Having a tougher time these days lining up full service projects?

You’re not alone.

Design professionals across the U.S. and Canada tell me they’re finding  fewer opportunities nowadays to design the whole house or the entire office building.

Those who do land these larger projects often begin by simply advising clients about them. They begin the relationship merely by making themselves available as consultants.

Simply put, they make it big by starting small.

They get their foot in the door — and position themselves to take on the full project — by offering consultation services first.

It’s consultation by the hour. Or, as one firm promotes it, “Buy the hour.”

Not worth it you say? No way to generate big profits?

Think again.

Think about charging a consulation fee that’s 3-5 times your normal design fee. Think about requiring a three hour minimum.

Think about how much easier it is to sign a major contract with  new clients in this economy after you’ve consulted with them first.

Many design professionals report a substantial success rate in converting consulting clients into full time design clients.

Want to give this “buy the hour” consultation service a try?

Step one is to compose a list of all the topics on which you can provide “personalized advice.”

Your list could include things like:

space planning
color
flooring
window treatments
wall covering
lighting
kitchen and bath
green design

Now, create a page on your website and/or a one-page marketing piece promoting your customized consultation service.

Finally, announce the launch of the service in a mass mailing, or email blast to current, former and prospective clients, and in a news release to publications read by those you seek to influence.

In times like these, there’s a lot to be said for — and income to be earned from — promoting  interior consultation services.

What one skill can you easily learn NOW to boost your business and career?

And help you double your income?

And get you the recognition you want and deserve?

It’s not an interior design skill. It’s a personal
marketing skill.

It’s self promotion.

It’s the ability to sell yourself as effectively as your design services and products, to present yourself with polish and communicate with confidence.

Sell Yourself! Get Them to Buy from YOU  is the name of a tele-seminar scheduled for 11 a.m. – noon, Eastern time (10 a.m. Central, 9 a.m. Mountain, 8 a.m. Pacific) on Tuesday, Oct. 7.

The investment for the tele-seminar, plus the textbook entitled Sell Yourself! 501 Ways to Get Them to Buy from YOU, is only $50.

Or you can invest in the tele-seminar, alone, for only $35.

You won’t have to leave your home, office or showroom to learn keys to the most important sale you’ll ever make: the Personal  sale.

All you need to do is dial in and enter your pin number.

Register for this tele-seminar, and learn how to differentiate yourself, and stand out as a unique, one-of-a-kind design professional.

Find out how to use self promotion to overcome price and other objections.

Discover how to substantially increase your sales and income through self marketing.

For registration information on the Sell Yourself! tele-seminar, click here:

http://fredberns.com/SellYourselfTeleSeminar.html

Time was when your reputation, alone, could assure your future prosperity.

Times have changed.

This is a time with more gifted, extensively educated, widely acclaimed, multi talented, highly qualified, award winning design professionals than ever before.

With that kind of competition, it takes more than your skills to meet your financial and other goals.  It takes Big Thinking.

Big Thinking, as in, pursuing higher end clients.  Bidding on bigger and better jobs.  Proposing larger scale deals.

Big Thinking, as in seeking more referrals. Reaching out to more prospects. Marketing yourself in more high profile publications.

Big Thinking, as in networking with and speaking to more prestigious groups. Aligning yourself with more established allied professionals.

And, Big Thinking, as in setting higher fees.

Big Thinking provides you with a competitive advantage.

95% of design professionals — even those gifted, extensively educated, widely acclaimed, multi talented, highly qualified, award winning ones — think small. Outrageously so.

They’re so focused on day-to-day details that they don’t get the big picture. They aim way too low.

Reach higher, and think bigger this year, and you’ll reap far greater rewards.

Recommended Reading:The Magic of Thinking Big by David Schwartz.

There may be a better book out on this topic, but I haven’t seen it. It’s a bit dated (1959), but it’s a classic.

There’s no better time than now to abandon habits that hinder more than help you.

Want to be more profitable? Then STOP…

+ selling only “stuff.” Clients can get nice window treatments elsewhere, but they can’t get you elsewhere. Promote your service and yourself.

