(Photo courtesy of Deposit Photos.)
Guest Contributor// September 17, 2026
Some of the worst leads look terrific on paper. A gorgeous custom in the right neighborhood. Check. The investment is on target. Check. All the vibes say this is a serious client ready to hire. Double check. High fives and the happy dance ensue.
But then you discover the architect has spent six months developing the plans, the contractor has priced the entire project and the foundation is poured. The client believes the major decisions have been made and they are ready to “start on the interiors.”
Except the interiors started six months ago.
Doorways, windows, ceiling heights, plumbing and electrical decisions have already affected how that home will function and be furnished. Designers generally agree about being brought into projects too late, but we should look honestly at how we present ourselves. If we want better leads, our marketing has to do more than show people what we design. It has to teach them when our thinking becomes valuable.
Let’s redefine a “good lead.”
The industry often judges leads by project size, location and the client’s understanding of the investment required. In my firm, timing belongs near the top of that list. What has already been planned, priced, permitted, purchased or poured? Put these five P’s into your lead evaluation process. They show how far the project has traveled without you and how many decisions you may be asked to fix later.
A well-funded client with “final” plans may require more corrections, compromises and tough battles than a smaller client who calls before deciding what needs to be built. A large investment does not erase the cost of entering late. Pay attention to the language a client uses because this is where they reveal their attitudes about when design begins. Few phrases expose that belief faster than, “Can you help me make selections?”
Why “Help me make selections” makes me wince
That little sentence tells me more than the potential client realizes. “Make selections” reduces the scope to a task list. It leaves out the thinking that should guide the project long before there is anything to select and minimizes the full value a designer brings to the table.
I focus on this a lot when strategizing with designers. Do you want to be known as a designer who makes selections or something more? The answer reaches beyond the services listed on your website. It determines when a client believes your work begins, how much authority you will have and what they think they are hiring you to deliver.
If clients see the designer as the person who selects finishes, they will wait until finishes need selecting. The framework is in place, and the designer is being invited to make the remaining pieces behave. No thanks.
Selections are part of the whole, but they come after the decisions that establish how the home will work. The footprint, room relationships, circulation, sight lines, proportions and infrastructure have already created the boundaries for what comes next. By the time a designer is asked to “make selections,” they are often working inside a framework they did not help create. The visible choices or “selections” sit at the end of a much longer chain of decisions. Yes, it can be done, of course. But this is often where conflicts begin.
Earlier involvement allows the designer to shape the scope, establish appropriate fees, plan the necessary deliverables and account for furnishings before construction costs eat up the entire investment.
The architect and contractor work from a better understanding and the client receives a home developed from the inside out. If clients believe our work begins with selections, we have to ask where they learned it. Our own marketing often reinforces the very perception we complain about.
You have to believe you are essential to the success of the project before the client will believe it.
That belief must show up in the DNA of your business as well as your marketing. Believing it changes how you describe your role, the scope you propose, the conversations you expect to join and the point at which you tell a client you need to become involved. Marketing cannot convincingly place you at the beginning if your own language keeps placing you at the end.
Our websites are filled with completed rooms, fabric, tile, lighting and beautiful photography. Those images prove we have killer style. But they rarely explain why a client should call us before calling a contractor or while an architect is still working through the early concept plans.
Pull up your homepage through the eyes of someone considering a remodel or new home. Do you show when your work began? Does a portfolio project explain how you changed the floor plan, developed the cabinetry or found a problem before construction? Or does the visitor see finished rooms with no idea how much thinking came before the photograph?
Show some of the work that happens while the walls are still negotiable. Share a furniture plan that changed the window placement, a cabinet elevation that exposed a problem, or a short case study explaining what the client originally requested and what the project actually needed. That does not require giving away your intellectual property. It demonstrates what you are hired to notice and solve.
Teach clients when to call you
• Does the homepage speak directly to someone planning a remodel or new home?
• Does your portfolio show how your work changed the project before construction?
• Does your services page explain the planning, drawings and coordination behind the finished rooms?
• Does your lead form ask how far the project has progressed before the first conversation?
• Do your architects, contractors, real estate agents and other referral partners know exactly when to introduce you?
Clients cannot value work they never see. If your marketing begins with finished rooms, many clients will assume your work does, too. Market the whole and clients can begin to understand the whole.
Market finishes and finished rooms, and “help me make selections” should come as no surprise. The next time you complain that a client called after the plans were finished, pull up your own website. If it never told them to call sooner, they may have arrived exactly when your marketing taught them to.
Cheryl Clendenon owns In Detail Interiors, afull-service design-based retail showroom inPensacola, Fla. She also is a business andsales strategist working with interior designersand others in the industry and is a regularcontributor to Home Accents Today.
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