It was a bright Wednesday morning in early March, when Julia Molloy, presented her BOLD: Business of Luxury Design, half-day workshop, in Summit, sponsored by Sherwin-Williams and Michelangelo Designs.
If anyone was thinking they would be getting a canned presentation from this interior design business expert, they were very much mistaken. Julia began by asking what people were interested in learning about and pivoted when necessary.
At the core of her presentation was how to attract the luxury client and present a dream. She discussed the importance of knowing yourself and your company’s key characteristics and translating them into consistent branding at all levels. According to Julia, this isn’t just about your logo and website, but includes elements of paying attention to the intangibles as well as the tangible goods. Practice acknowledging project milestones with your clients. She also covered staffing and talked about the importance of having a Master Task List to keep everyone on track (Julia recommended Smartsheet).
The slide that got the most mobile phone captures from the audience was when she laid out how a typical work week should look. She stressed the all-important team meeting on Mondays with design and procurement each divided up throughout the week and Friday afternoons devoted to status updates, using bullet-points rather than paragraphs.
There were plenty of questions about fees and billables. Flat fee, hourly, or a version she calls a hybrid. “Your model needs to be right for you.” There was no loss of questions, answers and examples which brought most to stay an extra hour before applause and pictures.
It’s safe to say no one left the workshop unimpressed.
