Design Curious Episode 72 | How to Reinvent Your Design Business With eDesign Services

Summary:

In this episode of the Design Curious Podcast, host Rebecca Ward interviews Amanda Foster, an interior design consultant and brand identity consultant for designers. Amanda shares her journey from being an interior designer to transitioning into eDesign and mentoring her peers in the field. She emphasizes the importance of authenticity and niche SPECIALIZATION in attracting clients and standing out in the design industry

Amanda's focus is on HELPING interior designers develop their brand identity and hone in on who they truly are as designers. She believes that once designers have a clear understanding of their own identity, it becomes easier for them to create successful businesses. Amanda offers a variety of services, including courses and mentoring, to help designers improve their marketing strategies, create cohesive brand identities, and effectively communicate with their target audience.

One of the key aspects of Amanda's expertise is eDesign, which she defines as online interior design. She explains that eDesign allows designers to work remotely and be creative without the constraints of traditional design practices. Amanda's eDesign Bootcamp teaches designers how to get started with eDesign, including concepts such as virtual client meetings, mood boards, and creating shopping lists.

Throughout the conversation, Amanda stresses the importance of having a STRONG online presence, particularly on social media platforms like Instagram. She advises designers to showcase their personality and be approachable to clients by sharing glimpses of their lives and behind-the-scenes moments. Amanda also emphasizes the need for designers to have a clear brand identity and target audience, as this helps them attract the right clients and stand out in a crowded market.

Overall, Amanda's expertise in eDesign and brand identity consulting offers VALUABLE insights and guidance for designers looking to reinvent their businesses and find success in the digital age. Her emphasis on authenticity, niche specialization, and effective marketing strategies provides designers with the tools they need to thrive in a competitive industry.

Transcript:

Rebecca: Hello, and welcome to episode 72 of Design Curious podcast. I'm your host and mentor, Rebecca Ward. Today on the podcast, I have Amanda Foster. It was really fun connecting with her. It turns out that we are local to each other and we have a similar background going to Sac State and everything.

And so I really enjoyed talking with her and connecting with her. Offline as well as on the podcast. I think you'll enjoy her. She has a lot of personality and it was just a lot of fun to talk with. Let me tell you a little bit more about her. She is an interior design consultant helping her veteran peers flip their struggling businesses with a marketing background.

Also serves her design newbies with courses to get them started online with all things e-design for business setup, e-design one-on-one, and even presentation skills for them to master Photoshop and Canva to wow their clients. She has a background in graphic and web design, so she also helps her peers create strategic graphics that attract their ideal clients.

She audits social media and websites to teach them how to be better online service providers in the digital age for our interior design industry. So I really did enjoy talking with her and very much the parts about e-design as well. So before we get to her interview, I'd like to remind you of all of the free downloads I have for you in the show note links to help you.

Understand a little bit more about the career of interior design. And of course, if you want to work with me a little bit more one-on-one, we have my design mentor to get you started outright in your interior design career. So check that out if you're interested. And now let's talk with Amanda. You're now listening to design curious.

A place where you, a creative one, are here to learn about what it really is like to be an interior designer. And I'm your host and mentor, Rebecca Ward. If you're worried about how to succeed in a creative career, if you're ready to learn your next steps to become an interior designer, and if you want the satisfaction of doing something you love every day, you are in the right place.

Grab a coffee, a notebook, and let's dig into today's episode. Hi Amanda, welcome to Design Curious Podcast. So great to have you here.

Amanda:Yes, I'm so excited. This is awesome. Thank you for having me.

Rebecca: Yeah, and it's fun that you reached out and it turns out that we are actually local to each other, which is a fun surprise, but it's great to get to know you a little more. And I see that you used to be a designer, but now you've transitioned to be a brand identity consultant for designers. Is that correct?

Amanda: Yeah, that's a great way to put it. I put it as like a design mentor to my peers, but we do work a lot with brand identities. And just having them hone in on who they really are as an interior designer, because once I figured that out, that actually helped my business be so much more successful.

Rebecca: Are you still practicing interior design?

