Mastering the Business of Interior Design: Success by Design

Hosted by Katie Decker-Erickson, Business Coach for Interior Designers

Arts Design Education

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Episodes

133

Latest episode

Oct 2026

Language

EN-US

About the show

As an interior designer, do you find yourself caught between your love for design and the realities of running a profitable business? Whether you're launching your firm or scaling to new heights, the business side of interior design can be complex—and often overwhelming. That’s where Katie Decker-Erickson comes in. As a business coach for interior designers and the founder of a multimillion-dollar design firm, she knows firsthand what it takes to build a thriving, sustainable business while staying true to your creative vision. With nearly 20 years in the industry and a Master’s degree in Business Administration, Katie is actively in the trenches—elevating her own firm while helping other designers master the business of design. We’ll answer questions like: How do I get more interior design clients? What should I charge for interior design services? What are the best marketing strategies for interior designers? How can I grow my interior design business? How do I build a brand as an interior designer? How can I scale my interior design business? What systems do I need to run a successful interior design business? How do I create a client onboarding process for my design firm? Is it worth hiring a coach for my interior design business? This show delivers actionable tips on how to grow an interior design business with smart, sustainable strategies. You'll get insights on marketing your interior design services, building a strong brand, streamlining your systems, and scaling your firm—without burning out. If you're an interior designer, firm owner, or creative entrepreneur ready to build a profitable, passion-filled business, you're in the right place. Tune in, and let’s grow your interior design business—together.

Listen to episodes

60 recent

October 14, 202624 min

132. Why More Services Won't Grow Your Interior Design Business | The Design Business Diagnostic, Part 6

Send Katie a Text Message!! When the market slows down or clients start approaching projects differently, it's tempting to respond by adding more services, creating new packages, or changing your pricing. But what if the problem isn't that you need more offerings? What if you need to rethink the ones you already have? In this final pillar of The Design Business Diagnostic , I'm talking about Products & Offerings and why the right service mix isn't necessarily the one generating the most revenue or giving clients the most choices. It's the one that meets real market demand, produces healthy margins, and supports the kind of business you actually want to own. We're seeing clients approach design projects differently. Some are phasing work, reconsidering timelines, or changing how they want to engage a designer. That doesn't automatically mean demand has disappeared. It may mean your offerings need to evolve with the way your clients want to buy. In this episode, I'm talking about: Why adding more services can create confusion instead of opportunity What changing client buying behavior means for your design business Why raising your rates isn't always the right business strategy The difference between revenue and actual service profitability How to evaluate your offerings through market demand, profitability, and emotional ROI Why a service can be profitable and still be wrong for your life How to use my four-part offering audit to evaluate what you're currently selling Why too many packages make it harder for clients to hire you How to accommodate phased projects without automatically discounting When to adjust pricing, scope, staffing, or delivery instead of eliminating an offering Why Products & Offerings is the final pillar of The Design Business Diagnostic How all five pillars work together to create a profitable, sustainable design firm The goal isn't to have the longest list of services or the highest possible revenue. It's to build a business with the right offerings for your clients, your financial goals, and your life. Save the date: October 28! I'm hosting a live Design Business Diagnostic workshop where I'll walk you through the five-pillar framework and help you start identifying what actually needs attention in your business. Seats will be limited, and registration opens soon. Stay tuned for details! Connect with Katie LinkedIn Business Strategy Sessions for Interior Designers Free Resources for scaling your interior design firm Website

October 7, 202618 min

131. Why Your Interior Design Business Can't Grow Without You | The Design Business Diagnostic, Part 5

Send Katie a Text Message!! At some point in the growth of an interior design firm, the problem is no longer your design talent, your clients, or even the number of people on your team. Sometimes the constraint is sitting in the owner's chair. In Part 5 of The Design Business Diagnostic , I'm diving into CEO Leadership and what it actually means to lead a growing design firm without becoming the bottleneck in every decision, project, and process. There's a big difference between staying informed and staying involved in everything. A CEO needs visibility into the company without personally performing every task inside it. In this episode, I'm talking about: Why your interior design business may have outgrown the way you're currently leading it The difference between delegation, micromanagement, and abdication Why visibility doesn't require involvement How to determine your highest-value work as the owner Why “I can do this” doesn't mean “I should do this” The four areas I think about in CEO Leadership: vision, culture, systems and processes, and accountability Why your time, attention, and creative energy have real economic value How to identify the work where your involvement creates disproportionate value How founders accidentally train their teams to ask permission for everything The systems that allow you to maintain visibility without micromanaging How to delegate outcomes and authority—not just tasks Why someone doing something differently doesn't automatically mean they're doing it wrong The five-day CEO time audit I want you to complete this week Why your value isn't measured by how many things require you Strong CEO Leadership doesn't mean disappearing from your company. It means knowing what genuinely requires your judgment, protecting those activities, and building the people and systems that allow everything else to happen without your constant involvement. If you know you're still sitting in the middle of too much inside your firm, book a complimentary Business Diagnostic Call at FixMyDesignBiz.com. We'll diagnose what's actually creating the bottleneck and determine what your business needs to move forward. Connect with Katie LinkedIn Business Strategy Sessions for Interior Designers Free Resources for scaling your interior design firm Website

