You may think that working with your dream client is a once-in-a-lifetime experience but I’m here to tell you it doesn’t have to be!
In this episode, I’m sharing tried and true tactics to ensure that I keep the ideal clients coming and the non-ideal clients away.
I dive into an exercise that I use at the end of every year that brings intention and, more importantly, attention to the traits of my clients and use this information to bring in the ideal clients to me. Some of these tactics may surprise you but I guarantee you that saying NO, keeping open communication, and cultivating the right referrals could revolutionize your client stream!
So take a listen, take some time, and get ready to welcome your dream clients in 2025.
Episode highlights
- Stop Attracting the Wrong Clients: Rebecca shares why undercharging or offering free consultations might be keeping you stuck with “tire kickers” instead of attracting your dream clients.
- Identify Your Ideal Client Traits: Discover Rebecca’s powerful year-end exercise to pinpoint the personality traits and commonalities of your best clients—and how to focus on attracting more of them.
- Pricing for Success: Learn why your pricing sends a message about the level of clients you want to work with—and how charging appropriately can transform your client base.
- The Power of Referrals Done Right: Rebecca explains how leveraging referrals from your best clients can bring in more of the right people—and why not all referrals are created equal.
- Communicate Your Secret Sauce: Rebecca emphasizes how clear, intentional messaging in your marketing, discovery calls, and even newsletters can magnetize ideal clients to your design business.
episode Resources
Episode 119 Attracting clients in a slow economy
Read the Full Transcript ⬇️
00;00;00;00 – 00;00;17;27
Rebecca Hay
Let me tell you, a lot of designers that I need to come to. My programs are too cheap. They’re not charging enough money, and so they’re not attracting the right client. Or are you giving your consultations away for free? Stop doing that. If you want a really high level client because you’re going to get tire kickers, we’re going to waste your time.
00;00;17;29 – 00;00;49;29
Rebecca Hay
All right. I’m Rebecca Hay, and I’ve built a successful interior design business by trial and error podcasts, online courses, and so many freaking books. Over the last decade, I’ve grown from an insecure student to having false starts to careers. And now I’m finally in the place where I want to be throughout my journey, it’s been pretty obvious that I’m passionate about business and helping other entrepreneurs do the same.
00;00;50;01 – 00;01;19;07
Rebecca Hay
Each week, I’ll share tangible takeaways from my own experience and the experiences of other badass women to help you build your confidence and change your business. Hey hey hey, it’s Rebecca and you are listening to Resilient by Design. Today’s episode is all about bringing in those ideal clients on repeat, not just finding one dream client and thinking, Hallelujah that you finally found them.
00;01;19;07 – 00;01;45;06
Rebecca Hay
It’s how do you get those clients into your system, repeatedly booking them on repeat? Today, I’m going to dive through some of the ways that you can ensure that you are getting repeat clients or similar type clients through your business. So here we go. Booking ideal clients on repeat sounds a bit like a dream. I’m not gonna lie.
00;01;45;06 – 00;02;12;25
Rebecca Hay
There are many years where I was not there, and then I started to learn that there were certain things to look for, and certain things that I could do to ensure that I wasn’t working with the wrong client. So much about working with the right client. Your ideal client is just not working with the wrong client anymore, and recognizing when that is not the right fit client, when that is not the dream client, and saying no and letting them go or really recognizing what are those traits.
00;02;13;02 – 00;02;38;05
Rebecca Hay
So today I want to walk you through what it is about a client that makes them ideal for you, but then specifically for tactics that you can use in your design firm to really ensure you’re getting those clients on repeat. First of all, you need to know what your ideal client looks like. Who are they? Once you know that, I want you to go deeper.
00;02;38;10 – 00;03;03;18
Rebecca Hay
And for today’s episode, what matters to me more than anything is not where they live. Not their gender, not whether their parents, not their financial means. None of that, none of the demographics. What I want you to consider when you think about the great best clients to work with, what are their personality traits? What are those aspects that you love?
