Well, hello there you clever interior design professional you. It's so nice to have you back. Welcome to Business of Design podcast episode 211, Sales is Helping with Dave Lorenzo.

I am your host, but most importantly, I am an interior designer just like you. Super busy these days with projects piling up one on the other, probably because nothing appears to be moving as quickly as it used to, which is not saying much because we've never been an industry that's been able to move very quickly to begin with. I am definitely having to learn to be flexible about timelines and I'm very grateful most of my clients are also pretty comfortable being flexible with timelines these days.

I'm not sure what's going to happen when this pandemic is over and life goes back to whatever normal looks like. Will we be able to return to the faster pace of life? And has this been a slower pace for you? No. Wow.

I remember when all this went down, I immediately went to, oh my gosh, it's going to be a horrible recession and we're all going to die. But that isn't what happened. Thank goodness.

The majority of us are riding out this pandemic while working. I know that isn't true for everyone. It's certainly not true for people in other industries, restaurants, theaters, entertainment, that kind of stuff.

But just this once we appear to be on the right side of what's needed at this moment. Thank goodness. And something that is timely for me has to do with marketing.

I have done a very poor job of marketing myself throughout my career. Now, I have been stupid lucky to land my own TV shows and get so many amazing opportunities. And I'm a very hard worker, but I have not made a concerted effort to market my services.

And only now, because I've decided to niche and really focus on one particular type of client, am I having to think about, is my messaging accurate? Is my marketing accurate? And so I appreciated the conversation today with Dave Lorenzo. And Dave said something that pretty much sums up my career. If you're not out there promoting yourself, you will be the best designer that no one's ever heard of.

Now, I'm definitely not the best designer, but if it wasn't for the fact I had so many media opportunities, I don't know that I would have any clients at all, probably. Well, maybe I would have by now, I guess. Most of my clients today are repeat and referral and have nothing to do with TV.

So maybe somehow it would have gotten there anyway. But I do think it's important to be more intentional, to be more mindful of the decisions and choices you make as you go out into the world and think about, hey, it's time for me to get a new client. Dave has great advice in this episode, and spoiler alert, once again, it's all about getting narrow.

Really target those collaborators and resources who can refer you to your ideal client. Focus, focus, focus. Dave said most people, and that means you and I, underestimate the value we provide others.

We judge ourselves in comparison to our peers, and we are harsh critics. He also said it's very likely that those of us who are not high earners probably have a mindset point that keeps us stuck, and that's our focus at Business of Design, getting everybody unstuck in 2021. Dave has some powerful suggestions about how to push ourselves when it comes to marketing, but he circles back to the fact that mindset is everything, everything.

And why, oh why, are we hardwired to think about the last project and focus on what went wrong rather than think about the 28 things that went so well? Hmm. Let me tell you about Dave Lorenzo. He is a sales expert, a business strategy consultant, and an author who has built five successful businesses during the past 25 years.

Dave focuses on helping company executives develop high-impact growth strategy that increases revenue, deepens relationships, and builds lifelong client loyalty. You can find Dave at DaveLorenzo.com, and at the end of the show he's going to tell you how you can download a free book that he has just for Business of Design and some more information about what he does. In the meantime, I'm going to say hello to someone who does a whole lot at Business of Design.

And by the way, thank you so much for being here. Hey Cheryl, how are you? I'm good, how are you doing? Uh, don't ask. That good, huh? Yeah, I just, wow, you know, suddenly it felt like I had all this time to get so many projects ready and now they're all due and I'm not ready.

So anyway, that's enough about me. Tell me what's happening at Business of Design. Uh, well, we've got a couple of events coming up, uh, this month.

So next week on March 10th is our next BOD Live and we're doing our first book club. Yeah, so that's exciting. So we're going to be talking about e-myth.

So most people have heard you talk about e-myth. It was, you know, referenced in your first book and you credit it all the time as sort of the foundation what got you started, uh, on the road with Business of Design. It really did.

