Delegating Your Design Tasks Can Be Easy!
Are you still confused about what it means to outsource successfully?
Knowing you need to delegate is one thing.
Doing it consistently, in an efficient way, to reach your results is another.
When I talk to interior designers, their main concerns when it comes to outsourcing are:
- "Will it be done better than me?"
- "It'll take too long, I might as well do it myself"
- "I can't afford it, I'll do it"
Do you have one or more of these mindset blocks that are preventing you from moving forward?
The KVM team is committed to supporting interior designers with tasks that are outside their zone of genius so that they can focus on what matters most. With our help, they can grow their business without the cost of having full-time employees and free up more time for personal activities.
A successful business isn't built alone and, with limited energy, time and resources, it's practically impossible to reach your goals and have a work-life balance. There are people out there who are the right fit for your business. This means someone who is qualified to do the work better than you and for more affordable hourly rates, but like any relationship that you build you need to get to know this person and spend a little bit of time training them.
If your hourly rate is $150 - $200, you can absolutely get some help for a cheaper rate and that will free you up to focus on the most important tasks in your business. If not, it means that you're either not pricing your services the right way or you're not delegating the right way or to the right person.
These 3 steps will help you delegate your design work to save you time, money and elevate the quality of your work
01. Look out for quality
When you look for a design team, spend time reviewing their portfolio. It needs to match or improve the quality of the work you currently deliver; also check testimonials and how other designers talk about them on social media. A good place to start is joining Facebook groups for interior designers as it's the place they ask for help and recommend people they work with.
Also make sure that communication is easy between you and them and that the delegating process looks easy to you. If you lack time to be super organized and also have a delegating team that is not organized either, it'll make the whole thing more stressful. Whether you are looking to hire a freelancer or a design outsourcing team, their services need to at least match or be better than what you're producing right now for your clients.
02. Learn how to brief
Whether you do it yourself or not, you will need to gather information and be organized. A good brief can take a bit of time BUT will save you X number of hours doing it. This is time you'll be doing something that will move the needle forward in your business whether it's freeing up some of your time to go out for a walk so you feel more creative and more inspired for your next project or have a CEO day to look at strategy to reach your financial goals. Remember that any good CAD technician will do a great job at doing plans for you and doing it yourself is a waste of your CEO time. A checklist of what to send for specific tasks is a time-saver and I happen to have one available! Click here to download my brief template.
03. Price your services right
Knowing how to incorporate your outsourcing team's fees into your services is a game-changer! Most designers underprice their services because they don't know how long tasks take them. Ask your team how long things are going to take them on their side. Then add the time that you think it's going to take you on your side to do your part of the project; lastly, you can just add a markup for what you want to make on top of our fee and voila! You have your package that is based on real hours. Our quote guide helps you understand just that so that you can invoice your clients the right way!
To summarize
You should be delegating if you want to run a business that is built to be sustainable and successful in the long run without you feeling completely overwhelmed. Your focus should be on the tasks that sit inside your zone of genius and that is it! Delegate the rest, just like I do.
Reach out to us and tell us about your projects. This way, we can build a fee together that works for you so that you don't feel like you can't afford to delegate. You just need to price your services the right way!
See you next time!
Kristell Valentina Mouries
Director, KVM Design