The most important sale you’ll ever make is the personal one.

+ qualifying. Why waste time – yours and your prospect’s – asking questions that you hope will determine if they can afford you?

Inform them, instead, that they should look elsewhere if they’re seeking the cheapest window treatments.

But they should hire you if they’d like to work with, say, a motorization specialist with 20 years experience serving a variety of clients with a variety of budgets.

+ asking about “budget.” Prospects don’t have one.

They don’t have a clue what design professionals do, or how they work, so how can you expect them to have a realistic idea about what they want to spend on your service?

Focus instead on their wants, needs and priorities, then let them know your cost for fulfilling them. That will help them determine how they’ll invest their money.

+ closing deals. Your goal, instead, should be to open long term relationships.

Your best customers are your current ones. It’s easier, and more lucrative to do repeat business with a few good clients, then to close single sales with lots of individual customers.

+ resisting price objections. View them as opportunities rather than obstacles. They enable you to differentiate yourself from competitors who charge less.

And, they’re buying signals. Studies show your chances of closing a sale are substantially higher when price objections are raised.

+ apologizing for your price. You’re a unique, one-of-a-kind design professional who saves clients money, time and headaches. You should be compensated accordingly.

Don’t just give your best prospects a call.

Give ‘em a page.

One of the best ways to enhance your website — and your business — is to create a resource page on your site for your target market.

One of my coaching clients is glad we created a Realtor Resource Page on her website. That’s all the marketing she’s had to do this year, and her business is booming.

Her challenge, like that of so many other redesigners and stagers, was to connect with local realtors.

Who you know makes a big difference in the staging business, and realtors can be — and often are — a source of abundant referrals.

The problem was that her competitors had the same idea, and area realtors were tapped out. Few  bothered to return her phone calls.

That’s when we got the idea to post a page on her website for and about realtors. Included on it: a “Turnaround Tips and Trends” article filled with helped hints on how to prepare homes for resale.  A “Client Corner” column each month spotlights a realtor she works with.

“Who’s News?” is a website article that shares tidbits about area real estate agents. A “Q and A” column includes the most common questions the stager hears from realtors — and her answers to them. A “Guest Article of the Month,” and a variety of links to other helpful sites are other features of the resource page.

The result: large numbers of area realtors began visiting the site. Many now seek to be featured on it.

Now my  client has more business than she can handle from real estate professionals in her area.

Is there better way to attract prospects– and motivate them to return — to your website than creating a special resource page for them? I can’t think of one.

What are your the biggest challenges confronting your prospects and clients? How about creating a page on your website to deal with them?

That’s smart marketing at its best.

What would it take to substantially increase your sales and profits by the end of the year?

Those of you attending the Sept. 3-5 Business of Design Conference in Las Vegas can find out how in my Double Your Sales! program that’s just been added to the agenda on Friday, Sept. 5.

This power-packed  interactive session will cover simple, cutting edge strategies  you can use to boost your bottom line in the remaining months of the year.

Among the topics we’ll cover:

+ the 5 best sales strategies for design professionals in this economy

+ the 4 best selling tools

+ the 3 best sales success shortcuts

All that, plus you’ll walk away with out-of-the-box selling methods that will help you increase your closing ratio, set and get higher fees, overcome price objections,…and much more.

I look forward to seeing you at my Double Your Sales! program – and sharing strategies that will help you supersize your sales, and earn the income you want and deserve.

Answer to Monday’s Brainteaser: What’s significant about Monday’s Brainteaser:

What’s significant about the sentence: The quick brown fox jumps over the laxy dog? It uses every letter of the alphabet.

The “G” word surfaced repeatedly this week in my coaching calls with design professionals.

I asked each  to share  his or her financial goal.

An East Coast interior designer said that the economy has jeopardized her chances of reaching her original 2008 goal of $800,000 in net profit.

“There’s only four months left in the year,” she lamented. “That’s the problem.”

“That’s not the problem,” I replied. “That’s the point.”

Now’s  the time to focus all of your attention on finishing strong, and meeting and exceeding those goals you set way back in  January.

Now’s the time to commit yourself to spending as much time as possible on those  activities that will generate the most income.