And I know you told us last time that the current book that's available is called e-myth revisited. You do not have to purchase the book in order to participate in the BOD Live. Just come and learn.

Uh, but if you've read it or if you have insights and you want to share with the group, that's what it's for. And I'm, for one, I'm looking forward to being reminded of how powerful this book is. Yeah.

And then also coming up on March 24th, we have two webinars. It'll be the same webinar, but we're offering it twice on BOD BOSS. We've been getting amazing applications.

You know, we've got our first few group members and everything, but we've also been getting a lot of questions. So, um, a lot of people obviously want those questions answered before they apply. So we are going to cover that.

So we've got two different sessions on everything you want to know about joining BOD BOSS. And again, that's going to be on March 24th at 1 p.m. EST and 9 p.m. EST. Registration is open.

You do need to register to attend. I have news for you. What's happening? We have been searching for a BOD finance boss.

This is going to be the financial expert who will meet with BOSS groups twice a year. This person is going to review profit and loss statements. He's going to recommend places where perhaps you're leaving money on the table.

He's going to help you tweak and push your profit margins higher. And I can't believe it. I actually got my dream candidate.

You know, we were talking to several people, Cheryl, you know who it is. He said yes. And we signed the deal this weekend.

So I, for one, am so excited about what's ahead for these BOD BOSS groups. That's amazing. You make me so nervous when you have a surprise, but this is a really good one.

Because usually it's like I have this idea for a business. Yeah. Oh, wow.

That's amazing. That's been one of the biggest items on our list for these BOD BOSS groups. I know you're really comfortable talking about the numbers and looking at your profit and loss and everything.

But when you do that for your own business, obviously you're sitting down with a professional to look at all of that information. So we certainly wanted to provide our BOD BOSS groups with that same resource. Yes.

Because I just find there aren't enough professionals in our line of work, in our industry who are thinking about real profitability, who are putting away money for retirement. You should be earning enough that that's a fairly easy task to do, right? Many of you know we are switching our focus from just talking about fees at Business of Design, which was so critically important in 2004. But now we're really talking about salary, profit, and wealth.

And that's what the BOD Finance BOSS is going to focus on. And I, for one, can't wait to be under his capable care and insights. Yeah.

So again, if you are interested in BOD BOSS and want to find out more, please join us on March 24th. All of the details are on the website. But before I let you go, I wanted to share a testimonial with you from one of our brand new members, Heidi Helm.

And I feel like this is going to be a name we're really going to get to know within our membership. She's pretty active in there already. So it's a long testimonial, but I just wanted to highlight this one point.

So she said, Oh, that's so lovely. Heidi, I can't wait to meet you. Thank you so much.

It means a lot to all of us. It really does. So I actually wanted to also ask you a question on her behalf.

I saw she posted to the BOD Facebook group. So again, she's a new member and she's already diving right in. So on her very first, even though she's just making her way through the 15 steps now, you know, first time she answers the phone for a new client, she's talking about her 15 steps and presenting it as though this is already part of her business.

So, you know, our member community, she's already getting advice from other members, but I thought we would share some advice from you as well for our brand new members when they are just starting to implement. How do you pick up the phone and talk to new clients and present these systems as though they're part of your business? Do you share that this is the first time you're doing it or that you are just introducing new systems? How would you handle that? Good question. I don't think we have any obligation to share with clients that it's our first time trying anything, and I don't think that serves the client, right? It's going to make the client feel uncomfortable and nervous.

I love the expression, act as if. When I have fear, when I have doubt, if I act as if I'm confident, if I act as if I'm sure, if I act as if I'm already using that BOD 15 step project management strategy, I will portray myself as a more confident business person. So, absolutely, the moment you decide you're going to transform your business, be that transformation with every single phone call, and that's such a good thing to talk about, perhaps we'll do a subject like that at BOD Live one day.

That sounds great. Well done, Heidi. I know she's jumped right in there, and so have so many of our brand new members, so I wanted to share that one with you.

