How much you earn in these challenging times may have less to do with your design skill than your marketing skill. It ain’t fair, but it’s fact: Many of the most financially successful design professionals lack the design skills of competitors earning much less.

Many of those getting the highest fees have worked fewer years than their competitors. Many haven’t won awards, some don’t work in major markets and a few don’t even have design degrees.

Fact is, they may be better at marketing than they are at design. They excel at promoting themselves. And, unlike the others, they “get” it. They understand that it doesn’t matter how good you are if the right people don’t know.

In recent years I’ve met so many highly gifted, multi-skilled design professionals who struggle financially. Why? Because they struggle with the idea of marketing. They choose not to promote themselves.

Show me a talented kitchen and bath professional who doesn’t market himself, and I’ll show you 10 others with half his talent earning twice his income. The reason? They promote themselves. He doesn’t.

Want to boost your income? Then, boost your marketing.

Some steps to get you started:

+ Create a “killer” commercial
+ Create a “knock-their-socks-off” website
+ Distribute a personal promotion kit
+ Write articles
+ Present seminars
+ Do features on local TV stations
+ Get referrals from clients
+ Align with vendors and suppliers
+ Align with allied professionals
+ Become a media interview source
+ Develop a blog or ezine
+ Use your voicemail as a marketing tool
+ Add a marketing “signature” to your email

As you launch your promotion campaign, you need not create new marketing materials from scratch. For an easy-to-use print or downloadable manual and forms to help design professionals maximize marketing impact, check out “Big Splash Little Cash” Marketing Materials Manual.

—Fred Berns

As I sit here at LaGuardia airport with what seems like all of humanity at the gate as well as inside the airport I think about sharing my purpose for this trip. I am attending a training seminar for Jenn-Air appliances in Atlanta.

I’ve attended other training seminars this year and attend various industry events, both locally and long distance. I also attend KBIS every year and interior design shows in my area. I pay attention to the High Point and Las Vegas interior design markets trends, read design blogs and generally try to keep continually updated on what the pulse is in the design world and in society at large. I also watch CNBC on occasion, which is often very revealing in regard to what is happening with our domestic and global economies.

I have never understood those who say they do not need or wish to go to KBIS, as one “show” example. I’ve been in this industry for 22 years and I know that—with as much experience as I have—I will, without a doubt, learn something of value. In fact, I learn quite a few things of value at every visit to every show and seminar.

Having the latest information and knowledge of current appliance technology, brushing up on venting via a seminar and just walking the aisles in search of connecting dots to spot trends keep me up to date and ever learning. “In this economy,” a phrase we often hear, it is more important than ever to prove our relevance as knowledgeable designers in today’s kitchen and bath marketplace.

Continually learning about our industry’s ever-changing marketplace developments positions a designer head and shoulders above the competition, and spreading the word to our clients about attendance and participation in industry events is the thing to do. When it is time for the client to compare one designer to another, I, for one, believe that a client’s perception of a designer’s up-to-date knowledge on what’s happening in our industry is an important piece to the decision process.

—Susan Serra

Making a connection with your prospect or customer is one of the best ways to make the selling process run a whole lot smoother. At the same time it also shows you care about what’s important to “THEM.”

Let me give you an example. The other day I was traveling with a seasoned rep on sales calls and was sitting in on a follow-up call with one of his prospects. We were discussing some of the products and financials of the proposal they were reviewing, when I noticed one of many pictures hanging on his wall. There were at least 30 pictures hanging on all four walls, but this one stood out. It was a picture of two people sky diving taken from the plane above their bodies as they were soaring through the air. A breath-taking view of the ground below.

I turned to the owner of the company and asked, “Who’s the sky diver?” At that moment, you could see his eyes widen with excitement and his face light up with enthusiasm. He said, “That’s me the first and last time I jump out of a plane!” I asked him what it felt like the moment he jumped and became airborne… He then went into a whole story about how he and his buddy were so fired up for two hours after they landed and were driving back from the jump. I’ve never seen someone so excited about explaining the euphoria they experienced from the jump.

The transition to the sales call was easy. “Well, that’s how excited you’ll be when we install these six machines,” I said jokingly. They laughed and we continued, but the atmosphere was quite different from when we started.

Sometimes we forget how important the basics are—the little things we do that can make a big difference in the way we sell and the relationships we build. It reminded me of how important it is to look around and be aware of your environment: what’s on the walls of your customers’ office, pictures on the desk, the people you introduce yourself to on the way into your call, coworkers, assistants, receptionists and anyone you come into contact with at an account. Breaking the ice just doesn’t come with asking about a sky diving picture, it happens when you become the mayor of the account and remember names and something unique about each individual you come into contact with…because you never know who they know or maybe when they will become the new decision maker you end up with.

The next call we went on had a glass box hanging right outside the entrance of the customer’s office with a picture of Al Pacino from the movie Scarface with a gun and three bullets underneath and this saying in quotes:

“You need someone like me.”

We had a lot of fun with that one.

—Barry Farber

You can’t earn the right income from the wrong clients. Are you working with clients who can’t afford you?

In challenging economic times, too many kitchen and bath professionals say “yes” when they should say “no.” They accept small jobs with high-maintenance customers more interested in bargain-basement prices than fine design.

If you’re stuck with these bottom-feeders, you’re fishing in the wrong waters. When you mix with the minnows, you miss the big fish. Working with the wrong customers is a formula for failure, if ever there was one.

How do you know if you’re keeping the wrong company? That’s easy. Ask yourself if your current clients can afford to pay the kind of money you need to make to meet your 2010 financial goals. If not, you’re lookin’ for love in all the wrong places. You’re better off eying eagles than tracking turkeys.

Promoting yourself to higher-caliber clients is way smarter than serving smaller ones who are more trouble than they’re worth. The idea is to find prospects who value your services, and can and will pay any price for them.
How do you bond with these higher caliber prospects?

Some suggestions, from the new Digital Audio Success Series:

• Revise your marketing materials so that you look the part of a design firm serving the heavy hitters.

• Add a page to your website devoted exclusively to them.

• Submit articles to print and online outlets that high-caliber prospects read.

• Network with and speak to groups they belong to.

• Align with allied professionals already serving the high-end market.

—Fred Berns