Deb Mitchell Writing

design, well written.

messaging + strategy

4 Steps to Slaying the Marketing Beast for Your Interior Design Biz

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Interior Design Copywriter Deb Mitchell Writing

 

In my last blog post, I talked about how utterly overwhelming and intimidating the “marketing beast” can be.

Even when we know how important it is to be constantly marketing our businesses in order to stay in business, making marketing a regular task seems totally impossible. It’s like putting “Raise great kids” or “Save the rainforest” on our to do lists.

Too much. Too hard. Too everything.

But in the interest of helping you tame the marketing beast (aka, eat the elephant, take a journey of 1,000 miles, insert other making-something-daunting-feel-achievable metaphor here), I’ve broken the mega-concept of marketing your interior design business down into 4 simple steps.

1.     Have something to say – because you can’t sell what you can’t put into words

2.    Stand in your prospects’ shoes to test your message for clarity and appeal

3.    Be strategic about what, when, where, and how to say it

4.     Make it all easier by planning ahead

Admittedly, this isn’t a 5-minute process. I’m not trying to make what’s actually a majorly important responsibility for you as a business owner seem easy peasy.

I just want you to see marketing for what it really is – talking about your business clearly and confidently with your prospects at the front of your mind at all times.

The point is, in order to stop the cycle of either doing nothing to market your design business (and as a result being subject to waiting passively for your phone to ring) or on the flip side, throwing major money and/or time at marketing efforts you’ve heard might sometimes possibly kinda sorta work for others, you’ve got to get your head around what marketing effectively looks like for you and your business.

Think about it – even big corporations scale, focus, and strategize their marketing efforts based on what they’re trying to achieve and who their prospects are – so why shouldn’t you?

You don’t have to do what everyone else is doing – and you shouldn’t. But you should make well-thought-out decisions about what you need to communicate to the world about your business. And by ‘the world’ I mean carefully selected online and offline marketing channels!

Just like my philosophy on effective writing, I believe effective marketing happens mostly by thinking it through before you commit anything to paper/website/blog/email sales funnel.

I know this probably brings up loads of questions for you –

“How do I know what I need to say in my marketing?”

“Even if I come up with a marketing message, what do I do with it from there?”

“How do I make sure I’m communicating to the right people?”

“How do I plan my marketing? What does that even look like?!”

Even so, asking those questions is progress over thinking of marketing as just one giant ball of WHAAAATTT?!

These are still really big questions, though, and truth be told, the answers are very personal and specific to you, your prospects, and your current business goals.

That’s why I’m creating a solution to help you answer all of that and more in a step-by-step system created just for interior designers.

I’ll be unveiling more in the coming weeks about this awesome resource that I truly think will change your marketing (and your design business!) forever.

I can’t wait to share it with you, but all of the techie stuff isn’t totally ready to roll yet. Once it is, you’ll be able to pop it in your shopping cart and get started right away. Eeeeeeee!!! I’m so excited!!!

I’ll be posting a link to get it soon, so keep following me on social media and on the blog. Oh, and tell your designer friends too. No keeping something this fab to yourself!

All the best,

“I know I need to market myself more, but…”

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Interior Design Copywriter Deb Mitchell Writing

“I know I need to market myself more, but…”

Do you hear other business owners say this as much as I do? Do you say it yourself? I know I do!

The truth is, we all know how important marketing is for our businesses and we even have great intentions when it comes to trying to check it off on our ‘vital business practices’ to do list. That’s not the issue.

We don’t do it enough (or at all) because marketing yourself is freaking hard.

I mean, first of all, who has the time?! Between juggling client projects, putting out all the little fires that flare up in your biz daily, and just doing all the tasks it takes to run a business, marketing is often one of the very first things to fall off your radar… and your to do list.

Secondly, it’s hard to talk about yourself – even if you know you rock at what you do. It feels icky. It feels braggy. It feels like no one wants to hear it.

And as small businesses we certainly don’t have nice, juicy marketing budgets laying around to pay someone else to take care of it for us.