Well, it's interesting. We are such a community of caring, loving, people-pleasers that often we put ourselves last, and there's this idea that somehow if you say you're behaving in this way, but you're not really 100% there yet, you're being disingenuous, or you're lying, or you're being dishonest to clients. Clients want you to be confident.

They want you to tell them that you are totally in charge, and you can handle everything. That makes them feel good. Well, I think that's a good note to leave on.

So, everyone join us. March 10th for BOD Live, March 24th for BOD Boss. All details are on the website.

Have a great week, Cheryl, as if we're not going to talk 109 times. I'll talk to you soon. Okay, bye.

Welcome to the Business of Design podcast with Kimberly Selden. Business of Design is the world's best business training for interior design professionals like you. We have the systems, strategies, and protocols you need to consistently satisfy clients, increase profitability, and run your projects like a boss.

Unlike traditional coaching, BOD is a fast track to immediate results. Don't try to do this alone. Join today and you'll have access to hundreds of targeted training modules, plus member perks like BOD Live events, member-only podcasts, preferred pricing, and the support of an engaged community of peers.

We all know design matters. At Business of Design, we think designers matter too. Nice to meet you.

Nice to meet you. It's great to meet you too. How is life in Miami these days? Good.

You know, we're keeping to ourselves. Everybody's staying in the house because there's, unlike California where you have an abundance of rules, there's no rules here and some people are just pretending that the virus doesn't exist. Right.

Yeah, we have those people too. I just don't think there's one place in the world that has a monopoly on any one type of person. But anyway, somehow we're going to get through this.

I think by the, you know, before this year is over, we'll be able to. Oh, I think, yeah. I think sooner than that, I think we're going to be in great shape.

Yeah. Good. Okay.

So since the country and the world is going to be in great shape, now let's get interior design professionals in great shape. And Dave, we want to ask you a couple of questions. In particular, would it surprise you to know that as interior design professionals, we have a, we're professionals with a career.

We work full time. Would it surprise you to know that 90% of interior design professionals take home less than $100,000 a year? It doesn't, it doesn't surprise me. No, it doesn't surprise me at all.

Yeah, it's, I, you know, there's, there's a, there's a corollary in a lot of professional services. A lot of a lot of professionals have a hard time breaking that barrier. Yeah.

What other industries fall under that category? Because I'm assuming that, you know, for example, lawyers would not fall under that category. Most. Oh, no, you'd be, you'd be surprised.

So there's there's like 1.6 million lawyers in the United States. A little over 40% of them are, are either in government work or have jobs where they work for somebody else. The other 60% work on the, on their own.

And of that 60%, at least, at least half of them fall into the category you just mentioned. Wow. Okay.

So then we're not unique. Once again, we find out we're not unique at all. Business is business, but there is a certain obligation.

I would say if you're going to work for yourself, if you're going to assume the responsibility and liability and risk that that entails, shouldn't you be busting through that $100,000 profit every year, that salary, shouldn't that be where you start your goal? Uh, I, you know, look, everybody's different and everybody goes into business for their own reasons, but if you're making less than a hundred thousand dollars and you want to make more and you're struggling financially, absolutely. What you said is a hundred percent true. Right.

So, um, you know, the thing I think a lot of professionals don't realize is that selling is helping. And, um, you know, if they offer to help people and people say, yes, they should be compensated. And, you know, selling is nothing more than that.

If they, if they view it that way, sometimes it becomes easier for them to, to go out and develop new, new business relationships. I'm glad you bring that up because there is this mindset that we hear all the time, which is, you know, oh, this is going to be too expensive for the client. I feel bad for the client.

So I'm just going to, I'm going to offer them this medium option instead of the high option, as if it's almost like we negotiate on behalf of the client without giving the client an opportunity to say yes or no. Yeah, I think, I think it's, it's more than that. I think it's prejudging, right? You're, you're, you're judging the, first of all, you're, you're counting the money in someone else's pocket, which is always a dangerous thing to do.

