Mastering the Business of Interior Design: Success by Design

Katie Decker-Erickson, Business Coach for Interior Designers
  • 5.0 (11)
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Updated Weekly

As an interior designer, do you find yourself caught between your love for design and the realities of running a profitable business? Whether you're launching your firm or scaling to new heights, the business side of interior design can be complex—and often overwhelming. That’s where Katie Decker-Erickson comes in. As a business coach for interior designers and the founder of a multimillion-dollar design firm, she knows firsthand what it takes to build a thriving, sustainable business while staying true to your creative vision. With nearly 20 years in the industry and a Master’s degree in Business Administration, Katie is actively in the trenches—elevating her own firm while helping other designers master the business of design. We’ll answer questions like: How do I get more interior design clients? What should I charge for interior design services? What are the best marketing strategies for interior designers? How can I grow my interior design business? How do I build a brand as an interior designer? How can I scale my interior design business? What systems do I need to run a successful interior design business? How do I create a client onboarding process for my design firm? Is it worth hiring a coach for my interior design business? This show delivers actionable tips on how to grow an interior design business with smart, sustainable strategies. You'll get insights on marketing your interior design services, building a strong brand, streamlining your systems, and scaling your firm—without burning out. If you're an interior designer, firm owner, or creative entrepreneur ready to build a profitable, passion-filled business, you're in the right place. Tune in, and let’s grow your interior design business—together.

  1. 4d ago

    Your Interior Design Business Needs a Different Plan for 2027

    Send Katie a Text Message!! If you want your interior design business to look different in 2027, you can't simply hope the market gets better. You can't control interest rates, economic uncertainty, changing client behavior, or whether the perfect project lands in your inbox. But there is an enormous amount happening inside your business that you can control. In this episode of Success by Design, we're bringing together all five pillars of The Design Business Diagnostic and looking at how to start positioning your company for a stronger, more profitable, and more intentional 2027. Whether you've had a fantastic year financially but feel completely overwhelmed, or 2026 has left you wondering where all your clients went, the answer isn't necessarily another marketing tactic, a new employee, or a pricing increase. The answer starts with understanding what's actually happening inside your business. In this episode, I'm talking about: Why hoping for a better market isn't a business strategyWhy you need to diagnose your business before setting 2027 goalsHow to distinguish visible symptoms from underlying business problemsThe five pillars I use to evaluate the health of an interior design firmWhat CEO Leadership should look like as your company growsThe financial numbers every design firm owner needs to understandHow to identify where your marketing and sales pipeline is breakingWhy hiring more people doesn't automatically create more capacityHow to determine whether your current services are helping or hurting profitabilityThe difference between accountability and shame when evaluating a difficult yearWhy your 2027 planning needs to begin before JanuaryHow to start evaluating your own business using The Design Business DiagnosticYour business isn't a reflection of your worth as a designer. It's a system, and systems can be examined, improved, and built to work better. Join Me Live on October 28! I'm hosting The Design Business Diagnostic Workshop, where we'll work through the five pillars together and help you begin identifying the changes your business needs to make heading into 2027. This is for designers who are overwhelmed with work, designers who need more consistent clients, and everyone in between who's ready to stop guessing and start making more intentional decisions. Seats are limited. Register now at successbydesign.coach/workshop Connect with Katie LinkedIn Business Strategy Sessions for Interior Designers Free Resources for scaling your interior design firm Website