Amanda: Yes, I do. I do e-design projects on the side. Just because my consulting business actually has been doing really well. But I still gravitate back to my interior design roots. I did a lot of architecture, through Sac State and I was listening to your podcast, the first ones, and your origin story, and I was like, Oh my gosh, I went to Sac State too and I went to all of the right internships after and all the nine to fives that followed.

And it wasn't for me personally, because if you go to fosterdecor.com it's crazy, it's wild, it's colorful, it's bold, it's edgy, it's everything that Sacramento, more of the technical jobs is NOT. I learned so much, but it was hard for me to figure out where do I creatively fit in a very government business, a commercial city that I don't think back in 2008 to 2011 was as diverse as it is now. So now jumping forward into almost 2024, we have Midtown, we have a very large hipster art community that I actually interact with a lot and network with. So for me, it's if I had graduated now and seen some of the different smaller boutique things that are out here, I would be like, Oh my gosh, this is great. Oh man, I just did not find my calling until I found eDesign.

Rebecca: Okay, so were you pursuing mostly residential, or was it commercial as well, or where did you land after?

Amanda: It was very commercial. Out of school and I just really hated the nine-to-five. I was also interning a lot in Napa because that's where I'm from originally is the Napa Valley. So driving back and forth most of the time to hang out with friends or family and things like that. I started. Thinking, okay, maybe the nine to five isn't the right way. Maybe I can explore staging or maybe I can shadow some of these other designers that are really active in Napa scene. My mom knew a few people, which she connected me with, which was really great. So I actually shadowed under some veteran interior designers and they were doing a lot of renovation kitchens out there. Wine tasting rooms were also big. So it felt like, oh, this is a little bit more creative and artsy. This is, not just me in a cubicle, right? And like doing cad monkey work is what we'd be called, drafting things over and over again. It was like, wow, like we're out of the office. We're, going to pick finishes and meet with clients. And it just felt very different. And okay, maybe this is my calling. But

"I feel like I got burnt out with the busy staging scene"

(staging 3-4 homes a day back to back in the hot sweaty summers) or the kitchen renovation scene where the homeowners would fight and take forever to pick anything.

I felt like a mediator between couples. And they still weren't being creative when choosing colors or furniture. Still felt pretty bland with the companies I was under. So it still didn't quite "click" yet for me, but I was getting loads of experience. And so fast forward to my fiancé getting a job opportunity to travel the world, basically, as a video commentator. Like the NFL sports guys in blazers where they have the big headsets and they're talking about what's going on in the game. And so he would do that. With a couple of other guys working for Ubisoft, which is a big company, they would commentate video games and they would travel to all these cool countries for the big sold-out arenas or stadium events and he asked should I do it? And I was like YES do it that sounds amazing! So he said I'm only going to do it if you come with me. Which was a quick yes for me because I still hadn't found my calling. And I'm done with Sacramento in the sense of getting work out there and more of what I felt was more technical, construction document based, and I was like, no. So I was like, let's do it. Let's just go. Let's quit and just travel the world. And right before we did, I was looking on LinkedIn, just looking at maybe there's a freelance gig because as a graphic designer, I've always done freelance since high school. I'd always do logos and business cards to later websites and even apps. It started as friends and family then grew to client work. 

So i figured maybe I'll look to see if there's some kind of Upwork or freelance gigs or something before we leave. And I learned about e-design and this was back in November of 2014 right before Thanksgiving. I was intrigued, what is this e-design thing? I hadn't heard of it. I had been going the educational route getting accredited and all of the certifications for interior architecture which was heavily technical based. So reading about eDesign was so refreshing. I learned this through the largest eDesign company Havenly. Turned out eDesign was online interior design. And I thought this is perfect.

"I could be an interior designer online anywhere, and we actually are going to be traveling all over the world"

So it just really fits because there's no need for technical drawings, elevations, or construction documents. Because I was totally burnt out on those. This was more creative meeting with clients, virtually doing mood boards, concept designs, and creating a shopping list for them. It was a lot more casual than the training that I had. And I was so relieved. Oh my God, this is more creative and presentation-based because they were training us how to do it all through these large webinars. I already knew Photoshop playing around with it since high school, but this was my opportunity to really apply it to interiors.