The second thing that you're doing in that instance is even if they don't have a lot of money, you're depriving them of all of the emotional benefits of engaging someone like you. So if they have to put your services entirely on a credit card, that's their decision and they're doing it because they view your service as so valuable that they have to have it. Why would you want to deprive someone of doing that? Good point.

Okay. So how do we tap into understanding what our value is? Because I see a lot of professionals struggle with that. You know, they, they refer to themselves as, oh, I'm just a decorator.

I'm just a designer. I just, you know, like, imagine if Picasso viewed himself as just a painter, right? So you, you can't, when you look at it like that, there's, it's not a professional issue. It's a personal issue.

It's an issue of self-esteem. So you need to work on feeling better about yourself. And once you feel better about yourself, the service you deliver will, will reflect that.

So the easiest way to do that is to start with someone who's been a client who really likes and enjoys your, your work, your interior design work, the, the work that you've done for them, ask them to write a testimonial for you and read the testimonial and realize that that's who you are, right? Think of the best service you've ever provided. Think of the best work you've ever done and realize that's who you are. As humans, we default to the latest thing that has blown up.

And we shouldn't, we should default to the thing that we created. That was the best we've ever done because we are that person. And instead of choosing to look at the last mistake you made, or the last screw up that happened in your life, choose to look at the best thing you've ever done and say, I'm that person rather than I'm the person that made this mistake.

So then, you know, you know what we're starting with. We're starting with some issues of self-esteem, some issues of not recognizing the value, some difficulty with selling, and certainly a big gap between what you really should be making if you're going to assume a full-time job and all the risk and liability that comes with being an interior designer. So, so go ahead.

I'm just going to, you fix all that. Just start, start at the beginning. Tell us what to do.

All right. So the, the first thing, the thing first and foremost is you have to, you have to feel good about who you're working with. Okay.

So I want everybody to take a step back and look at who their best clients are. And then I want them to focus their client attraction systems on targeting the best client. Too often, I see people who are professionals and interior designers absolutely fall into this category.

I see people go out and they say, I got to go out and I got a blanket, like let's say realtors, because I know realtors can refer me work. And you go out to every breed of dog, cat, elephant, you know, pig, and you say, Hey, I'm an interior designer. You got to send me work because I do, I do all this really well.

All right. That's the wrong approach because a crappy realtor or a realtor who, who works at a, at a lower end of the market, they may come across somebody who says I need help decorating my living room, but is, is no, has no capability of investing in your services. Rather than do that, focus on the realtors that work on the highest end stuff, realtors that sell the highest end homes to clients who are the most discerning target those people.

And when you target those realtors, you say to them, I work with the best. And the reason I work with the best is because I provide a high end white glove service where I will make sure that everything in the home is a reflection of the client's personality. And they will be absolutely thrilled with the work I do.

And they will thank you for introducing me to them. Now here's what will happen. You'll think you're targeting the highest end realtors.

They may bring you off the charts, high end clients. They may bring you mid market clients, but they're never going to bring you that low end crappy client that can't afford to pay your bill. So it starts with you in your mind, positioning yourself as someone who has the capability of doing that really high end work and targeting that high end client.

If that's where you want to go in the market and then targeting the evangelist, being the realtor, the person who's going to go out there and refer you that work, only targeting the high end realtors with the understanding that even the worst referral they give you is still a hundred times better than the referral that the lower end person is going to give you. Now, when you do that, you don't have to go after as many realtors. You're not going after a thousand realtors.

You're not going after 300 realtors. You're probably going after, if you're in a big market, you're probably going after a hundred realtors or 125 realtors. If you're in a smaller market, it may be 50 or 75.

Guess what? What do you need to keep you fat and happy? What do you need to keep you happy in your business? Maybe you need 24 good referrals a year. Maybe you only need half of that. Maybe you only need 12 really good jobs a year.

