Before we can bring a vision to life, we need a solid YES from the client. And the key to making that decision effortless? Owning your expertise—because you are the expert.
In this episode, I’m sharing practical strategies to help you communicate your ideas with confidence and streamline your client process. We’ll dive into some (potentially controversial) tips I’ve learned firsthand—ones that will help you gain faster buy-in, build trust, and avoid the endless email back-and-forth.
Bottom line? Your confidence is contagious—so let’s use it to your advantage!
Episode highlights
- How to Get Clients to Say “Yes” Faster – Discover why offering too many options can overwhelm clients and slow down decision-making. Learn how presenting one strong, well-curated option can make approvals easier and speed up the process.
- The Key to Building Trust and Eliminating Endless Revisions – Struggling with clients questioning your pricing or requesting constant changes? This episode will give you practical strategies to set clear expectations, communicate with confidence, and reduce back-and-forth emails.
- How to Own Your Expertise and Speak with Authority – Your confidence is contagious! Learn how to position yourself as the expert, showcase your value, and communicate your design vision so clients feel reassured and excited to move forward.
Episode Resources
Read the Full Transcript ⬇️
00;00;00;00 – 00;00;29;13
Rebecca Hay
Clients are hiring you for your expertise. Offering too many options shifts the burden of decision-making back onto them. 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 breaking books. Over the last decade, I’ve grown from an insecure student to having false starts in careers.
00;00;29;15 – 00;00;58;15
Rebecca Hay
And now I’m finally in the place where I want to be. Throughout my journeys. It’s been pretty obvious that I’m passionate about business and helping other entrepreneurs do the same. 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’re listening to Resilient by Design.
00;00;58;18 – 00;01;19;03
Rebecca Hay
Today, I want to talk about what your clients need to hear from you. To give you a yes. So often as designers and as creatives, we get nervous or worried that our clients are going to say no to our ideas or they’re going to say no to our proposal, or they’re going to say no to the timeline, or they’re going to push back.
00;01;19;03 – 00;01;50;26
Rebecca Hay
It can be challenging because we have a vision and say it’s frustrating if the client doesn’t see it or if they want to modify it or tweak it or, God forbid, reduce the budget. So I want to talk today about how you can empower yourself with strategies so that you can confidently communicate your value, and your ideas, and make that client decision-making process more streamlined.
00;01;50;28 – 00;02;14;20
Rebecca Hay
To quickly get a yes, regardless of where you are at in your process, so that your clients are confident and excited to work with you and to go ahead with all of your ideas. First of all, have you ever had a client hesitate? Maybe question your pricing or even ask for endless revisions? Maybe they say, oh, it’s just gonna be one revision.
00;02;14;20 – 00;02;40;05
Rebecca Hay
And then you get another email a few days later. I’ve had an email where it’s like a revision request. Following my process, she did exactly what I asked one of three literally in the subject line. I have it saved somewhere. It was a doozy. Each email had like ten plus bullet points. That’s what I realized, Maybe my process needs to be slightly tweaked.
00;02;40;07 – 00;03;08;20
Rebecca Hay
Have you ever had that though? Or even just a client come back to you after you thought revisions were done before? They’re really ready to commit. If this is you, today’s episode is going to resonate. I’m going to dive into what your clients need to hear from you to confidently say yes, without the stress or second guessing. And you’re going to learn how presenting fewer options to showcase your expertise is going to help you.
00;03;08;20 – 00;03;35;05
Rebecca Hay
And I’m going to give you some tips to make that easier. Easier for your clients to say, yes, you’re the designer for me, or yes, this is the look I want for my house. So let’s start with the importance of clear communication. Ultimately, if you want your clients to say yes, you need to be a good communicator. This clarity in communication is having a clear message with your clients is going to build trust.
00;03;35;07 – 00;04;10;18
Rebecca Hay
Clients can feel overwhelmed, just like we feel overwhelmed. They too can feel overwhelmed when they don’t fully understand the process. Knowing what’s coming up next, or maybe they feel uncertain about what you’re recommending. So having clear, confident communication is going to put them at ease. Letting them know the exact next steps they can expect is clear communication. Letting them know I selected this drapery because of this, and here’s why you know and how it’s going to end up and look great.