All of the renders had to be done through Photoshop and more of what I call a digital kind of scrapbooking, and you have that collage where you're not quite doing a 3D render or doing, let's say like an AutoCAD floor plan. So to me, it was very creative, very liberating to not have that nine-to-five glued to a cubicle feeling. I could take my laptop wherever - as long as they had wifi I was fine to have my office out in different parts of the world. And we were doing that for about 6 years traveling. We were living out of our backpacks in different parts of Europe and we would come back and forth to the States, but this truly felt like my calling. Edesign is the way that I can be creative and remote freelance, which I really love since high school, but still use kind of the things that I learned in school and in the internships and being a part of the industry in general. I am excited we are moving away from the old world thinking that within our design industry there is that pressure of, Oh you have to get a diploma and then get your nine to five right after you do your internship. And I just felt like I was checking all these boxes and trying to be that good student and, do the right thing in the eyes of my parents, my teachers, my peers... And now that I've broken free of that,

"it feels so liberating that you don't have to compartmentalize yourself in to boxes that don't fit the mold after you graduate"

Rebecca: Yeah, you definitely want to find out what makes you passionate and what makes you excited. And if it's not that kind of vibe working for someone else then don't waste your time there. Like it's good to get the experience, but that's not where you're going to stay. And so that was great that you were able to find e-design as like the sweet spot of all of the things that you loved about doing design as they continue to do e-design. How have you seen that type of niche working out for you and other people? Is e-design what you mentor people in?

Amanda: Yes. So that's the focus, or at least it was. I created a bootcamp talking about how you can get started just because tons of my peers would be asking me, wow, how did you make your website or social media look so good or how did you create that render? How did you come up with that price or package or how did you come up with this idea? etc. It was probably anywhere between 3-5 DMs from my peers every day asking about these things, which is really flattering. And I was like, wow, I'm really onto something. Thanks guys. People really liked that. They always said I was so nice and approachable about it. I'm a giver so I did a lot of this early on for free.  I didn't think of it much at the time until after the 20th message or so of people asking me for help or advice with their interior or edesign business it seemed like well I can take a look and give you specific feedback. Can you look at my Instagram and yours is so cool and I love what you're doing and I just felt okay, there's something here that I could be not like explaining everything to everyone individually, but maybe I could create a course or maybe I could create some services that can actually help people when just starting out or to get focused and clarity (since all levels were approaching me). Because at that point it was getting a little time-consuming, but I'm a social butterfly,

"I loved interacting with my peers and talking"

and we wouldn't just be talking about renders or anything like that. We would talk about sushi or what they're up to.

And so I think people found me very approachable and warm and goofy and just like less intimidating than I think some of our other more seasoned people out there were. And maybe that's why they're listening to podcasts because they're intimidated to ask other designers. Maybe they're too afraid to ask one-on-one and so I've been very fortunate to not run into that issue. I make that very clear in like my branding and my brand voice and even just the social media that I put out there "Ask me anything" literally. And I actually mean it, but yeah, e-design has been the way that I've come back to interiors because at that point when I said, yes, let's just go, let's take off and I can take e-design in my little backpack, right? If I had my laptop and wifi, we could be anywhere in the world. And

"to have that freedom in business and in my lifestyle was so liberating after that"

Like I said, the nine to five and just checking each off, okay, I did my internship. I got my 4.0. I landed a good job here and 2 years later on to the next cubicle... it just felt so I felt like something was wrong. It almost felt like that office space moment. I don't know if you've seen that movie where it's just what am I doing here? So e-design, yeah, it's been a passion and a way for me to be creative, use what I've learned in school, but also now teach my peers how to get started with e-design. What is e-design? And the funny thing is I'm actually teaching more seasoned interior design veterans because they're coming to me for Oh, you do website makeovers or you do branding packages with that graphic design background that I have. And they're thinking I'm not getting the traction that I did when COVID happened. Interior designers saw a big bump, right? They saw a lot of people asking them like, okay, we're stuck at home. Can you help me, with my living room or now's the time to redo my kitchen? And that actually brought in more business for me because my peers were like, can you teach me e-design?