Maybe you only need six really good jobs a year. So going after 50, 75 or a hundred realtors is a lot easier and you can invest a lot more time and energy in marketing your services to them. So once you have your ideal, in this case, we're going to say evangelist because they're referral sources.

Once you have your ideal evangelist targeted, here's the next thing you do. You put together a packet of material and you can call it a shock and awe packet. Some people call it a pitch packet and that packet of material includes some of the, it includes photos of the best work you've done.

My preference would be that you also include a USB drive in there with some videos of some of the best work you've done and some video testimonials from previous clients, written letters of recommendation from clients, from some of the people that you work with, which includes vendors who talk about how happy everybody is with your services, written testimonials from people who are in the design community who testify to the fact that you are an expert, testimonials from architects, testimonials from contractors, all of this goes in that pitch packet. And here's what you do. You reach out to these realtors and you ask for a meeting with them.

Now, as we record this, where we're sitting here in February, 2021, you're not going to probably do an in-person meeting with the realtor just yet, because we're still in the middle of a pandemic. So you reach out to the realtor and you ask to do a zoom meeting with them. Zoom meeting could be, let's say 30 minutes in length.

And all you're going to do in that meeting is you're going to ask the realtor about their business and who their ideal client is. You're going to find out how they select their clients, how they find their clients, and then they will turn around and ask you. That's the time when you share who your ideal client is.

You share the business that you'd prefer to work on. And then once the meeting ends, you're going to agree, hey, listen, if there's an opportunity for us to work together, we will. After the meeting ends, you send out your shock and awe packet to the realtor so they get that.

In the meantime, while the shock and awe packet is in the mail on the way to the realtor, what you're going to do is you're going to look to connect the realtor with someone who can either prefer them business or do business with them directly. So you're going to connect them with perhaps somebody who's a developer who you've done work with in the past, or someone who is on the periphery of the real estate field that you can connect them with who may refer business to them. Why are you going to do this? Because you want to demonstrate that you're interested in helping the realtor succeed.

You cannot expect anyone to refer you business unless you've shown them that you're interested in helping them succeed. You don't have to send them a slam dunk referral if you don't know somebody who's a good referral for them. But what you do need to do is you do need to show them that you're interested in helping them succeed, helping them grow.

So in your interview with the realtor, you have to uncover a way that you can potentially help them. Interesting. Okay.

I love that you made that very actionable. I can envision doing all those things, particularly the list of get testimonials on video from clients. That's something we've never done.

That's an interesting approach. So it always comes back to being very clear about who it is you're targeting to work with. There's just no way around that.

We always want to match our message to our target audience. So yes. And you can choose to target anybody in the world to work with.

So why not choose the best, right? Even if you fall a little bit short, it's fine. Because if you fall a little bit short, you're still working with somebody who's very, very good. When you go out and you target everyone, what happens is the market settles on the lowest common denominator and they send those people to you.

And that's never a good solution for anyone. You don't want to work with those folks. They know you don't want to work with them and they feel badly and they become difficult when you work with them.

So don't put yourself and don't put the client through that. You're not set up to succeed there. So targeting people who look like your best clients is the beginning of a process where you get to command the fees that you really deserve.

Have you encountered the situation where somebody's best clients are on the lower end of the scale, let's say, and the professional likes it there? They feel safe there. And what would you say to that person? Like, you know, I just think it's really hard to earn a living if you're doing jobs that are bringing in a small amount of money, you know, over and over again. Yeah.

You know, again, I think it comes back to a self-esteem issue. Right. So if they're working on the lower end because they have some sort of mission and that mission includes helping people who are who who are in that socioeconomic position, then then their business is fine and they're happy with their business and they usually don't come to me.

Right. If the business if they're in the business because they want to they want to serve, you know, they want to bring interior design to, you know, less fortunate people. That's fine.

I mean, and they probably are OK with, you know, their ability to attract those folks. When people come to me and they say, hey, listen, I'm in a volume business and I don't want to be in a volume business. Then I say to them, OK, why have you why have you not chosen to select higher end clients? The work, you know, you can do that work.