00;04;10;20 – 00;04;35;29
Rebecca Hay
You need to be very clear in your communication. You need to also get the right information from your clients. You need to ask the right questions. Today I’m going to give you practical, actionable tips. They’re going to make all of these interactions with your clients a little bit smoother. So the first tip I guess you will is this is controversial guys.
00;04;36;01 – 00;05;06;05
Rebecca Hay
So are you ready for it? I suggest you provide one option for design with confidence. Instead of multiple options that they can choose from or God forbid. Mix and match. So here’s why I have learned from not doing this in the early years where you’ve heard me say this before, I would be sitting on the floor. I would bring fabric samples.
00;05;06;05 – 00;05;27;18
Rebecca Hay
I would have floor plans with me, maybe elevation and maybe tile, as you name it. I was bringing samples to their house on their living room floor, sanding it out, and showing them this design scheme versus that design scheme. You know, if we used the plaid for the sofa, wouldn’t that be neat? But then in that case we’d want to do a neutral velvet pillow.
00;05;27;23 – 00;05;44;17
Rebecca Hay
But yes. Oh, you love the velvet. Yeah. You’re right. We could do the velvet for the sofa. Oh, that would be luxe. Yeah. So if we did the velvet for the sofa, the plaid could be a great pillow. You know, the plaid would be great for the drapes. Do you see where I’m going? Here. So I would include my clients in making all of these decisions.
00;05;44;17 – 00;06;07;12
Rebecca Hay
And then when I finally shifted to having a presentation, which was amazing, I would show them multiple options. So it wasn’t like, help me pull the scheme together anymore. It was: here’s scheme A, here’s scheme B, here’s scheme C, so if we went with the light hardwood, here’s what they would look like with the medium walnut. Here’s what it would look like.
00;06;07;12 – 00;06;30;25
Rebecca Hay
Or you could go with the aspect like view clients are hiring you for your expertise. Offering too many options shifts the burden of decision-making back onto them. I said this before when I talked about giving them multiple service offerings. If you missed that episode, go back to it. It was in the last couple of weeks. I don’t know the number.
00;06;30;29 – 00;06;56;02
Rebecca Hay
Go back and listen to it. But when you offer clients too many options, it’s like tennis, like ping. I wish I could make a tennis racket, hang in a ball, sound like bowling. You’re hitting the ball back into their court. Offering too many options shifts the burden of decision-making to your clients, which can create confusion or worse, a decision.
00;06;56;04 – 00;07;17;27
Rebecca Hay
Perel says. When I had a presentation for the first time where I offered one option because I heard a coach say offer one option, I was like, sure, if she says it’s going to work, I will try it. And guess what? We did the entire presentation, though. We were over budget. The client said afterward, because I was waiting for tons of feedback on things they didn’t like.
00;07;17;27 – 00;07;40;13
Rebecca Hay
Like I was making some bold choices, like this wild wallpaper for the I mean, nothing I do was like over-the-top wild, but, you know, it was like a patterned wallpaper for this thing, and then this fabric for this custom curved sofa, like all these things that I was really pushing outside the box for design. And at the end, the feedback the client gave me was, we love everything.
00;07;40;16 – 00;08;07;23
Rebecca Hay
And all I could think was, how is that even possible? Hahaha, you know what I mean? Because as a designer you’re like, you know, there’s so many options. Don’t they know there’s so many options? Don’t they want to ask me to see all the options that blew my mind? When you present one carefully curated option that you feel confident about, you are going to get buy-in from your clients faster.
00;08;07;23 – 00;08;35;02
Rebecca Hay
Now, sure, some things might change, and in that situation, there were some revisions. Not a lot, but there were some revisions. But what you can say to your client is something like this. Based on our discussions, I believe this is the best choice for your space. I also like to tell clients I like to warn clients in a discovery call or in a consultation if I haven’t done it in the call that we like to put what I call our best foot forward.
00;08;35;04 – 00;08;52;26
Rebecca Hay
What that means is we only present one option for your space, but that’s after we have gathered all the information and insights from you, from all everything you’ve needed. You’ve signed off on the concept and vision for the space. In our concept of budget review. And then at the presentation, we are going to put our best foot forward.