    Your Interior Design Business Needs a Different Plan for 2027

  2. Oct 14

    132. Why More Services Won't Grow Your Interior Design Business | The Design Business Diagnostic, Part 6

    Send Katie a Text Message!! When the market slows down or clients start approaching projects differently, it's tempting to respond by adding more services, creating new packages, or changing your pricing. But what if the problem isn't that you need more offerings? What if you need to rethink the ones you already have? In this final pillar of The Design Business Diagnostic, I'm talking about Products & Offerings and why the right service mix isn't necessarily the one generating the most revenue or giving clients the most choices. It's the one that meets real market demand, produces healthy margins, and supports the kind of business you actually want to own. We're seeing clients approach design projects differently. Some are phasing work, reconsidering timelines, or changing how they want to engage a designer. That doesn't automatically mean demand has disappeared. It may mean your offerings need to evolve with the way your clients want to buy. In this episode, I'm talking about: Why adding more services can create confusion instead of opportunityWhat changing client buying behavior means for your design businessWhy raising your rates isn't always the right business strategyThe difference between revenue and actual service profitabilityHow to evaluate your offerings through market demand, profitability, and emotional ROIWhy a service can be profitable and still be wrong for your lifeHow to use my four-part offering audit to evaluate what you're currently sellingWhy too many packages make it harder for clients to hire youHow to accommodate phased projects without automatically discountingWhen to adjust pricing, scope, staffing, or delivery instead of eliminating an offeringWhy Products & Offerings is the final pillar of The Design Business DiagnosticHow all five pillars work together to create a profitable, sustainable design firmThe goal isn't to have the longest list of services or the highest possible revenue. It's to build a business with the right offerings for your clients, your financial goals, and your life. Save the date: October 28! I'm hosting a live Design Business Diagnostic workshop where I'll walk you through the five-pillar framework and help you start identifying what actually needs attention in your business. Seats will be limited, and registration opens soon. Stay tuned for details! Connect with Katie LinkedIn Business Strategy Sessions for Interior Designers Free Resources for scaling your interior design firm Website

    132. Why More Services Won't Grow Your Interior Design Business | The Design Business Diagnostic, Part 6

  3. Oct 7

    131. Why Your Interior Design Business Can't Grow Without You | The Design Business Diagnostic, Part 5

    Send Katie a Text Message!! At some point in the growth of an interior design firm, the problem is no longer your design talent, your clients, or even the number of people on your team. Sometimes the constraint is sitting in the owner's chair. In Part 5 of The Design Business Diagnostic, I'm diving into CEO Leadership and what it actually means to lead a growing design firm without becoming the bottleneck in every decision, project, and process. There's a big difference between staying informed and staying involved in everything. A CEO needs visibility into the company without personally performing every task inside it.   In this episode, I'm talking about: Why your interior design business may have outgrown the way you're currently leading itThe difference between delegation, micromanagement, and abdicationWhy visibility doesn't require involvementHow to determine your highest-value work as the ownerWhy “I can do this” doesn't mean “I should do this”The four areas I think about in CEO Leadership: vision, culture, systems and processes, and accountabilityWhy your time, attention, and creative energy have real economic valueHow to identify the work where your involvement creates disproportionate valueHow founders accidentally train their teams to ask permission for everythingThe systems that allow you to maintain visibility without micromanagingHow to delegate outcomes and authority—not just tasksWhy someone doing something differently doesn't automatically mean they're doing it wrongThe five-day CEO time audit I want you to complete this weekWhy your value isn't measured by how many things require youStrong CEO Leadership doesn't mean disappearing from your company. It means knowing what genuinely requires your judgment, protecting those activities, and building the people and systems that allow everything else to happen without your constant involvement. If you know you're still sitting in the middle of too much inside your firm, book a complimentary Business Diagnostic Call at FixMyDesignBiz.com. We'll diagnose what's actually creating the bottleneck and determine what your business needs to move forward.   Connect with Katie LinkedIn Business Strategy Sessions for Interior Designers Free Resources for scaling your interior design firm Website

    131. Why Your Interior Design Business Can't Grow Without You | The Design Business Diagnostic, Part 5

  4. Sep 30

    130. Why Hiring More People Won’t Fix Your Interior Design Business | The Design Business Diagnostic, Part 4

    Send Katie a Text Message!! Being overwhelmed doesn't automatically mean your interior design firm needs another employee. In Part 4 of The Design Business Diagnostic, I'm diving into Human Capital—and one of the biggest mistakes I see growing design firms make. Some owners are dramatically under-invested in people and have made themselves the bottleneck in practically every area of the company. Others have built expensive teams with overlapping responsibilities and still haven't created meaningful capacity. Both situations can leave the owner exhausted. They require very different solutions.  Pasted markdown In this episode, I'm talking about: How to tell whether your firm is under-supported or overstaffedWhy “I need help” isn't specific enough to make a hiring decisionThe cost of hiring versus the often-ignored cost of not hiringWhy I want you to start with the work instead of the personThe three categories I use to audit an owner's workloadWhy an assistant designer may not be the first hire your firm actually needsHow bookkeeping, administrative support, procurement, and operations can create leverageWhy hiring doesn't automatically mean adding a full-time employeeThe difference between giving someone responsibility and giving them authorityHow vague roles create expensive duplicationWhy refusing to invest in people can eventually create a revenue ceilingThe qualities I value when hiring that go beyond technical skillHow to conduct a Human Capital audit of your own firmThe goal isn't to build the biggest team. It's to determine what your business needs and create the right combination of people, systems, and outside resources to accomplish it profitably. If you're looking at your team—or lack of one—and aren't sure whether you need to hire, restructure, outsource, or make a different investment, book a complimentary Business Diagnostic Call at FixMyDesignBiz.com. We'll diagnose what your business actually needs instead of starting with a generic org chart.  Connect with Katie LinkedIn Business Strategy Sessions for Interior Designers Free Resources for scaling your interior design firm Website

