The Residential Interior Designer's Brand Problem: Why Luxury Clients Choose Less Talented Designers
You create stunning residential spaces, yet watch interior designers with lesser portfolios book the dream clients you should be getting. What’s the deal?
In this episode of Interior DesignHer, branding expert Ericka Saurit reveals why your design talent isn't always enough to win the luxury projects you want.
Ericka Saurit brings a unique perspective to residential interior design branding through her background with corporate design firms and luxury manufacturers. After transitioning from practicing interior design to marketing, Ericka now helps designers solve what she calls "residential interior design's brand problem"…the hidden reason why talented designers lose projects to inferior competitors.
In this episode, Ericka reveals:
Why your competitors win luxury clients through psychology, not superior design skills
The diagnostic framework that prevents prospects from ghosting you after proposals
How luxury clients evaluate residential designers differently than you think they do
The specific messaging patterns that attract budget shoppers versus clients who value expertise
Why your brand transformation affects everything from initial inquiries to referral quality
Whether you're struggling to communicate your value or tired of competing on price with less experienced designers, Ericka's insights will transform how luxury clients perceive you and help you build a brand that attracts clients who choose you over cheaper alternatives.
So, let's get to it...
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CHAPTERS:
00:00 - INTRO
01:28 - ORIGIN STORY
10:02 - DIFFERENCES & COMMONALITIES
13:04 - WHO WORKS WITH SAURIT CREATIVE
12:15 - WHAT IS BRAND?
25:01 - DO YOU KNOW YOUR BRAND?
27:29 - WHAT CAN "GOOD" BRANDING DO FOR YOU?
33:01 - LUXURY CLIENTS REQUIRE A LUXURY BRAND
37:48 - WHAT CAN A BRAND TRANSFORMATION DO FOR YOUR BIZ?
40:03 - CUSTOM FIT YOUR BRANDING
43:03 - IDENTIFYING "YOUR" BRAND CAN BE HARD
50:00 - BRANDING ISN'T STATIC
56:24 - DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU DON'T KNOW?
59:24 - DO WHAT YOU LOVE
1:00:39 - BRAND CAN CHANGE MORE THAN YOUR BIZ
1:01:58 - LOCAL BRAND?
1:07:29 - WORKING WITH THE INSTA ALGO
1:10:45 - BRANDING IN THE AGE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
1:18:46 - WANNA WORK WITH ERICKA?
1:20:29 - OUTRO
Read the transcript…
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Erica, before we dive into discussing everything you possibly can teach us about branding, tell us a little bit about yourself. Tell, us about how you got started with branding and how you started your own business.
Ericka Saurit - Saurit Creative: Great, I will. Thanks, Doug. I'm. I'm really excited to be here. I'm really excited to talk about branding and all the things that, you know, is involved with our industry and how it really supports interior designers, to live their best life and have their best business. I, I.
To this, as an interior designer, I. Well, I will say even before that, I grew up in High Point, North Carolina, so I have been exposed to the home furnishings industry. Literally my entire life. Everyone I know was involved in some way or another.
So I understood, you know, not just from a style point of view. In fact, I didn't understand style because I couldn't get into the showrooms. But what I understood was the industry and the commerce side of it, how it is like an entire, you know, business around selling, making, manufacturing, distributing, you, know, and, and marketing furniture, home furnishing.
So, yeah, so I promptly went to art school instead of design school. I just didn't have a lot of counseling around, like, what design really was. But I knew I was, you know, I was creative. I loved making things. I love drawing and painting and all that.
So I went to art school. I have a bachelor of fine arts degree in studio art that taught me how to understand craft and make things and materials, and that was really great. I worked for a little while after school, in a gallery, and then I worked in a landscape architecture firm.
And I saw how creative and analytical design was, and I really love that. And so I left New Orleans, which is where I was living, and I went to graduate school for, or interior architecture. So I have a master's degree in interior architecture.
I practiced all around the world for about ten years. Living in China, Shanghai and Beijing, traveling for work throughout Europe. I came back to New York City to work for a while and that's when I transitioned into a career in marketing, specifically for the design firm that I was working for, which was 15 years ago, now so that, you know, sometimes you have to take a couple steps back to go forward, which was great.
I left the world of, you know, CAD drawings and wall sections completely behind with no regrets, like, see ya. I don't want to do that anymore. But what my, what I found my value was is communicating and advocating for the design team.
What I started doing was, you know, marketing team pulled me in from the design side to talk about the projects that, you know, we were trying to pitch to the client or that they were trying to, you know, get buy in from the client. And I could hear and, you know, watch the response from the clients when the design work was presented by a designer versus someone on the marketing or sales or business development team.
And I was able to go back and translate then the actual kind of what I felt to be the intention, which led to better design work and got us projects faster and made happier clients. And I realized then, okay, that that's what marketing is. It's not this, like, evil Thing trying to sell people things they don't need.
It's actually communicating the value of something that will actually help people and make their lives better, make their projects better, make their, you know, make everything run smoother. So I, you know, that's where my marketing career began. I went back to school and did some postgrad work in marketing and branding and then worked for other types of businesses in our industry.
I worked for manufacturers on the I worked for two kind of very high end, home furnishings like upholstery case goods manufacturers here in North Carolina. One contract and one residential. And then I worked for a very large tech company in between.
It was building a kind of elevated tier of homes for the platform and wanted to communicate more closely with hosts to help them understand interior design. So it was sort of a set between the marketing and the interiors or the environments function to help create content and onboard people to what interior design was really about.
So how do they understand product? How do they understand really what makes a space function better, what's going to make it sell better or list better? And so it was a really interesting way to use my background in interior design as well as in product and, and marketing.
And in 2020 I started my own business, Saurit Creative which is yeah, so this is our fifth year in, in business, serving exclusively the interior design, architecture, build and home furnishings manufacturer client base.
I couldn't possibly do anything else. I don't know anything else. I tried to take a wellness client once. I tried to, you know, do other, you know, things and you know, marketing is so much tied to business strategy that it, there was too much of a learning curve.
I didn't understand how the business worked. I didn't understand the needs of, you know, any of the players. And it just really solidified for me that this is where my skills lie and this is what I'm best at and this is the audience that I can serve. So that's a little short story on how we got here today.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Yeah, and hopefully you enjoy it too because it seems like you've got an incredibly well rounded career and education. So that's, that's fantastic. Right, so you're doing what you like. And, and I mean most, most of the people that listen to the podcast and, and I work with are residential designers, either running solo firms or very small, you know, like less than five employees.
And they don't have your background because I'm also assuming that these companies, design companies that you are working for, are larger and have more of an organized corporate structure. So there's lessons you were probably learning from other people that you were working with that a solo designer on their own, they don't have those resources to learn from.
Ericka Saurit - Saurit Creative: Well, it's. Yes, yes. But that actually serves me because all of my friends, everyone I know, basically works somehow in design. They're a designer, they run their own design business, small, or you know, medium sized firm.
They are working for a firm, they have done something in the design business. They work for home furnishings manufacturer or brand or they have their own, you know, company. So I really kind of do understand all facets of different, you know, the way businesses run.
When I worked for the two manufacturers here in North Carolina, you know, my job was to figure out how to increase our trade business with those interior designers. Which hasn't always been the case. Manufacturers haven't always wanted, especially here in High Point, to serve the small interior design firm.
They wanted to wholesale business. They wanted large retailers. They wanted, you know what I mean, volume over a designer who purchases one or two pieces or doesn't have a showroom or isn't going to do a volume purchase. So the psychology of that is something I really understood from the manufacturer side, but also then getting into the heads of my friends who I would say like, you know, what do you need in your business from, from this manufacturer I'm working for, like, help me understand what you need in your business.
And that was long before I started my own business. And I think again I, as an interior designer, I get, and I understand that marketing. And we can talk about this too. Marketing for, as a firm, right?
If you're a larger firm and your face isn't, or your name isn't on the door, your marketing problem is a lot different than a solopreneur or someone who has one or two people. And you know, your name is, is at stake.
Right. So your needs are different and I understand both. And I'm really, I have clients on all sides of, you know, the scale of, you know, industry here. And that's great. And I love to help them, you know, really figure out what best serves them from the marketing side and how to really streamline their own brand and their message to reach the clients that they want to talk to.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: So when you were, when you were having those discussions with designers, when you were working for the furniture company and asking them like what do they need, Were there commonalities or were designers like just Complete special snowflakes. And they all had something different.
