Can interior designers be rich

Rearranging furniture was his favorite pastime, but he never knew it could be a career until he met an interior designer. Wearstler is best known for her hotel designs and design books. She studied interior and graphic design at Massachusetts College of Art and decided to move to Los Angeles to break into the acting world.

She not only received great acclaim for the project, she also married the developer, Brad Korzen. Regardless of the path that leads you to an interior design career, here are four tips to succeed in becoming a working interior designer.

The fastest way to earn hands-on experience is by working at a design firm or for a busy interior designer. It may be an internship, assistant position or administrative job to start, but take the opportunity to learn and work your way up. You never know who may need design help. Have business cards and contact information ready to hand out to people you meet.

Reach out to related trade businesses such as architects, lighting designers and suppliers. Many architects choose or recommend preferred designers for client projects. Your first big break may be a basement remodel or window-treatment project.

Be professional; small jobs can lead to more work and client referrals. Most of the time, proper communication and impressive 3D renderings done with a professional design software will help you close a sale.

Subscribe to Blog. Be active on social media Use paid advertising Get a pro account on Houzz Revamp your website Start a blog If you want to learn more on how to market your interior design business, check out our free eBook.

Negotiating with suppliers. Maintaining customer relationships. Add-on sales. Logging your hours. Billing for initial consultations. Modifying your sales pitch. Related Posts. The ideal project is one that my firm starts from the ground up with a clean slate, and the client has no attachment to anything. Often for vacation homes we purchase everything from rugs, dining tables, and chandeliers to plungers, coffee mugs, doormats, and soap.

My dream is a client that has no inhibitions and let's you run wild. The reality, however, is that we are always questioned and clients get nervous to try things they have never seen before or can't envision. After all, many people hire us precisely because they lack the vision themselves and need someone else to have it. What types of clients do you work with? We definitely work with a high-end clientele.

We also do work in California and Europe, as well as a couple vacation destination spots. That being said, as wealthy as everyone we work for is, everyone wants an end product that requires more than they are willing to spend. We have never had a client with an absolutely unlimited budget, and everyone is shocked when we explain how much it will cost to get the apartment or home they imagined in their heads.

Celebrities, in specific, are the worst. Celebrities always want to trade publicity rights—meaning we can use their name and photos of the job in a design magazine, or something similar—in exchange for a reduced fee from our firm. Or, they want everything for free, which is not only obnoxious but frequently puts us in the awkward position of having to ask for favors on someone else's behalf.

How did your firm gain its reputation? People hire our firm because they are drawn not only to our final product, which they have either seen published or witnessed first hand, but also because they are attracted to who my bosses are as individuals and the lifestyle they lead.

This is all cultured by social media and social circles, I think, which is a large reason why our business is so largely based off of referral. Having someone design your home is an extreme luxury and within that I think competition and status is deeply imbedded in the culture.

How does payment work with interior design? Billing varies project to project. For architecture, we charge a percentage over construction cost that's something between 20 percent and 30 percent. Design is similar. We decide upon the specifics of these conditions based on the clients overall budget, but also how we perceive them to be as clients.

If we know a client is going to be huge pain in the ass and take three weeks to pick a coffee table, then it is advantageous for us to charge hourly because we know they will take up more of our time and usually they end up buying less.

Describe some of your clients to me.