Why Your Interior Design Firm Shouldn't Offer So Many Services
"What interior design services do you offer?"
Does your response to this question result in a three-minute list of everything your business provides? While we might initially think that offering every service under the sun will cast a wider net and bring us that many more clients, the opposite is often true.
The more services you offer, the more scattered you appear to your audience, the more stressed you are, and the more confused you will be on how to market your business. More interior design services indicates that you will have more than one target client. How are you supposed to market to multiple personas at the same time? You can't and shouldn't.
I’ll explain my Pyramid Theory and how it can help you market your business more easily, reduce your stress, narrow your focus, and expand your profitability.
How to Know if You Offer too Many Interior Design Services
When I first started my business, I thought I needed to become a one-stop-shop for all things marketing. As an interior designer, home stager, or soft furnishings workroom, you've likely had similar thoughts. The more services you offer, the more clients you will potentially attract, right?
Nope. Take it from me - since I just love to learn the hard way - offering too many services sets you up as a jack-of-all-trades, a generalist, the Walmart or Super Target of your industry. As much as I love a good Target run, I'd rather be known as the Gucci equivalent.
To help you understand what I mean, here are several brands that are known for only one type of product or service:
DryBar - They blow-dry and style your hair. That's it. No cuts, no colors, etc.
Socialite Vault - Email newsletters for home industry pros.
Squeeze - Massage that breaks the mold of traditional massage brands.
...and HelloFresh, Blue Apron, Ruggable...
"But wait," you might protest. "I'm not trying to be like those incredibly successful companies with huge teams and too many moving parts."
That's fine, but don't make the mistake of thinking ultra-specific service offerings are only for the incredibly successful. In fact, that is WHY they are successful. Think about it: if you currently offer 5 services (or more), you have 5 different sets of pain points to address, 5 different ideal clients, 5 difference calls to action that you must rotate through your marketing, 5 different types of social media posts, lead magnets, and website sales pages that you must maintain.
If you offer more than 3 interior design services and you also have marketing anxiety, that is no coincidence. In fact, I routinely meet designers, stagers, and fabricators who feel that, if they can't consistently sell their current services, they should add MORE services.
From a marketing standpoint, that is similar to saying, "Wow, this bag of rocks is really heavy. Maybe I should add more rocks to see if it helps."
My friends, it's time to take a load off your shoulders. If you hone in on 3 services (1 main service and 2 sub-services) you'll experience the following side effects:
1 | Marketing Clarity
You'll know who your ideal client is and how to meet them where they're at with your specific service offering. You'll know what to say on social media. You'll understand what your website needs to include.
2 | Branding Brilliance
When you want to become known for something, you need to tell people. A specialist in her field will have her business name, color palette, logo, website verbiage, photos, and more completely directed toward the service she is providing and to whom she is providing it. Basically, no more of that, "no job is too big or too small," nonsense.
3 | Financial Savings
Instead of casting a wide financial net to pay for the ads that you aren't even sure will bring results, you'll know exactly which marketing opportunities to snag or avoid. No more wasted money on social media ads that were too broad. No more wasted time designing a website that speaks to everyone (a.k.a. no one), where your services are fighting one another for attention.
4 | Increased Profits
Specialists rake in the cash. Are you amazing at creating color palettes? Become a color specialist. Do you excel at consulting with realtors on how to stage and sell their listings? Becoming a staging consultant. Charge accordingly, charge boldly, and most of all, dive deeply into that specific service so that you can offer it ten times better than anyone else.
How to Construct a Pyramid of Services
Chomping at the bit to fix your services and improve your marketing? (Sorry, that cliched phrase betrays my Wisconsin roots.) Meet the Pyramid of Services.
Okay, humor me for a minute. Imagine a triangle, larger at the base and narrower at the top. This is how most businesses start: they offer every service they can possibly offer during the early years of business. After a few decades of experience, they begin dropping services in the name of "slowing down" and suddenly realize they've become incredibly good at one service in particular. They focus on that service, their waiting list of clients grows, their prices increase.
And then they retire.
What if we put that in reverse? Turn that triangle upside down. Imagine that, in the first few years of business, you became known for that one particular service. As your team grew, you then hired other specialists to perform new functions, thus growing your service menu without forsaking quality or taking on the burden of trying to become known for too many things at once.
Want a profitable business, ladies, and gents? That's how it is done. Specificity sells.
How to Narrow Down Your Specialty Service
Of all the services you currently offer or had planned to offer, which one has the fastest turnaround time, the least amount of hand-holding, the smallest amount of overhead, and the greatest demand?
That should be your specialty.
"But if I stop offering my other services, I'll miss the handful of clients who want them every year!"
Do you want hordes of clients who all want services that you don't enjoy providing, that eat up many hours in your day, that take you away from your family?
Or...
Do you want a smaller, more elite clientele that values your time, pays higher rates, and is truly dedicated to your company?
There is no wrong answer, but there is such a thing as having the wrong expectations for your business. If you offer many main services and can't figure out why you struggle to consistently find pleasant, paying clients...that's why.
If you throw marketing dollars to the left and right without establishing who your ideal client is because you offer so many services that it would be impossible to narrow it down...that's why.
If your business is struggling to launch or struggling to stay afloat, the worst thing you could do is add more services. The best thing you could do is become specific. Don't wait until your last few years in business to make that transition.
