If you missed my last Standout Designer Bootcamp—or even if you didn’t—don’t skip this episode!
One of the most powerful tools I shared in my recent bootcamp is the Investment Guide—a game-changer for interior designers looking to pre-qualify and secure the right interior design clients. In this episode, I break down exactly what an Investment Guide is, how to use it effectively, and why it’s key to pre-qualifying your clients and avoiding time-wasters.
I’ll share a personal story from my own journey, the biggest mistakes to avoid, and actionable steps to implement this strategy in your business. The truth is, that premium clients will pay for a premium service—you just need to position yourself correctly to attract them. Tune in to learn how an Investment Guide can help you set expectations, weed out misaligned clients, and maximize your impact!
episode highlights
- What an Investment Guide is and why it’s essential for your business
- How to use an Investment Guide to pre-qualify clients and eliminate budget shoppers
- The biggest mistakes designers make in the inquiry process—and how to fix them
- Why premium clients expect pricing transparency and how to position it to your advantage
- The key sections every Investment Guide should include to attract serious clients
Episode Resources
Read the Full Transcript ⬇️
00;00;00;00 – 00;00;37;14
Rebecca Hay
The number one mistake that designers make in this inquiry process is they let every inquiry, meaning every potential client that comes their way, turns into a consultation and likely turns into a job if they’ve priced it right. The reality is, not every person who reaches out to you deserves even a first meeting with you. 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.
00;00;37;14 – 00;01;07;05
Rebecca Hay
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. 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.
00;01;07;07 – 00;01;33;23
Rebecca Hay
Hey hey hey, it’s Rebecca and you are listening to Resilient by Design. Today I want to talk about what you missed inside my amazing bootcamp. But seriously, we just did a bootcamp called The Standout Designer and it was all about how you can pre-qualify and attract better clients. The boot camp was a phenomenal success, and there are a lot of wins that happen inside that boot camp.
00;01;33;23 – 00;01;56;01
Rebecca Hay
And so I thought it might be fun to share just one little snippet of what you missed inside that boot camp. We will be doing another one, so of course you can get on the waitlist for our next boot camp. It will be at rebecca.com/bootcamp, so go there if you’re curious about when the next one’s coming. I don’t know exactly when yet, but there will be another one soon because I loved doing this.
00;01;56;04 – 00;02;26;10
Rebecca Hay
And essentially we did this bootcamp over two weeks. We had a pop-up Facebook group that you could join where there was tons of sharing and activity, and then we had three live trainings on Zoom, plus a bonus 90-minute training with yours truly, as well as daily mindset sessions where I would come into the Facebook group every morning and for 15 20 minutes I would share an inspirational quote, a story, and really help to motivate the boot campers into the right mindset for the day.
00;02;26;12 – 00;02;54;14
Rebecca Hay
I really loved that aspect, but what I really loved was seeing how these boot campers took what they learned and implemented it right away. Because the whole point of a boot camp, it’s like going to the gym is like you’re going to show up every day and do the work so you can get results. So today in this episode, I want to share specifically one of the areas that I taught in the boot camp, which is about an investment guide because I think this was a really powerful takeaway.
00;02;54;20 – 00;03;18;20
Rebecca Hay
I’m diving in right now to share with you how you can use an investment guide to land better projects. Let’s go. First of all, what does it mean to pre-qualify your clients? Pre-qualifying your clients means you are investigating if they’re the right fit for you, and you’re making sure that they are qualified to work with you. Meaning, are they the right fit?
00;03;18;22 – 00;03;35;02
Rebecca Hay
Because you don’t want to work with clients that aren’t the right fit. We’ve all been there. And if you haven’t been there yet, oh, I hope you can avoid it as much as possible. If you implement all the strategies that I share in the boot camp, you can easily get sidetracked on a project with the wrong client.
00;03;35;09 – 00;04;03;05
Rebecca Hay
It’s one of those things that sometimes we don’t even see coming. But if we know what to look for and we’re paying attention, we can easily stop those clients from entering our funnel entry. Like we’ve got a filter. And the whole point is we want to filter out the wrong clients. Now, for many of you who haven’t launched your business yet or who are just starting, you might hear me say this and think, Rebecca, I don’t care what kind of client it is, I just need a client.