Ericka Saurit - Saurit Creative: No, no, no, no. I think there's so much. I'm gonna make up a word, but I'm a marketer so I can do that. There's so much fractionality, I guess, fractioning, fracturing in our industry especially. One example of that is like pricing.
Right. Every designer does pricing different in their business. But you know, yes, there are a lot of things that are different. But what I find in creating brands and marketing campaigns for designers is that they all really essentially struggle with some of the same problems.
So it's not that different from the manufacturer side. It's not that different either. You're really trying to, you know, over deliver, and under promise. Right. Make your client really happy. Because they, at the end of the day, if they look good in front of their clients, they're you know, not having to go back and forth with broken or damaged product or you know, dealing with delays that can't be accommodated for.
You know, they are the ones taking up all of that from the manufacturer. And if the manufacturer can again sort of serve them in the best possible way, then the designer looks great. So yeah, very similar problems across the board.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: And I would also assume like that, that switch of the furniture manufacturers or lighting or whoever, towards recognizing that designers are like individually, yes, sure, you're a small fish in a, in a big pond.
Why should I, you know, spend a whole bunch of time and attention on you? But there's how many tens of thousands of people who, who identify as an interior designer just in the States alone, like there's so many. So yeah, as an avatar, it just seems like good business.
Why would you not want to have that? You know, I mean it's sure it's great to be able to put your furniture into, you know, a mainstream store. Right. But Right. There's tens of thousands of designers out there.
Ericka Saurit - Saurit Creative: Yeah. I think the designers that are the businesses that really, you know, followed up on that kind of B2B business directly with the designer are seeing the value of that, especially post 2020, when you know, the, can the consumer.
The amount of sort of purchasing that's done influenced by interior designers and what they're promoting brand wise is really, Yeah, that's a train that you didn't want to miss. A lot of, a lot of manufacturers did because they dismissed the designer as a, as a, you know, good lead or a good source of business.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Right. And now we're seeing branding deals between furniture companies and higher profile designers.
Ericka Saurit - Saurit Creative: That's happening, right? Right, Exactly.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Yep. Let's take a look at, at your clients. I don't want to use my special snowflakes again, but like, do you have like a wide range of clients or do you even like hyper focus? Like let's look at residential versus commercial.
Big firms, medium firms, small firms. What does it look like, your, your client base?
Ericka Saurit - Saurit Creative: My clients are mostly small 1 to 2 to 3 person interior design firms or small architecture firms. I would say less, less than 10 people at the most. And that's, that's great because what that means is either on the like solo side of that they're going to be hiring, you know, someone to support them either through content development or they're going to, they're going to piece and you know, part and piece out their marketing and branding building and you know, they're going to find someone who's going to help with the brand, they're going to find someone help with copy, they're going to find someone help to build the website.
And they're going to find someone to help with social. And that's great. They're not trying to do it all themselves. They have realized I do have, you know, the client profile for me is certainly someone who knows how to delegate. Regardless of whether they're just starting or they've been in business for a long time, they really know that they can't do it all and that they don't have the capacity or the bandwidth or the expertise to take it on doing themselves.
If it's a little bit bigger firm, five to 10 people, they probably have someone in house, they have the budget or they've worked with an agency before that can take on a larger scope of work. Work. And so that's where we come in with that. But anybody over that, like 10 plus, you know, 20 plus, they.
I work with them on a consulting level. I have done that before, especially for manufacturer side. I've consulted just to put fresh eyes on a strategy or if they've got a specific product launch or if they're doing, you know, like a show house, if it's a larger firm doing, you know, some kind of bigger campaign and we need to create a small, you know, outreach or a campaign or a brand around that.
I will come in and help with that, like one targeted piece of it. But overall they've got their marketing strategy pretty much dialed in and figured out. But they need really someone who is, you know, agnostic to what they've been doing to look at it through a fresh lens.
Sure.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: So, but the, but the bulk of your client base are these smaller design and architecture firms?
Ericka Saurit - Saurit Creative: Yes.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Can you give me an overview? Let's focus in on the designer side then. And give me an idea of what you do for them and. Yeah, what you do for them, the services you provide.
Ericka Saurit - Saurit Creative: Okay, sure. So we start with branding. Obviously. Marketing is just an amplification of your brand and your brand message. Right. And your brand story. And those words we hear all the time. People toss them, them around kind of interchangeably, marketing and branding, but they're not, you know, so we start with branding and make sure this super important that the brand is dialed in.
Jeff Bezos said, I know you maybe have heard this before. Branding is what people say about you when you're not in the room. It's essentially like, what is it about your reputation, about your values, about the promise you've made to people, that gut feeling people have about you when they hear about you, what comes up?
Right. I, take clients through an exercise when we do our kickoffs and I sort of show very famous logos like Apple and Chanel and, you know, Ikea and I ask them, like, just give me your, like, split second response to this brand. What do you think about, right?
Think about innovation for Apple. Do you think about creativity? Do you think about, you know, with Disney, is it family or nostalgia or happiness or like, hot, you know, what is the thing that comes up for you? Because that is always, always, always an emotion tied to that brand. And that's what we want to be building around you.
Brand isn't a style. It's not about luxury or any particular farmhouse, modern or, you know, mid century. Brand is again, in essence, it's a very difficult thing to immediately slap together. That's why it's not just your logo. It's more than that.
And I tell people too, it's like, we're more than what we look like, right? We're more than the color of our hair, the color of our skin, the color of our eyes, the name we have. We are a set of values. We are a set of principles. We are a set of, you know, experiences and histories and languages and cultures and like, that's richness that creates you as a human being, right?
That's a brand, right? You are more than just your logo. So when people say, oh, my brand is, you know, my branding's not right, And I'm like, probably not if you don't know what that means. How deep it is. Anyway, it's the emotional connection, so we work on that. First, do you have a really true ideology or ethos, or point of view that your brand comes from?
For start Creative. For me personally, what I'm doing in the brand essence for me is to solve interior design's brand problem. I believe deeply that. And it influences everything. Every decision I make in my business, every client I take on, every panel I speak on, any podcast, any.
Anything I do in my business, draw always ladders back to this one principle, which is how do I help elevate what people think about interior design? How do I get people to stop undervaluing interior designers, to stop bringing them in too late on a project, to really understand what the interior design is for everyone.
Right? And that, you know, there are many different interior designers. One is for you, I guarantee it. And that, you know, when we have a, a safer and more, you know, healthy home where, you know, better humans and that can make better culture and better societies and better, blah, blah, blah.
It's a big mission, but that's the kind of thing that I want to help my clients figure out about their own business. And everybody's got that. Like, you don't. You don't start a business. I mean, and if you do, you realize you're not going to be in business for very long just to make money.
There's some other higher purpose. There's some other higher level mission. There's something else you're doing because you love it. And you, and especially interior designers who are not like, we're not doctors, we're not saving lives. And I mean, we are anyway, but we're not getting paid millions of dollars.
This is not like a, bankable, immediately bankable profession. And you're spending long days and long nights and, you know, years of sacrifice away from your family and away from, you know, it's. It can be a lot, right, to start a business.
And so you have to really, really, really care about. And that's where we start with the branding. So I kind of figure out, like, I help people figure out what that is that's driving their business, period. And then from that, we built the brand.
You know, messaging. I start with words first. You can't build a visual strategy until you've got that message dialed in. And then we look at an identity, right? What, what might the logo look like? Or how can we evolve your current logo? You know, we, we look at a series of things.
Sorry about this. And then we go into, you know, what assets are needed from a marketing side. Do you need a website? Do you need a refresh on your website? Do you need a social strategy? Can we, you know, how does that message then deploy into or amplify into other kind of correct marketing approaches that feel good and attract the right client?
The people who are going to resonate with that value system that you're putting out there in your messaging and your. And your branding. And so, yeah, that's. We start with brand first and then we, Then we do marketing. I don't do any pr. I have so many fantastic friends working in this industry.
In pr, I always recommend, you know, people go and, you know, work with someone who knows what they're doing. But, PR is its own, you know, again, additional amplification, visibility strategy for your brand. But you've got to get the story straight.
