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Hub You - A Career in Interior Decorating
For small business owners, the process of selling their business can become more complicated than the process that bigger companies go through when they sell their business. This is because in contrast to big business owners, small business owners do not have ready access to Wall Street investment bankers, merger and acquisition firms, and high priced brokers who can make the process a lot easier. However, this does not mean that small business owners cannot have access to the guidance that they need to help them get the best possible deal for their business. This is because there are some sources from which business owners can get very helpful information, which can help provide them some direction on the steps they need to take when they sell their business. One of these sources is the Internet, which hosts a number of websites that provide financial advice to people.The Internet is host to a number of websites that provide helpful financial advice to people,
To get a job, you will need to prepare a resume that emphasizes your experience with decorating plus any other skills the employer is looking for, such as customer service or organizational ability.
7. Start your own business
Many interior decorators dream of being their own boss. If that's your goal, you'll need to decide on business matters such as your company's name and whether to incorporate or not. Free basic business advice is available from organizations such as the U.S. Small Business Administration.
Many interior decorators choose to work from home when they start their businesses because it saves on the cost of an office and, unlike many other types of businesses, you won't be expecting clients to come to you – you will usually be going to their homes or offices.
8. Establish relationships with suppliers
Suppliers are companies that supply the products and services you need to decorate. They include manufacturers of furnitu
This is a follow-up to a recent article about older job seekers & common stereotypes. That article sparked a lot of feedback. Following are some of the ideas that readers shared with me. If you are a younger worker, you may still want to ponder these suggestions: eventually you will face the same challenges!One older job seeker shared an approach that worked for him. Six months into an unsuccessful job search, he began to suspect that concerns about his health and/or health insurance might be preventing callbacks. As it happened, he was covered by his wife’s employer-provided health benefits. He started working this fact into interviews — “I’m in great health, and I don’t need health insurance.” It wasn’t long before he faced several job offers. If you are covered by a spouse’s benefits, consider mentioning this fact. Interviewers are very constrained with respect to asking health-related questions, but you can volunteer this information.The stereotype of
There are few careers that offer so many benefits. As an interior decorator you will have the satisfaction of making your vision a reality. You will meet interesting people, and because many people who hire interior decorators are wealthy, you will likely spend time in many beautiful homes and businesses. If you start your own decorating business you can enjoy the freedom of being your own boss. And perhaps most importantly, your "work" will be fun, interesting, and rewarding.
As long as you have the desire, you can become an interior decorator. No special education or experience is necessary to break into this career and succeed. (Unlike becoming a certified interior designer which has strict requirements including two to five years of post-secondary education in interior design.) You can become an interior decorator immediately.
If interior decorating sounds like the career of your dreams, here are 10 steps to breaking into this fabulous job, based on the FabJob Guide to Become an Interior Decorator published by FabJob.com:
1. Train your eye
Since you are interested in a career as a interior decorator, chances are you already have a "good eye" for design. In other words, when you look at a room you can see what looks good, and what could be improved. But no matter how naturally talented you are, you can continually "train your eye" by studying what people consider to be good design.
Seek out beautifully decorated interiors to look at. You can find numerous examples of beautiful interiors in design magazines or in your own community by visiting show homes, open houses for sale in wealthy neighborhoods, furniture showrooms, historic homes, art galleries, and offices of professionals such as interior decorators and corporate lawyers.
2. Educate yourself
Interior decorators are expected to know about the various elements involved in decorating such as: space planning (how to arrange furniture and other items within a particular space), use of color and light, furniture and decorating styles (for example, Colonial or Southwestern), floorings, wall coverings, window treatments, and use of accessories such as pillows and art. You can learn decorating basics through courses, books, web sites, and even by speaking with retailers of products used in home decorating (paint, carpet, lighting, hardware stores, etc.)
3. Practice at home
Most interior decorators get their first decorating experience working on their own homes. Even if you have just one small room to experiment with, you can get "hands-on" experience with a variety of decorating techniques. For example, you can make a dramatic change to any room, quickly and inexpensively, simply by rearranging the furniture or painting the walls a new color. Give it a try! Experiment with techniques you wouldn't ordinarily use. Consider this room your "research lab" where you can try things out before recommending them to a client.
4. Volunteer your services
Your friends and family members may already have asked for your advice about decorating, but if they haven't yet asked you to actually decorate their homes or businesses, why not offer?
Some occasions your family or friends may want to redecorate are when they experiencing transitions in life, such as: marriage or co-habitation (help them merge two households into one), moving into a new home, childbirth (offer to decorate the baby's room), hosting a special event such as a wedding or dinner party, starting a home business (you could decorate their new office), and selling a home (explain how a well decorated home can attract buyers).
