How to Talk Your Clients Down from Trees (or Their High Horses)
By Jay Johnson
What Clients Love by Harry Beckwith is a book that talks about the FUD Factor. FUD = Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt. He describes a problem facing your potential design customers as a combination of these three dark horsemen. Oftentimes in our interior design business, we think I'm dealing with a bunch of FUDaholics!
One of our design clients told us she wanted a beautiful new facelift to go with her beautiful new surroundings. We’re egocentric enough to believe that a gorgeous interior will change our clients’ lives and make them happier people. But then the FUD Factor hits some folks full on. How do you get clients to see that you’re right about their decorating direction, that they should relax and trust you more, and that their FUD should evaporate?
High-end interior design projects should be enjoyable for both the client and the designer. There are stressful times and difficult moments, to be sure. But like shopping for a new wardrobe, decorating should be mainly fun, enjoyable, and creative for everyone involved. Our most difficult jobs usually involve clients unsure of their taste, distrustful of designers, and overly anxious about the end result. As professionals who want your high-end decorating experiences to only be smooth sailing, here are a few tips to lessen the FUD Factor.
Help clients be less uptight and more relaxed about the decorating process. Decorating is a project or series of projects with a distinct beginning, middle, and end. Help clients see that tension-causing phases of their project soon ease up and wonderful results are just ahead. Many younger clients often get hysterical – much more than older clients. Some have to choose every last detail and micromanage their projects. Shortly before firing a client (yes, designers often fire clients; meditate on that for a moment), we once asked the wife if she put as much thought and stress into choosing her husband as she did selecting a wall color.
Manage your clients’ expectations. That is the key to overcoming FUD. High-end decorating is not like buying a luxury car. In buying an auto, you choose finishes and luxury details that come prepared from the factory. But a home design project is handmade, filled with complicated variables, and it doesn’t come rolling off a factory conveyor belt. Sometimes projects take more time and more money. There will be mistakes, yes. But you’re a good designer with a good reputation, and you’ll come through for your clients.
Help your clients embrace the Zen of When. It's better to stop screaming, "When will my table be shipped?" or "When will my pictures be hung?" The Zen of When takes over when you help them embrace the truth that in the end, it will be worth all the time and inconvenience. Many uncomfortable situations are simply not in the clients’ power or under the designer's control.
Forgive your clients’ lack of design savvy. Historically, European monarchs were happy to spend money on decorating to the point of entire countries going into debt. Louis XIV, the most powerful 17th Century monarch, was never shy about spending design money. The results of his decorating sprees changed the appearance of France, and it’s now one of the most stylish spots in the world. The French aren’t genetically more stylish than your American clients, however. They've just been surrounded by good taste and high-end, luxurious decorating elements for centuries. It's rubbed off on the masses. So be kind, be patient, and help educate your clients so they can dispel their Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt.
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In November 2006, Manhattan-based blogger Jay Johnson and his partner Irwin Weiner ASID applied the popularity of watching videos on the Internet to the house-and-garden arena. The idea for Design2Share was born. On D2S, they share their insight, tips, and strong opinions about how people design and decorate their homes, entertaining over 300,000 visitors a year; their syndicated original videos had over 22 million video views in 2010.