I got to get online quick! So I get those newbies looking to learn. And then those seasoned veterans that are looking to I got to get online. Can you teach me or even just I'm losing client traction. I lost a contractor, that would give me referrals and blah, blah, blah. So I'm not seeing, any traffic on my website. Maybe I just need a new logo. So they get very like vanity metrics at that point where they're thinking, Ooh, I just need something pretty to attract my client. And so that's where I go back and I say, no,

"you need that foundation, that brand identity that you don't have"

You don't have a target audience and in marketing that can kill any business without those referrals (as they were experiencing). You don't have an ideal client. Your messaging is so vague. We're going back to the foundation and through my eDesign bootcamp, that's where I've laid out all that information. So they're like, Oh my God, I've been a seasoned veteran for 20 years. How did I not know this, how did I skip over who I am as a designer? It's always about the client at the end of the day and then we end up chasing trends or being chameleons to suit any style for anyone.

And I get that I was trained that way as well. But as soon as I broke that rule, I actually started seeing more business in my business.

Rebecca: Yeah, it's authenticity.

Amanda: Yeah, it's counterintuitive, right? Where you're just like, it's all about the client. And at the end of the day. Yes, but you can somewhat categorize yourself, right? And that's where the niche comes in handy, where if your brand doesn't have a niche, you're really competing with a lot of other people that have better messaging, better graphics, clear prices and packages. Most of the clients that I work with, I don't even know how they've gotten some of the business that they've had, maybe through referrals or friends, but on their own, their marketing is not strong. And so that's where the edesign courses and what I mentor and talk about has that marketing perspective. So that helps seasoned and it helps newbies both at the end of the day. So I did a lot of marketing actually in my graphic design jobs that I had. So that's where graphics, marketing and also interiors all come together when it comes to my consulting business.

Rebecca: Yeah, no, that's great. Cause I was wondering how you got that marketing experience to be able to know the pinpoint out the issues that people might be having with their website or their messaging. So that's great.

Amanda: Yeah. And that's where I tugged on when they would be like, can you look at my Instagram or can you check out my render or just take a quick peek at my website? And I was like I actually had to do this when I was at a graphic design firm in downtown Sacramento. We would audit all these different companies. It didn't matter if it was a pool company or it was a beauty salon, car dealership or whatever, we had literally just so many random different businesses come to the graphic design firm for their logo or their website or this or that we would always start with an audit. And so that's what I tell my peers, even

"if you're an e-designer, an interior designer, or a hybrid designer, you still need to have clarity on your brand identity, your ideal client and your signature design style"

You need to focus in and choose. It's counterintuitive, but they're always afraid to niche down because they think then I'm losing out on clients if I'm saying no to let's say farmhouse. And only working with just very traditional clients and nothing modern or abstract, then wouldn't I be not getting those people? And I'm like, are you getting those people now? Are you even getting anyone now? And they're like, no. And I'm like try, humor me and try it this way.

Also, it really helps you to be more passionate about your project at the end of the day, your business, and your lifestyle completely changes if you can actually be excited to get up and work on a project versus Oh my God, I have to do farmhouse again, I hate this, like when will this trend end, right? You wouldn't have that problem if we did a deep dive into your brand and your business. And all it is just learning more about who you really are, right? Authentically, you said that earlier. Authenticity is the big thing. Because if you're honest with yourself, and what you really want to be doing in our large and ever growing industry. So it's ok to have preferences of yes's and no's. We have a huge interior design industry as well as edesign industry.

"You can niche down and the people that are successful, you will see they have a signature style. They have an ideal client"

They have a brand identity. They have a niche and they're doing five times as better than people that are coming to me with zero clients. Why isn't this working? And it's always the same thing. You're very general, you're catering to everybody, and like the famous saying - when you speak to everyone, you really speak to no one. So that's a huge part of what I do, is just really try to help my peers get clarity, not just in their business, but in their life, too, because it does trickle down to other aspects of their lifestyle and happiness.

