Hello ๐
March. The final month of Q1, and the month I've set aside - in Hothouse, in my programmes, and in my heart - for, drum roll...MARKETING & BRAND EXPRESSION.
But I want to begin not with strategy, not with tactics, and not with a to-do list. I want to begin with something I notice constantly, across dozens of design practices, at every stage of business development, and which I say with only the very best of intentions:
So many interior designers look the same.
Go and look at ten mid-market interior design websites. Read the About pages. Count the variations on timeless, elegant, bespoke, tailored, passionate. Notice how many practices describe a process that is collaborative, a result that is beautiful and functional, a client relationship that is built on trust. Notice how many About pages could, with only minor adjustment, belong to someone else entirely.
And, don't get me started on absentee founders - sometimes not even a photo... good grief, not even a name!
I am not saying this to make anyone feel bad. Quite the opposite. I am saying it because these are not bland people producing bland work, and yet something is getting lost between who they are and how they present themselves to the world. That gap isn't their fault - they are interior designers, not marketing managers! Nobody teaches this. Most designers arrive at their marketing by looking sideways at what others are doing - and when everyone does that, the result is a room full of mirrors reflecting the same image back at itself. And I do get that it's very scary to take position, be different, stand out.
The consequence, though, is real and worth understanding:
When a potential client cannot distinguish you from your competitors, the only lever they have is price.
And they will use it.
Not because they are difficult or unreasonable, but because you haven't yet given them anything else to hold on to.
So. This is what March is for.
This is my gentle, loving, entirely affectionate crusade against identikit - and I would very much like you to join me.
1. THE BLOG: YOUR FOUNDER PRESENCE MOAT
Before we go any further, if you haven't yet read this month's blog post on the Founder Presence moat, I'd encourage you to begin there. It sets the scene for everything that follows this month, and it bridges February's inner work - who you are as a founder - with March's outward focus: how that founder shows up in the world.
2. MARCH IN HOTHOUSE: TWO WEBINARS
This month in Hothouse, we have two live sessions planned, here are the details for your diary:
๐๏ธ 10am on Wednesday 11th March - Webinar One
The first I'll lead myself. We'll be exploring the marketing frameworks I use with my Bootcamp and one-to-one clients - how to identify where your ideal clients actually spend their time (which is often not where you're currently spending yours), how to build a marketing approach that compounds quietly in the background rather than exhausting you month after month, and why the period when nothing seems to be happening is often the most important period of all.
๐๏ธ 10am on Wednesday 25th March - Webinar Two
The second brings in Camilla (Milla) Richardson, a guest whose expertise I have a great deal of respect for. Milla is an Instagram specialist who understands both the platform and - with lots of interior designer clients, many of whom are killing it - what it takes to stand out as an interior designer. Instagram remains one of the fastest routes to early visibility, especially for practices in the earlier stages of growth - Tiers one and two - and if you're going to invest time there, it's worth doing it with real intention.
Both sessions will be recorded and stored in Hothouse for anyone who can't join live.
Join Hothouse to take part - links are under the 'Events' tab.
3. ONE LAST MENTION: THE FOUNDER PRESENCE RETREAT - 22 MARCH
On 22nd March, I'm hosting a day retreat on Founder Presence, joined by the wonderful voice coach Nicky Herrington. This is not a strategy day. It isn't a workshop dressed up in different clothes. It is a day devoted entirely to you - to the physical and vocal presence you bring into every room, every client meeting, every moment when someone is deciding whether to trust you with their home and their money.
The interior design business is, at its core, a relationship business. How you show up - how you carry yourself, how you speak, how you are read before you've said a single word - matters more than most of us acknowledge. If something in that sentence resonates quietly, this retreat is designed for exactly that.
Places are limited - book here.
4. Long Read: HOMEWORK - WRITE THE JOB DESCRIPTION
Here's a thought experiment: I want you to imagine something.
You have been awarded a grant. A generous, no-strings grant, designated for one purpose: to hire the finest brand ambassador in the world to stand at the very front of everything you do.
Not a social media manager. Not someone to write your captions. I mean someone whose entire purpose is to embody your practice so completely, so specifically, so recognisably, that no potential client could ever confuse you with anyone else. Someone who walks into a room and the room understands immediately what you stand for. Someone whose presence alone makes the right clients lean forward.
For example, here are three Sophies who do just that for their brands:
- Sophie Rowell at Cote de Folk
- Sophie Ashby at Studio Ashby
- Sophie Patterson at Sophie Patterson Interiors
Think about how each of them embodies and fights for their brand.
You have the budget. You have the brief.
Now let's write the job description.
BRAND AMBASSADOR - [Your Practice Name]
About this practice Not what you do. What you stand for. What is the point of view that quietly shapes every decision you make? If this practice had a single animating belief, what would it be?
