The Interior Designers Guide to Pricing Estimating and Budgeting (Paperback)

by Theo Stephan Williams (Author) "You're probably wondering why you picked up this book in the first place..." (more)
Key Phrases: The Best Design Firm, Lorenz Williams, North Carolina

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Provided here are practical guidelines on how to value the cost of designing commercial or residential interiors. From the designer's creative input to the pricing of decorating products and procedures, this guide allows interior designers to establish prices and budgets that satisfy their clients and make their business profitable. Interviews with experienced interior designers, case studies, and sidebars of projects highlight professional pitfalls and how to master them.

About the Author
Theo Stephan Williams is the founder of Real Art Design Group, Inc., an award-winning, full-service graphic firm whose clients include Universal Studios Hollywood and the Walt Disney Company. She lives in Los Alamos, CA.

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Allworth Press (March 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1581154038
• ISBN-13: 978-1581154030
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #125,444 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

  #16 in	Books > Arts & Photography > Architecture > Project Planning & Management
  #21 in	Books > Business & Investing > Management & Leadership > Pricing
  #21 in	Books > Arts & Photography > Architecture > Interior Design > Professional Reference

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

45 of 46 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good Advice from Someone who's Been There Before, August 7, 2005

By	John Matlock "Gunny" (Winnemucca, NV) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

One of the hardest things to learn about interior design, or any other service industry is that the only thing you have to sell is your time. To do this in a profitable manner, you need two sets of skills.

The first is the one you know about. You've got to find customers, you've got to do the job they want done and you've go to make them happy. This is probably the job you've trained yourself to do through experience, through training, and through the basic aptitude that you had to get into that business in the first place.

The second job is harder. You've got to realize that you are a business manager. You need accounting (to keep your business partner the IRS happy). You need to develop a busines plan, budgeting, etc. You need to know how to prepare and send out bills and how to handle the money when it comes in. And the most critical of all, telling the customer what your effort is going to cost him.

In this book Mr. Williams gives an excellent introduction on how to do these critical things. He also includes enough war stories from his past to give you the understanding of how he learned these things.

I really enjoyed his page one story of starting his own company: sold his car so as to eliminate the payments, crammed his office into his bedroom, paid off all credit cards, in general reduced his expenses to a minimum. When I started I did almost exactly the same: I had a very tiny kind of dumpy house in not too good a neighborhood - but no payments. I had an ancient vehicle - but no payments. Like with him, I was profitable the first month, but you had best not bet on it.

Mr. Williams has been there, done that, walked the walk. His book makes excellent sense.

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book for pricing - not just for interior decorators..., May 12, 2006

By	J. K. Carreira "JKCDesigns" (Bethlehem, PA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is a phenominal book for pricing and structure in any business. As an independent consultant one of the most difficult things when starting out is finding the right pricing structure. This book covers that as well as many suggestions on how to effectively organize and run a business. I have already recommended this book to my husband who is in Home Improvement and a friend who has a curtain business. I think it is so well written that it could be of value to many types of businesses small and large.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great Tool!, January 7, 2008

By	K. White "dznr1" (Arizona) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is a fabulous book for anyone in the industry, it is realistic, informative and motivating!