It always comes back to a worthiness issue. They feel they're not worthy of that higher level client. And that's not unusual.

But people don't have to be stuck in that in that spot because they they are better than they think they are. And this is true of everyone who's you know, who's with us today, who's listening to this. We always undervalue our services.

It's rare. It's unusual to find someone who values their services either at a fair level initially or overvalues their services. Most of the time we sell ourselves short.

So my counsel to clients when they're setting fees or asking for money is always set your fees 10 percent higher than you're comfortable with, because that's probably the minimum you're undervaluing your services. So when there's somebody that comes to me, they say, hey, I'm doing a high volume business and I'm happy there. My my question to them is, OK, well, what were you hoping I could do for you? What were you why? Why did you why did you come to me? And they say, well, you know, I don't want to be quite so busy.

So I'm thinking maybe I should raise my rates a little bit. So that tells me that that the answer to that question is, you know, they're not accurately answering that question because they may think they're OK with a volume business, but if they want more free time and they don't want to work as hard, they're really not OK with that. Their client selection process is off.

So you made a connection there which was automatic. And I just wondered, I mean, it caught my attention. I asked the question about that designer who's working with clients who have lower end budgets and you immediately connected that to being in a volume business.

So that's a problem, right? I mean, if you're going to have those lower end clients in order to to earn a living, you have to do more of them. And the one thing we don't have extra of is time, no matter what clientele you're serving. Right, that's that's 100 percent correct.

So the you know, the person who wants to be in a volume business, most of the time I see people who are in volume businesses, regardless of the profession, they're in a volume business because maybe they have that maybe they were doing something else or they had one large marquee client and they needed a lot of staff. And now that marquee client business has tapered off and they want to keep their staff busy. So they get into a volume business thinking that the volume is going to help keep the staff employed.

And what ends up happening is everybody becomes stressed out because there's just too much work. And the value of the work isn't such that you can then command. You can't you can't invest the time in any one client that each of them deserve.

Yet the clients will demand that same amount of time from you. So, you know, the good client, bad client, they both demand the same amount of time. So why not choose to service the good client? You're going to put the effort in regardless because it's your reputation that's on the line.

And once you realize that, most people move away from that type of volume business model just because it's it's not practical. You're going to invest the same amount of time in the good client or the bad client. So why not wait for a stable of only good clients? And here's the real interesting thing, OK? If you take the time that you save from working with 10 mediocre or crappy clients and invest it in business development, invested in marketing, you can get two or three good clients that can provide you with the same amount of revenue, the same amount of income as those 10 mediocre or crappy clients.

So take the time you save invested in business development, invested in marketing, and you'll be able to source those better clients in the long run. Amen. That's so true.

Fewer but better clients comes down to being really focused and clear about who it is you're targeting at the end of the day. Interior designers have this. How do I describe this? There's this phenomenon we see a lot, which is you go to a client's house, you realize they're not really, they can't quite afford what you have to offer.

However, you can envision the finished product. You can see their home and you can see those beautiful photographs on your website. And so very often what happens is we designers will offer our services at a much lower rate in order to get that client and get those photographs.

Have you ever seen anything like that before? Sure. I don't, I don't know that I've encountered other professionals doing it specifically for photographs, but other professionals want the marquee client because they want to put on their resume that they worked with so-and-so, right? Or they did design work. If they're an architect, they did design work for this particular entity, right? So if you're at the beginning of your career, maybe, maybe it makes sense to do a couple of jobs like that at the beginning of your career, or if you're trying to enter a different market.

So let's say you're, you know, you're a designer in LA and you want to expand into Orange County, or you want to expand into San Diego. And in order to get into San Diego, there are two or three people who are highly influential. So you'll discount your services for those two or three people so that you can say you did their homes or so that you can say you did a project that they, that they sponsored.

