Biweekly business tips for residential interior designers who want better-fit clients, smoother projects, and more business strategy with less business stress. 💛
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I *still* resist saying this to my clients... 🫣
Published 3 months ago • 3 min read
Happy Tuesday Interior Designers and Ambitious Entrepreneurs!
Tell me if you agree:
One of the hardest things to do is:
👉 Say 'no' to a potential client.
If you're anything like me, just reading that sentence makes your stomach clench. 😬
→ The potential client seems lovely.
→ They have a real project.
→ They’re ready to pay you.
And now you’re supposed to say, “Actually, I’m not sure you should hire me”?
😑
But saying yes to the wrong client—or even the right client under the wrong circumstances—isn’t smart, strategic, or even kind.
It just postpones the uncomfortable conversation.
Then, after you’ve invested even more time, money, and emotion, you still have to tell them no—or face the consequences.
I learned this the hard way as an interior designer, and apparently becoming a business coach did not magically relieve me of the responsibility.
Let me give you an example.
Last week, one of my former 🌟 star students 🌟 showed interest in retaking Nail Your Niche. Fun! 🕺
She shared that, since taking the course, she had moved to a new state and needed to establish herself in a new community → a perfect reason to retake the Nail Your Niche program. She had thrived in the program before. Why wouldn’t I invite her to enroll again?
Why didn't I immediately encourage her to join?
If I hadn't asked more questions, it would have been very easy to say yes!
But thanks to my intake process (especially the way I listen for red and yellow flags), I heard something else.
Along with wanting to establish her brand in a new community, she also had some exciting—but vague—ideas about where she wanted to take her company.
So I asked two of my key intake questions:
Do you plan to take paying clients within the next few months?
What service(s) do you want your marketing to sell?
Her answers were essentially:
Yes.
I don’t know yet.
The problem is that Nail Your Niche is designed to help you market a specific paid service and get money in the bank. That's hard to do when you're still figuring out what you want to sell. 😬
I didn’t tell her the program wouldn’t be a fit. But I did tell her we should make sure it was the right fit before she invested her time and money.
What's our real job as service providers?
Just like your job is not merely to “land a client,” my job is not merely to fill a class. It's to determine whether the service they have in mind is genuinely the right next step—or not.
Want to see how this played out in my interior design business?
In this week’s blog, I share two stories:
The time I shouldhave said no... and received a two-star Yelp review after ignoring the warning signs. 😮 😭
And the time I did say no and ended up earning my largest design fee to date. 🙌 🤩
Our potential clients need to trust that we won’t accept their project, prescribe our biggest service, or specify the fanciest finishes simply because they are willing to pay for them.
And we need a process that helps us quickly identify whether or not they are ready for our services, or what needs to happen to help them become ready.
They won't always like the answer, but it's for their own good.
You don’t necessarily have to lose the client.
But it is your responsibility to make sure they're 'tall enough to ride.' 🎢
The earlier you enroll, the more support you receive: one mini-session for each month leading up to your course kickoff! 🙌
Well, hello there — have we met?
I’m Rebecca West. I help residential interior designers feel seriously confident about their marketing, sales, and client onboarding.
Everything I teach comes from running my firm, Seriously Happy Homes, for 17 years. Between 2007 and 2023, my team and I helped over 2,000 clients transform their small, tired houses into happy homes. 💛 Our work, and my book Happy Starts at Home, was featured on TV’s New Day, in The Wall Street Journal, Live Happy Magazine, Success Magazine, & beyond!
Then, in 2023, I closed my design studio and moved to Paris, and, a couple of years later, to the south of France. ( 🤩 !! )
As a coach, consultant, and gal-who's-been-there, I'm here to help the next generation of creative, hardworking, detail-oriented interior designers get found, get great clients, and get paid like a pro!
Rebecca West, Business Coach for Residential Interior Designers
Biweekly business tips for residential interior designers who want better-fit clients, smoother projects, and more business strategy with less business stress. 💛
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