For years, interior designer Mark Schubert worked at a larger firm before branching out on his own where he found the steepest learning curve wasn’t about aesthetics or project management, but about how to handle client budgets. What to do with clients who have champagne taste on beer budgets? How about discussing unexpected scope creep? What happens when your client tries to shop a retail piece or monopolize your time in search of the perfect bath tub?
This week on Disruptive Design, Mark Schubert of Chicago-based Phillip Harrison Interiors offers designers practical insights on navigating the financial aspects that can make or break client relationships and project outcomes. Click play on the video below to watch the discussion or read on for the highlights
Designer as educator
When clients arrive with Pinterest boards full of photographs of $400,000 dream kitchens but expend to spend closer to $40,000—which Schubert says happens “at least once every quarter”—his team addresses the disconnect immediately.
“When we have a client whose budget is substantially below what their inspiration requires, we just have a very frank discussion with them. Maybe it’s not the time to do your kitchen, maybe we reel this back in.” Mark Schubert says, and they sit back and wait.
Schubert says designers need to adopt the mentality that their primary job is that of an educator first. “A lot of people who haven’t done a renovation or purchased furnishings in the past few years don’t really know what things cost anymore,” he says.
Approaching conversations with potential clients as an educator rather than a creative or even as a business person involves a lot of patience and hand-holding up front but it often pays dividends. In his experience, clients tend to return months later having adjusted their expectations and increased their budgets.
Customized fee structuring
I love talking about fee structures with designers because everyone has something a little different going on that hopefully works for them. Schubert has honed his compensation model after experiencing the limitations of working solely within larger firms.
“On our proposals, we provide an estimation of hours based on what the client has told us they want,” he says, selling their hours in blocks which cover everything from client meetings and showroom visits to CAD work, sketching, material selections and project management.
“Clients are still getting a great discount on products— and they’re never going to pay full retail with us,” Schubert says. Their markup is enough to compensate for comprehensive procurement management, including ordering, tracking, addressing delays, warehousing coordination, and installation, while remaining below retail.
Before any orders are placed, their clients receive a comprehensive budget breakdown with contingency of five to 10% built in, depending on the size of the project. This buffer helps manage the inevitable fluctuations in pricing that occur, especially with tariffs and supply chain challenges.
Communicating with clients
Their budget management approach involves regular, transparent communication. “We send check-in emails every Friday to our clients, recapping what has been done up to this point, anything pressing this past week that we accomplished, and what we’re looking at for the next week or two,” he says.
They also tailor their communication style based on each client’s preferences, which is identified during intake: “One of the questions we ask is, ‘How involved do you want to be with the project?'” This helps his team anticipate whether clients will expect frequent updates or prefer a more hands-off approach. But sometimes clients need more attention than they let on…
When clients want more involvement than initially indicated—like their client who required multiple additional showroom visits to find the perfect bathtub—Schubert is not shy about communicating the additional fees such changes will incur.
Trade exclusive resources
When asked about achieving high-end looks on more modest budgets, Schubert relies heavily on certain trade partnerships. His go-to resources for mid-price point furniture include North Carolina manufacturers like Carole, A.R.T. Furniture, and HF Custom. For fabrics, he always finds something at Romo and Kravet.
It helps that these particular lines have deep collections, meaning they have something – as Schubert notes– “ at every price point.” This enables them to keep a sale in the line, when a more expensive piece might have initially drawn the client to the line in the first place. These trade relationships also enable them to offer clients customization options that retail simply can’t match. “By using us and using these trade vendors, clients aren’t going to have the same exact living room as their neighbor who just went to RH,” Schubert says.
Schubert has lots of tricks for elevating designs on a tighter budget, creatively allocating their use of premium materials in a way only a designer can. “If you have an expensive fabric that you want to pull into a space, instead of doing the entire sofa or chair in it, just do the accent pillows or maybe just the outside of the sofa or chair instead of the inside,” he suggests.
Another cost-saving technique for their clients in Chicago high-rise condos with floor-to-ceiling windows that they use all the time: stock drapery. (Schubert is not alone in this – Note to fabric manufacturers: Many designers are asking for more lines of stock drapery for this reason).
Turning budget constraints into design opportunities
Sometimes creativity thrives most under constraints. Schubert’s problem-solving approach is perhaps best illustrated by a recent Lincoln Park townhouse renovation. The project featured a double-sided two-story fireplace that originally called for custom stone surrounds and white oak millwork. When unexpected issues in the guest bathroom consumed the contingency budget, his team pivoted.
“We ended up using just some quartz on the front of the fireplace, and for the two-story fireplace, we ended up using a board-and-batten-type wainscot paneling,” Schubert recounts. The revised design—executed at a quarter of the original cost—actually pleased the client more than the initial concept.
“The client came to me a couple weeks ago and said, ‘I actually like this better than the original design,'” he says. “I was very happy that we were able to still achieve that design aesthetic without sacrificing too much on the design and really hitting their price point.”
For Schubert, this exemplifies his firm’s ultimate value proposition: “We are problem solvers first and foremost. When I walk into a space with clients pointing out all the problems, it’s already in my head looking for solutions.”