5. Prepare a portfolio
A portfolio is a collection of samples of your work, plus any other documents that can help show why someone should hire you. The most important part of an interior decorator's portfolio is photographs of interiors you have decorated, so make sure you take "before" and "after" photos of every space you decorate. Choose 15-20 photographs of work you are proud of, and arrange them in a photo album or portfolio case.
Your portfolio can also include letters of recommendation and "design boards" (poster boards onto which you have pasted pictures and samples of materials such as fabrics, flooring, wallpaper, etc.) to show clients what you recommend to decorate a particular room.
6. Get a job
Even if you plan to start your own interior decorating business, you can learn about the business and meet potential clients by starting with a job in the industry. Companies that hire people with decorating talent include home builders, manufacturers of furniture and housewares, hotel and restaurant chains, retailers (furniture stores, home improvement stores, antiques dealers, housewares stores, etc.), plus interior design and decorating firms.
To get a job, you will need to prepare a resume that emphasizes your experience with decorating plus any other skills the employer is looking for, such as customer service or organizational ability.
7. Start your own business
Many interior decorators dream of being their own boss. If that's your goal, you'll need to decide on business matters such as your company's name and whether to incorporate or not. Free basic business advice is available from organizations such as the U.S. Small Business Administration.
Many interior decorators choose to work from home when they start their businesses because it saves on the cost of an office and, unlike many other types of businesses, you won't be expecting clients to come to you – you will usually be going to their homes or offices.
8. Establish relationships with suppliers
Suppliers are companies that supply the products and services you need to decorate. They include manufacturers of furnitur
Printers have certainly come a long way since the inception of the character and and dot matrix printers.These ancient products (ancient in technical terms being as few as 10-15 years) were what are known as impact printers, simply because they needed to make a physical connection with the paper in order to achieve the ink-on-paper result.Dot matrix printers came equipped with a group of pins that touched a ribbon which then connected with paper to produce the finished product. Character printers, which worked on the same principle as electric typewriters, used a bar or ball whose surface was embossed with all the characters you now see on any keyboard. These characters made contact with the ribbon, which in turn made contact with the paper.Today we use non-impact printers - those that do not make physical contact with the paper to create the papered reproduction. The most prevalent for home or small office use is the inkjet printer - an economical
1. Train your eye
Since you are interested in a career as a interior decorator, chances are you already have a "good eye" for design. In other words, when you look at a room you can see what looks good, and what could be improved. But no matter how naturally talented you are, you can continually "train your eye" by studying what people consider to be good design.
Seek out beautifully decorated interiors to look at. You can find numerous examples of beautiful interiors in design magazines or in your own community by visiting show homes, open houses for sale in wealthy neighborhoods, furniture showrooms, historic homes, art galleries, and offices of professionals such as interior decorators and corporate lawyers.
2. Educate yourself
Interior decorators are expected to know about the various elements involved in decorating such as: space planning (how to arrange furniture and other items within a particular space), use of color and light, furniture and decorating styles (for example, Colonial or Southwestern), floorings, wall coverings, window treatments, and use of accessories such as pillows and art. You can learn decorating basics through courses, books, web sites, and even by speaking with retailers of products used in home decorating (paint, carpet, lighting, hardware stores, etc.)
3. Practice at home
Most interior decorators get their first decorating experience working on their own homes. Even if you have just one small room to experiment with, you can get "hands-on" experience with a variety of decorating techniques. For example, you can make a dramatic change to any room, quickly and inexpensively, simply by rearranging the furniture or painting the walls a new color. Give it a try! Experiment with techniques you wouldn't ordinarily use. Consider this room your "research lab" where you can try things out before recommending them to a client.
4. Volunteer your services
Your friends and family members may already have asked for your advice about decorating, but if they haven't yet asked you to actually decorate their homes or businesses, why not offer?
Some occasions your family or friends may want to redecorate are when they experiencing transitions in life, such as: marriage or co-habitation (help them merge two households into one), moving into a new home, childbirth (offer to decorate the baby's room), hosting a special event such as a wedding or dinner party, starting a home business (you could decorate their new office), and selling a home (explain how a well decorated home can attract buyers).
5. Prepare a portfolio
A portfolio is a collection of samples of your work, plus any other documents that can help show why someone should hire you. The most important part of an interior decorator's portfolio is photographs of interiors you have decorated, so make sure you take "before" and "after" photos of every space you decorate. Choose 15-20 photographs of work you are proud of, and arrange them in a photo album or portfolio case.