00;03;03;18 – 00;03;19;08
Rebecca Hay
What makes them an ideal client? For me, what’s made some of my best clients? And as I go through and I encourage you to do this exercise. So here’s an exercise I do as part of my end of year planning. And I talked about this a little bit last week. But I’m going to give you kind of like the next layer.
00;03;19;08 – 00;03;34;22
Rebecca Hay
So if you missed last week’s episode, which is all about people pleasing your clients, go back and listen to it. And I give you an exercise in that episode to help you determine like, which clients are the best. This is going to take it to the next level. So look at all the clients you’ve had in the past year or so.
00;03;34;24 – 00;03;51;26
Rebecca Hay
It could be more than a year. And I want you on a piece of paper to do three columns in each column. You’re going to be putting clients or past projects. This is for someone who’s like getting really confused and unclear. Maybe you just really, really want to hone in on who is that ideal client for you. What are those personality traits?
00;03;51;26 – 00;04;18;05
Rebecca Hay
What are those unique differentiators to help you really spot them moving forward? So three columns, column one or column A is best client. Column B is middle and then worst. Because there’s always those people that you’re kind of like me. They’ve got some parts of them I love, some I don’t. And I want you to put your clients into this sort of good, better, best client scenario columns.
00;04;18;07 – 00;04;36;06
Rebecca Hay
And I just want you to think about it. And it could be financially. It could be that they were fun to work with. Whatever it is. Just put them into columns. And then I want you to look at the column that’s the best column and determine what was it that they all had in common. You’ll likely find there are certain traits that those clients have in common.
00;04;36;08 – 00;05;02;05
Rebecca Hay
For example, in my situation, when I go through this exercise, the first time I did this, I was quite dumbfounded to see that. The clients that were in that best column, what they had in common was that they were all very understanding and easygoing. So when something went wrong on a job site, they didn’t jump to conclusions, tried to finger point or point blame on someone.
00;05;02;07 – 00;05;19;26
Rebecca Hay
I had a client in the first column. That was as soon as something went wrong. She immediately assumed the worst in everyone. She started to question, well, if the tiler did such a bad job, then what can I even imagine is on the inside of the wall? Should they even build the wall properly like it was? Whoa. Next level.
00;05;19;26 – 00;05;41;16
Rebecca Hay
She was in the worst column. So who’s in the best? And what do they have in common? Were they easy going and understanding? Maybe it is financial. Maybe budget wasn’t a question for them. Maybe they had deep pockets. Maybe they all really valued art. Like what is it for you that you see that’s a commonality. And all those clients are in that best column.
00;05;41;23 – 00;05;57;12
Rebecca Hay
Those are the traits I want you to focus on as we go through this exercise. Okay. So do that exercise. I feel like I’m giving you work. I feel like it’s a workshop. I can’t help myself. It’s the teacher in me. I’m like, let’s do it step by step. So that’s the first step is figuring out who your client is.
00;05;57;19 – 00;06;20;10
Rebecca Hay
But really getting to know what those traits are. This is an exercise. We actually do a full deep dive module on inside power of Process. So if you love this and you want to go deeper on it, then you’re going to love pop. But for today’s podcast, just do this exercise. Now that you know more or less, maybe you have some adjectives written down on a piece of paper who that client is, or maybe just the top of your head.
00;06;20;10 – 00;06;44;22
Rebecca Hay
You’re like, yeah, yeah, no, I want them to be trusting they really value antiques. Whatever it is for you, I want you to consider this is the first tactic you need to get clear on your messaging. And what I mean by that is, how are you talking about your services, whether it is online or in person? How are you talking about your services?
00;06;44;24 – 00;07;08;22
Rebecca Hay
Are you mentioning these things? If you are someone who maybe that resonates with you, like all of your best clients love antiques, they maybe have some or they really value investing in them. Well, maybe you should talk about that. I don’t know, just saying you might actually attract the right client. Or maybe it’s like, well, they’re easygoing and like they, you know, they they don’t get they’re not high strung, right?