September 30, 202621 min

130. Why Hiring More People Won’t Fix Your Interior Design Business | The Design Business Diagnostic, Part 4

Send Katie a Text Message!! Being overwhelmed doesn't automatically mean your interior design firm needs another employee. In Part 4 of The Design Business Diagnostic , I'm diving into Human Capital—and one of the biggest mistakes I see growing design firms make. Some owners are dramatically under-invested in people and have made themselves the bottleneck in practically every area of the company. Others have built expensive teams with overlapping responsibilities and still haven't created meaningful capacity. Both situations can leave the owner exhausted. They require very different solutions. Pasted markdown In this episode, I'm talking about: How to tell whether your firm is under-supported or overstaffed Why “I need help” isn't specific enough to make a hiring decision The cost of hiring versus the often-ignored cost of not hiring Why I want you to start with the work instead of the person The three categories I use to audit an owner's workload Why an assistant designer may not be the first hire your firm actually needs How bookkeeping, administrative support, procurement, and operations can create leverage Why hiring doesn't automatically mean adding a full-time employee The difference between giving someone responsibility and giving them authority How vague roles create expensive duplication Why refusing to invest in people can eventually create a revenue ceiling The qualities I value when hiring that go beyond technical skill How to conduct a Human Capital audit of your own firm The goal isn't to build the biggest team. It's to determine what your business needs and create the right combination of people, systems, and outside resources to accomplish it profitably. If you're looking at your team—or lack of one—and aren't sure whether you need to hire, restructure, outsource, or make a different investment, book a complimentary Business Diagnostic Call at FixMyDesignBiz.com. We'll diagnose what your business actually needs instead of starting with a generic org chart. Connect with Katie LinkedIn Business Strategy Sessions for Interior Designers Free Resources for scaling your interior design firm Website

September 23, 202622 min

129. Why Your Interior Design Firm Keeps Running Out of Leads | The Design Business Diagnostic, Part 3

Send Katie a Text Message!! If your interior design firm keeps running out of leads, your problem may have started months before your pipeline went quiet. In Part 3 of The Design Business Diagnostic , I'm diving into the second pillar of a healthy design firm: Predictable Marketing . This isn't about posting more on Instagram, going viral, or chasing vanity metrics. It's about creating a repeatable system that consistently puts your firm in front of the right people and creates enough qualified opportunities that your business isn't riding on whether one or two prospects say yes. In this episode, I'm talking about: Why your lead problem may have been created six months ago The “feast, famine, freak out” cycle that keeps design firms scrambling for clients Why promising prospects shouldn't determine whether you continue marketing How to calculate how many qualified opportunities your firm actually needs Why a healthy pipeline gives you more power to hold boundaries and choose better projects The difference between marketing and selling Why today's marketing activity creates tomorrow's pipeline How to keep marketing when cash is tight without simply spending more money Why relationships can be one of your strongest marketing advantages Which marketing metrics matter more than likes, views, and follower counts The simple pipeline exercise every design firm owner should do this week If you're constantly turning marketing on when you need clients and off when you get busy, the answer probably isn't another random marketing tactic. You need a system capable of creating the right opportunities consistently. If you're not sure whether Predictable Marketing is actually what's constraining your growth, book a complimentary 15-minute Business Diagnostic Call at FixMyDesignBiz.com. We'll look at what's happening across your business and identify what actually needs your attention next. Connect with Katie LinkedIn Business Strategy Sessions for Interior Designers Free Resources for scaling your interior design firm Website

