Hi everyone!

Welcome back to the channel.

My name is Sarah, the founder and creative director of Elevated Living and today in this video I'm going to be talking about how I manage an interior design project from beginning to end.

So you'll get to see my complete process and hopefully it will bring you some value as you are starting your own interior design business.

So if this is something of value to you then definitely keep on watching and make sure you hit that subscribe button to show your support so that I can continue making videos like this.

okay let's dive right into it so i manage my interior design project in three stages stage number one is sales and acquisition stage number two is design and planning and stage number three is execution now i'm not going to be talking about the first stage which is sales and acquisition because i have made numerous videos talking about various sales strategies that i use to get clients and also how I manage the sales funnel from the very beginning lead generation to closing a lead.

So if you're interested in checking that video, then please hit this video because it has a ton of value that I know you will benefit from immensely.

So let's move on to stage two, which I like to call the design and planning stage.

We're going to assume that at this point, we have generated a sale and we have closed a client and we are ready to start on this project.

The very first thing that I like to do is set up an on-site meeting where I do site measurements and I also meet the clients in person to really get a feel of what they're looking for and a little bit more detail into their design aesthetic and preferences.

This meeting usually lasts about one to two hours depending on how large the property is.

I make sure that I come prepared with all of my measuring tools, whether it's a sketchbook, my measuring tape, my digital measuring tape, all of the tools that I will need to make sure that I capture the dimensions and the measurements of the existing floor plan to the best of accuracy.

I go room by room taking measurements and making sure that I capture some of the details such as window heights how far they are from above the ground what the ceiling height is what the door sizes are the door trim and the baseboard all of those things you want to take note of as you're going on to your site visit because these are the small little details you need to note down because once you start modeling into sketchup or whatever 3d software you're using it's going to help you in really making an accurate floor plan that's going to make your designs a little bit more easier to communicate to your clients.

Once that initial sight measure is completed, I take all of the notes from that meeting and I start to ideate on my design programs.

The two main programs that I use to put together a design concept are one, SketchUp, which I've talked many times about on this channel, the importance of knowing how to use that program to really brush up your 3D modeling So I use all of the measurements and I drop them into SketchUp.

I create a 2D floor plan and then from there I start modeling in a 3D way, building the walls, and then start adding all of the interior finishes based on the concept that I have in mind.

The other program that I like to use as a complimentary tool is called Design Files.

Now this is also a program that I'm absolutely in love with.

I have used this program since day one of my business and because it treated me so well, I never had any need to experiment or explore any other program.

The reason why Design Files is so good is because it allows me to create mood boards in a way that seems a little bit more professional and a cut above the rest of the programs.

It allows me to add perspectives into the program, it allows me to load up product inventory from the various retailers that are in my area and it also allows me to create a direct shopping list with links that the client is able to easily access if they were to make any purchases on their own so i like to combine both sketchup model as well as design files together in order to create a presentation that is going to be visually impactful but again also going to be really easy to communicate with because at the end of the day the most important thing that you want to do as a designer is help your clients visualize what their final product is going to look like there should be no assumptions there should be no room for error thinking oh i thought this wall was actually a lighter beige than a more yellower beige so these are all of the things that you want to communicate with your client right at the beginning when you you are presenting your first round of design concepts.

I also get asked how do I actually put together a design presentation.

Apart from using SketchUp and design files, I like to assemble the actual visual presentation on Canva.

Canva is honestly my lifesaver and my time saver.

I used to use Illustrator to do a lot of my graphics before, but now everything is just so much more streamlined within one program called canva where you're able to create a presentation template and just drop all your images they have a ton of really high quality templates that you can use from if you find that you yourself are not as creative and putting a presentation together by the way none of these programs have sponsored me to talk about them i just love sharing all of the tools that i have used that have helped me set up for success just popping in here to say that If you have any questions that are unanswered and are looking to get help with your interior design business, then I would highly recommend that you book my one-on-one coaching service in which you will get the opportunity to sit down with me and have an in-depth conversation over a virtual coffee chat in which I'll be more than happy to address some of your problems and provide you with solutions that's going to help you grow your interior design business.

Simply go on my website, pick the service one-on-one coaching and select a time that works best for you.

I look forward to connecting with you.

Moving on in the design and planning stage, it's really important for me at least that while I'm putting together a design, I'm constantly thinking about numbers and I'm constantly keeping the budget that has been allocated at the forefront of my entire planning.

So yes, you can have a beautiful design that you want to implement, introduce to your clients, but you really need to make sure that it fits within their budget because the worst thing or the last position you want to be in is that you present something so beautiful and so extravagant and in the end the numbers all come together and it's way higher than the budget that the client was expecting.