00;07;08;22 – 00;07;30;16
Rebecca Hay
They don’t get all caught up in a tizzy when it’s the wrong tile that’s late and we have to redo it or something like that. God forbid. That’s awful. But it happens, right? So what would make the messaging fit that client? Well, you could talk about our clients love to hand over the reins. Right. They’re not involved in all the details.
00;07;30;16 – 00;07;49;05
Rebecca Hay
And they understand that problems will arise. And we are the we are there to solve those problems. You could talk about how you are, how you troubleshoot all the time, how you are like firefighters as a designer, how you problem solve all the time. You’re letting a potential client know that things are going to go not according to plan.
00;07;49;12 – 00;08;07;12
Rebecca Hay
And so it’s really important to understand that. But they know that they have you. It’s communicating to those clients. Right. And letting them know is your messaging. So what are some of the key messaging points that you can consider that you could weave into some marketing. You can weave it into your Instagram. You can we would into your your website to articles.
00;08;07;12 – 00;08;28;19
Rebecca Hay
When you meet somebody at the golf club, when you meet somebody at school pick up, you could talk about that, right? These are the things that are going to matter, because you want to get people who value or embody those traits. And then when it comes to your messaging, getting clear on it, what it also means is how you pre-qualify your clients.
00;08;28;19 – 00;08;51;16
Rebecca Hay
Because and we talked about this in the last episode of the podcast, you want to make sure you’re hitting these key points. So if you don’t already have my discovery call script please go download. It is free. Rebecca.com/discovery. Take it. Make it your own add in. In fact, I feel like I need to update the script to add in some examples of this.
00;08;51;18 – 00;09;08;00
Rebecca Hay
But to add in what are those key messaging points you want to make sure you hit when you’re having that call? Maybe it is antiques and the client may not ask that, but you, when you tell them about your service, you can say, you know, we typically work on projects where we are doing a complete decoration of their main floor.
00;09;08;00 – 00;09;28;16
Rebecca Hay
Often our clients have beautiful antiques. We love sourcing antiques. There’s so much history and it really creates an eclectic, curated design. You can ask your clients if they’ve been through a rhino or if they’ve decorated before. If they have, you could say, as you know, or if they haven’t, you can say, well, let me tell you, a lot can go wrong on a job site.
00;09;28;18 – 00;09;58;06
Rebecca Hay
And it’s really about how we react. That’s what we’re there for. Our clients really trust us to oversee the contractors in the trades and when situations arise, because human error will happen, we are there to help troubleshoot. These are examples of how you can infuse that messaging into a discovery call with a potential client into your marketing, because you want to start putting the juju’s, the vibes, the whatever, the break you want to call it into the universe.
00;09;58;08 – 00;10;21;18
Rebecca Hay
What you talk about, you focus on, it amplifies and multiplies and you are going to get more of it. That’s number one. Number two, you’re pricing. Are you pricing your services for that ideal client? Are you too cheap? Let me tell you, a lot of designers that I need to come through my programs are too cheap. They’re not charging enough money, and so they’re not attracting the right client.
00;10;21;20 – 00;10;46;01
Rebecca Hay
Or are you giving your consultations away for free? Stop doing that. If you want a really high level client because you’re going to get tire kickers are going to waste your time. Consider how your pricing fits with the level of service you want to deliver. Where can deliver, and the level of client that you want to attract. If you want to get those ideal clients on repeat, you’re going to have to say no to some clients.
00;10;46;08 – 00;11;17;28
Rebecca Hay
And this is something that they don’t really tell you a lot because we’re all service providers. We just want to serve everyone. But I can tell you, and I’m getting really passionate. I’m getting really loud. Sorry to my editors who need to tone down the volume. But when I started putting proposals together for clients that were too expensive, or even just having that conversation and a discovery call and letting them know ballpark pricing that was beyond what they wanted, when they would come back to me and say, well, we were really hoping to do it for only this amount.
00;11;17;28 – 00;11;35;09
Rebecca Hay
Or someone else told us we could do a kitchen for this amount. I would simply say I used to be able to do that, but I can’t. I used to work with Ikea kitchens, but we don’t anymore. They’re not even your client yet. Don’t worry about people pleasing. If you are, go back to the episode from last week.