00;04;03;07 – 00;04;27;07
Rebecca Hay
That’s fair. I get that. I started there too, but very quickly you will see that not all clients are created equal, and not all clients are the right fit for you because you’re not going to have the best, most successful outcome with a client that doesn’t trust you, that doesn’t value your expertise, that maybe doesn’t want to pay for your service offering or the products that you’ve selected.
00;04;27;14 – 00;04;51;14
Rebecca Hay
The right clients don’t just find you, you attract them by setting expectations from the start. One of the ways that I taught this inside the boot camp was with my recommendation of using an investment guide. So an investment guide for those who don’t know is essentially a PDF document that explains what it looks like to work with you. I used to call mine the R About Us document.
00;04;51;17 – 00;05;18;10
Rebecca Hay
Internally, we now just call it working with RHD document. It’s super clear there are a lot of places on the internet where you can buy these, but unless you know how to use it and how to really maximize its impact, it’s not going to be effective for you. So that’s what I want to talk about today. When you attract the wrong client, like a budget client who doesn’t want to pay for your services, they typically waste your time.
00;05;18;15 – 00;05;37;14
Rebecca Hay
I’m not going to lie, they’re time wasters because they’re asking you to revise. They’re asking you to look for a better price. They’re asking you to look for a cheaper product. They’re asking you to look for who knows what. Or can you remove this? Can you revise the scope? I want to remove this because we don’t want to pay for it.
00;05;37;14 – 00;06;06;12
Rebecca Hay
Or is it really worth it or are we better to invest here? You get the idea. So when you pre-qualify, it really helps you to focus on only the serious buyers, and the challenges. Many of us are making some mistakes. So the number one mistake that designers make in this inquiry process is they let every inquiry, meaning every potential client that comes their way, turn into a consultation and likely turn into a job if they’ve priced it right.
00;06;06;14 – 00;06;31;12
Rebecca Hay
The reality is, that not every person who reaches out to you deserves even a first meeting with you. Now, they might deserve a phone call, but they don’t always. And I’m here to help you stop it before it gets to that point. There is no point in having a conversation with somebody who doesn’t want to pay your fees or doesn’t want to do it the way you do it.
00;06;31;15 – 00;06;47;26
Rebecca Hay
One of the things I learned in the early years is initially, I would say yes to everything, which I think is a great place to start. As an entrepreneur. You want to hustle, you want to learn from your experience. However, I had some clients who really wanted to go to vendors with me. So I had one client who was like, oh my God, I love fabrics.
00;06;47;26 – 00;07;05;22
Rebecca Hay
Can I come with you? I would love to come with you and source fabrics for a day. And I thought in my mind at the time, I thought, okay, this is actually going to be great because I can easily charge my time for sourcing fabric and I don’t have to discount it because she’ll be there with me. Oh Lord.
00;07;05;24 – 00;07;22;15
Rebecca Hay
And then, like, I can really get a sense very quickly of what she likes and what she doesn’t like. I thought that was a great idea, but that was before I really knew how to get a sense of what clients like. And before I really understood my own process, I didn’t really have a process. Clearly, if I was just saying yes, okay, whatever.
00;07;22;17 – 00;07;42;14
Rebecca Hay
And it was exhausting and I didn’t really enjoy the process. In the end, I felt a little bit unsatisfied because the client still wanted to then go to another showroom to look at more fabrics. And it’s almost like by seeing the sheer volume of options, opens the door to them wanting to keep looking, if you know what I’m saying.
00;07;42;17 – 00;08;14;02
Rebecca Hay
So early on, I was wasting my time talking to people who had no budget, people who wanted DIY solutions or just wanted to pick my brain even, or who wanted to shop with me kind of halfway. They do part of it themselves, like everything. But then once I started to pre-qualify using an investment guide, everything changed. My time was respected, my conversion rates went up, meaning the people that I had consultations with, more of them signed on with me for the full service.
00;08;14;02 – 00;08;44;28
Rebecca Hay
So what I started to do was use a document that pre-qualified them before I book the call. What this did is it set expectations on budget, timeline and process. I’m going to repeat that having this document sets the expectation on budget, timeline and process. It is going to help you eliminate those tire kickers and the budget shoppers. Essentially, what it includes is a snapshot of your services.