00;08;52;28 – 00;09;21;12
Rebecca Hay
This will be a game-changer for you. This is clear communication, but you are confidently showing them your selections by giving them one option and communicating it ahead of time so they know it’s coming. You are actually more likely to get a yes, and it sounds counterintuitive, but trust me, it works. Try it. Okay, the next tip I have for you to get your client to say yes is to lean into your experience and expertise.
00;09;21;14 – 00;09;52;06
Rebecca Hay
Too many of us downplay our talent or downplay our years of experience. It wasn’t until I started adding to my discovery calls verbiage like. For the past decade, we have worked with clients on fill-in-the-blank. In my years of experience, fill-in-the-blank clients want to know that they’re in good hands. So when you can highlight your experience, it is going to help them trust your judgment and feel reassured.
00;09;52;08 – 00;10;10;16
Rebecca Hay
Now I want to just say something for those of you who are like, but I don’t have a decade of experience, Rebecca. Like, I’ve only been doing this for a year or two years, or I mean, let’s start. You need to pull from your life experience. I just had a great conversation with a Power of Process alumni, Heather, and we talked about this, and how you have transferred.
00;10;10;18 – 00;10;37;26
Rebecca Hay
I’m getting preachy. You have transferable skills from your past career and life that you can bring to your design business. Do you have great people skills? I once coached an interior designer in one of my private coaching sessions. And I was going through all of her About Us documentation, her website, and what she had told me about her experience and who she is versus what I was seeing were not aligned.
00;10;37;29 – 00;11;02;05
Rebecca Hay
She turns out, had so much experience flipping homes. She and her husband were flipping houses. They had this incredible team of trades that they used on every flip that they worked with. And nowhere in her marketing materials or in her discovery call script was she talking about the experience of that and her qualified trades that have her back that she works with.
00;11;02;05 – 00;11;29;06
Rebecca Hay
I said, girl, most interior designers, even if they’ve been in this industry for ten years, do not even have their go-to trades. It is so hard. Why are you not talking about this? So share that expertise that you have. Level up in your verbiage and it is not boasting, it is not sales-y. And I think sometimes we hold back from fluffing ourselves up or talking ourselves up because we don’t want to look arrogant.
00;11;29;06 – 00;11;54;24
Rebecca Hay
We don’t want to look like we think we’re the best. We want to be humble. Humble is not going to help your clients say yes. Weave your expertise into the conversation, but do it naturally. So you could say, you know, in my five years of flipping houses or in my eight years of working on projects just like this, I have found that this approach works best.
00;11;54;27 – 00;12;18;15
Rebecca Hay
Or I used to work this way in the early years of my business, but now I found that this works best. If you have credentials, mention them. It is not sleazy to mention that you have an interior design degree or diploma, or that you did a certificate in project management, or that you have an undergrad in something completely unrelated, or that you have an MBA.
00;12;18;15 – 00;12;38;29
Rebecca Hay
I don’t know, like don’t sound like a douchebag, but make sure your credentials are mentioned somewhere. If you’re not going to say it verbally, make sure they’re somewhere. If you have them, flaunt them. Do you have any awards? Do you have past successful projects that maybe the client was over the moon? Do you have great testimonials? Do you have photo books?
00;12;39;01 – 00;13;01;02
Rebecca Hay
What do you have to show them that you know what you’re doing? So here’s a couple of things that I’ve done. When we host our presentations at the studio. We have awards that we’ve won, build awards. They are out on display so that everybody can see them and they’re strategically on display. So that when you’re doing the presentation at the table and actually I learned this from a marketing firm.
00;13;01;08 – 00;13;22;27
Rebecca Hay
I was working for a developer. We were developing, and designing a community for them. They had this marketing agency. We went to this. I’m laughing because it was like those ludicrous situations. I felt like I was in a movie from ten years ago, but we walked into this marketing agency. It was like it was post-pandemic, but it felt like pre-pandemic like everybody was there and it was so flashy.