Rebecca: For sure, yeah. Yeah, you can't have a hard stop between business and personal. You are your brand, as the forefront of your company. So there needs to be aspects of you and your personality interwoven to your business, I believe.

Amanda: Yeah, I try to convince my clients when we work on their inner brand identity, it will trickle down to their website and their social media and practically everything that we do, and they're hesitant. Should I show my face in a story? And I'm like, yeah,

"hiding behind that logo doesn't sell!"

People buy from people not logos. So if you show your face and personality you'll see more clients warm up to you and want to hop on that discovery call 5x faster if they know who they're actually going to be calling.

Rebecca: So good. Yeah. So what about social media for designers? What do you recommend going down that path?

Amanda: Oh everything I just said pretty much trickles down to social media and their website. So again, if they're wasting time grinding away on Instagram or Facebook with unfortunately mood boards, I keep seeing everyone sharing mood boards and clients don't really care about the pretty mood board. They're more concerned with their design dilemma, right? Does this mood board actually help solve the problem that I have? No. Okay. They're going to keep scrolling, right? Yeah. So I have to teach clients that social media is more about their client versus only showcasing their own portfolio. So their portfolio is still important because the client needs to know, okay, is this the style that I like and can resonate with, but all my peers end up confusing their potential client with clashing design styles every other day. There's no consistency or cohesiveness to their vibe. And

"when someone lands on your account they should get your vibe in 3 seconds!"

Also, the messaging is 120% never there when I audit an Instagram account of my peer or their website, so that's where when we do the bootcamp training, for their brand identity and their dream client and their signature design style it all starts to make a lot more sense having that foundation in place. Then it makes sense of Oh, okay. I'm not just shotgunning out 20 mood boards on social media. I'm showing up as myself. I'm breaking that fourth wall essentially in my stories, which is so scary. And then those clients start building trust and likability of knowing who you are. So ask yourself What lights you up with design, because then THAT's what your signature design style is.

And then that way your clients can start getting attracted and resonating with that messaging and with that specific mood board, right? Not the 20 different styles of mood boards, because then you're overwhelming your client, your ideal client that you don't really have because you keep talking to so many different people and changing the vibe, look, messaging, bio. Clients tell me they change all these things a few times a month. And it takes anywhere between 5-7 times for a potential lead to see you, remember you and then approach you somehow (dm, email, call or comment). So if you're changing your account/website every 5 minutes that doesn't build trust or memorability  So that's pretty much the number one thing is that they're focusing too much on their portfolio. They're not thinking about their ideal client because they don't actually have one. They're speaking to too many.

Rebecca: That's really good advice. Yeah. So with the e-design, I feel like it's changed somewhat over the last 10 years. I know that Havenly and the Decorist were really big companies. And then is it more of an individual thing now as opposed to having these big companies providing e-design? 

Amanda: So before, Havenly was pretty much the monopoly of the industry, and then Decorist came in and I actually worked for both of them at the same time (very frowned upon but we all did it LoL). But so many of us were like, look, we're just learning e-design. We're trying to get our feet wet. We were pretty much freelancer contractors at that point and needed to make ends meet. These rates weren't like traditional interior designer fees. So we applied to be on any platform that we could expose our services to, and

"there's the good, the bad and the ugly to being a part of an e-design company"

I have a whole module about this, about different companies that you can partner with the pros and cons of each, etc. But I always say there are more pros to learning through these companies because they have so many resources. They teach you, they have videos, and they have live webinars. It's a good way to expand on your portfolio, especially if you're just starting out or if you're a seasoned designer and you're just getting on e-design and you don't a library or portfolio to share, but it's definitely beneficial to partner with them today as it was 10 years ago. I'm just going to put that out there because the training that they have now is actually better. You'll get up to speed quicker than we did 10 years ago, but again, I always think of it as viewing it as an internship, either for three to six months at least.