You've got to get that brand piece figured out first before you do any marketing. Otherwise, marketing gets really hard. And that's where a lot of people start, and that's why they have problems.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Yeah, that makes 100 sense. I assume that there's probably a big education piece, right? Because when designers come to you, what do they perceive brand is for? For me, I've. I've ran two fitness businesses, one real life and one in the clouds.
And I didn't understand what brand was at all. And one day I realized that what. What our customers thought we were was very different. What people who we were approaching to, to bring on as new clients.
And it was like the clients, it was a much deeper thing what, what we meant to them. Right. And then with new people, everything was surface. So I, I would assume that designers coming to you when they, you know, why do I need help with branding?
Like, that's just my logo and you're just like, right? No, it's so much more than that.
Ericka Saurit - Saurit Creative: So much more.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Do you have to teach them first or is that like, it just kind of evolves naturally?
Ericka Saurit - Saurit Creative: I mean, I have been really trying my hardest, and especially since this business was born during COVID I just, out of requirement, had to do a lot of virtual speaking and, you know, virtual stage staging, virtual events.
Which is great because then, you know, I could, I could distribute my message faster to people. I got to practice being awkward for years before becoming a little bit more comfortable. Now, even now, I'm not super comfortable speaking, but I love also teaching. I taught for a couple of years after graduate school.
And so I really, really love education and I Love learning what happens when I see people get it. You know, there's like an aha moment. So yes, I have to do a lot of education, but one of the things I start with and not to kind of, you know, start on the negative side of it, but this is what most people, they, they have a problem and then they want a solution.
Right? The problem is that they're attracting their own clients. Like you said. What, there's a like a big delta, big difference between what you're saying and what people are understanding. And what that looks like is a lot of calls where you're saying like, we're not a good fit.
They don't want the right thing. They're, they're not willing to pay your fees. They don't see the value in what you know, you're, you're bringing to them as an interior designer. So that one signal that your brand isn't working or isn't dialed in is that you're attracting the wrong clients.
Right? You're constantly explaining or defending what you do. One thing is too, that you, you aren't able to ask for what you want or what you feel you should be asking for because your clients don't see again, the value. So you're not positioned as a premium or luxury.
If, if, even if you say you are and you're attracting the clients who aren't willing to invest in what you're asking them to, that's a positioning, branding, marketing problem. And then you know, it's not necessarily, you don't have a straightforward, mission or value, like value based brand message that you can then feel consistent and clear about across all your channels.
So marketing is hard. You don't know what to say. You're saying like something different on every single website. Your Instagram, your LinkedIn, your TikTok, your X, your whatever, everything says something different because you don't know what you really want to say. You don't know what your brand represents or it's unclear or it's some AI gibbledygook that like doesn't make any sense.
Yeah, so that's, that's why designers really need to care about their brand really is like attract the right people, ask for more money and hold market share and then, you know, feel consistent and proud of what you say. And it's easy comes easy.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: So would, would it be fair to say that, I mean, we've all got a brand. Like, we've got personal brands, we've got Business brands. We've all got a brand like you. Like you said the Jeff Bezos quote. Right? What people say or think about you when you're not there, kind of thing.
Ericka Saurit - Saurit Creative: That's right.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Do you find that designers, like, they literally do not know their own brand? Like, they may think they're one thing, but the world is telling you that ain't you?
Ericka Saurit - Saurit Creative: Yes, yes. And that's really why it, you know, it pays to hire someone who can think about and put. Put some, you know, strategy around who you are. They're going to ask you the right questions. They're going to be leaning in and looking for certain things.
Right. They don't need to know your whole story at all. Like, they need to know a certain amount of things about your business to be able to frame it and package it and brand it for you. Or create a brand strategy for you that will resonate. You know, that's the expertise around branding.
It isn't just finding one story. There's like a lot of moving parts and pieces that you have to think about and consider to be able to create something, something that's going to resonate. I have a whole framework for it, and once I explain that kind of declines and I teach that in the workshops and things that I do, to really help people sort of see and understand that it's a complex, practice of figuring out your brand.
And it does take a little time, but once you spend that time, it's just like anything, you know, like, it's just like fitness. Right. You know, you're going to do as, you know, as much as you can based on your goals. Right. And once you do, it becomes part of who you are. Right. It comes with lifestyle, I presume.
I'm not sure if that's the best analogy. So you were into fitness, But I, you know, I think there's something there.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: You know, I get you there. But you know what it is? It is the same thing. Because, I mean, interior design at any price point is a luxury. Right. I mean, as long as it's not a diy. Like, if you're actually hiring a designer to design something that is a luxury. That's right.
My fitness businesses were a luxury. Like, to actually train with me at that one. When I, before I retired the business and sold them off, you paid a ridiculous amount of money. Right. And it took me a long time to feel comfortable to charge that money.
Right. And I know for sure designers are in that same boat. Like, I know they are yeah, yeah, for sure. Can you give us maybe let's, let's look at, either a real life example or, you know, maybe if you have to make something up to identical type of design firms, maybe a small firm, less than three employees, a before and after with crappy branding and with good branding, what that can do for you.
Ericka Saurit - Saurit Creative: Sure. I would say if we look at like, same talent, two different approaches to brand. Right. Maybe one, let's say designer A has a strong brand and that looks like a really clear voice. They've like got a really polished online presence.
That's their Instagram or their social media, their website. Right. Really good photography, super important. We could. That's a whole nother podcast, I'm sure. Yeah, but excellent, excellent visual communication. Includes beautiful, consistent typography, a really consistent color palette, a very singular, cohesive message that is client focused and emotionally driven.
It's a narrative that speaks to people about them, not about the designer. Number one. We can talk about that in a second. So, some examples of that, like Marie Kondo, I know she's not even, I love to use her as an example. She's not even an interior designer, but she, her, you know, that ethos again, that ideology is that organization is self care.
Right. Everything you have needs to spark joy. That's like, I mean, that's interior design in a bucket. But yeah, she's not even an interior designer. So, so let's say, okay, designer B has no brand or no, hasn't really worked on it or you know, just for the default of saying it's not anything wrong, it's just that they've not put any effort into doing it and that's fine.
They have beautiful work. Right. But maybe they've got a generic or an outdated website. They've got unclear offer. They are doing everything for everybody. They're inconsistent in their messaging. They're saying something different across all those channels. Everything.
Email, signature, LinkedIn, you know, their profiles are all saying something different. And that message is convoluted or it's too generic. And it's about them and not their client. And some examples of that. And these are actual.
But I, I call, I don't call out people specifically, but I have gone. I have seen more interior design websites probably than anybody on this planet. And I have a little, you know, Google Doc full of. Whenever I see an example, I will copy paste, of a bad one and a good one.
I don't see that many good ones unless I've done them myself. But I see a lot of bad ones and I'll tell you what they sound like. A recognized interior designer. Admired. Admired for her tactile, serene and dynamic spaces. Another one is your personal style brought to life.
Another one is Blank is an interior designer best known for balancing modern with traditional in their signature interiors. Those are beautiful words. I love the idea of something tactile and serene and dynamic. But I don't care, right?
I'm, I'm. These are, you know, your personal style brought to life. Most people couldn't tell you what their personal style is, and that's why they're hiring you to help them. Them. Right. So these messages don't mean anything. They sound great and they might look great on a website and they may sound like what everybody else is saying and that's usually what drives people.
It's like, well, I don't know how to do it. I've got to do my website myself. I'll just go see what Blank, Blank and Blank are doing and I'll think of something that's relative to what I'm doing. This is the old days. Now they're going to run it through ChatGPT, which is like the very worst thing you can do because you're just going to make it worse.
And then you put that on a website and it's like people sleep as soon as they get there. They bounce immediately off the page. It doesn't mean anything because it doesn't speak to them. Right. So that, that kind of messaging is what Designer B is probably doing. Designer A is getting the right fit clients.
They're already sold on what they do, their process, their values, their esthetic. They don't need a whole lot of convincing. Designer B, without a brand is getting a lot of looky loos and tire kickers. They're getting kind of unclear inquiries, they're going back and forth with people, they're getting on calls, they're doing a ton of emails, they're getting, putting out proposals that are not getting responded to, they're getting ghosted, getting misaligned on budget.
