarter. Make better use of your working time, and you’ll have more time for family, friends and fun.

…work for jerks. Your time is too precious. Life is too short.

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

To hear one Atlanta designer tell it, high tech can mean�big hassles.

That’s her conclusion since her 20-something client begin texting instructions and questions about the $1.5 million house she’s designing for him in the city.

Tale of the Tribe release “He texts me 6 a.m. or 8 p.m. or anytime, about anything,”� she laments. “He’ll ask: ‘When are the cabinets coming in’ or ‘What’s with the tile?’ ‘Can you bring the lighting?’”

The client, a real estate investor, expects her to respond by text message. That presents a problem: he’s lightning fast at texting, she’s anything but.

“It takes a lot of time to text my reply,” she admits. “I’m not hip to high tech. I find texting impersonal.”

You may share her view, but guess what?

There’s a whole new generation of clients out there. They’re young and techno-savvy, and you’ve got to play the game by their rules.