Maybe most of all is simply that ‘marketing’ sounds more like, “MAAARRRKETTTTTINNNNGGG, mwuahahahaha!!!!!!” when we hear it in our heads.

Marketing is by far one of the most overwhelming concepts in Business Ownership Land.

There’s so much to learn about it. So many tactics we could / should try. Such overwhelming amounts of information weighing down blogs and articles and Pinterest boards galore.

It’s all just too much and it feels like a big ol’ hairy, scary beast that we never quite know how to slay.

Or even where the heck to start.

The good news is that, as a writer for interior designers, I’ve made it my business to become an expert all things marketing for my clients. After all, everything I write for them – from website copy to blog posts to subscriber newsletters – is marketing in one form or another.

I’ve even learned to tame the marketing beast (or at least cut it down to size a little in my head) by thinking of marketing simply as a form of communication.

I mean, when you really unpack it, marketing is just talking to your prospects (whether in writing, on video, over the phone, or in person) about what you do, who you do it for, and how you do it differently from your competition, ultimately for the purpose of selling to the people you can best serve.

Seems a little less terrifying that way, doesn’t it?!

When you approach marketing from that perspective, a few things happen:

·      It stops being about money and starts being about serving others.

·      It makes it crystal clear what you need to communicate.

·      You realize people actually WANT you to talk about (market) your business because they need you. And after all, your marketing is most likely the only way they’re ever going to find you.

It’s so freeing to finally realize you don’t have to approach marketing as a rigid business practice. You don’t need to read volumes on it. You don’t need to have a budget to hire someone with a degree in it (which is counterintuitive anyway since you need to market your business to get clients to make money, right?!). You don’t even need to compose 1,000 tweets or gain 1,000,000 Instagram followers or anything that involves pie-in-the-sky numbers and impossible to accomplish tactics.

You just need to talk to your prospects about your business.

It’s all about thinking it through a little differently and being really strategic with how you spend your precious (and finite!) time and energy resources to market your business.

It really is possible to run your design business AND actively and effectively market it at the same time!

I want to share everything I’ve learned – from basic marketing communication concepts to social media tips and tricks – about marketing my clients’ interior design businesses over the last several years. And so I’ve created a great solution to get your marketing systems up and running.

I truly think this is going to revolutionize the way you approach marketing your business from now on. I know it works for me and for the clients I implement it for.

I’m super excited to share it with you and I’ll be giving you more details about it in the coming weeks so stay tuned! It’s nothing short of MIRACULOUS! (hint, hint, wink, nudge)

All the best,

Expert Advice: Hack Your Interior Design Sales Process with Sales & Money Coach Liz Dederer

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Interior Design Copywriter Deb Mitchell Writing

 

Ok, everyone, I’m going out on a limb here. I know I’m a writer, but I really – and I mean REALLY – want to help you in the area of selling.

First of all, the website writing and brand messaging writing I do for you IS a form of sales. What makes me unique as a writer is that I understand you and your clients, so I can write about your value in language that will appeal to them.

Secondly, I have a background in sales. I managed several high-end boutiques in my early career, and I fell in love with the idea of using my sales roles to actually help people.

Finally, I also know that you’re in the trenches when it comes to the sales aspect of your business. You’re fielding prospect calls, having sales conversations, crafting proposals (yes, your proposals can be sales tools – not just contractual agreements!), and even selling the products you use in your designs to your clients.

I want to help equip and empower you to have the best experiences with selling you can possibly have. That means:

·      Taking the ick out of the sales process

·      Getting you clear on why your prospects need you

·      Giving you language for your prospects’ pain points and your unique value so it’s natural and easy for you to talk about it

Now, I’ve got a little something in the works to help you with all of that (Teaser! Stay tuned in the coming weeks for the details!), but first, I thought I’d see what a professional sales expert has to say about all of this.

So I hit up my virtual buddy, sales and money coach Liz Dederer.