They have to convince, over convince even the prospects because they haven't built trust. Right. Branding is essentially a trust exchange. Right. How do you get someone to understand that you are going to give value to their life as quickly as possible? Right. So for project like, or for projects like, for a great brand, if the designer has a really great brand, Designer A, they are going to Be getting full service high investment projects with clients who trust them and give them creative control and creative freedom.
Designer B is going to keep doing smaller one off projects. They're going to get stuck explaining their worth or they're compete on price, which is, none of us want that. Designer A, who's got a great brand is getting press referrals, vendor partnerships, they're getting approached by brands to perhaps do collections, because their brand tells a clear story.
Right. It stands out, it makes sense. And that designer B is getting passed over not because of talent, not because of effort or education, but because no one understands what makes them different. So, you know, the stakes are pretty high when it comes to branding.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: And if we're just going to be, you know, crass and talk about money, I'm, I'm guessing that the luxury client or the furniture company that wants to do a branding deal, they are more aware of the things that make a good brand, the things that would make a good design company, the things that would make a good partner to get involved with in a, in a, in a project.
Whereas the first time, customer for interior design service has no clue what the heck is going on. And they will try 15 different people and they, they don't know how to judge, a higher quality service to a lower quality service.
And so if that's something you want, is you want to work with more affluent clients, you have to be aware that they are going to be more picky because they understand the difference between good and less than good.
Ericka Saurit - Saurit Creative: That's right.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: And that may have nothing to do with the design.
Ericka Saurit - Saurit Creative: That's right. That's right. It's, I mean we're in a relationships business. Interior design is deeply personal. You and I will say interior designers know just as much about their clients as like a therapist or you know, not that much but like, you know, we're deep in, and I say we because I did this like you're deep into the lifestyle and you know, the likes, the hopes, the dreams, the fears of that client.
And so there has to be trust. And they're also giving you like hundreds, maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars, tens of hundreds of thousands, of dollars, sometimes millions. I don't know if you're in that level. Great. But, and also time.
Right. They're displacing themselves potentially out of their home. They may have to take their kids and put them in a different school. I mean there's huge stakes. Right. And so the, I say that the purchase decision that it takes to be able to, you know, commit to working with an interior designer.
That length of time is quite long. So you've built a relationship with them. You have to build trust. They have to, you know, and even if that project goes, you know, a couple months to a couple years, you're in there with them making decisions, talking about, you know, sometimes things that don't go, don't go.
Right, right. How are you solving that problem? There's a lot of trust that has to be built to work with a client, even on a short, like, low stakes project. So your brand has to be able to communicate to them before they get on the phone with you, before they agree to meet you.
Right. It really has to express your level of professionalism, your experience, your, your values. For sure, for sure.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Okay, so say, say we had a client or you have a client and they've, they've listened to you on this podcast and thought, this is fantastic. And, and they went to you and they did everything you wanted them to do. They were the perfect client for you. Give me an idea of, of what they could, realistically expect to see in the short, medium, long term and like, best case scenario.
Ericka Saurit - Saurit Creative: Yeah. So, do you want, like actual. What if you're willing or, or you want to know the process of what it's like to.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Well, I, I want to paint a picture for designers, like, and, and I specifically make the point they do what you tell them to do. As a, as a former fitness trainer, business owner, like, the biggest problem was like, I can give you the best plan in the world, but if you're not doing your part when you're not with me, it's all garbage.
So I want, I want like, I'm gonna work with you, but I'm gonna do exactly what you tell me to do, exactly how you tell me to do it. So I want best case. Super awesome. What we can get out of this.
Ericka Saurit - Saurit Creative: Okay, so I, I have two ways that people do work with me and understand kind of my process. One is, you know, we do completely done for you services, where you, your role obviously is to show up, give me, be vulnerable, give me as much information as I ask for, which is what we kind of go through in our initial meetings, is to, you know, tell me about your business.
I want to know what's working, I want to know all the problems, I want to know what you've done in the past. I want to know what you've really, what do you dream. Your business, where's it going? Tell me, you know, all the things I want to know, you know, what you've done, marketing wise. I want to know what you're comfortable doing, like, how far and, you know, where could I.
How bold do you want to go? Right. How, you know, where do you want to be? And then, you know, your role is to also be the critic when I present and show options to you to say, nope. Yep, I love it. I don't know why I don't like it, but I don't like it.
You know, that kind of thing is. Which is what we have from our clients too. And I find most designers are really great at doing that. Of course, because you're also, the interior designers are also service providers. We're asking the same thing of their clients that I'm asking of you. Right. Feedback so that I can move forward and make, you know, the right decisions.
And then, you know, if, if done for you is not an investment that you're, you know, willing to make. And, you know, I'm far enough along in my career, I feel comfortable saying, like, we are expensive. It is, it is an investment in your time. It's an investment in, you know, it's a financial investment.
But we can break that up over, over time, of course. But with just like interior design, I think sometimes you get what you pay for. I've been doing this enough. I know that we're doing some of the best work in the industry, and I feel really confident to stand behind that. So it, you know, I think it's an investment.
And when people are willing to make that kind of investment, they show up, they put it forward, you know, their best. Same with fitness. Probably like your clients who were paying you, I hope were, you know, doing what was asked of them because they were making the investment in themselves.
Right. This is an investment in your business. And, you know, the people who are the most successful are the ones who really, you know, cherish that and value it. But I also have a marketing school that I teach all these things to creatives, creative service provider providers and really introduce them and then they implement.
Right. But again, it's, it's, it's an investment just like anything. Like if you really aren't to the point where you can hire someone to help you, whether it's me or anyone else, you know, the best thing to do is then educate yourself. And not just marketing school, but there's a ton of resources. There's some incredible podcasts, There are, you know, really great online Resources and courses and, you know, you can take the time and educate yourself and you're responsible for the success of your business.
You know, you can't put that on anyone else. So, you know, do what you need to do to succeed if it's really important to you. Was that the answer to your question? Did I go far?
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: I think, I think it was. I think it was, it was better than the question I asked. So I think that's exactly what we were looking for. Okay, so I want to get into some like, just more like nitty gritty details on branding and I'm curious, does, does branding differ for the solo designer versus the medium size versus the larger 100%?
Ericka Saurit - Saurit Creative: The solo designer is branding for personal trust, right? Your name's on the door. It's, you know, Douglas Robb, interior design. So your face is going to be out there, right? So your voice, your presence, your face, you're the brand, right?
People are hiring you. You're, you're going to highlight your personality, that point of view, that ideology, that ethos, right? That philosophy in a way that feels more memorable and intimate and personal to what they value, right?
Because it's going to be a one on one. Typically, you know, even if you've got a few people working with you, it's going to be a one on one connection. They really want to build that relationship with you. Even if you have a team or a small team that's going to help, you know, implement the project. So it's less, about.
I was gonna say it's still about polish. But you know, you're not a corporation. You not want to make that impression because you'll give people, it will put them off, right? They come to your office and they're the one person or they, you know, meet you and it's like, you're not a team. You don't want to give the impression that you're a big corporation so you want to be more authentic to who you are.
People are going to want to know, can I trust you kind of right away where you get my vision are you how much personal service. And so that then comes in how you message and, you know, communicate what your process is like. But really that difference between a solo designer and like a, a larger company is going to be about like personal trust, like building that with you one on one.
For larger firms, branding is about consistency. It's about clarity, making sure that you, talk about. It's a team effort. They're going to probably not See, you know, the principal or principals, as often as they're going to see like a lead designer or project manager or someone like that, you want to make sure that that is communicated very clearly, that you're a team, that you work together.
You're going to have to trust. Even if you've got again, one point of contact, it's more like professional, it's less personal. The brand needs to say like, you know, this is who we are, this is how we do things. You have to make that process part really clear. Again, comes back to a team, and that, you know, it's, we're the right partner for your investment.
So typically someone who's hiring a larger project or a larger team like that has a larger project where there's a lot of other stakeholders involved. You know, it could be like a commercial project or it could be, you know, something where there. You're not. It's not going to be a one on one, you know, like a home, one single homeowner hiring an interior designer.
It's going to be sort of a larger project where that larger firm expertise of multiple different kind of specialists is going to be needed and necessary.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Yeah, I had a designer approach me at an event two, months ago and they had redesigned their website. They had paid someone to redesign their website. And, and they were showing some people on their phone and I, and like a dummy.
