Professional Interior Design, The Business Side
Designers love their profession but often struggle with the complexity of running a professional interior design practice, either working for themselves or running a large practice with staff.
Interior design is not just the design of domestic and commercial interiors, there is also a lot of paperwork involved and tried and true professional systems to follow for the business side of the industry. There are also specialist areas that require additional knowledge including hospitality, commercial office design, retail, health care, aged care, industrial and a whole host of other specialist fields. That is what this web site is all about, helping you build your skills from being a professional interior designer to the business of professional interior design and the specialist information required in the interior design and decorating industry.
As designers we get to create, design and have constructed extremely rewarding projects. You can achieve this because you have completed all the education required to be able to design. However if you take the next step of going into the interior design business world without some education in general business skills then you will learn the hard way and most probably will experience a lot of heartache with failure a probable outcome.
Professional interior design is a complex and law governed industry that has codes and systems that must be adhered to. Taking a professional business approach to the design industry will provide you with a sound foundation to work from and help you achieve a steady income rather than leaping in with a cavalier attitude to business, thinking you will pick up the skills along the way.
For professional interior designers, in the beginning, making a profit is relatively easy, but making a profit consistently and growing the business over time takes skill and strong management. Unfortunately, often the most creative people in the world are the least business savvy.
Gaining skills required to grow the business to be able to capitalize on the creativity and the professional interior design services that we offer is what will differentiate us from being great designers to professional interior designers in the interior design business, enabling you to combine those characteristics and create wealth for you and your client.
Those necessary skills are many and include good design methodology, the understanding and application of all required building and local authority codes, handling clients correctly, looking after staff, documenting work thoroughly, project managing to minimize all risk, ensuring accounting and cash flows are taken care of and of course marketing and selling your design skills and services to your defined and target markets. Professional interior designer also needs specialist knowledge when working with new projects. We include that here and welcome all contributions from the design community.
Here you will find information that helps you learn these skills to be professional interior designers in practice. You may be an architect, interior designer, interior decorator or even work in graphic or industrial design but you are sure to find some information, systems or even use the whole website to help you build your business knowledge and ensure that all those mundane tasks that businesses require, get the attention they deserve.
This website is divided into sections to simplify your learning. Make sure you subscribe to the professional interior designers newsletter and blog so we can update you each month. Have a look around these areas and keep updated for more information.