September 16, 202627 min

128. Your Revenue Doesn't Tell Me If Your Design Business Is Healthy | The Design Business Diagnostic Part 2

Send Katie a Text Message!! You can have a $500,000 interior design firm and be broke. You can have a million-dollar firm and still be broke. Revenue alone doesn't tell me whether I'm looking at a financially healthy company. Welcome to Part 2 of The Design Business Diagnostic. Last week, I introduced the five areas I look at when diagnosing the health of an established design firm. Now we're going deeper, starting with Financial Foundation.. This isn't about becoming an accountant. It's about understanding enough about your numbers to financially lead your company and make decisions from information rather than fear, assumptions, or whatever happens to be sitting in your checking account. In this episode: Why revenue alone doesn't tell you whether your design firm is healthy How a financial problem gets misdiagnosed as a marketing, hiring, or growth problem Why more revenue can actually magnify bad business economics How to calculate what your company needs to produce every month Why your salary belongs in the cost of running the business How to evaluate profitability by service rather than revenue alone Why profit and cash are not the same thing How a 90-day cash forecast helps you make decisions before problems happen What belongs on a Financial CEO Dashboard The 10 questions every design firm owner should be able to answer Why financial fluency is leadership—not bookkeeping If you can't answer every question in this episode, that's not a reason to panic. It's information. Now you know where to look. And if you're not sure whether Financial Foundation is actually the constraint in your business, that's why I created the Business Health Diagnostic. Book your complimentary 15-minute Business Diagnostic Call at FixMyDesignBiz.com. Connect with Katie LinkedIn Business Strategy Sessions for Interior Designers Free Resources for scaling your interior design firm Website

September 9, 202619 min

Ep. 127 The 5 Things That Actually Grow an Interior Design Business | The Design Business Diagnostic Part 1

Send Katie a Text Message!! What if the thing you're trying to fix in your interior design business isn't actually the problem? I've had designers tell me they need more clients when the real issue is profitability. I've had designers convinced they need another employee when their business doesn't have the systems, financial capacity, or leadership structure to support one. And I've seen designers try to fix their marketing when the offer underneath it isn't clear enough to market. That's why I'm changing the way I coach—and why I'm introducing The Design Business Diagnostic . In this episode: Why the problem making the most noise isn't always the root problem Why I've moved away from solving business issues in isolation The five areas I diagnose in an established interior design business Financial Foundation: understanding the economics underneath your revenue Predictable Marketing: creating consistent demand before you need it Human Capital: putting the right people into the right structure CEO Leadership: building a company that doesn't depend on you for everything Products & Offerings: creating clear, profitable services the business can deliver well How weaknesses in one area create symptoms somewhere else Why tactics only work when the business underneath them is ready What we're covering throughout the next five episodes This is the beginning of The Design Business Diagnostic , a new series where we're going deeper into each of these five areas. I don't want you simply asking, Do I know this? I want you asking, Is this actually working in my business? That's the distinction Katie makes as she introduces the upcoming series. If you're already wondering which area is actually holding your business back, book your complimentary 15-minute Business Diagnostic Call at FixMyDesignBiz.com. Connect with Katie LinkedIn Business Strategy Sessions for Interior Designers Free Resources for scaling your interior design firm Website

September 2, 202622 min

126. If I Wanted to 10X My Design Firm, Here’s Where I’d Start

Send Katie a Text Message!! If I wanted to 10X the revenue of my interior design firm, I wouldn't start with marketing, higher prices, bigger projects, or another revenue stream. I'd start by asking whether the business I've built could actually handle ten times the work. In this episode, I'm breaking down the six things I would focus on before aggressively growing revenue. We'll talk about designing the company you actually want to own, finding your highest-value work, fixing capacity before creating demand, removing the owner as the default decision-maker, understanding your real economics, and only then building the revenue engine. In This Episode: Why 10X revenue can break an unprepared design firm The difference between increasing volume and actually scaling How to design the business before choosing the revenue goal Why your biggest opportunity may already exist in what you do best How to fix capacity before increasing marketing and demand Why institutional knowledge needs to replace tribal knowledge How to stop making the owner the answer to every question Why some revenue is far more valuable than other revenue How existing clients can become one of your biggest growth opportunities The difference between 10X effort and 10X leverage The 10X exercise every established interior designer should do The question isn't simply, How do I make more money? It's, What kind of business is capable of producing that money without requiring ten times more from me? If you want to grow but aren't sure what actually needs to change first, book a complimentary 15-minute Business Diagnostic Call at FixMyDesignBiz.com. Connect with Katie LinkedIn Business Strategy Sessions for Interior Designers Free Resources for scaling your interior design firm Website

