Get Out of Your Own Way, and Raise Your Rates

656 Wildrose Way • Louisville, CO 80027 • 303.665.6688 • 303-589-3013
Fred@FredBerns.com • www.InteriorDesignBusiness.net

One person prevents you from setting and getting much higher design fees and markups.

That person isn’t a competitor, critic, or customer. That person is you. 

You’re the one who convinces yourself that you can’t charge more.

You’re the one who tells yourself that clients would never pay more for your design services. Or that your local market won’t “bear” higher fees. Or that you simply don’t have the experience or expertise to substantially raise your fees. 

That’s B.S.  

There are interior design professionals with less experience that you have, in smaller markets than yours, who are setting and getting fees considerably higher than yours.

I know, because I coach them. And I write bios and other marketing material for them. And I promote them in other ways.

I’m sending out some tough love here, in hopes that you do today what you should have done months ago:

Raise your rates. Better yet, double them.

And don’t do it in coming weeks, or later this year. Do it today.

Can’t do it, you say. People just won’t pay that kind of money. And you’ll lose all your clients to competitors who charge less. And you lack the credentials. And designers in your area just can’t get those kind of fees. And you already get price objections.

And you can give my lots of other reasons why you can’t charge much more money. 

I don’t care about those reasons. You shouldn’t either. I don’t care why this rate hike won’t work. I care why it will.

Getting much higher fees will work if you remember who you are, and what you do.

Who you are is a gifted, talented, uniquely-qualified, one of a kind design professional. What you do is improve the quality of people’s lives by updating and upgrading their home and workspace. What you do is save client's time, money and stress, and help them avoid ruinous mistakes. What you do is transform their space.

And you should be compensated accordingly.

You will be, once you look and sound the part of a design professional who commands top fees.

Looking the part means having a killer bio, a promotional profile on your website, your Houzz site and elsewhere. I can write this for you.

Sounding the part means following a simple strategy to roll out your new fees. I can coach you in 45 minutes how to do this.

Or, write or rewrite your bio on your own, and create your own strategy to announce your rate hike. 

You can’t afford not to do this.

You can’t afford to continue undercharging for your expertise, and giving away your time.

You’ve been charging way too little, for way too long.

Raise – and better yet, double – your fees.

Now!

 Fred Berns helps interior design professionals dramatically increase sales and profits by promoting themselves more effectively. For information about his coaching, promotional copy writing, speaking programs and educational tools for designers, visit www.interiordesignbusiness.net, or contact him at 303-589-3013 or Fred@FredBerns.com.