00;13;22;27 – 00;13;45;12
Rebecca Hay
And when we sat down at the boardroom table, all we saw were plastered on all the walls, all the awards that they had won. And like all of the brochures and a lot of the marketing materials or promo materials that they’d done for previous developers on the walls like there was no question this marketing firm knew how to market new developments.
00;13;45;14 – 00;14;06;28
Rebecca Hay
And I thought, oh, this is so fascinating. It’s like you are putting this subliminal message. They didn’t even talk about any of that when we were there. And this was not a sales meeting. They’d already hired them. But all I could think was, I see why this marketing agency wants to have all of our meetings in person at their studio, which I thought was ridiculous.
00;14;06;28 – 00;14;27;26
Rebecca Hay
Why can’t we just have it on Zoom? There was so much power in seeing that around them. So we have our awards out. We have some publications framed on the wall. I also have client photo books. So at the end of a project, when I create something to give to my client, which is before and after photos, I make a second copy for us and it is here at the studio on display as soon as you enter so that I can grab it.
00;14;27;26 – 00;14;50;14
Rebecca Hay
If a client’s here I can show them. So find ways to weave your expertise into the conversation, into your marketing. Keep it concise. Keep a client focused like nobody wants to hear about that cottage you built. Because there’s a funny story with the architect, and it got featured in the magazine and you won an award like, okay, great for you, Rebecca, but what does that have to do with my kitchen right now?
00;14;50;15 – 00;15;15;21
Rebecca Hay
Like, don’t see the connection. So make sure you can weave it into that conversation seamlessly with relevance okay? The next tip is to know your numbers. I mean guys, I talk about this a lot. Know your numbers. Being confident and prepared when you’re discussing pricing shows professionalism, and it’s going to avoid that awkward back and forth where they throw out a number you’re not really sure.
00;15;15;21 – 00;15;38;24
Rebecca Hay
Then you heard a number like cut. No, no. So before you meet with a client in the call, ideally be clear on your pricing structure and how you will communicate it. You don’t have to tell them how you calculate it if you don’t want to, but be clear on your pricing structure. As I will often tell clients, our design fee is structured in such a way.
00;15;38;24 – 00;15;58;20
Rebecca Hay
It’s based on a square footage. It ranges from this to that. You know, the last kitchen that we did was this much know your numbers come prepared with your numbers because that is going to show them you’re professional. Let’s be honest. I’m sorry. You don’t want to hear this. You’re like, my prices are changing and I don’t know their project in this.
00;15;58;20 – 00;16;17;22
Rebecca Hay
You need to them. Yeah. Okay, fine. That is all true. You still need to know the numbers. Even if you can’t tell them exactly what their projects are going to cost until you actually budget it out, it is 100% valid. Don’t ever, ever tell someone the cost is going to be before you’ve actually done the work, but you can tell them what past projects have cost.
00;16;17;25 – 00;16;40;16
Rebecca Hay
You can have sample budgets you’ve created. You can ask other designers and contractors what things are like. Guys, there are lots of tools out there. You can use ChatGPT, you can use the Internet. You can use all of the resources that I provide, all the community that I have, like finding out what things cost, knowing your numbers, and always sharing your value.
00;16;40;16 – 00;17;04;00
Rebecca Hay
Right. So we’re going to talk about numbers, talk about the value you provide and also just the words you use matter. So instead of saying it costs $15,000 try the investment for this project is 15,000. Or hey, what’s your budget? You could say, how much are you hoping to invest in this kitchen right now? Right. Because let’s be honest, it is an investment, especially if it’s their home.
00;17;04;02 – 00;17;37;22
Rebecca Hay
They’re going to sell it and make more money, right? No. Your numbers, end of story. Point number four have an organized process with visible next steps. So clients need to know what’s happening next. When you have a clear roadmap for your clients that outlines how you are going to work with them from start to finish, it is going to reduce any anxiety and more than anything, believe it or not, that is going to build trust.
00;17;37;25 – 00;18;00;06
Rebecca Hay
You want to lay out your process step by step. Start with an initial consultation what is your process? Is it there’s a consultation and you’ve got your concept presentation and there are revisions and final approval and then the execution? And then maybe we do deficiencies and then whatever it is for you use visuals if possible. And this is going to help you get that.