What this person is known for Three to five qualities - and I mean qualities, not skills. Not "excellent communicator." Instead: What does the room feel when they enter? What do people say about them after they've left? What makes them genuinely memorable?
What this person would never say This is often the most revealing section. What phrases, what positions, what compromises would feel entirely wrong coming from this person? What would make you wince to hear?
What this person would never do Would they discount without good reason? Would they apologise for their fees? Would they take a project that doesn't interest them because the money is tempting? What would they simply not do? Would they do a Tiktok dance?
The thing that makes them irreplaceable One sentence. The thing that belongs only to this practice, this founder, this particular way of seeing the world - and that no competitor could replicate, because it isn't theirs to take.
You already sense where this is going...
That person is you. Or rather, it is the version of you that you are entirely capable of becoming - and have perhaps always quietly known you could be.
The gap between what you just wrote and how you currently present yourself isn't a failing. It's simply a distance not yet travelled. And the exercise itself is the first step.
GOING DEEPER: THE ALTERNATIVES TO IDENTIKIT
Niche is the word most people reach for when we talk about differentiation, and it remains one of the most underused tools in the designer's kit. The fear is that narrowing your focus will cost you clients. The evidence, consistently, is the opposite: specificity attracts, and vagueness repels. A designer who is clearly the person for something particular - a style, a typology, a client situation - is infinitely easier for a satisfied client to recommend than a generalist who does everything beautifully for everyone.
But niche is not the only answer. There are others worth sitting with:
A signature process. How you work can be as differentiating as what you produce. If your methodology is distinctive - the rigour of your briefing process, the way you structure decisions, the frameworks you bring to a project - and you name it, articulate it, and make it visible, you give clients something to choose you for. Most designers do this work. Very few make it legible.
A declared aesthetic position. Not timeless and elegant - a genuine aesthetic position is more specific than that, and more willing to be clear about what it is not. It has a point of view. It signals warmly to the right clients, and equally clearly to those who are not quite the right fit.
A client philosophy. The way you think about the client relationship itself can be deeply distinctive. Do you believe in educating your clients thoroughly before a project begins? Do you maintain creative parameters as a condition of doing your best work? Stated with confidence, this doesn't push clients away - it draws in exactly those who want what you genuinely offer.
The thread running through all of these is the same: a willingness to be specific, and a willingness to be seen.
Identikit positioning, at its root, is what fills the space when those two things feel a little too exposing. Which is entirely understandable - and entirely worth moving past.
5. MY WEEK IN HOTHOUSE
This week, I'm temporarily seven hours out of my time zone, having shoehorned my working week into the hours between five and eight in the morning, with a few stolen hours scattered around the edges. I'm visiting my mother (celebrating her birthday in style) and she has my full attention for the rest of each day. As she should.
The net result is a working week roughly a third of its usual size. My marketing has been the main casualty, I knew it would be, I made that choice consciously, and my numbers reflect it. That's fine. I have a plan, and it starts in March. We have to be able to flex and chill.
What has not taken a hit is the work with my clients. It has been slower than I'd like in places, and I'm grateful for their patience. But it has continued. Imperfect, a little compressed, occasionally conducted at five-fifteen in the morning with strong coffee - but continuous.
I tell you this not for sympathy, and certainly not to suggest that this is how I'd recommend running a business week! I tell you because consistency is the thing I talk about more than almost anything else, and this week has been a quiet test of whether I actually mean it. The answer, I'm relieved to report, is yes. Blog - tick, newsletter - tick, some social media...
Do what you can. It won't always be optimal. But always do something.
FINAL THOUGHT
I want to be clear about something before we close.
When I talk about identikit marketing - when I get all aerated about About pages that could belong to anyone, about the words that have been polished smooth by overuse - I am not judging, criticising, blaming or shaming. I have never once met a designer who chose sameness. What I have met, again and again, are talented, imaginative, deeply capable people who were simply never given permission, or shown how to be specific. Who were never shown that clarity is not the same as limitation. Who were never told that the clients they most want to work with are quietly looking for exactly the distinctiveness that feels, right now, a little vulnerable to claim.
The identikit isn't a character flaw. It's what happens in the absence of a better conversation.
This month, we're having the better conversation.
So if something in this newsletter has nudged at something - a quiet recognition, a slight stir of possibility, a sense that there might be a truer version of how you present yourself to the world - I'd gently ask you not to wriggle past it. Sit with it. That feeling isn't a problem. It's an out-of-your-comfort-zone fabulous opportunity.
Out of your comfort zone is an exhilarating, dream destination! We should all rush towards it.
And I'm here, sleeves rolled up, excited to work with you in the gap.
With love, as always,
Julia
Founder - Hothouse
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