I was honest when they asked what I thought of it. And so I, I said, well, I know a little bit about your company. And they were a solo designer and they did beautiful work, but it literally was just them.
And I said, this website is a corporate website. This is that team that you're talking about. And I'm like, where did that, where did the concept come from? Well, they worked with the web designer to. And I'm like, he worked with the web designer.
Well, they also had marketing, support. I'm like, oh, they also had marketing support. And I know, I know where you're going with this. And I'm like, you got. So you wasted your money. You wasted your money.
Ericka Saurit - Saurit Creative: Yeah.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: I said, okay. I said, what I want you to do is I want you to make a list of your favorite top 10 clients that you've had over the years. This person's been in business for 15 years. I said, I want you to take each of them out for coffee or dinner or something and get.
And we made a list of questions. I said, I want you to ask them these questions. And so they sent them the questions, they met for coffee, they talked, and it was all about what did. What was the experience of working with this designer like? What did you like? What did you not like?
What attracted you initially at the end of the job? Was the thing that attracted you initially, the thing that you loved at the end, or was it something different? And then I said, now, if you want to go back to that same web designer marketing company, you can feel free to do that. But I said, this is who you are right here, what these people are saying.
And I just think, like, someone like you, you kind of already. You have an idea of the industry as a whole of designers, and then you can ask these questions. That's still got to be hard to pull that out.
Ericka Saurit - Saurit Creative: Yeah, it is. But, in fact, it. There's a, I don't know what the learning curve, I guess, is the right way to say it. Like, I redo a lot of marketing, and I've redone actually quite a few brands recently just because they needed to be refreshed. But I see a lot of websites that have been designed by a generalist, marketing agency who approached a designer and said, hey, we can build you a website for like $200, and then we'll, you know, create a, you know, whatever Facebook plan too.
And, you know, it's very. It's plug and play that's templated. You know, the copy is very generic. They have their own formula for banging out a website, and the designer gets a website up and sometimes the goal. Right. I'm not saying that's not part of some people's process and that's okay.
But, if you're going to spend money and you're going to, you know, if you're really committed to growing and building a brand first, then it's, you know, it really does behoove you to either educate yourself or work with someone who understands how to ask you the right questions to help you get to the brand narratives that are going to drive a really elegant and immersive and extraordinary website, which is what you need.
You know, because you're driving traffic from social back to your website, I presume, you know, that's a huge investment. It's a big property as far as your marketing goes. So you really should be paying attention to how much you're. You're spending on it. A lot of people, yeah, are going to be visiting it, so make it.
Make it worth their while. Keep them around for a while. Just on the. I mentioned this real quick, but I Think, maybe it's a question we'll get to in a little bit. But a website and a brand aren't static entities.
They don't. You don't do it once and then forget about it. Right. Okay, I'm done. I mean, you can do that for a little while, but, like, when I was in graduate school, like, it was. We did. There was research was a component of it. And I remember, I mean, it was 20 years ago, but I remember one of the things they said to us was, like, any research that you're finding that's older than five years old is no longer relevant.
And I thought, whoa, okay, that kind of makes sense. I mean, this wasn't hard science. It was interior design, which is a soft science as far as environmental science goes. And not like, with, like, physics or whatever, but from the environmental science, you know, academic perspective.
Anything that had been done, any studies that have been done more than five years were really not relevant. And I think the same is true for marketing. And especially since the benchmark of five years ago was Covid, and we know that did for basic, you know, understanding and appreciation and the valuation of our home and interior design, how we live.
We really saw what it meant to be in our homes and what that meant for our health and wellness and for the wellness of our kids and for, like, you know, what that did to our families and our mental health. Right. So people really, at that time, thankfully for us, you know, really became much more, aware of the value of interior design.
So I say that just to say, like, if your website hasn't been updated in five years, you know, you've changed, the market certainly has changed. The way people perceive interior design has changed. So it's time now. It's time, like, you're. You're out of date at this point.
But again, we're always evolving. Especially if you are a smaller interior design business. I bet the way you thought about your business five years ago or even three years ago is quite different than how you think about it now. The kind of clients you're attracting then is different than the kind of clients that you're attracting now.
So it takes, I would say, I tell clients, like, look at your brand, look at your message, look at, like, what you're putting out there at least once a year just to make sure that it still feels relevant, still feels as profound and as if you want to be provocative.
I like to be a little provocative. Like, poke people, you know, have a point of view, like, make sure that that's still true. And if it's not, then you need to put that in your action item, in your kind of, like, executive list of things to accomplish for the year. You need to budget for it. If it's something you need to, like, reshoot photos or hire a copywriter or whatever, like, that needs to be something you put some attention to.
But doing that at least once a year, even if it's not a massive renovation, if it's just little, like, you know, tweaks here and there, it's going to serve you than to just, like, do it and forget about it.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Yeah. And I would assume that the people who are approaching you, they're not those designers. They. They have taken a look at their website and they. They've felt some sort of pain that they realize they need to. To level up what they're doing.
But there's probably, you know, for every one person that approaches you or any other branding expert, there's probably thousands of designers who haven't looked at their website in 10 years because it's got all the stuff, you know, I'm an amazing designer.
Here's my phone number. Here's my email. Check out my Instagram.
Ericka Saurit - Saurit Creative: Yeah, I'm great. Here's my team. I did all this. Look at me like, yeah, that's all out there. I have a client now, actually. I adore her. And she has. She has been kind of following me, I think. I did a workshop with Business of home, maybe 2021, and she was in that.
And she sort of stayed on my newsletter list. And she finally called me last year. She called me the year before that, and we had a little, you know, strategy session. And then she called me last year, and, she said, I think I'm ready. I was like, awesome. Okay. And then she. She explained to me that she had had.
She has had the same website since 2012, and that it has not changed. And, I mean, I went and looked at it, and she called it a walk of shame. She was like, I just don't have time. I haven't had any. You know, I've been going through all these other things. She was raising kids and, like, you know, doing a lot of transitions in her life.
She's like, but I'm going back to it now. And now I really want to commit to it. So I get that client who knows very well that they need an update, but I also get clients who come to me and say, you know, what we said earlier, it's like, nothing's working anymore. What used to work doesn't work now.
My phone stopped ringing. I can't get in front of the people that I want to get in front of. What am I doing? I don't know what to do. And they don't say immediately, like, it's my website. A lot of times people say it's my social media. I think just because we feel like that might be the fastest, easiest thing to update because that content's, like, constantly changing, that, maybe if we threw some extra, you know, reels or posts on there, it would magically, you know, bring a million new clients.
But so what I. The way I work now, this is something I advise to my clients, too. It's like, let's say you have. Let's say you break your. You. You fall, you know, you trip going down the stairs or something happens.
You break your foot, your ankle, right? You're like, I'm pretty sure it's broken. Like, I broke it up on before. Pretty sure. I know that my foot is broken, but I got to go to the doctor, right? So going to figure out who's in my network. I'm going to go, whatever. And I know it's different in Canada, but, like, in the US we have, like, a plan we have to go through.
So you go to the doctor. The doctor is. I mean, you can say to the doctor, hey, my foot is broken. I know what's wrong with me. I'm pretty sure my foot's broken. The doctor's like, cool, cool, cool. I went to medical school. Let me just do some tests. Let's confirm before I do a whole kind of set of, like, a protocol for you that is based on what you are telling me and you think is wrong, right?
Don't even come to the doctor. The doctor goes through. You get the X ray, you get a full diagnostic, right? Takes blood pressure, he looks at all the things, and it turns out you just have a really bad sprain, right? You don't need a full cast. You don't need to be, like, elevated off your foot for six months, weeks.
You just need to wear this air cast and take some ibuprofen or whatever, and then you're fine after a couple weeks. Meanwhile, you would have done all these other things because this is what you thought was wrong. So I say that as an example, to say, like, when clients come to me and they say, this is what's wrong, right?
I have to go through a diagnostic. Diagnostic. Even if I could say to them, all right, I'm Going to send you a proposal. No, you need a new website, you need a new social strategy. It's going to cost you, you know, five figures. I. Here's what I think you need. Do I ever hear from them again? No. I get, in many cases I get completely ghosted and I don't even know if that's what they need, right?