00;11;35;12 – 00;11;56;09
Rebecca Hay
This is where your pricing is going to disqualify people. And I’m not saying jack your prices to the moon, you know, and charge what some of the the luxury designers in your in your town are doing unless you’re there. But I do think especially right now in January, it’s such a great time to increase your prices. It’s the beginning of a new year.
00;11;56;12 – 00;12;18;17
Rebecca Hay
Send out an email, let people know that your pricing will be changing. Maybe you can let them lock in at last year’s consultation rate until the end of the month. Maybe you put that out on Instagram. Whatever you want to do, but your pricing needs to fit the client you want to serve, and I highly recommend that you charge for your consultations.
00;12;18;19 – 00;12;39;14
Rebecca Hay
Tip number three leveraging your past clients, asking for referrals. I mean, some of my best. I just went back to help a client, one of my clients from the early days. That was one of my incredible ideal clients. And, you know, we were chatting about the woman who introduced us, who was my first client ever, who was amazing.
00;12;39;17 – 00;12;53;05
Rebecca Hay
I said to her, I said, Jane, like you guys, it’s so I’m so happy to come back and help you. Like they had a flood in their condo. There’s like a few things we needed to replace. Like it wasn’t like a full scale project like we would typically do. And I don’t really have time to do that, but they’re incredible humans.
00;12;53;08 – 00;13;10;15
Rebecca Hay
And we were having a conversation and she was so lovely. And she said, oh, we always loved you, Rebecca. Like la la la. And we talked about Harriet, who had introduced us, who has since passed away. This past year is very sad. You know, we were saying, oh, Harriet was so wonderful, like, what a great couple. Like I said, they were my first clients and they were amazing to work with.
00;13;10;18 – 00;13;34;00
Rebecca Hay
And they led me to you. And you guys have also been so amazing. And good people attract good people. And in that case, they were clients who were in ICA for me for a while they were empty nesters, downsizing to condos after selling their really large homes. They had money in the bank investments. They valued antiques. I love serving that client.
00;13;34;02 – 00;14;01;29
Rebecca Hay
And referrals are your juice. They are your lifeblood in a design business. If you have a great client now, I don’t think referrals are a great from everyone because you’ve heard me. If you’ve been listening to this podcast for a few years now, you’ve heard me talk about the bad client loop or what I now like to refer to it as, because no one’s bad, they’re just not right fit for you.
00;14;02;01 – 00;14;21;21
Rebecca Hay
The budget Client loop I worked on a TV show and Steve and the host, love him, referred me to somebody on his team. He was like, this person is doing a run out. You’ve got to help her. Like, great. Oh my God. I was like, this is amazing. Like a celebrity thinks I’m great. So like, oh my God, I’m just like the best.
00;14;21;23 – 00;14;46;01
Rebecca Hay
I go to work with her. She’s so lovely. But guess what? No budget like it was a Rino decor for a rental because I was doing budget stuff on television. But then guess what? So she referred me, which was so generous of her, but she referred me to another couple nice neighborhood budget. They referred me to another couple and then that couple.
00;14;46;06 – 00;15;11;28
Rebecca Hay
I went to their house and I walked in and I was so disgusted by the state of affairs in the home. And I thought to myself, these people do not have the money to hire me. And I declined, even putting together a proposal and that was, for me, a real wake up call. You can be in a referral loop, but if it’s not the right loop of the people that you want to serve, that really fuels your creative passion.
00;15;11;28 – 00;15;30;01
Rebecca Hay
You need to get out of that loop. So referrals for the sake of referrals are not the answer, but finding that right fit client who can refer you is the best. And I teach inside my courses like scripts of what can you say? What can you say in an email to a client? Ask for their referral because I don’t know if you’re like me, but I used to be kind of nervous to ask for that.
00;15;30;01 – 00;15;45;01
Rebecca Hay
I felt like I was asking so much they already paid me. Like, does that make me look desperate? What if they weren’t really happy with me and they don’t want to say it to my face? So it’s looking better not to ask them for the referral, because maybe they don’t want to refer me because I don’t know. I had all these stories in my head.