Your portfolio can also include letters of recommendation and "design boards" (poster boards onto which you have pasted pictures and samples of materials such as fabrics, flooring, wallpaper, etc.) to show clients what you recommend to decorate a particular room.
6. Get a job
Even if you plan to start your own interior decorating business, you can learn about the business and meet potential clients by starting with a job in the industry. Companies that hire people with decorating talent include home builders, manufacturers of furniture and housewares, hotel and restaurant chains, retailers (furniture stores, home improvement stores, antiques dealers, housewares stores, etc.), plus interior design and decorating firms.
To get a job, you will need to prepare a resume that emphasizes your experience with decorating plus any other skills the employer is looking for, such as customer service or organizational ability.
7. Start your own business
Many interior decorators dream of being their own boss. If that's your goal, you'll need to decide on business matters such as your company's name and whether to incorporate or not. Free basic business advice is available from organizations such as the U.S. Small Business Administration.
Many interior decorators choose to work from home when they start their businesses because it saves on the cost of an office and, unlike many other types of businesses, you won't be expecting clients to come to you – you will usually be going to their homes or offices.
8. Establish relationships with suppliers
Suppliers are companies that supply the products and services you need to decorate. They include manufacturers of furnitu
Have you noticed the large amount of help wanted signs on the businesses as you drive down the road? I am amazed just how many openings there are for work, but are they the ones you want? Many of them do not pay enough to survive. Does that mean you shouldn't go and talk to the business owner or manager? Here is a secret most job seekers don't know. Many of those businesses have other positions open. They just don't advertise them so openly. If you see a company with a help wanted sign in the window, go do some investigating. Ask the staff what kind of jobs are available, if you like the place go back different times to talk to different staff.There are often higher paid jobs in that business that are there for the taking, you just have to do some digging. Learn to ask, "How is the management around here?" Then listen for answers like, "Well we are sort of making due at the moment while they look for someone to replace Ed."You continue the subtle ques
3. Practice at home
Most interior decorators get their first decorating experience working on their own homes. Even if you have just one small room to experiment with, you can get "hands-on" experience with a variety of decorating techniques. For example, you can make a dramatic change to any room, quickly and inexpensively, simply by rearranging the furniture or painting the walls a new color. Give it a try! Experiment with techniques you wouldn't ordinarily use. Consider this room your "research lab" where you can try things out before recommending them to a client.
4. Volunteer your services
Your friends and family members may already have asked for your advice about decorating, but if they haven't yet asked you to actually decorate their homes or businesses, why not offer?
Some occasions your family or friends may want to redecorate are when they experiencing transitions in life, such as: marriage or co-habitation (help them merge two households into one), moving into a new home, childbirth (offer to decorate the baby's room), hosting a special event such as a wedding or dinner party, starting a home business (you could decorate their new office), and selling a home (explain how a well decorated home can attract buyers).
5. Prepare a portfolio
A portfolio is a collection of samples of your work, plus any other documents that can help show why someone should hire you. The most important part of an interior decorator's portfolio is photographs of interiors you have decorated, so make sure you take "before" and "after" photos of every space you decorate. Choose 15-20 photographs of work you are proud of, and arrange them in a photo album or portfolio case.
Your portfolio can also include letters of recommendation and "design boards" (poster boards onto which you have pasted pictures and samples of materials such as fabrics, flooring, wallpaper, etc.) to show clients what you recommend to decorate a particular room.
6. Get a job
Even if you plan to start your own interior decorating business, you can learn about the business and meet potential clients by starting with a job in the industry. Companies that hire people with decorating talent include home builders, manufacturers of furniture and housewares, hotel and restaurant chains, retailers (furniture stores, home improvement stores, antiques dealers, housewares stores, etc.), plus interior design and decorating firms.
To get a job, you will need to prepare a resume that emphasizes your experience with decorating plus any other skills the employer is looking for, such as customer service or organizational ability.
7. Start your own business
Many interior decorators dream of being their own boss. If that's your goal, you'll need to decide on business matters such as your company's name and whether to incorporate or not. Free basic business advice is available from organizations such as the U.S. Small Business Administration.
Many interior decorators choose to work from home when they start their businesses because it saves on the cost of an office and, unlike many other types of businesses, you won't be expecting clients to come to you – you will usually be going to their homes or offices.