It is a little bit more quantity versus quality with these companies, but the amount of practice that you'll get, the amount of exposure you'll get, the amount of portfolio you'll create that you will build up in that time, you're going to learn so much that pros outweigh the cons, which again, if you want to learn more, check out my boot camp which dives into this more. You're going to experience a lot. Especially all the connections that I made. Like I still am friends on Facebook with a bunch of the girls that I met 10 years ago through that design community because we had a private Facebook group. They were very encouraging about networking and learning and

"I think I resonated with that because that's also what I like to do is network and learn and socialize (my inner social butterfly with peers)"

So definitely, for all of you guys listening, take a chance, and think of it as an internship. If you want to partner with Havenly, they're still very active. I'm in good graces with them. They love me. I actually ran their pop-up in San Francisco Design area. As they're an e-design company first and foremost, but in specific cities, let's see, there was San Francisco, New York City, Miami, Chicago and I want to say Dallas were our key cities that had pop-ups. So we had in the design showroom of San Francisco, we had a little pop up and that got bigger and then it was only supposed to be for a few weeks and they had me run it because they're like, you're one of our all-star people, we need you to be there and manage it, just make sure everything goes, smoothly just for a week or two... And then that turned into four months!

Amanda: that was really exciting because they had me in an Airbnb, so I'd be there Wednesday through Sunday. And they host me in an Airbnb. I got to work in San Francisco, which was so cool. And it was just really fun. It was the ultimate hybrid experience of handling walk-ins, teaching them about e-design, giving them a little mood board and upselling products to them with a custom shopping list sent to them all on their platform. But that only took us like 20 or 40 minutes to just whip up, send off and get really fast and quick with it. Because they were coming in really quick. I don't know if you've been to the San Francisco Design Center. It's just eye candy everywhere, right? Oh, I miss it. It was the best neighborhood, the best places to eat, all the design inspiration was everywhere. I was glad it was extended. They're like, can you do another month? And I'm like, Oh, darn. I have to get the Airbnb ready, I guess.

Rebecca: Wow how fun. That's a great experience. Okay. So you have a bootcamp that you've been talking about available to everybody. So how would people get in touch with you if they want to work with you and find out a little more, if they want to do e-design as well?

Amanda: Fosterdecorconsulting.com is my main website. That's going to be the best place to fill out my contact form, but you can also DM me on Instagram at @fosterdecorconsulting, super easy. I, again, talk to a lot of strangers out there who turn into fast friends and peers. I'm always excited to get to know people as you can tell. As I sent you a voice note, so I'm always sending voice notes, because I want to break that kind of fourth wall there and make it more personal. Where it's just I'm tired of the text "Hi's", so no, here's a voice note. I'm a real person. And the e design bootcamp is a great place to start if you are new to e-design or if you're struggling with e-design. So it also helps those veterans. Actually, I've had more clients now who are seasoned interior designers doing residential work take the bootcamp and it has been beneficial to them. It's been a way to hone in on what's not working with their business. Why they're not getting the traction anymore? I lost that contractor.

I lost that referral or I lost, I don't know, any traction in their business. And please don't think it's because of your logo or you don't have a pretty social media graphic...It is way more than that. So I love the bootcamp that it's not just for those newbies like I designed it for. It's helping seasoned veterans. It's great. It makes me feel like, okay, I'm actually helping not just edesigners, but my peers that are Interior designers that have, been in the field for 20 years and they're just like, I did not think about any of this because they were like me going to one checkbox to the next and then, trying to follow along all the things that we "should" do. So to me, e-design was a way to break that if you don't want to be stuck to a nine-to-five, or your cubicle. And you want to maybe travel or have that freedom. E-design was the way that I was able to do that.

Rebecca: Wow. I'm sure a lot of people will be reaching out to you as that is a very interesting topic to a lot of people because they haven't been able to dabble in it yet, but they want to know more. So I think the bootcamp will be a great offering for everybody. So thank you so much for coming on. I have so much information. I love your story and it's just been great to have you.

Rebecca: Okay. Good. Good. All right, thank you, Amanda, and we'll talk to you later. Thanks. So a great conversation with Amanda. Definitely check out her links and her social media. She's a lot of fun. If you are interested in e-design, it might be a great addition to your offerings or even just a great way to start out in your career. Definitely look into her mentorship, and I think that's something great.