How to get more design clients (+ FREE worksheet!)
Finding clients is the most important aspect of any design business - after all with no clients you have no money and with no money you have no business!
But many designers struggle to find a steady stream of clients. Some months they may have plenty of work - or on occasions too much work - while other months there will be none.
In this post I share some ideas for how to identify the clients that you want to work with and ultimately get more of those clients through the door.
Who is your ideal client?
Identifying and understanding your ideal client is the most critical step in establishing a successful business.
Many people (incorrectly) think that if they try and appeal to everyone then they will have more potential people as customers, but this couldn't be further from the truth. You instead run the risk of not really appealing to anyone.
Let me ask you a few questions:
do you know exactly who your ideal client is or do you take work from whoever comes knocking at your door?
When you create products or services, content (e.g. blog posts) or put up your Instagram or Facebook posts - does the content of these speak directly to the ideal client that you are trying to attract? Are they specifically created for one ideal client?
Have you given any thought to who you would ideally like to be serving and what your ideal projects look like? For example - is it high end residential clients, commercial clients, restaurants, or perhaps you want to work on styling for sale or even home organisation and decluttering. Whatever the case - it's important you give serious thought to who you want to be serving and then make sure all of your messaging - your website, your social media, everything - is directed towards that ideal client.
What you want to be doing is narrowing down as tightly as you can as to who you are trying to help and what you can do to help them.
This means that every time you create a new product or service or post something on social media you are doing it with that exact person in mind.
You want your ideal customer to think 'how does this person/business know me so well'. You want to get to know your ideal client even better than they know themselves.
If you aren’t yet clear on who your ideal client is, here's some questions you can ask to get you started with this:
What are the characteristics of your ideal client? Be specific here - where do they live, how old are they, do they have kids, do they work, how much money do they make.....I often give names to my ideal customer personas - so every time I'm creating something I'm making it specifically for that person.
What are your ideal client's biggest concerns or challenges (as they relate to your niche area)? What keeps them up at night? What do they worry about? The more work you do on understanding everything about your ideal client the more you will end up creating products and services that speak directly to them and make them want to coming running to purchase from you. And these products and services should be addressing the exact challenges and problems that your ideal client is having.
Are you your ideal client? If you aren’t sure who your ideal client is then you may find that using yourself is a good place to start. It’s extremely common for people to start businesses around issues they have solved or had problems with in the past. So if you feel you are your ideal client then that’s terrific. There are so many examples of where someone has created a business simply to solve a problem that they were having themselves (myself included!)
To help you identify your ideal client I've created a free worksheet for you. You can grab that below. This is such a critical task to get right when you're running a business - and is a task that you should continue to refine even if you've been in business for a while. So I hope these ideas and the worksheet help you with this.
Proactive lead generation
Too many people post for a few weeks on Instagram and then wonder why nobody is calling them to book work.
Don't wait for clients to come knocking on your door. Be proactive and go out looking for them. Here's some ideas:
Make sure you tell people what you're doing, they won't know if you don't tell them!
Let the school parents know, tell people as you stand on the sport side lines. You would be surprised how many projects I’ve done over the years for parents of kids my boys go to school with or play sport with.
there's a very high chance that your first client(s) will be people you know who are willing to give you a chance (e.g. friends and family). They may have been to your house and love your style and ask you to do something similar in their own house. But they won’t know that you are offering design services if you don’t tell them!
Put out a post on Facebook to let your friends and family know what you are up to.
Send an email out to your friends and family and offer a reduced rate design consultation (or even do it for free when you’re first starting!). Ask them if they need help themselves, or ask for a favour and see if they could help by perhaps following your new social media pages or mentioning you to friends of theirs who might need help with their homes. NOTE: Be careful with email and make sure you get permission from people to email them more than once about your business. Don’t automatically add people to your newsletter without their permission.
Learn how to use social media and then make sure you do this strategically - a random flat lay once and a while is not content that people are going to actively engage with or find interesting or helpful. You want to become known as THE expert to YOUR ideal client. Post engaging and helpful content that adds value to their life and solves their problems.