A, it makes you seem unprofessional that you didn't keep those numbers at the back of your mind from the beginning and secondly it's a major disappointment for your clients because first you present them this beautiful cake and then you tell them that oh no you can't afford it so we're not going to go with this cake.

So throughout the entire design process you want to make sure that you are keeping costs and budgets at the forefront of your planning.

A tip that I can share with you is when you're coming up with a design for a project you might want to consider presenting two options one option that is reasonable and fits within the client's budget and a second option which has design elements that are a little bit more premium maybe out of their budget scope but at least you have something that you can present to them and say hey i understand this might be a little bit over the allocated budget but i really think that this is going to elevate your home so it is worth investing whether it's a custom built-in or a fireplace or even custom furniture.

You just want to make sure that you present them those two options so that you never know if the client might have a little bit more wiggle room and they might end up going with the more premium option.

After the presentation is over, I then like to tell my client that the next part of the design and planning process is finding the right contractor.

Now there are some designers who like to do the contractor quoting and estimating right from the beginning, but over time I've realized that it's always better to have some sort of a design idea or a vision in hand that you can show to the contractor when you meet them on site.

Contractors can only estimate a job as accurately as you give them the resources to work with.

There's obviously going to be opportunities where you're going to implement client feedback, revisions are going to be made, and that's totally fine as long as the major bulk of the design stays the same.

Minor variances can always occur throughout your design and planning stage.

The other reason why this strategy works is because once you meet with a contractor, you want to give them a concrete scope of work document that lists every single construction duty that they have to execute on, every single vendor or trade or subcontractor that they would need to engage in order to make my designs a reality.

This document really protects you and helps avoid the gray area of either party assuming that oh this was included oh i thought you were going to patch up the holes no you want to make sure every single detail is outlined in that scope of word document so that later on if things go wrong or if things are missed you can always refer back to the document and have something in writing and say this is what we had decided on it's not done yet can you please make sure that it gets completed by the end of the project.

So far as part of the design and planning stage we have talked about site visit and conducting site measurements.

We've talked about putting together the first design presentation along with a cost schedule.

We've also talked about meeting the contractor on site and giving them a scope of work with the project needs.

Now we're going to talk about ordering samples, figuring out timelines and also working on design revisions.

During this part of the process I really like to start ordering material samples of the items that the client has signed off on.

And it could be very possible that the client may not sign off on every finish at the first design meeting, but I like to order as much as I can because this is the time where now you get to show the client this is what it's going to look like in a hard finish.

While I'm ordering the samples, I'm also talking to all of the vendors that are going to be contracted out to complete this project and figuring out their timelines.

As a designer, and this only comes with experience, you're going to start to get an idea of what vendors you want to continue to work with and what their timelines look like.

So before you even start to engage the vendors you're just going to give your clients a heads up and say hey my go-to vendor for custom drapery is this their lead time is five to six weeks is that something that's okay with you sometimes clients are going to have no issue with their timelines but sometimes if clients are in a little bit more rush they might ask you to go source a different vendor that might have shorter lead times but nonetheless now is the time where you're going to start putting together a nice gantt chart of your project that shows the final completion date and then working backwards on when milestones are going to get completed a collaborative document that is being updated on real time and being adjusted as changes happen clients have the assurance to see that okay certain things have moved up or down and they have full transparency into project completion timelines okay now we are going to move on to stage three which is execution by this point your client would have finalized the entire design book of the project and you are now ready to hire the contractor this stage is very much dependent on a lot of variables that you as a designer may not have any control over at that time you let your client know to expect the worst although you as a designer are the problem solver and you're going to make sure that if such problems occur you're going to put your problem solving hat on and you're going to be that person that provides a solution to mediate that issue what clients fear the most is being in the dark in my experience a majority of the times clients are already living in their existing home and they're aware and are seeing every single thing that's happening so the more that you can communicate with them and give them a little bit of heads up and say hey today the electrician is going to be coming to make the rough-ins the question you may ask is well isn't that something that a project manager or a contractor does that's correct a contractor is the one that does all of the scheduling and works directly with the designer to make sure that they're completing their milestones but it doesn't hurt for the designer to show that extra bit of care concern as well as commitment to delivering an exceptional result for them things that are only going to build a repertoire with your client and are going to make them come back to you if they were to consider doing another design project in a nutshell that's basically how i manage an interior design project from beginning to end if you want to see a little bit behind the scenes action of me working on a project then i would highly recommend you check out this video because it has a ton of content doing exactly the process that i've mentioned in this video that's it for today i hope you found this video helpful and once again please give this video a thumbs up it really helps with the algorithm it helps with my channel and please subscribe if you want to continue seeing more videos like this until next time bye Thank you.