Liz’s impressive career began with international companies including Talbots, Avon, and Carters / Oshkosh. As a lead field trainer, Liz led the turnaround of an underperforming sales team, growing their sales from under $300K to $1.2M in 6 months.  She also spearheaded the complete redesign of an employee sales training program for 500+ retail stores.

Simultaneously, Liz ran her own web design company, working with both large corporations and small businesses.

Liz’s experience and expertise eventually led her to the work she does today: Helping countless start-ups and high growth companies exceed sales goals and reach new markets.

As a trainer and speaker in the realm of sales and money mindsets, Liz transforms her clients’ sales experiences and results through 1:1 coaching, group coaching, online courses, and eBooks.

You can learn more about Liz on her website, lizdederer.com and about her newest venture, Conversion Acceleration, a high-value sales training program designed to “create clients quickly, close clients quickly, and create cash quickly,” here: http://www.conversionacceleration.com .

Liz and I talked for waaayyyy too long to hit you with our whole conversation, but you can listen to a clip of what she had to say here: (and by the way, sorry for my active listening exclamations as she speaks – I got a little jazzed!):

I’ve distilled our entire conversation for you below:

ME:     Interior designers aren’t “salespeople” per se, but they actually have to sell twice. First, they have to sell their services to the client and then they have to sell the client on the items they want in the design. How can designers approach all of that selling in a way that doesn’t feel high-pressure and icky?

LIZ:      The whole concept of what I teach – I call it ‘sales’ just so we all understand what we’re talking about but I actually don’t teach sales… I teach service. Service is about helping them come to a decision faster.  It’s just engaging them in the process and then moving them through the process as quickly as possible. It’s advantageous to the designer and to the client to wrap up the project quickly!

ME:     You talk a lot about ‘speaking your value’ and that’s even the title of your eBook. This is huge for interior designers since they’re in such a competitive market – can you talk about speaking your value as it relates to designers and differentiating themselves in their sales copy and conversations?

LIZ:      It comes down very simply to answering the questions “What problem do you solve?” and “For whom?” Otherwise, you’re trying to prove your value and convince them that they need you. That’s just such a 1990’s sales energy! It really is about the problem in your clients’ homes that’s driving them bananas and keeping them up at night.

ME:     What if that problem is different for every client?

LIZ:      I love when people say that to me. I just smile and say, “Pull back. You’re in the weeds.” Yes, there are going to be differences with every client, but when you get more focused and clear on what I call your “ZOAB” – your Zone of Absolute Brilliance – you’ll see that you’re actually solving the same basic problem over and over for your clients.

ME:     How can designers get clearer about that? What do you recommend?

LIZ:      Do a retrospective look at the past clients you’ve enjoyed working with. You can do that in a little ‘kitchen table exercise.’ Get a bunch of index cards and write down your past clients’ names on the top of each, then do a brain dump of words that come to mind when you think of these people. Then take a highlighter and go across, highlighting all the words that are the same amongst those clients. Now you can put those words on an index card and you’ve got a pretty clear idea of who the person is that you solve the problem for.

ME:     OK, then how can they apply that knowledge to their sales process?

LIZ:      When you really know that person and you know their pain and you know why you’re needed, then it’s not a question of how you speak your value – it’s just a matter of how often you’re going to do it. The sales process comes more naturally when you understand your ideal client.

ME:     Do you talk about that pain and how you’ll solve it in every sales conversation?

LIZ:      Well, you’re listening for it. I really focus on getting my clients to be very clear and specific with their ideal client profile. Then we base everything else off of that. I help my clients create scripts that will help them pre-qualify someone to see if they are someone my clients want to continue to ‘play with’ or not. That ultimately helps the sales process too.

ME:     What do you think is the biggest mistake people tend to make in the sales process?

LIZ:      The number one mistake we make is making financial decisions for other people. The classic example of this is when we as the salespeople decide for ourselves that a prospect can or can’t afford what we’re selling.

ME:     Interior designers can tend to get a lot of push back on price (aka rejection) in their sales conversations – do you think that’s a function of talking to prospects who aren’t a good fit or could there be a problem with how the designer is conducting the sales conversation?

