It's Just A Matter of Trust

By night, I have another job, interior design, and although I don’t do it too much anymore, I still love design. Which explains why I came out of design retirement to do a job for a woman I worked with years ago. She is the ideal client. She values and respects the work I do, she has a pleasant personality, she pays on time, and she trusts me to make decisions in her best interest,

One of the things she wanted was either a new chair or to update and redo the current chair she had. After some research, we decided to redo the current chair she had because we found the perfect fabric, I knew the prefect upholsterer and it was a little bit less expensive than buying a new one.

I took it my upholsterer, and once he got into doing the chair, he found problems with the “ticking” and a few other complications that required extra work to bring the chair up to snuff. This can be an interior designer’s nightmare when you have to go back to a client and tell them it is going to be more money for something they don’t really understand. (think about when you go get your car fixed) It’s like opening up a can of worms. So I let my client know, and told her we would figure it out so that she was happy with the chair in the end.

When I went to pick up the chair, along with some other pieces of furniture I had dropped off for myself, my guy said he couldn’t find the quotes for anything except the chair, and that didn’t include the repairs or the extra ottoman that went with it or the seven chair seats I had dropped off for myself. I smiled, and said that I knew he hadn’t given me a quote several months back when I got on the wait list, but the bottom line was that I needed the work done and that I trusted him and knew he was fair. That is a powerful thing for your client to have that much trust in your work ethic and fair pricing, that you give them carte blanc to do their job. My client had that kind of trust in me, and I had that kind of trust in my upholsterer. Surround yourself with good vendors and build your business so that clients can trust you with their life, and you will see your business grow and flourish.

xo, jan

ps, a few items of note.

1. one is that I tried to post this blog yesterday, in keeping with my daily blog posts, and my computer was frozen! ughhh….. it still counts in numbers though, (daily posts)

2. two is that I know you all want a photo, but unfortunately the picture isn’t very good, you can’t even see the chair, so sorry, you will just have to imagine a beautiful chair.

3. three is that I just finished up with my client yesterday and she said, “Thanks so much, I always know when I work with you, everything will turn out beautiful!”  Awwwwwww, thanks!