    130. Why Hiring More People Won’t Fix Your Interior Design Business | The Design Business Diagnostic, Part 4

  5. Sep 23

    129. Why Your Interior Design Firm Keeps Running Out of Leads | The Design Business Diagnostic, Part 3

    Send Katie a Text Message!! If your interior design firm keeps running out of leads, your problem may have started months before your pipeline went quiet. In Part 3 of The Design Business Diagnostic, I'm diving into the second pillar of a healthy design firm: Predictable Marketing. This isn't about posting more on Instagram, going viral, or chasing vanity metrics. It's about creating a repeatable system that consistently puts your firm in front of the right people and creates enough qualified opportunities that your business isn't riding on whether one or two prospects say yes.  In this episode, I'm talking about:  Why your lead problem may have been created six months ago  The “feast, famine, freak out” cycle that keeps design firms scrambling for clients  Why promising prospects shouldn't determine whether you continue marketing  How to calculate how many qualified opportunities your firm actually needs  Why a healthy pipeline gives you more power to hold boundaries and choose better projects  The difference between marketing and selling  Why today's marketing activity creates tomorrow's pipeline  How to keep marketing when cash is tight without simply spending more money  Why relationships can be one of your strongest marketing advantages  Which marketing metrics matter more than likes, views, and follower counts  The simple pipeline exercise every design firm owner should do this week If you're constantly turning marketing on when you need clients and off when you get busy, the answer probably isn't another random marketing tactic. You need a system capable of creating the right opportunities consistently. If you're not sure whether Predictable Marketing is actually what's constraining your growth, book a complimentary 15-minute Business Diagnostic Call at FixMyDesignBiz.com. We'll look at what's happening across your business and identify what actually needs your attention next.  Connect with Katie LinkedIn Business Strategy Sessions for Interior Designers Free Resources for scaling your interior design firm Website

    129. Why Your Interior Design Firm Keeps Running Out of Leads | The Design Business Diagnostic, Part 3

  6. Sep 16

    128. Your Revenue Doesn't Tell Me If Your Design Business Is Healthy | The Design Business Diagnostic Part 2

    Send Katie a Text Message!! You can have a $500,000 interior design firm and be broke. You can have a million-dollar firm and still be broke. Revenue alone doesn't tell me whether I'm looking at a financially healthy company. Welcome to Part 2 of The Design Business Diagnostic. Last week, I introduced the five areas I look at when diagnosing the health of an established design firm. Now we're going deeper, starting with Financial Foundation..  This isn't about becoming an accountant. It's about understanding enough about your numbers to financially lead your company and make decisions from information rather than fear, assumptions, or whatever happens to be sitting in your checking account. In this episode:  Why revenue alone doesn't tell you whether your design firm is healthy  How a financial problem gets misdiagnosed as a marketing, hiring, or growth problem  Why more revenue can actually magnify bad business economics  How to calculate what your company needs to produce every month  Why your salary belongs in the cost of running the business  How to evaluate profitability by service rather than revenue alone  Why profit and cash are not the same thing  How a 90-day cash forecast helps you make decisions before problems happen  What belongs on a Financial CEO Dashboard  The 10 questions every design firm owner should be able to answer  Why financial fluency is leadership—not bookkeeping If you can't answer every question in this episode, that's not a reason to panic. It's information. Now you know where to look. And if you're not sure whether Financial Foundation is actually the constraint in your business, that's why I created the Business Health Diagnostic. Book your complimentary 15-minute Business Diagnostic Call at FixMyDesignBiz.com. Connect with Katie LinkedIn Business Strategy Sessions for Interior Designers Free Resources for scaling your interior design firm Website

    128. Your Revenue Doesn't Tell Me If Your Design Business Is Healthy | The Design Business Diagnostic Part 2

  7. Sep 9

    Ep. 127 The 5 Things That Actually Grow an Interior Design Business | The Design Business Diagnostic Part 1