LIZ:      Usually when there’s extreme objection to the price, it’s because you’ve introduced the cost at the wrong point in the conversation. You talked about money too soon. When I work with my clients, that’s the bones of the ‘sales script’ work I do with them. I give them a 10-point system for those conversations. Once an interior designer understands those principles, I believe they could cover those points on the fly in a conversation in a prospect’s home or even issue them in a client questionnaire.

ME:     Any final thoughts to help interior designers with their sales approach?

LIZ:      It all comes down to speaking your value – owning your expertise. You’re the ONLY person who knows your ideal client inside and out. So you already know what their fears and objections are going to be when you enter a sales conversation with them! When you’ve thought all of that through, you can be confident with your sales processes.

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Thank you, Liz, for sharing your insights and perspectives with us!

Happy selling, y’all!

Client Love: How Client X dropped into her brand voice and found new meaning in her design biz

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Interior Design Copywriter Deb Mitchell Writing

So many of us know the feeling, but we rarely cop to it.

“I don’t know that I’ve ever actually worked with my ideal client,” Client X told me in a marathon brand messaging session.

X’s boldness and vulnerability with that one statement opened up a line of conversation between us that forever changed her business (and ultimately restored to her the feeling that she does meaningful work).

Here’s the thing: X had a large portfolio of beautiful designs. She’d been working as a designer for years and had a more than respectable list of clients. She loved all of those clients and said so many times in our conversation.

But the way she spoke about her projects seemed to me to be detached – even a little bored.

Then I asked her if she had any projects that weren’t on her website yet. That’s when something magical happened.

X’s voice lit up over the phone, “Actually, I do!” she said. She’d been working on a space in her own home, a space just for her where she could work and create.

She emailed a few snapshots over to me as we spoke and I was stunned. While her portfolio projects were all beautiful, this one was on another level. Of course, most designers have to show a level of restraint on client projects from what they’re capable of due to client preferences, budget constraints, etc.

But the fact is that if I hadn’t known better, I would have thought X’s office / studio space was designed by someone else entirely. And that’s because it kind of was.

You see, X wasn’t working with her ideal clients because she hadn’t embraced the notion that she is her ideal client.

We discovered together that day that X needs to work with people who love color as much as she does; who want her to get creative by sourcing fun accent pieces and even rehabbing existing or vintage pieces with an amazing paint job; people who don’t much care if a piece of art costs $5 or $5,000 as long as it makes their spaces sing.

Instead, she’d fallen into the pattern most of us fall into at one time or another – taking whatever work came her way.

 Furthermore, in terms of X’s marketing, representing that work on her website as the extent of what she could and would do as a designer was inviting what a good friend of mine calls ‘MOTS’ – More of the Same.

 That meant making beautiful spaces for her clients, but working with a lot of neutrals and shopping what she felt were ho-hum vendors. She was serving her clients well… but her work didn’t light that fire in her belly that’s so vital an experience for anyone who does creative work.

When we forget that our businesses are ours – that it’s not so much a matter of thinking outside the box to build our businesses as it is actually building the box itself to be whatever kind of business we want it to be – we risk never really finding our purpose, our aesthetic, our brand voice, or our ideal clients.

By talking through all of this, X gained tons of clarity that day. Her vision for her business changed so materially that it was almost as if it passed from an entrepreneurial adolescence into full blown, ready to kill it adulthood. She ‘dropped into’ her brand voice that day and we nailed it even more clearly in her brand messaging report so she can take that message out into the world. Go, X!!!

Even though this is what I do every day, it never ceases to amaze me that something as seemingly clinical as defining a brand message can be a powerful catalyst for so much clarity, change, and growth in my amazing clients.

And that, folks, is what lights the fire in my creative belly.

Struggling with how to talk (and write!) about your design business? Call or email me today to schedule a time to talk about how I can help. 980.292.0808 deb@debmitchellwriting.com

Love you, DMW clients!

All the best,

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