You understand your interior design business better than anyone else. You’re super smart. Your creative instincts are on point and you know your ideal clients really well.

You might be clear on what you think sounds good in other brands’ webcopy. And you may even consider yourself a decent writer. Yet, when it comes to writing the words for your brand, it feels like you always come up short. 

You may have tried to write your own webcopy many times over the years, but you never really nailed it. Even just answering questions about your brand in a clear, succinct way so someone else can write your copy for you isn’t working. 

And it’s not like you haven’t given it your best efforts. You’ve followed advice from all the gurus, listened to all the podcasts, done all the workshops, and taken all the courses. But all you really have to show for it is a collection of patchworked together messaging and copy you’re not convinced is saying all the right things to all the right potential clients. (All of this sounding familiar? Spoiler alert: You’re not alone!)

You’re up against a few issues here: You understand you need to be talking up your brand but you don’t want to sound braggy. You want to entice people to hire you but you’re afraid of coming across as too salesy. You want your words to feel authentic and unique to you but you’re worried it will all just end up sounding like a copy and paste of what your competitors say about themselves.

You may even be feeling like something’s wrong with you–after all, it shouldn’t be this hard to find the right words for your own brand, should it?!

I can assure you there’s absolutely nothing wrong with you, but I totally get it–it’s maddening to be so good at running your design business while struggling so hard to nail down your messaging! 

But before you sign up for yet another course, or worse, let your inner bully tell you all about how bad you are at this, I’m here to tell you that not being able to write your own messaging and website copy is completely normal. I mean it! As a copywriter for interior designers, I come across this ALL THE TIME with my clients. In fact, it’s actually a universal struggle for most business owners–and they all think they’re the problem!

You’re too close to your own business 

So why IS it so hard to write your own brand messaging and website copy? Well, one of the primary reasons is that you’re simply too close to your own business. 

While it’d be great if you could just cut through all the noise in your head and figure out clear, perfect messaging on your own, that’s just not realistic for most business owners.There’s no shame in your lack of prowess in this area, so please stop beating yourself up! It’s not because you’re not smart enough. It’s not even because you’re not a good writer. It’s just because you’re too close to your business to have the perspective you need. 

I always say it’s like trying to cut your own hair (how can you get the back section when you can’t see it?!) or like trying to read the label from inside the jar. You’re too in it to be able to see it the way people on the outside do.  

It’s the same reason why we can only see some truths in hindsight. There are limits to what you can see and understand from inside a circumstance. 

There’s just no way around it: Developing effective messaging–the kind that captures and presents the essence of your brand in a way that resonates with your ideal clients–requires the top-to-bottom, inside and out, 360-degree view only an outsider can provide. 

You don’t realize all of the value you provide 

I’ve found that a major reason it’s hard for designers to develop their own messaging is that they provide value to their clients left and right without even realizing they’re doing it. 

You see, when you’re great at what you do, you tend to do it almost instinctively. You’re making a thousand high-stakes decisions and navigating your clients toward smart project choices, but you’re doing it so fast and it a lot of it seems so obvious and simple to you that you don’t think you’re doing anything particularly special. But you most certainly are!

If you could slow things down and look at every piece of what you’re doing from your clients’ perspective, you’d see not only how impressive your instinctive work is to them but also how much they value your insights.  

It’s uncomfortable to promote yourself

Imagine being tasked with standing up on stage in front of your interior design industry peers and ideal clients, and having to give a speech about what makes you special and great to work with. Yikes! That would be just a smidge uncomfy, wouldn’t it?! 

That’s basically what you might feel like when writing your website copy. It just feels weird to ‘sing your own praises’–especially if you grew up in a family that emphasized humility.  

I talk my clients through this issue all the time. They’re good, down-to-earth people and they don’t want to come across as braggy, which I totally get. But their websites need to be marketing-worthy in order to promote them as the best choice for their ideal clients. 

So how do we find a balance that promotes you and your design firm without sounding braggy? 

When we work together, I create messaging that showcases what sets you apart and makes you an expert, while keeping your brand appealing for your ideal clients. We highlight your ideal clients without downplaying your skills. We make you sound confident and capable without coming across like a jerk. We make you shine without showboating!

Even former marketing professionals struggle to write their own brand messaging (So it’s definitely not just you!)

Story time! I once worked with a designer who had previously been the head of marketing for a large corporate company before changing careers and launching her own interior design firm. 

She’d handled all her own messaging and marketing, including her website copy, for about five years before calling me. 

She said she was feeling super frustrated that she still wasn’t attracting the right kinds of clients, and was at a loss for what was going wrong. She kept getting people who didn’t want full-service design; they only wanted her to handle pieces and parts or they wanted her access to trade-only products. And the ones who did hire her to design whole spaces for them were nightmare clients who micromanaged her and questioned every invoice. 

My client was miserable! She knew exactly who she wanted to work with, but her attempts to speak to them in her copy were falling flat. She said she felt like a complete failure as a marketer and as a designer. Heartbreaking, right? (Don’t worry; this story has a happy ending.)

I told her that (even though it was crappy) her experience was completely NORMAL. Killer marketing background or no, it’s all different when it’s your biz. I told her every business owner loses perspective on what their clients need to hear. And I told her that’s why I believe they all need an outside expert to come in and translate; to help edit their thoughts and ideas, and create effective messaging. 

She felt so relieved it wasn’t just her, and that she didn’t have to figure it out alone! 

By partnering together to get it all out of her head and off her shoulders, I was able to:

• Determine language and messaging that would resonate with her ideal clients on a deep level to help them feel understood by her. 
• Create messaging that communicates the value of her full-service design offer, and how it benefits her clients vs. having someone just do pieces and parts of their projects. 
• Set boundaries with her messaging so that my client doesn’t have to do it. This put out stop signs for the wrong clients and welcome mats for the right ones!

Today this client feels empowered to talk about her interior design business in a clear, engaging way that makes sense for her goals. Her messaging is now working for her, not against her. 

Having an interior design copywriter create your brand messaging & webcopy for you is a totally different experience from going it alone 

I’ve worked with so many interior designers and I’ve heard all about their struggles to write their own messaging and webcopy. If I could, I’d shout from the rooftops that they don’t have to put themselves through all of that and, most importantly, that not being able to do it alone doesn’t make them bad business owners. 

They just need help from someone ‘outside the jar’! 

Working with a knowledgeable, experienced, interior design copywriter who specializes in brand messaging is a game-changing experience. 

So when you and I work together, it looks like this:

• I help you get everything out of your head and sift through it. I read the label on the jar from the outside.
• I don’t throw away all the messaging work you’ve already done. Instead, I take it all into account as we consider what’s going to help you reach your goals. 
• Because I understand this industry, I’m qualified to help you think through your offers, your pricing, your positioning, etc. You don’t have to come to me with fully-baked decisions in order to get your copy done! 
• I make sure the messaging we create aligns with the perfect-fit clients you’re looking to attract, and the dream business you’re looking to build.

If you’re tired of struggling to create your own brand messaging, and want strong, cohesive, memorable messaging that reaches out and grabs your ideal client, then we need to chat! 

The first step is my signature service, the Message LevelUp. So many designers get a ton of clarity out of this process, even if they don’t engage me for any of my other services. 

Let’s hop on a call and see if Message LevelUp sounds like the help you’ve been needing!