REPLAY: Business Tips for New Interior Designers

18-01-2023 • 35 mins

Meredith founded the “House of Huck” in 2020 as a passion project. She gave herself an ultimatum: If she wasn’t successful in three years, she’d go back to the corporate world. But in one year, she transformed her business into a full-time career.

She’s leveraged her unique background in corporate sales—and some genius social media marketing tactics—to build a thriving business. In this episode of Wingnut Social, Meredith shares some business tips for new interior designers that you just can’t miss!

Connect with Meredith Huck

House of Huck
Connect on Instagram

Resources & People Mentioned

Wingnut Webinar Aug 25, 2022 11:00 AM: Let’s Get Real About Reels
Profit First by Mike Michalowicz
Dakota Design Co.
The Brownstone Boys
Record your podcast episodes on Riverside

Why House of Huck grew quickly

95% of Meredith’s clients have come from social media. How does she leverage various platforms to gain visibility?

Meredith got in front of the camera. It allowed people to learn about herself and her life. She also embraced a unique social media marketing strategy: Throwing a scavenger hunt.

Meredith chose 5 local businesses, bought gift cards, and hid them around town. You had to follow her on social media and answer a riddle to find the gift card(s). Once someone found one, they had to tag her in a post.

She gained followers, gave back to her community, and it even led to a request for a design consultation.

Why Meredith doesn’t want to grow and scale a team

Meredith is struggling with a great problem to have: Getting too many requests for her design services. She’s learning how to take discovery calls, explaining how her process works, and scheduling out (sometimes weeks or months).

She sets the expectation that it may be weeks before she can connect back to work on their project. But then she communicates via email, notes in the mail, etc. She’ll have those clients work on creating a Pinterest board to fill in the gap during those weeks.

Meredith is busier than ever, but she isn’t interested in growing and scaling a team right now. She loves what she does and chooses to outsource when necessary. She works with a virtual assistant and outsources renderings and sourcing tasks.

Business tips for new interior designers

What has Meredith learned from her first couple of years as a new interior designer?

Tip #1: It’s not just about charging a design fee. Whenever you can, open up wholesale accounts and purchase furnishings directly from them. A large portion of Meredith’s revenue has come from the margin she makes on furnishings.

Tip #2: Trust your gut. Meredith agreed to do some design work for a couple despite seeing numerous red flags. Meredith requires her clients to request revisions within one week of her design presentation. After her design presentation, this client asked for more than a week to decide. Two months later, they asked her for a refund of her design fees.

Tip #3: Don’t take every job that comes your way. Only work with people who appreciate what you’re doing for them.

Meredith shares more tips, tricks, and business strategies in this episode of Wingnut Social. Check it out!

Connect With Darla & Wingnut Social