00;15;45;04 – 00;16;03;08
Rebecca Hay
But if you can get a good client referral and all you need to say is, listen, we have loved working with you. You know we would love to work with more clients like you, do you have any friends, etc. etc. you can also get them to write you a Google review, which will be really incredible. And that’s something to.
00;16;03;08 – 00;16;28;04
Rebecca Hay
But referrals you can get directly in front of another person that is gold. This is part and parcel to this referral and this is just kind of bonus tip. And then I’ll move on to the number four. But the bonus tip that has to do with leveraging those past clients is you need a newsletter. I’m trying to think if I’ve done other episodes about this, if not, I will do one this year because I think it’s really powerful, was really powerful for me.
00;16;28;07 – 00;16;51;14
Rebecca Hay
It’s especially helpful when you’re looking to attract clients in a slower economy, when you need to nurture them and you want to get them to know you better because they’re not. Always look at your Instagram or your website, a newsletter is very profound. A newsletter could be something you don’t even need a platform. You can just send an email from your Gmail really, and you just bcc your ten clients when you’re starting out.
00;16;51;16 – 00;17;09;20
Rebecca Hay
But eventually you might want to move to like a MailChimp or a flow desk. But you send a newsletter once a month letting your past clients and present clients and maybe potential clients know what you’re up to. Here’s what we’ve been working on. Here’s what’s going on. Here are the trends we’re seeing. Here’s what’s happening in our city, and you stay top of mind.
00;17;09;28 – 00;17;36;26
Rebecca Hay
This is how I have had past amazing clients come back to me for, hey, we’re getting older and the couch is a little bit low. Can you replace that with two custom armchairs? Sure. No problem. Or get an email. Hey Rebecca, it’s so great to see you’re doing so well. I just told so-and-so about you. I love your updates being top of mind with past clients and current clients, especially if your clients are like mine have been, which are very busy working professionals, email is the best way to get in front of them.
00;17;36;29 – 00;17;57;27
Rebecca Hay
It will also help you to attract clients who are thinking about doing something, maybe a little down the road, and that would be if the economy is slower and people aren’t quite ready to pull the trigger. Maybe they’re afraid because of maybe they’ve been laid off or and they want to do it, but they just need to get that next job.
00;17;57;27 – 00;18;22;07
Rebecca Hay
Or maybe they’re just a bit nervous because of interest rates, because they might need to borrow some money to do what they want to do. You want to keep that? Keep top of mind for those clients. I did a really great episode. It is called Attracting clients in a Slow Economy. So if you are feeling like that is you right now, go listen to episode number 119 and you can kind of get some tips inside of that episode, episode 119 and that might help you.
00;18;22;11 – 00;18;49;07
Rebecca Hay
Okay. Last tip, tip number four communication. Communication with your clients to understand what it is they’re looking for. And what do I mean by that? I mean, if you want to book ideal clients on repeat, you need to understand how you are serving your existing client really, really well. So what is it that they love about working with you?
00;18;49;07 – 00;19;13;10
Rebecca Hay
You need to have open conversation and communication with your client, because if you don’t have your finger on the pulse of how your clients are doing or how they’re feeling about working with you, that’s going to be really hard for you to get them to refer you and be. It’s going to be hard for you to understand what your secret sauce is, what makes you different, so that you can really bring in those additional clients.
00;19;13;12 – 00;19;30;26
Rebecca Hay
If you can communicate that and you can find out from them, you know, here’s what we’re doing. Well, here’s we’re not that’s going to help you. And a lot of us get nervous to ask for feedback because we’re afraid it’s not going to be good. We don’t want to hear about our shortcomings. We only want to focus on the positive, and we want to move on to the next fresh project.
00;19;30;28 – 00;19;50;06
Rebecca Hay
But actually, if you can send your clients a survey or send your clients a request for sort of a good testimonial, not necessarily on Google, just like internally, you can get a lot of feedback that can help you position yourself for the next client, because you want to be able to also get that client to be a raving fan.