So I changed my process. I got really. And I, I feel like there's designers shaking their head to this because I, I have talked to them who have done the same thing with their clients where someone will call and they'll get on a call, they might even go to their house and you know, they look around, they give them a whole, they spend, you know, hours or whatever on a proposal.
They send a proposal, the client ghosts them, right? Well, they kind of gave them a script of what they thought they needed, you know, and it wasn't fully diagnosed to what exactly they needed. So I now go through a different process with clients where we do this thing where it's kind of a pre, it's a diagnostic, right?
It's a, I go through a 15 minute discovery call, which is where they tell me their foot's broken. And I say are you sure? And I say, I said, okay, all right, let's find out. So I do charge for, for this brand roadmap. We book it, It's a couple hours, I go into a really deep interview with them.
I figure out like, do all the MRIs and do all the testing and figure out like what I think might be the problem. And then I go back and I figure it out and then once I come back to them in a second session and present what my diagnostic is on how to fix their problem. And then I tell them, here's how we can do it.
Or you can do it yourself. You can go home and build yourself a cast or splint yourself or implement it on your own, that's fine. Or we can implement it for you and then we'll credit whatever you've paid for the service to what we do in the future. And I have found that that gives me actually clients who are so much more bought in.
They really understand their own problem. They understand exactly we're calibrated on how we're going to fix that problem together. They know the length, they know the scope, they know the cost, they know the, you know, all the things. And I encourage designers to adopt a similar process with their clients too, is that, you know, some do, they'll do paid consultations where they really understand the client.
But if they're not doing that and they're getting ghosted and they're getting, you know, calls from tire kickers and they're getting, you know, all the things, like people just want to know how much it costs. Right. Then it's a different, you know, you've got to re message and restrategize yourself. And so that is how I begin branding projects with clients.
It takes a little bit more time, but again, branding's a long game. So is marketing. It's not. There's no instant fix. There is no, you know, takes a while for things to heal. So just like the body, you know, the same is true with your brand.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: And designers should understand that because in the same way, interior, it's a lot of time and people come to think, you know, and they come to the designer and they think they know what they want. And I never remember what this is called, but there's, there's this term for people who.
They don't know what they don't know. And they have this weird sense of confidence because of that. Whereas the people who actually do understand what's involved are way less confident. Like, they're, they're competent in their, in what they can do, but they're like, there are so many things going on here. Whereas the person who doesn't get it is like, this will be easy.
I can do a branding. I can rebrand my whole business, no problem. Just copy that Nike swoosh and I'm good to go.
Ericka Saurit - Saurit Creative: Right. Find a great logo on Canva and just bang it out. Look like everybody else.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Yeah, I mean, but yeah, for sure.
Ericka Saurit - Saurit Creative: I had a client say one, she was an interior designer. She said, and she was kind of, you know, complaining a little bit about her clients. She's like, no one ever thinks that they can build their own car, but why do people feel like they can build their own home or design their own home?
And I was like, that's one of the best examples I've ever heard, you know, And I, I then go back to designers and I say, like, you guys grizzle so much when clients shop you, or when they take your designs and your, you know, beautiful kind of concepts and then they, they goes to.
And they build it themselves. Right. But the same is true for, for branding and marketing. Right? Like, you can't do it all. Just because you're creative doesn't mean that you can do it all. So have someone, you know, help you help you execute, help you implement, see it in a new way.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Yeah, you'd think designers would be able to understand that right off the bat, but I'm sure they don't, so.
Ericka Saurit - Saurit Creative: I know, and I love designers, and I'm not saying this against them. I'm just saying that, you know, having a business, starting a business on my own too, like, I, I tried to do my bookkeeping, I tried to do contracts, I tried to do. I mean, I'm not like framing my own projects or plumbing my own projects or anything because I don't do interior design.
But when it comes to the bigger sort of structural stuff like that, I, I got help. You know, I knew my limits. I knew where my kind of zone of genius lies. And I also got burn out doing it all. Like, trying to do it all and not do it great. Do a sort of, you know, meh job at everything just because I didn't want to invest or didn't, you know, feel like I could let go of the control.
But there's other ways to do it. And I think people, once you start to, I would say for a small, you know, a, one or two person business, once you start to invest in having someone help you, you're kind of unstoppable after that. Like, once you realize how much time it frees up or how much that expertise can really kind of help you grow and scale, you really see the value.
But it just takes one or two times for you to be able to give up the trust, make the investment, live inside the fear for a little while, and then go forward and realize that, like, that's the only true way you can grow and scale your business.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Yeah, well, I mean, I mean, just having this discussion with you, it's very obvious that you enjoy what you do and I do. And what part of an interior designer's business do they enjoy? Do they enjoy the accounting stuff? Do they enjoy, following up on emails?
No, they don't. They enjoy design and they enjoy people.
Ericka Saurit - Saurit Creative: That's right.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: So spend your time there. And, and, to your point, I mean, I, I get it that like the, the full, the full package that you offer where you're doing everything, not everybody is going to be able to dive into that. Right.
Ericka Saurit - Saurit Creative: That's right. Yeah. Yeah, just like interior design, like, not everybody's ready for like a new build or a whole home renovation. You know, some people need to start with, you know, a couple rooms or, you know, something smaller. But eventually, you know, maybe they turn into a bigger client.
Maybe and maybe not. But maybe you get the experience you need with a really tiny boutique project and it's great. Yeah.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: And especially if it's a small designer in the end and you just helping out a little bit allows them to get one or two more clients. Right?
Ericka Saurit - Saurit Creative: That's great. Yeah. Oh, yeah, 100%. And, you know, another value with brand too is like, it's not just going to help attract clients. You are internalizing this whole new way of seeing yourself. Right. It's like, a whole transformation from, you know, the inside out. Right. That we sort of, again, talked about image, but like, you feel different about your services.
You feel confident. Right. You feel competent in how you are positioned or how you are, you know, perceived relative to other people in your market. And it's easier for you to go to a networking event or a, you know, cocktail party and introduce yourself as not just an interior designer, but as an interior designer.
That helps families, you know, in transition or helps, you know, people live healthier lives or, you know, whatever it is that you do in that position. It also helps you onboard people faster to your team. It helps your team feel a sense of pride in what they do.
Like, and I say team, it could be just like your assistant, right. Or if you have, you know, like a project manager, you have a contractor that you work with and maybe they can refer you to someone else because they believe in your mission too, but they don't know it unless you do.
You have to. It kind of starts with you owning it, internalizing it and being really proud of it.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Yeah. I want to switch gears a little bit and come back to something you were talking about earlier with social, media and the website, specifically for residential designers and for Because for the most part, residential design is very local.
I realize there are designers who, who travel the world and do that, but that's, that's, that's rare. Most people, you know, they, they don't even do their entire town or city. They do like a. Geographically a smaller area.
Ericka Saurit - Saurit Creative: So that's right.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Social media and brand, is very big and all encompassing. But how do you tie it back to that local customer? Because at the end of day, I, if, if we, if you help somebody and their brand is fantastic and they're getting all of these, people contacting them, but they're from other parts of the country or the world or wherever.]
It's like, that doesn't really help me. How do we, how do we look at brand and that local kind of thing we're trying to do.
Ericka Saurit - Saurit Creative: Yep. So I'll answer this in two different ways. One is to say, you know, social media isn't the your only marketing approach. Right. And again, talk about like marketing is an amplification of your brand message. And so social media, yeah, there's a couple things like let's talk specifically about like Instagram.
This might work a little on LinkedIn too. I'm Not entirely sure about how their algorithms work, but specifically on Instagram and Meta, you know, you can geotag or locate yourself. If you write like I'm in you know, Raleigh, North Carolina or I'm in you know, whatever Chicago or you know, you put a town Toronto, you put a town in your post, you know, you locate it, it will then help distribute that content to people who also identify that you have to signal that information through permissions in the app or through other parts, other things they may know it or not whole other podcast.
But anyway, that content will be prioritized to them in that location. Doesn't mean they're going to see it. Right. But I'm assuming like if a person is going to look at someone's Instagram, they can discover them one way through the discovery algorithms, if you're lucky, fingers crossed.
