Why You Should Charge for Initial Consultations
By Robin Callan
Interior designers who charge by the project rather than by the hour have the ability to offer "free" initial consultations, because they can roll the cost of that first interview into their project fee. But if you are a designer who charges an hourly rate, here are a few reasons why it's detrimental to your bottom line that you charge clients for initial consultations:
Set a precedent. It's important to establish right up front that your time is valuable and that it literally has a dollar value associated with it. You are providing a valuable service to your clients and deserve to be paid for it.
Recoup compensation for travel time and admin costs. By the time you arrive for your first appointment with a client, you’ve probably spent half an hour getting to their home, fifteen minutes responding to their initial calls or emails, and you usually have another half hour of travel time back to the office or your next appointment. So before you even lay eyes on your new project, you've already given up 1.25+ billable hours. Unless you charge an exorbitant hourly rate, you have to recoup this cost somewhere, and charging for an initial consultation is a fair way to do that.
Time is (usually) your only commodity. If we could charge clients a fee per idea, we'd all be gazillionaires! Time is a quantifiable commodity. Ideas are not. If you don't charge for an initial consultation, you may be tempted to keep your ideas to yourself—after all, the client could certainly implement your suggestions without paying you a penny. However, holding anything back during this first meeting can be counter-productive. Not only do you miss out on the opportunity to adjust your design concepts based on your clients' reactions, you are also cutting off the opportunity to collaboratively brainstorm with your client.
Big money projects don’t always generate the big bucks. When a client calls and tells you, "I need help with my whole house" it’s easy to assume that this will translate into a long-term project and a big payoff, in which case, offering a free consultation to this client sounds like a good idea. Unfortunately, many people have trouble communicating what they really need or want. "I need help with my whole house" could mean they want you to do everything from soup to nuts throughout every room in the house…or it could mean, "I'd like to pick your brain for an hour while we walk room to room." If you don't make it a standard practice to charge for initial consultations, you may not see a return on your investment.
Consider it insurance. Even if you get an opportunity to work on a big-budget project and are tempted to offer a free initial consultation, this may be counting your chickens before they hatch. Sometimes it doesn't work out between you and a client and the project vanishes. Maybe they can't get their architectural plans approved by their HOA or the city. Sometimes a client's lifestyle can change in an instant and their pocketbook priorities do a 180 too, without warning. People lose their jobs, have car accidents, get divorced…maybe they need to take time off from work to care for an ailing parent. It's not typical, but these things happen in life, and they take a higher financial priority over home decor. All of these situations can delay or derail a project, so it's important to charge adequately for your time along the way.
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Robin Callan is the founder of Room Fu, a Best of Austin award-winning interior design firm and long-time defender of affordable design. Her blog, Fu for Thought, features steals and deals, design-related musings, and interviews with celebrity designers.