00;19;50;10 – 00;20;11;07
Rebecca Hay
And if they’re not a raving fan, it’s going to be hard for them to tell their friends about you. For you to keep getting those ideal clients on repeat. So I really recommend that you send a survey to your clients, whether it’s midway through, when it’s when you’re really hot and heavy or at the end, but don’t wait till long after you’re finished because your memory is not it’s not elastic enough.
00;20;11;07 – 00;20;30;03
Rebecca Hay
It doesn’t hold on to all that information. They tend to move on and forget what was going on. I think the messy middle could be a good time, but you have to use your your judgment and just send them a short survey. Get them to ask specifically about certain aspects of your service and give them some opportunity to respond, like with with in paragraph form if they want.
00;20;30;05 – 00;20;53;13
Rebecca Hay
Then you could also ask for their testimonial if you like. The trick here is not just trying to get a five star review, it’s actually looking at how you can better your business practice. A lot of us don’t want to see that, and we get nervous because we don’t want to be criticized and we don’t want to think that we have to change things because we are so tired and we are overworked and we’re overwhelmed and we barely have the time to do the thing we’re trying to do.
00;20;53;13 – 00;21;15;10
Rebecca Hay
And so if I find out from them that, like, they really didn’t like the process of me putting together the decorating like, oh my gosh, what does that mean? I have to reevaluate that. Yeah, but that’s how you’re going to grow a better, stronger business. And so if you can communicate with your clients in the middle or right towards the end of your project and find out from them what is it they love about working with you, where could you improve?
00;21;15;10 – 00;21;35;03
Rebecca Hay
What is it about your process that really works for them? Maybe there is anything that didn’t work for them. What do they wish could be could have been done differently? These are hard questions to ask, but it’s only going to make you better because then you can really improve so that you can continue to get incredible clients. Okay, I hope those were helpful tips on what you can do.
00;21;35;03 – 00;22;11;25
Rebecca Hay
Ultimately, booking ideal clients on repeat. It can happen. You just need to put a little bit of extra effort into getting the message out, making sure the wrong people don’t slip through the cracks right? Saying no sometimes even when it’s scary. Recognizing red flags again, I share some examples of red flags in my discovery Call script because when you just take on any job, because maybe you’re afraid and maybe you have to, maybe you need like, maybe there’s no other jobs in sight and you don’t have a cushion, so you can’t say no.
00;22;12;01 – 00;22;30;26
Rebecca Hay
Then you have to do what you have, what you need to do to survive. But there will be people who come your way who it might seem like a good idea because you want the money, but ultimately they’re not your ideal client, and they may not even make you any money because you might end up putting in more time than you are billing for.
00;22;30;29 – 00;22;51;03
Rebecca Hay
You might lose money. Pay attention to those red flags. The only way I started to get better clients that were like, okay, well, follow your process. Okay, room totals only in your proposals. I don’t need to see every item. Okay? We won’t shop with you. Okay? We’ll wait six weeks for you to present the design. Not every client was okay with that.
00;22;51;06 – 00;23;10;20
Rebecca Hay
I had to say no. And by saying no, sometimes all it is. Is the proposals too high for them? I’m sorry. That’s that’s the price. Or we really don’t have any availability until 2026, whatever that looks like for you. Turning down a client. But let’s get intentional this year, because I really want you to work with those amazing clients and have the best year yet.
00;23;10;22 – 00;23;34;17
Rebecca Hay
All right, if you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend. Someone who you think could use use it. Who could listen to it. I would love for you to leave us a review. Those reviews go a really long way to getting more ears on our podcast, and it means so much to us. If you’re enjoying this episode and you appreciate all this information that you’re getting for free, all I ask in return is that you could please leave us a review, YouTube, or on iTunes.
00;23;34;17 – 00;24;00;20
Rebecca Hay
That would mean the world to me. I’ll see you soon. The Resilient by Design podcast is produced by Vera marquez, edited by Abby Ser, KTLA and hosted by yours truly, Rebecca. Hey.