Now’s the time to seek additional projects with your best clients — and promote yourself to your most lucrative prospects.

Please don’t tell me all the reasons why you can’t significantly boost your sales and income by year’s end.

Don’t whine about the economy, because I’m not going to listen.

You know why?

Because clients need you now more than ever. They can’t afford to waste their time and money working with designers and architects and kitchen and bath specialists who can’t get the job done right the first time.

Tell me all the reasons why you can finish the year in a blaze of glory. Share with me all the sales and marketing initiatives that are most likely to produce the quickest, and most lucrative results.

By the way, “Quick Fixes” — how to generate big sales in a limited amount of time — is a key theme of the audio sales training set called the Superstar Selling System for Design Professionals. http://fredberns.com/Products_SuperStar.html

One person may be holding you back from doubling your income as a design professional. That person isn’t a competitor or a customer. That person is you.

Design professionals can be — and too often are — their own worst enemies.

At my seminars in recent months I met four individuals who were more knowledgeable about their “can’t’s” than their “cans.”

An interior designer told me she lacked the “credentials” to enter a design competition.

A kitchen and bath professional declared he lacked the “track record” to raise his hourly design fee.

A window fashion specialist complained she lacked the “technical know how” to learn about and offer motorization.

A showroom manager said he lacked the “facilitation skills” to conduct a focus group of her top customers.

In fact, the key thing they lack is the courage of their convictions.

Too bad so many designers, window fashion professionals, decorators, retailers and others are so attuned to their doubts about their ability.

Some suggestions on how to rid yourself of destructive self talk:

+ Recall past successes. Remembering yesterday’s achievements will empower you to tackle today’s
challenges.

+ Refuse to lose. Heed the advice of Winston Churchill: “Never give up. Never, never give up.”

+ Refocus your energy. It takes lots of effort to dwell on your shortcomings. Rechannel that effort into focusing on your attributes.

+ Rehearse your responses.Develop –ahead of time — good responses to lousy questions. Preparing yourself for the “Questions from Hell” will boost your confidence.

+ Fake it ’til you make it. Accentuate the positive about yourself to the greatest possible degree. If you don’t toot your flute, who will?

+ Mind your own business. By comparing yourself to more “talented” competitors, you put yourself down. Comparison is a game without winners.

+ Consider the consequences. So what if you try something and fail? It’s not what you lose, it’s what you learn. Said Tom Watson, former IBM chairman: “If you want to succeed, double your failure rate.”

“I want to talk it over with my husband.”

How many times have you heard that line?

How many times have you considered it a deal-killer, a sure sign that the prospect could care less about buying your design services or products?

And how many times, then, have you failed to follow up?

A New Jersey furniture dealer realizes that following up fast is critical in a soft economy like this.

That’s why the dealer, who asked not to be identified, recontacts tonight the wavering prospect he met today.

He calls at 7 p.m. or so, and guess who often answers: the husband. The dealer gives him a personalized sales pitch and, voila, he closes the sale over the phone.

Design professionals in general do a crummy job of following up with prospects. So, for that matter, do those industry partners who spend thousands  preparing to exhbit at design trade shows, then fail to follow through on the leads they get.

Who was it who once said: “Quitters never win, and winners never quit?”

The best strategy for dealing with prospects, especially the more promising ones: Go until you hear “No.”

Do you feel it’s not enough to earn “not enough?” That you work too hard to earn too little?

If so, it’s time to figure out what’s holding you back from making more money in your design career.

A new information-packed audio program will help you do that.

The 12 Reasons Why You Earn Less Than You Could..and Should is the title of this new audio recording of the recent tele-seminar.

This program pinpoints the 12 factors that curtail your sales, diminish your income and paralyze your profits.

And it provides concrete steps to overcome them and turn your business around.

Here’s your chance to identify the obstacles that block your progress and diminish your profits.

Here’s your chance to learn simple strategies to overcome those obstacles.

Here’s your chance to learn how to earn the income you want and deserve.

For more information on The 12 Reasons audio program, click here:
http://fredberns.com/12Reasons.html