Or they will have heard about you some other way way word of mouth, meet you at an event, see your website, see you published somewhere regionally or locally, and then go check out your Instagram. Right. Depends on who that person is, where that fits in their discovery, journey.
Right. So that's one answer is like Instagram is necessary. It is not the only thing you need to be doing. But there are some strategies you can do to be discovered locally. What needs to be true about your presence on Instagram is that it is specifically speaking to that local community.
Needs to say very clearly in your bio, I'm serving, you know, the greater Toronto, the greater Chicago, the greater Raleigh area, with these services, residential interior design, new builds, renovations, kitchens, whatever it is that you're doing specifically because those are also part of the search, terms that Instagram and Meta and other link like social platforms are using.
You need to say that in your post. Right? Here's what we did for this Raleigh area homeowner who was downsizing from their, you know, big home after their kids, you know, their empty nesters, whatever that story is. Right. But it needs to locate itself in that community. So when people are reading through and discovering more about who you are getting to know your Work, they're like, okay.
Or you can even be neighborhood specific if your clients are comfortable and you're comfortable with that, but really the city is sometimes enough. Or the region. Right. North Carolina, if you're willing to travel but regional, then you need to do it consistently. But make that message very clear, that you're based in that particular region.
So that's one answer. The second answer is thinking about like, marketing yourself. Again, where are your clients? If your clients are not on Instagram or not on social media, let's say they're not a generation that's using a lot of social media, or they're a generation that's using a lot of social media, but they're not on a particular channel.
Like, I don't want to be too generic, but there are certain, you know, certain channels are better for certain types of demographic. The content is going to appeal to a millennial or a Gen Z, more than someone. And you know, there was always outliers.
But really is it more of an investment for you to look at like email marketing or look at regional, print or digital publications. Right. Like regional magazines, regional design, you know, publications might be a better place for you.
Doing a show house, doing some sort of in person networking or event sharing with a local builder or with a local real estate agent or something like that. Then to be thinking that putting all of your energy into, you know, social media is the way to do it.
Hoping and praying that they're just going to discover you. Now, I know those things are expensive, they're more expensive, they take longer. That's why social media is such a shiny carrot. Her marketing. But it's part of, part of the strategy. Right. Just be really clear that, you know, your message is, I support homeowners in this area with this service.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Yeah. And I've spoken, with a number of designers specifically about Instagram. Obviously it is like the, the first choice of social media platform for designers and for homeowners looking for, I mean, maybe Pinterest in terms of inspiration and whatnot.
But, when, when I go, when I scroll on Instagram with my personal. Right. Even if, then I'm thinking about, okay, we've got, we're going to do this project. It's going to be six months down the road, so I should start looking. So I start looking for interior designers on Instagram and I'm scrolling.
But the algorithm has still been trained on all of the other stupid memes that I've been looking at for the past six months.
Ericka Saurit - Saurit Creative: That's right.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Right. So, so how is that local designer supposed to not just, break out from all of the other designers on Instagram, but also deal with my stupid Instagram feed? Right. I mean, it's not easy.
So if anyone thinks, you know, social media is like, I'll put up a post two, three times a week. All I need to do.
Ericka Saurit - Saurit Creative: It's. I wish I had a better answer, about Instagram. I wish I had, I wish we could rewind to 2014, 2015 when you, it was easy, easier to build a presence, build a following.
People's, I mean people's behavior on the platform is different. The algorithms were different, the way it was indexing information was different. The world, and how we look at social media was totally different then. And so we're not there anymore.
We're now competing with a flood. I couldn't say the number, but an enormous amount of automatic generated content, or, not that there's anything wrong with AI generated content, but it's out there because we are now in this habit of having to produce, produce, produce, produce.
We're all immature, you know, content producers at this point. We're making movies, we're competing with Netflix, we're competing with, you know, these video based entertainment channels and you know, content that's, you know, more academic or thoughtful, not to say that thoughtful is the wrong word.
But if you are trying to, you know, gain a following by, you know, content that isn't really structured for this type of platform, which is essentially an entertainment and an edutainment platform, you need to think about your strategy because the algorithms working against you, people's own personal filter bubbles.
That was a really great book a few years ago. I don't know if you read that, are working against you. There's just some factors there. And if you want to succeed at Instagram, you got to play the game and you got to know what the game is. And it's unfortunately not just about beautiful content anymore, it's about entertainment.
It's about getting someone hooked in. And that can be really fun. And if you enjoy that, go for it. And there's lots of people who can build a business and are building great businesses that way, but if that's not something that you're interested in and don't have time for and doesn't feel authentic to your brand, then you're just going to, you're going to, it's not a good fit, that's all.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: And you know, oh, and, and I agree, we are, I Mean, we're already, I mean, I want to kind of wanted to dive in a little bit to get your point of view on artificial intelligence. And I think that's where we just kind of went with that question is imagine, imagine a future.
And it doesn't have to be a future, it could be today. Like if I was starting up an interior design company in Toronto and I go on to Instagram and I find the top, whatever, 50 interior designers from Toronto and I scrape all that information and I plug it into chat GPT or whatever and say, I want you to analyze not just the images, I want you to analyze their, how they run their business, how they speak, all these kind of things.
And I want you to devise a strategy for me to dominate on Instagram. Like it'll probably, I mean, you're gonna have to tweak it, you're gonna have to actually know how to prompt the chatbot. But I mean, you're probably going to come up with something pretty darn good and then you'll just create a bunch of fake images and you can even label them as fake.
You could say, this is an AI generated image of what I would do for you. Right. So I can pull this out of my brain and do this for you in real life.
Ericka Saurit - Saurit Creative: Yeah.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: And, and I mean, I realize I'm rambling on here, but this is where I think someone like you comes in, is that the authenticity of brand becomes even more important when we've got fake, more fake stuff coming down the pipe.
Right. That for people to be able to trust and realize who you are as a human being.
Ericka Saurit - Saurit Creative: That's right. And really, I mean anybody who's used chatgpt can see sometimes like what gets generated from that is literally the law of average. Like it is literally pulling together the most pleasingly pleasing.
Like it's the biggest people pleaser on the planet. Like it really wants to make you happy. So it's going to put together something that sounds like what you want, that's, you know, an amalgam of all the things that's seen out there and you know, is, is as pleasing as possible. But most of the time it's like your mind, your eyes cross, you can't, you don't understand it.
It's so blah, so vanilla just because it's actually meant to be kind of again, pleasing you with the average. So we are entering into, I would say, a trend for marketing and branding that's coming right now is to say you must be obviously authentic with who you Are, but I really would encourage you to.
And it doesn't have to be that you're shouting, that, it doesn't have to be that you have the, you know, the loudest voice in the room, but that you have a very clear point of view on what is important to you and that you use that as a differentiator, that it becomes the thing.
And it's easy because, like, once you figure out what that is, then it's like, oh, okay, I'm just gonna talk about the thing I love, like, again and again and again. And I'm not going to get distracted by what other people are talking about. I'm not going to get, like, you know, taken off the point. I'm not going to throw spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks.
I am going to talk about the thing that really matters to me, and I'm going to do it in a lot of different ways. And when you figure that out, right, that's something that maybe ChatGPT or Claude or whatever you use can help you figure out and help you get around to, but it's never, ever
And I have never been using ChatGPT since, like, the moment it came out to try to see if it can help me, you know, streamline, brainstorm, be a little bit faster in my work. And it does, you know, in a way. But I will tell you, it has let me down every time when I try to push it to the edge of conceptual, like, profound innovation, like, and again, this is different from an ideas point of view.
I know it's doing these things in engineering and in, and potentially in science. It can really help us make some big breakthrough breakthroughs. But when it comes to creative thinking, connecting the dots between all the different things, and it just not there yet. Right. And it's coming with the law of average.
And so you're not average. None of you are. I believe that's true for all of us. We all have something extraordinary inside of us. And so your brand is really just figuring out what that is and speaking to it. And that's not something that, you know, an automatic business is going to be able to do for now.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: No. And we could, we could train, an AI specifically on every piece of content and internal, conversations that you've ever had since you've been running your business. Like, so it knows Erica, like, backwards and forwards.
But, I guarantee sometime in the next month you're going to come up with a new idea that you haven't had before. And they do say that. That is the benefit of AI eventually is they'll start seeing things that maybe, but not yet.