00;08;45;03 – 00;09;08;24
Rebecca Hay
You want to be very clear on what your service offering is. What do you do? Your design, staging, decorating, full-service construction, design, build, and what have you. You want to include your investment range. I believe money here is helpful until maybe you’re at a place where you’re doing $5 million plus projects. I think you need to talk about the money because it’s going to weed out the tire kickers, right?
00;09;08;24 – 00;09;23;02
Rebecca Hay
So put a transparent price saying you don’t have to say your project is going to cost best, because this is like a blanket document. You’re saying to everyone, you’re not customizing it for that client, and you’re gonna have an overview of your process and then clear instructions on how to book a call with you in the next step.
00;09;23;02 – 00;09;43;26
Rebecca Hay
So that’s four sections to include in your investment guide. That is a snapshot of your services. Transparent pricing with the investment range based on project scope however you want to do it. Whatever your pricing method is an overview of your process. So what does it mean to work with you? Step-by-step breakdown. A step-by-step breakdown for us, we have our seven steps.
00;09;43;26 – 00;10;02;25
Rebecca Hay
We walk through what each step is so that they can understand and we break it into phases. Then what are the next steps? What are the clear instructions? You need a CTA or a call to action so that once they’ve read this, they know, okay, the next step is to book a discovery call with Rebecca. This is not meant to be a pricing menu okay?
00;10;02;25 – 00;10;23;19
Rebecca Hay
This is not like you could do this service. And I have worked with designers. I’ve helped them out with their investment guide. I’ve given a lot of, I think, helpful and constructive feedback where I’ve said, okay, this is too many offers, you’ve got this price for a color consultation, and you’ve got this price for designer for a day, and then you’ve got this hourly rate if you want, they want to hire you for consulting.
00;10;23;19 – 00;10;42;17
Rebecca Hay
Then you have your full service like what do you want to do? And this is something I dive into inside the power of process. I really force the designers. I don’t force them, but you know what I mean. I encourage designers of my pop, my poppers to really look at their service offering and get clear on what is that focus for them.
00;10;42;20 – 00;10;58;08
Rebecca Hay
Because I do believe that having too many options is not a good thing, because I don’t want it to look like a pricing menu where they feel like, oh, I’m just going to pick the one that suits me. It’s going to cause you to, first of all, struggle to have one process. It’s going to cause you to feel a little bit more overwhelmed when you have different projects.
00;10;58;08 – 00;11;22;26
Rebecca Hay
They’re doing entirely different things. It’s like, where am I today? What’s happening? And it’s going to be harder to scale. So setting up this investment guide is actually meant to be a premium positioning tool. So it’s not a pricing menu. And I know there’s a lot of resistance to posting prices. Here’s why I believe you should. Some designers think that if we put pricing on our website or in an investment guide, clients are going to be scared off.
00;11;22;28 – 00;11;41;09
Rebecca Hay
But the reality is clients actually want to know pricing upfront. They know they can’t have an exact price until you’ve met them and understand the scope of work. But they need to have an idea. And I think there’s also this misconception by designers that clients aren’t going to pay well if they see that I charge for a consultation, they’re going to say no.
00;11;41;11 – 00;12;04;05
Rebecca Hay
The reality premium clients will pay for a premium service. The right clients are going to value your worth, and they will gladly and happily pay for your time for them to come to your house. And if a client goes to after seeing your pricing, they were never the right client for you. And now, if it’s happening over and over and you do think you’re getting in front of the right client, then yes, absolutely.
00;12;04;05 – 00;12;22;16
Rebecca Hay
That is cause to reevaluate your pricing and determine, am I missing the mark here? What’s wrong? What, like what’s, you know, something’s not fitting. But in general, I can tell you usually it’s just that they’re not the right fit. And then the last tip I’m going to share here about having this document is how to use it. So how to use it.
00;12;22;19 – 00;12;44;20
Rebecca Hay
I recommend that this is the first step in your inquiry process after they inquire. So this isn’t something you’re sending out to people. I wouldn’t I wouldn’t send this off to realtors or anything like this. This is several pages of a PDF. I would say 2 to 3 could be up to seven pages. If you really had a lot of content to fill in ours.