That's perfectly fine. If that's, if that's the reason why you're doing it, I'm okay with that. Or if you're at the beginning of your career and you need to build your, your brag book, you want to get those pictures.

No problem. Do it at the beginning of your career. Once you're established and you've had, you know, six, seven, a dozen jobs under your belt, you got a really nice portfolio.

You can share with people. You've got a great reputation in the community. You've got good testimonials, developers, you know, architects, realtors, everyone knows about the quality of your work at that point.

Don't discount my, my advice to people, regardless of the business they're in is the only time you ever discount is if you feel like you want to discount because you have the opportunity to get, you know, a 10 X return, a 10 times return on the money that you're investing through discounting in that relationship. So an example would be if a, a developer comes to you and they say, listen, we would normally hire, you know, someone to stage one of our homes, but these homes are so high end. We want you to come in and do the interior design work for our model home, and we'll pay for all the materials and we'll pay you, you know, a nominal fee for your time, but you're going to be the exclusive designer for this community of homes that start at $2 million and up.

In that case, I'd discount and I'd be, you know, I'd be happy to make sure I give 120% in, you know, doing the design work on that model home so that, you know, everybody gets to showcase my work and then these people are going to promote me and I know I'm going to get a return on the investment of my time that I'm discounting. So that's a good example of when you can use that tool in your toolbox because discounting is just a tool in your toolbox. That's an example of when you can use the discount tool in your toolbox.

Otherwise, if you're negotiating with someone and they want you to reduce the price without reducing the value on the other side, I never ever want to see anyone doing that. If somebody says, you told me this project was going to be $50,000. I love the project.

I love everything about the project, but my budget is only $35,000. Well, you know, I'm really, I'm really sorry that you don't value the project at what it's truly worth because the project is truly worth $50,000. I guess we're going to have to part company here and then they'll come back and they'll go, oh, wait, wait, wait, would you do it for 40? Well, no, the project is worth $50,000.

I'm so sorry. I just sneezed. Yeah.

God bless you. Yeah. That's I'm so glad you brought that up.

It's true. And we're not so often I find we're people pleasers and we, we just bend ourselves into pretzel to deliver a $50,000 value to the client who wants to spend 35. And that is just, it never turns out the way you want it to, at least in my experience.

So here's a, here's another trick that you can use to get through this. And I do this a lot with, with my clients, with clients who are in professional services, like, like designers. What I have them do is if they have like an administrative assistant, or if they're hiring an administrative assistant, I want them to focus on hiring someone who can be, who can fulfill the title of business manager.

And as the business manager, it's that person's job to negotiate with the client. And then we teach the business manager how to handle the finances, how to handle the negotiations with the client, because what happens is we negotiate harder for other people more often than we do for ourselves. So the business manager will be completely inflexible.

There'll be a good negotiator. They'll be good at demonstrating the value you can provide. And the business manager will be able to command that premium that makes it more difficult for you.

And if the, if the principal, if the person you're working with tries to come back to you and go around the business manager, you got to sit back and go, listen, I'm the artist here. I'm the person who handles the design work. That's what you want me doing.

You don't want me thinking about money while I'm, while I'm designing your project. You want me focused on providing the best project for you that I can fulfilling your vision. You don't want me worried about the financials or the business aspect of it.

And you just remove yourself from that. But there's two things that are really important there. The first is you have to be able to afford a really good person in order to be your quote unquote business manager.

Right? And the second thing is you have to be able to train that person on the, on the art of negotiating professionally, because this person can't, they can't be acrimonious. It can't, they can't have friction because that friction is going to carry through to the job. You don't want that.

So they have to have, they have to be the velvet hammer. They have to have the lightest touch when they're negotiating with the client so that they can, you know, so that they can really make sure you get the value you deserve. And then the client gets the project that he or she really wants.

That's great advice. I love that. And what we're nearing in on the end of the interview, but just cause I know you have so much information to share with everybody.