August 26, 202623 min

125. The Business Advice I’d Ignore If I Were Growing a Design Firm Today

Send Katie a Text Message!! If your interior design firm is already making six figures, multiple six figures, or seven figures, the business advice that helped you get established may not be the advice that gets you to the next level. In this episode, I'm breaking down what I would stop listening to if I were strategically growing an established design firm today. We're talking about why more revenue isn't always better revenue, why being busy isn't a hiring strategy, why more marketing won't fix weak positioning, and why a good opportunity can still take your company in the wrong direction. I'm also sharing the six areas I would prioritize instead if I wanted to build a more profitable, scalable, and strategically valuable firm. In This Episode Why established firms should prioritize better revenue over more revenue When adding services creates unnecessary operational complexity Why being busy isn't enough reason to hire Where founder involvement creates value—and where it limits growth Why positioning should come before increasing your marketing How to evaluate whether an opportunity is strategically useful Why established firms should price from their own financial data How existing client relationships can become a powerful growth engine Why standardization needs to happen before scaling The six levers I'd prioritize for the next stage of growth Once your business is established, the goal isn't to get busier. It's to identify the decisions, relationships, processes, and areas of expertise that create disproportionate value. If you're ready to figure out where that leverage exists in your own business, book a complimentary Problem-Solving Call at FixMyDesignBiz.com. Connect with Katie LinkedIn Business Strategy Sessions for Interior Designers Free Resources for scaling your interior design firm Website

August 19, 202621 min

124. Before You Hire: What Your Interior Design Business Actually Needs

Send Katie a Text Message!! If you're overwhelmed in your interior design business, hiring someone can feel like the obvious next step. But bringing another person into a business with unclear processes, weak financial visibility, or undefined responsibilities doesn't remove the chaos. It can actually create more of it. In this episode, I'm breaking down how to know whether your design firm is truly ready to hire and why "I need help" isn't enough information to create a job description. We'll look at how to identify what's really consuming your time, determine whether you need an employee at all, understand the true financial cost of hiring, and build the systems a new team member needs to succeed. In This Episode Why overwhelm doesn't automatically mean you need an employee How to identify the work that actually needs to leave your plate Why an assistant designer may be the wrong first hire The financial numbers you need to understand before adding payroll The hidden costs of hiring beyond salary or hourly rate When fractional or part-time support makes more sense Why systems need to exist before delegation can work How to define ownership and decision-making for a new role Why early-career hires often require more capacity before they create it The difference between adding employees and building capacity Before you ask, Who can help me? , ask a better question: What does my business actually need? That shift can be the difference between adding another expense and intentionally building the team that takes your firm forward. If you're considering your next hire and want help figuring out what your business actually needs, book a complimentary Problem-Solving Call at FixMyDesignBiz.com. Connect with Katie LinkedIn Business Strategy Sessions for Interior Designers Free Resources for scaling your interior design firm Website

August 12, 202618 min

123. When Your Successful Design Business Stops Feeling Successful

Send Katie a Text Message!! What happens when you build the interior design business you spent years dreaming about—and realize you don't really enjoy running it anymore? In this episode, I'm talking about a stage of business ownership that doesn't get nearly enough attention: when your business looks incredibly successful from the outside but no longer feels successful to you. You have the projects, revenue, team, and recognition you wanted, yet you're still carrying every major decision, checking email on vacation, and wondering why growth hasn't created the freedom you expected. This doesn't necessarily mean you don't love design anymore. You may simply have outgrown your current role inside the business. In This Episode Why revenue growth doesn't automatically create more freedom How to tell when you've scaled activity without scaling autonomy Why your greatest strengths can eventually create owner dependency How to separate business success from personal satisfaction Auditing the role you currently play inside your design firm Deciding what responsibilities should still belong to you two years from now Why growing businesses need a "stop doing" strategy How to test whether your company can operate without you Redefining what success means in your next stage of business You don't have to tear down the successful interior design firm you've built just because the current version no longer works for you. Sometimes the next stage of growth isn't about making your business bigger. It's about making it better to own. If you know something needs to change but you're too close to the business to see exactly what that should be, book a complimentary Problem-Solving Call with me at FixMyDesignBiz.com. Connect with Katie LinkedIn Business Strategy Sessions for Interior Designers Free Resources for scaling your interior design firm Website

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