00;12;44;20 – 00;12;59;25
Rebecca Hay
We include press features, and things like that because it helps to add credibility to what we do. And it shows that we’ve been doing this for a while. But if you don’t have that, don’t sweat it. That’s not required. But it’s the first thing that we send to someone when they inquire. When they inquire with us, we send them an email.
00;12;59;25 – 00;13;20;25
Rebecca Hay
And this is what I walk you through inside the boot camp. I actually share scripts like email scripts that we use and the exact inquiry process that we follow. But if we’re going to distill it down to one important action, it’s that this document is what you send to potential clients before you book a call. That’s it. You send it before you book a call.
00;13;20;27 – 00;13;49;08
Rebecca Hay
I believe as much as you want to collect the information from them in the call, you want them to see how professional you are. You want them to see how you work and understand that you are organized. You are like a proper business. You’re not winging it. You’re not a fly-by-night designer and you want them to see your pricing that you want them to understand, even if you only include.
00;13;49;08 – 00;14;10;27
Rebecca Hay
It’s up to you what pricing you include. But even if you only include the fee for your consultation, if you’re charging $750 as I do for a design consultation, you’re immediately weeding out people who would never pay that. You don’t want someone who thinks it’s going to cost 750 for a designer to design their living room unless that’s your rate, that’s fine, but I hope you understand where I’m going with this.
00;14;10;27 – 00;14;36;13
Rebecca Hay
Right? That’s the pre-qualifier. Just not alone. When I went from charging I think it was like $500 for a consultation to 750. Big jump. I only wanted to go to 650. My husband’s like you’re going to go up there. May as well go to 750. So I immediately changed the phone calls. I had the people who thought 750 was ludicrous, didn’t bother getting on the phone with me, and didn’t waste my time.
00;14;36;15 – 00;14;52;21
Rebecca Hay
And the people who did get on the phone with me already knew. That’s what I charged. So it made it a lot more comfortable for me to talk to them. I didn’t feel that like, oh, now I got to bring up the money conversation, and I got to tell them that the consultation is not free. I don’t have to, because then in the call I can say, have you had a chance to look at the PDF?
00;14;52;21 – 00;15;05;16
Rebecca Hay
We sent you our investment guide. Have you had a chance to look at whatever you want to call it? Right. And if they haven’t okay, then you know they have it, right? It’s you. Then you say, oh, okay, well, here’s what we included in that. I’ll just walk you through it. It’s your backbone. It’s your backup.
00;15;05;16 – 00;15;23;08
Rebecca Hay
It makes you feel more confident in a call and makes you feel more confident, especially if they’ve had a chance to look at it. It makes you feel more confident that they’re ready and in it for the right reasons. So I would love to hear from you guys. I know this is a shorty episode. I don’t want to overload you, but I really hope this gives you a little bit of food for thought.
00;15;23;08 – 00;15;41;25
Rebecca Hay
Consider including things like what is your starting investment range? How are you going to clearly communicate your process in this document, and what qualifying questions are you going to ask them? Maybe in an email before you send the guide to you, make sure that they’re the right fit. I can tell you this is a game changer in attracting the right clients.
00;15;41;25 – 00;15;59;20
Rebecca Hay
Having this is like the beginning of your working relationship, and how you do one thing is how you do everything. This is showing up your clients and showing them that you’re professional. I would love to hear from you who’s already doing this and do you include pricing? Super curious about somebody. I’m on Instagram. I would love to hear from you.
00;15;59;22 – 00;16;16;19
Rebecca Hay
Also, if you are enjoying this podcast, please, please, please leave us a review. It would mean the world to me. That’s how we can get a higher ranking in iTunes, Spotify, and all the places. Share it with a friend, please. Oh, and of course, if you are curious and want to join our next boot camp, it’ll be coming up in the next.
00;16;16;22 – 00;16;38;26
Rebecca Hay
I don’t know how long I want to say weeks could be months, but we’ve got a waitlist if you want to be the first to know when the boot camp is coming back. So go to rebeccahay.com/bootcamp and you can join that waitlist to find out all the details. Okay, see you soon.