Can you think of some other just kind of rapid fire ways we can market our services to the right people? Once you figured out what the right people, who the right people are, what are some other marketing strategies we can use? Sure. So one of the things I would do if I were in the design business right now is I'd be doing two, two things to educate people on the value of hiring a designer. First thing I would do is I would do videos, right? Because design is a visual business, obviously.

So I would be doing videos either in my own home or in project, project locations. And I would show little subtle nuances that are a difference maker from a design perspective that only you, a trained designer would know. So show it in your projects.

And there, these are two, three, four minute videos at most. You put them on your YouTube channel, put them on social media, most importantly, put them on your website so that people can go to your website and your website becomes an education center for people who are looking for design services. Second thing I would do is I would do, um, I would do an educational webinar series, helping people who need design help in their business, but would also hire a designer or recommend a designer to their clients.

So for example, I would be doing a monthly webinar series exclusively for realtors, helping realtors, showing realtors how they could stage homes themselves, right? Because everybody's looking to save a buck. So if you're a designer, you can show little things that realtors can do on a webinar that they can, so that they can help their, you know, their clients stage a home when they don't have a budget to hire someone to stage the home. Also doing webinars for developers, helping developers see some of the things that they've done in homes that are mistakes from a design perspective and how to fix them.

Okay. So education, education, education, demonstrating your expertise, but also demonstrating the value to the attendee of the educational event of, for hiring a designer, making sure that they understand that it's going to add value to their project and they're going to make more as a result. Great.

Awesome. Amazing advice. Thank you so, so much.

We like to end every episode with something we call design intervention. It's just, you know, one final kernel of wisdom you think everybody needs to know and appreciate. Well, so the biggest kernel of wisdom, I think that everybody needs to know and appreciate is that if you're, if you're not out there promoting yourself and you can promote yourself by educating people on what you do by educating people on the value of hiring someone in your industry.

If you're not promoting yourself, you're going to be the best designer nobody's ever heard of. So when you think to yourself, Hey, I'm not a used car salesman, I'm not good at selling. I, you know, I really can't, you know, I can't sell well, selling is helping in return for financial compensation.

So there are people out there that, that needs your help. There are people out there. If they find out about you will want your help.

So what I want you to do is I want you to go out and I want you to talk to people about what they're looking to accomplish, what their goals are. And I want you to offer to help them, whether it's helping them through providing your services or helping them by connecting them to someone they can do business with. Get used to offering to help people.

And then when they ask for help with something you do professionally, remember that helping in return for financial compensation is what we do. And don't think of yourself as selling. Remember, as I started this little segment, the comment I made is always going to be true.

And you should, if you're, if you're struggling with this, write it on a post-it note, put it on your computer, put it on your bathroom mirror. If I don't tell people about the value I provide, I'm going to be the best designer nobody's ever heard of. And I deserve more from life than that.

You do. And so do everybody who's listening. So thank you so much for really great advice, Dave, really appreciate it.

Oh, it's, it's absolutely my pleasure. I actually have a gift for the, for the folks who are listening today, specifically from you. If you're listening and you want more free stuff like this, simply go to my website, DaveLorenzo.com forward slash business design.

Business design is all one word together. DaveLorenzo.com forward slash business design. There's a free subscription there to my podcast where we talk about stuff like this every day.

We do a show every day. And the second thing is that you can get a free copy of one of my books. Just go to, go to DaveLorenzo.com forward slash business design.

And, you know, courtesy of the, the, the business of design show, we have all kinds of free stuff for you on that page. I love it. Thank you so much.

I'm going to go and check all that out before this airs, by the way. Perfect. I love it.

You know, make, make sure they get the most value from, from listening. So thank you for having me. Thank you for being part of the business of design and supporting BOD's mission to improve the industry, one design business at a time.

It's time for you to take the next step and join business of design. Like thousands of design professionals in 50 countries around the world, you'll find the systems, strategies, and protocols you need to dramatically improve your business and transform your life. What are you waiting for? Start today.