00;18;00;06 – 00;18;18;20
Rebecca Hay
Yes. With your clients after the consultation when you are presenting your proposal because you’ve walked them through what it’s going to look like to work with you, and if you can have a visual flowchart. This is something that I teach inside Power of Process. It’s really helpful to have visuals because clients, and especially the designer because we’re so visual.
00;18;18;20 – 00;18;41;02
Rebecca Hay
But clients do value and appreciate that. But having, a simple timeline to show them. Or maybe it’s a checklist so that it feels tangible, it feels achievable. They see that you are thinking through what’s coming next, and you’re not just winging it. Because let’s face it, a lot of us doing it, I used to wing it. People would say to me, okay, great, like I’d be on the floor.
00;18;41;03 – 00;19;00;08
Rebecca Hay
There I am with all the fabrics and the samples and my bags and my cute little like plastic zippy, folder things, pockets or whatever, they’d be like, okay, so what happens next, Rebecca? And like, they were asking, you know, like, just very kindly, like, they just wanted to know they were just like, okay, this. And they were in conversation.
00;19;00;13 – 00;19;18;22
Rebecca Hay
I didn’t think anything of the question. I was like, okay, well, and the thing is, is I didn’t actually have an answer because every project in my mind was different and unique. And so how could I possibly have the same process for every project? Like, to me, that was a ludicrous idea. And so I would turn to my client and there’s this one client.
00;19;18;22 – 00;19;35;16
Rebecca Hay
I’m picturing this one room. Every time I tell a story, I picture the same condo, the same floor. They’re lovely. Actually, they’re repeat clients. I just did some work for them last year. But anyway. And I would turn on and I would be formulating in my head like I was bashing my way through it. Basically, I was making it up on the spot.
00;19;35;16 – 00;19;49;26
Rebecca Hay
I’m really good at that. I’m really good at winging it, but it actually didn’t serve me more than in the moment. Right? Because then I would get back and I’m like, oh, why did I tell them I was gonna do the floor plans? And then I was going to send them, like, I really feel like I want to source this thing first before I do the floor plans on, oh my God.
00;19;49;28 – 00;20;16;09
Rebecca Hay
So I have a process that you can follow and have a visual of it, because this is going to help your clients trust you and say yes to working with you, to the next step, to your design choices. And this is exactly what I teach inside Power of Process. This is where I help designers create seamless workflows so they can deliver exceptional client experiences.
00;20;16;11 – 00;20;42;24
Rebecca Hay
This is going to be a game changer if you do not have this already. My very last tip because I just want to leave this with you. Confidence is contagious. Confidence is contagious. Clients are going to pick up on your energy. If you’re unsure or you’re hesitant, like I would have been in that situation of trying to think of what’s next, they are going to sense it.
00;20;42;26 – 00;21;11;13
Rebecca Hay
But if you’re confident and you’re excited, they feel reassured. So you want to speak decisively. You want to really think things through before you go to the client, what are you going to say? Prepare in advance. And then when you are with them on the phone, on the Zoom in person, show up confidently, speaking decisively to let them know that you believe what you’re saying.
00;21;11;16 – 00;21;30;02
Rebecca Hay
So instead of saying something like, well, I think this could work. I mean, I know I said it with a positive influx in my voice, but instead of that, you could say this is the perfect solution for your space. Which one sounds more confident? The second one, and sometimes you got to fake it a little, tell you to make it.
00;21;30;02 – 00;21;45;17
Rebecca Hay
Maybe you’re not fully sure, but you’re pretty sure you’re nervous. You don’t want to just do it. You can always fix it on the end, on the back end. Ultimately, I’m going to leave you with this last nugget. Like I’m doing these nuggets when I do solos I don’t think I do like this is like my second nugget of all time, guys.
00;21;45;17 – 00;22;08;27
Rebecca Hay
So exciting. I always get the guests to do nuggets and I never get to do it. Remember, your clients came to you for a reason. Own your expertise. Own your expertise because they see you as an expert. All right. I hope that episode was useful. Let me know. Don’t forget to head on over to iTunes. Give us a review.
00;22;08;27 – 00;22;34;00
Rebecca Hay
I will see you soon.