Ericka Saurit - Saurit Creative: Yeah, we've still got some time. I tell you, though, I don't know how you felt after AI first. I don't know how long you've been using it, but it seems like a long time because, you know, it really well. But I remember it was like fall, and I had just started using it, and I, you know, I was asking it to help me with some messaging, and it was so fast, and it was so.
It was so okay, you know, it was. It wasn't just. It wasn't bad, like what I was expecting, but I was kind of like the first thing it output for me. I literally had to go. I, had to leave my house. I, had to leave my computer to go for a walk because I was so taken aback.
I was so. I think the. The emotion was fear. I was like, oh, you know, I'm out of a job. I'm done. This isn't, you know, And I thought, designers, creative people, we've all, you know, just. I. I just pushed into a future that obviously we may get to.
But, like, all of a sudden I was like, within the next year, you know, I've gotta, like, I'm gonna have to go back to school. I don't know what I'm gonna do. I want to come. It's. It's over and done. It was like total doom and doom, doom and scream or whatever. And then I realized, like, well, after using it for a while, I thought, no, you, know, we're not.
We're not even close to that yet. But I would say, definitely, if you are not using some form of AI in your business or you're educating yourself on how to make your systems faster, to make better integrations, to really understand, like, what it's capable of and see it as a potential, you know, watch it.
Watch it in the corner a little bit to see, how it might affect your business and how you can pivot. You might be in trouble because I think, you know, interior designers, the value of interior design is a point of view, which is what we're saying it doesn't have. It can't quite get there yet.
That creative, you know, project start, that, you know, the really beautiful kind of chemistry that happens when creativity produces something like it doesn't yet have that. Can it implement? Yes. Can it do orders?
Can it, you know, procure? Could it even, you know, streamline delivery and do all the things like that? Yes. Will it do all your bookkeeping and all your, you know, internal stuff in your business? Will it maybe replace junior designers who are doing all those things? Probably at some point. But is it going to replace true ideation?
I'm not sure yet.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Not sure yet. And especially for things that are personal, right?
Ericka Saurit - Saurit Creative: Yeah
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: I mean, interior designers are like the. A fantastic example of that. I mean, like, you are literally wandering through people's homes, going through their drawers. Like, how is this. How can we make this better? Right? You're literally in someone's underwear drawer. Like, it doesn't get more personal.
And until we all feel comfortable with AI robots doing that for us, which has got to be. I mean, even with Elon Musk, that has to be like five years down, right? I mean, like, it's not.
Ericka Saurit - Saurit Creative: Maybe four. I don't know.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Okay. I'm sold, right? I've got my little interior design company and, I want to hire you. So what's the next step? How do. How do we do that?
Ericka Saurit - Saurit Creative: Yeah. Well, I have a website, obviously. Sarrit.Creative.com. and I'm also on LinkedIn by the same name. There's Erica Sarrit, Instagram. You can find me. I'm there, I'm in and I'm out. So don't expect me to respond too much to DMs.
Marketing School for Creatives. If you want to learn marketing on your own, that's a really great place to start. I don't think there's anything else like it. And I'm really proud of building it and offering it to, the community of creatives in there now. Designers of all types.
Graphic creative directors, interior designers, brand people who work, you know, who got, like me, were creative and could, you know, make stuff, but didn't understand marketing as a fundamental skill. So check me out there. Marketing school for creatives.com or Instagram, marketing School for Creatives.
I have a newsletter that I put a lot of energy into. I really love it. And try to make it entertaining and funny and, so. And educational also at the same time. So you can sign up for that. And then if you want to talk about your brand, if you feel like something's not working but you don't know what it is, you've got a broken foot, but you don't know how to fix it, you can book a call directly from my website.
I think there's a link at the foot and maybe even in the header. Just book a call and. Yeah, we can chat about what's going on in your business and what your dreams and your goals are and, see if we're a good fit.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: That's fantastic. I 100% appreciate you doing this. I learned a ton. And, I'm good. Yeah, I did. I mean, it's funny. Like, I mean, and you talked about, you know, you doing, talks and stuff and feeling nervous at first and awkward and whatnot.
Like, I mean, I don't know when it happened for me. Like, I realize, you know, that I'm a goofball and I'm cool with that. Like, when I do these podcasts, like, I mean, at first self conscious, and now I'm like, whatever, I'm good.
Ericka Saurit - Saurit Creative: You know, because you're authentic and you're yourself. Right? And, like, if you. So here's the thing. Like, we were talking about this just before, you know, we started recording, but you put out a podcast and I recommend everyone go and listen to it a couple episodes back, where you was like a full AI interview.
And it was really, it was a really fascinating conversation. It took me a second to realize it was AI. But then I could, you know, there's some telltale signs just because I'm close to it and I could tell, but I thought, like, you know, there's so much great content here. I.
If someone wasn't really plugged into AI, they wouldn't have known. And. And the voice sounded like you. She sounded like a really great guest. Like, she gets. I hope she gets booked again, the AI agent. But really informed on, you know, what questions to ask.
The conversation flowed really naturally. That was really. That was really interesting. So, yes, we have to differentiate by being ourselves. And the kind of freedom for that is, like, good, because I don't want to pretend to be anybody else. I'm goofy too, you know, but.
And I make mistakes. We all do. But I think if we can show up as ourselves and show up as imperfect and show up as people really just sometimes saying, I don't know, sometimes saying, let me get back to you. I'll figure it out. I, think the better off we're going to be in this world if we just really own the fact that, you know, we're just human beings.
That's who people want to do business with anyway, so. Not computers.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Yeah, for sure. Thank you so much for doing this. I really appreciate it.
Ericka Saurit - Saurit Creative: You're so welcome. Yeah, no problem.
Why Your Competitors Win Projects Despite Inferior Design Skills
Your interior design education focused exclusively on technical interior design skills while ignoring all sorts of business topics…including client psychology. In today’s podcast, Ericka Saurit reveals why your competitors attract luxury clients despite inferior portfolios:
While you perfect design skills, they master strategic positioning that builds trust before first contact
Luxury client psychology operates differently than typical business decision-making processes
Your messaging attracts budget-conscious prospects while competitors filter for ideal clients
Professional positioning affects whether prospects contact you or competitors for major projects
Authentic storytelling builds more trust than showcasing technical achievements and credentials
This approach enables residential interior designers to transform from competing on price with inferior designers to attracting clients who choose them for expertise and judgment.
The Strategic Brand Development Blueprint
According to Ericka, successful brand positioning for residential interior designers requires understanding why prospects choose competitors:
Identifying your deeper mission beyond creating beautiful spaces (the "why" that differentiates you from inferior competitors)
Developing messaging that speaks to client transformations rather than your design process
Building trust through authentic vulnerability rather than generic professional credentials
Creating diagnostic conversations that position you as advisor rather than decorator competing on price
Establishing consistent messaging that reinforces why you're worth more than cheaper alternatives
The difference between residential interior designers who lose projects to inferior competitors and those who attract dream clients isn't design talent—it's strategic brand positioning that builds trust before prospects compare you to alternatives.
Transform Your Business Through Strategic Positioning
Residential interior designers who implement Ericka's strategic branding approach report meaningful transformations:
Higher-quality initial inquiries from prospects who value expertise over price comparisons
Reduced time spent educating prospects who ultimately hire cheaper alternatives
Premium pricing acceptance through positioning as advisor rather than commodity service provider
Improved confidence when networking with ideal clients and referral sources
Enhanced team pride through clear mission that differentiates from inferior competitors
The goal for residential interior designers extends beyond individual project success to building a practice that consistently attracts ideal clients who choose you over cheaper alternatives. Strategic branding achieves this transformation by creating trust before prospects ever consider your competitors.
Connect with Ericka Saurit
If you want to stop losing projects to less talented competitors through strategic brand positioning, connect with Ericka at:
Instagram: @sauritcreative
LinkedIn: Ericka Saurit
Join the Interior DesignHer Community
If this episode resonated with your frustration about losing projects to inferior competitors, you'll find additional business strategies in our community.
As the host who focuses exclusively on the business side of residential interior design, I create content that addresses the strategic challenges your competitors figured out while you were perfecting your design skills.
Subscribe now to access business insights that help you win projects based on expertise rather than competing on price with less talented alternatives.