Go to where your ideal client is hanging out:
Find a number of local facebook groups to join where your target market is hanging out. This might be focused on mothers, people interested in design or just groups that are in your local area. Jump in as often as you can and answer posts that are about your topic area. Don’t try and sell in those groups or you will be kicked out but offer excellent advice and throw in here and there about what you do. For example; if someone was asking for advice on how to fix an issue in their bathroom you might jump in the comments and say “In my experience as an interior designer I find that ….X, Y, Z”. The more you do this the more people in those groups will get to know your name and remember you when the day comes that they need to work on their house.
Facebook groups are also an excellent source of ideas for your business as you’ll really get to the pulse of what people have issues and questions with – this comes in handy when you go to create additional revenue generating products and services.
If you're offering design services in your local area perhaps try and put up flyers in your local coffee shops, gym, hairdressers. Places where your target market are going to be hanging out. Local small businesses are normally happy to support other local businesses so put business cards or flyers up where you can.
Develop partnerships
Approach architects, property developers, joiners, builders, real estate agents and let them know about your business and what services you offer.
Make sure you pitch these people in a way that solves problems for them. For example, lots of cabinet makers have clients who get them around to quote for kitchens but have no idea what sort of kitchen they want. Most joiners/cabinet makers hate designing (and aren't very good at it!) - so sell yourself as someone who can help them solve this problem.
Real estate agents may be interested in a service where you help potential purchasers come up with ideas for how they could renovate a property. Be creative here and remember that you’ll hear no from these people far more often than you will hear yes. But if you want your business to grow and succeed then don’t get put off by the nos - go to the next person and keep going until someone says yes.
Also - build relationships first before you start asking for something!
If you want to learn lead generation strategies that are working right now for the designers I work with then I teach those to you in my lead generation business short course. This is course is only a couple of hours long and by the end of it you’ll have so many strategies to use to find more clients and win more work.
Overall, if you're struggling to find clients you need to get creative with how you are going to find work. And you need to put yourself out there to do it....which brings me to my third idea.
Be brave and be yourself
Sometimes the reason we have no clients coming to us is because we are too scared to put ourselves out there and to show people who we really are.
You might put up pretty pictures on social media but they aren't letting anyone get to know the real you.
Who are you and what do you stand for?
At the end of the day, people want to work with people who they "know, like and trust" but you need to show up and be authentic in order for people to get to know who you are, what you do and how you can help them.
This might take the form of posting behind the scenes on your instagram stories, or revealing more in stories you write in your Facebook and Instagram captions. If you stand for something you will likely to put some people off - that's fine! They aren't your people - but at the same time you will attract the people who you want to have part of your community - and that's why we need to circle back to my first point - you need to know who your ideal client is so you know who you are speaking to!
Your job is to solve problems
Overall there are some key factors to remember when you’re trying to get clients.
Remember what your job is as a designer - you are there to solve problems. And you need to know what the problems are better than your clients know what they are – as often they will be terrible at articulating these.
You basically want to get inside the head of your target market – what is worrying them? What keeps them up at night in relation to your niche area? The more you can understand their internal struggles and concerns the more you are going to appear to completely ‘get’ them when you eventually go to sell to them.
Are they worried about not being able to afford their renovation?
Are they worried about where they find their trades?
What are their problems and how are they impacting their lives?
Your success as a designer and business owner is going to be in how well you understand what the problem is, how well you can then offer a solution to the problem and how well you communicate what you are doing along the way.
And ultimately if you can offer solutions to a person's problem then they will pay you for this.
You ultimately need to be providing a path for your client that gives them a way forward from where they are now to where they want to be.
People pay for clarity and convenience, so if you can offer solutions that meet their problems then you'll win their work.
Courses and Templates for Designers and Architects
DO YOU WANT TO….
Improve your professionalism?
Find more clients?
Bring in more revenue?
Create better systems and processes?
Then check out my business courses and templates for designers and architects.
These courses and templates leave you with work done - not just a long list of things you need to do next. We have a really strong focus on taking action and getting things created that improve your business.
Enjoy the rest of your day!
Clare x
