Interview With Design Influencer, Sara Barney, Owner/Principal of BANDD DESIGNS

Designer software Sara uses:

1. Buildlane - for sourcing custom furniture
2. Ivy - for client presentations, organizing projects

Top three easy - yet really productive - things Sara says designers should do right now to grow their business, keep clients engaged and position themselves to rebound quickly once things pick back up again:

1. Make sure you have really good SEO set up. If you don’t know what it is, and/or how to do it internally, contract it out. It won’t take a lot of your time, and it’s a great way to start improving your Google ranking while things are quiet. You want potential clients to be able to easily find you once things pick back up again!
2. Offer virtual consultations, and keep your consultation fees the same. Just because you’re not meeting in person, doesn’t mean your value has changed! Easy programs to use for meetings while working from home: FaceTime, Skype and/or Messenger. It’s important that your client can be on something hand held that’s easy to walk around with, so they can show you around their space during the consultation. These three options are easy to use on a smartphone or table. For design presentations, Sara loves to use Canva while on a Zoom call. Canva and Zoom are very inexpensive programs. Zoom allows you to share screens, in Sara’s case, she shares her Canva screens to review concepts with clients.
3. Up your content game. An incredibly simple way to do this is to have your audience submit questions via Instagram TV, email, Instagram direct message, Instagram comments and/or Facebook. Sara has her audience submit questions, and she answers them in IGTV. One question per day. You know you’re sharing great content because it’s what your audience is asking for! If you aren’t getting questions submitted, make them up, and answer your own questions.

Grab your favorite cocktail and join us each Tuesday at 4pm EST on Instagram Live for fun conversations with design influencers. It’s all part of our “Because Right Now It’s Always Cocktail Hour” series, so be sure to grab your go-to quarantine cocktail before hopping online.

You’re sure to leave feeling inspired, encouraged, lighter and equipped with super simple things you, the interior designer, can be doing right now while everything has slowed down. No information overload here, just good conversation with a side of easy breezy tips to stay on top of your game during these uncertain times.

Next up: Christopher Kennedy, April 21st, 4pm EST on Instagram Live - “How to Bring the Outdoors In”.