8. Establish relationships with suppliers
Suppliers are companies that supply the products and services you need to decorate. They include manufacturers of furnitu
There are hundreds of thousands of business plans floating around and attempting to find a funding home. I receive hundreds of business plans annually myself, and can definitely state that 99% of these documents are laughable as presentations of an exciting investment opportunity. I am not referring to the value of the product being described, rather the presentation that purports to describe an exciting investment situation.One of the reasons that so many plans are so poorly written, and there are many, many additional reasons, is that the writers do not understand how plans are read. Investment banks, venture capital firms, family offices, angel firms, banks and blind investment pools receive a stack of plans for consideration every day. Typically a junior reader, often a recent MBA, is assigned to read and screen the plans editing out all of the obvious losers. The remaining business plans are then marked up after sections are read in the following order: Exe
5. Prepare a portfolio
A portfolio is a collection of samples of your work, plus any other documents that can help show why someone should hire you. The most important part of an interior decorator's portfolio is photographs of interiors you have decorated, so make sure you take "before" and "after" photos of every space you decorate. Choose 15-20 photographs of work you are proud of, and arrange them in a photo album or portfolio case.
Your portfolio can also include letters of recommendation and "design boards" (poster boards onto which you have pasted pictures and samples of materials such as fabrics, flooring, wallpaper, etc.) to show clients what you recommend to decorate a particular room.
6. Get a job
Even if you plan to start your own interior decorating business, you can learn about the business and meet potential clients by starting with a job in the industry. Companies that hire people with decorating talent include home builders, manufacturers of furniture and housewares, hotel and restaurant chains, retailers (furniture stores, home improvement stores, antiques dealers, housewares stores, etc.), plus interior design and decorating firms.
To get a job, you will need to prepare a resume that emphasizes your experience with decorating plus any other skills the employer is looking for, such as customer service or organizational ability.
7. Start your own business
Many interior decorators dream of being their own boss. If that's your goal, you'll need to decide on business matters such as your company's name and whether to incorporate or not. Free basic business advice is available from organizations such as the U.S. Small Business Administration.
Many interior decorators choose to work from home when they start their businesses because it saves on the cost of an office and, unlike many other types of businesses, you won't be expecting clients to come to you – you will usually be going to their homes or offices.
8. Establish relationships with suppliers
Suppliers are companies that supply the products and services you need to decorate. They include manufacturers of furnitu
Is your company brand literally saturating your target markets? Is your company literally everywhere and on the lips of your customers, competition and vendors? Does your competitor sales teams compare themselves to you in sales calls? Well having been a Founder of a Franchise Company, we had saturated our target markets and yes our competitors always compared themselves to us and that actually helped us even more.I call saturating your target market with your brand name; “The Power of Presence” and when you have that you will know it and so will everyone else for 100-miles in all directions. How do you get to such a saturation point, as the marketing experts often call it? They even write books about this stuff.Well, you get there by carefully leveraging your marketing and advertising, promotion and public relations around a simple message and a consistent theme. Guess what? It does not cost as much as you might think and in fact you might be very surpri
To get a job, you will need to prepare a resume that emphasizes your experience with decorating plus any other skills the employer is looking for, such as customer service or organizational ability.
7. Start your own business
Many interior decorators dream of being their own boss. If that's your goal, you'll need to decide on business matters such as your company's name and whether to incorporate or not. Free basic business advice is available from organizations such as the U.S. Small Business Administration.
Many interior decorators choose to work from home when they start their businesses because it saves on the cost of an office and, unlike many other types of businesses, you won't be expecting clients to come to you – you will usually be going to their homes or offices.
8. Establish relationships with suppliers
Suppliers are companies that supply the products and services you need to decorate. They include manufacturers of furniture, wall coverings, flooring, fabrics, etc. as well as contractors who do painting, carpentry, installation, etc. When you go shopping as a professional interior decorator, you are entitled to "designer discounts" of up to 50% off the regular retail price which you can pass on to clients.
While some decorators charge an hourly rate or a flat fee, others charge "cost-plus." For example, if your cost for a product is 40% percent below the regular retail price, you could charge the client your cost plus 20%, thereby saving the client the other 20% they would pay to buy the same item at a retail store. This opportunity to save money on decorating may convince clients to hire you.
9. Get clients
Your potential clients could include home builders, new home buyers, wealthy home owners, professional couples, advertising agencies, art galleries, bed and breakfasts, boutique stores, corporate head offices, hotels, law firms, restaurants, spas, and many other types of businesses.
One way to market your services is by networking with professionals who can refer business to you, such as real estate agents, architects, antiques dealers, art dealers, home renovators, and owners of businesses that sell home furnishings. Other marketing techniques include putting up a web page with photos of interiors you have decorated and getting publicity in the homes section of your local newspaper.
10. Grow as a professional
Successful interior decorators continue to learn new decorating techniques. Once you have started a business you can continue to develop your skills by attending trade shows, reading decorating magazines and books, and joining professional associations. You can also impress clients and have an advantage over your competition by becoming certified as a professional interior decorator.
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