When I heard the career coach at the seminar said interior designers must have their own firms in order to succeed, so her job was to teach interior designers how to run their own businesses. I wondered why interior designers must have their own businesses? why can’t they make good living by working for someone else? why can’t they be successful by working for someone else? why is the income difference between the interior design firm owners and interior designers who work for someone else is so great?
At first, I thought the career coach just wanted to say that so she could get more businesses since she makes the living by coaching interior designers to run their own businesses, but when I think deeper, the career coach, who was a furniture sales before becoming an interior designer, was actually the source of the problem.
There are too many people in interior design business who were not educated as interior designers, they didn’t study interior design in colleges, they are not NCIDQ certified, they have no interior design related credentials or educations, many of them are just bunch of business savvy people who want to share a piece of pie in the design market, so what they do?! they hire someone who had educations in interior design, they hire someone who is NCIDQ certified or state licensed to work for them, after few years learning from those real interior designers, those business owners have learned whole bunch, so they thought, if I can make lots of money and run a successful interior design business without any formal interior design education or training, I probably can find someone who is like me to work for me but pay him/her much less, and because there are so many none interior design majored or licensed interior designers out there who share the job market with those real interior design educated ones, the salary level for interior designers will never get higher.
Interior designers who had formal interior design educations and trainings do not have the leverage to negotiate salary with their employers because they can be quickly replaced by those designers who are not interior design majored or certified but learned their experiences through other real interior designers while worked as a secretary, a sales person, or whatever in a furniture store or in a store that sells kitchen cabinets or bath accessories. If we have too many people like the career coach keep jumping into the interior design market to share the pie, there is no way interior designers will be able to make good living by working for someone else, and it will be a huge disadvantage especially to those very creative designers since most creative people are not naturally business savvy, and slowly, there won’t be any creative people left in our business but just bunch of businessmen. Will that be good for interior design profession if this industry is leading by bunch of businessmen? is that fair for the clients who are looking for creative individuals but what they can get only are those business savvy businessmen?! You be the judge.