    Send Katie a Text Message!! What if the thing you're trying to fix in your interior design business isn't actually the problem? I've had designers tell me they need more clients when the real issue is profitability. I've had designers convinced they need another employee when their business doesn't have the systems, financial capacity, or leadership structure to support one. And I've seen designers try to fix their marketing when the offer underneath it isn't clear enough to market. That's why I'm changing the way I coach—and why I'm introducing The Design Business Diagnostic. In this episode:  Why the problem making the most noise isn't always the root problem  Why I've moved away from solving business issues in isolation  The five areas I diagnose in an established interior design business Financial Foundation: understanding the economics underneath your revenue Predictable Marketing: creating consistent demand before you need it Human Capital: putting the right people into the right structure CEO Leadership: building a company that doesn't depend on you for everything Products & Offerings: creating clear, profitable services the business can deliver well  How weaknesses in one area create symptoms somewhere else  Why tactics only work when the business underneath them is ready  What we're covering throughout the next five episodes This is the beginning of The Design Business Diagnostic, a new series where we're going deeper into each of these five areas. I don't want you simply asking, Do I know this? I want you asking, Is this actually working in my business? That's the distinction Katie makes as she introduces the upcoming series.  If you're already wondering which area is actually holding your business back, book your complimentary 15-minute Business Diagnostic Call at FixMyDesignBiz.com. Connect with Katie LinkedIn Business Strategy Sessions for Interior Designers Free Resources for scaling your interior design firm Website

    Ep. 127 The 5 Things That Actually Grow an Interior Design Business | The Design Business Diagnostic Part 1

  8. Sep 2

    126. If I Wanted to 10X My Design Firm, Here’s Where I’d Start

    Send Katie a Text Message!! If I wanted to 10X the revenue of my interior design firm, I wouldn't start with marketing, higher prices, bigger projects, or another revenue stream. I'd start by asking whether the business I've built could actually handle ten times the work. In this episode, I'm breaking down the six things I would focus on before aggressively growing revenue. We'll talk about designing the company you actually want to own, finding your highest-value work, fixing capacity before creating demand, removing the owner as the default decision-maker, understanding your real economics, and only then building the revenue engine. In This Episode:  Why 10X revenue can break an unprepared design firm  The difference between increasing volume and actually scaling  How to design the business before choosing the revenue goal  Why your biggest opportunity may already exist in what you do best  How to fix capacity before increasing marketing and demand  Why institutional knowledge needs to replace tribal knowledge  How to stop making the owner the answer to every question  Why some revenue is far more valuable than other revenue  How existing clients can become one of your biggest growth opportunities  The difference between 10X effort and 10X leverage  The 10X exercise every established interior designer should do The question isn't simply, How do I make more money? It's, What kind of business is capable of producing that money without requiring ten times more from me? If you want to grow but aren't sure what actually needs to change first, book a complimentary 15-minute Business Diagnostic Call at FixMyDesignBiz.com. Connect with Katie LinkedIn Business Strategy Sessions for Interior Designers Free Resources for scaling your interior design firm Website

    126. If I Wanted to 10X My Design Firm, Here’s Where I’d Start
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About

As an interior designer, do you find yourself caught between your love for design and the realities of running a profitable business? Whether you're launching your firm or scaling to new heights, the business side of interior design can be complex—and often overwhelming. That’s where Katie Decker-Erickson comes in. As a business coach for interior designers and the founder of a multimillion-dollar design firm, she knows firsthand what it takes to build a thriving, sustainable business while staying true to your creative vision. With nearly 20 years in the industry and a Master’s degree in Business Administration, Katie is actively in the trenches—elevating her own firm while helping other designers master the business of design. We’ll answer questions like: How do I get more interior design clients? What should I charge for interior design services? What are the best marketing strategies for interior designers? How can I grow my interior design business? How do I build a brand as an interior designer? How can I scale my interior design business? What systems do I need to run a successful interior design business? How do I create a client onboarding process for my design firm? Is it worth hiring a coach for my interior design business? This show delivers actionable tips on how to grow an interior design business with smart, sustainable strategies. You'll get insights on marketing your interior design services, building a strong brand, streamlining your systems, and scaling your firm—without burning out. If you're an interior designer, firm owner, or creative entrepreneur ready to build a profitable, passion-filled business, you're in the right place. Tune in, and let’s grow your interior design business—together.

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