What is the Difference between a Welcome Guide and an Investment Guide?
I often get asked what the difference is between an interior design Welcome Guide and an Investment Guide. In this blog post, I will explain the difference and why it is important to have both in your interior design business.
The Investment Guide and the Welcome Guide are often seen as the same. However, they have very different purposes. The Investment Guide is provided in the interest stage when we look at the typical client journey.
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The Interest stage is the point at which the potential client expresses interest in the interior designer's services and begins to engage with the designer's content, such as visiting their website or following them on social media. In this stage, we want to move our client along to the next stage- the consideration stage. The consideration stage is where the client researches the interior designer's services, reviews their portfolio, and seeks additional information to determine if you are a good fit for their design needs.
Thus, in the Investment Guide, we are providing information to the client. We position ourselves as experts by writing authoritatively about how we help our clients. If you have a team, you will introduce them here. We tell them pertinent information about how we work, our charges, and minimum project costs. These are all questions that you have determined are essential to identify your ideal client.
The main goal is to educate and inform potential clients on making an informed decision about their needs. You could write a blog post about how to choose an interior designer, including details about skills, experience etc. You could also mention the different types of services that a designer could offer, including who these services might be appropriate.
The Welcome Guide is typically a document that provides the client with information on the business, day-to-day operations and availability. I like to think of it as an orientation guide. It is a way of integrating the client into the project and giving them the information they need to make their transition as seamless as possible.
The investment guide includes the following kinds of pages:
Cover Page
Table of Contents
About Page
Section Pages
Team Pages
A Services/Offer page summary
Individual services details
Ideal client /are we a good fit
How we add value
How we communicate/ intro portals/comms procedures
Payments
Timeline
Testimonials
Booking Design Consultation page
Ready to get started page
FAQs
Contact Page
When compiling and writing these pages, ensure they are concise and give the client the necessary information. You want them to be able to review the material in around 15 minutes.
In addition, you may also want to nurture the clients that are not ready to book a service with you yet. As mentioned before, you can offer them a guide, encourage them to follow you and so on. You are positioning yourself as an expert who can add value to their project.
Finally, do you include prices? My answer is yes! At least give a minimum investment or a budget range. It is always surprising that we ask clients to give us their budget, but we are reluctant to talk about money.
I have prepared a FREE Investment Guide Template in Canva that you can download. It includes the Template, a Guide and a Video walkthrough. You can sign up below ☟.
I have also written a blog post about the perfect Welcome Guide. You can read it here.
See you in the next blog.
Hi 👋🏽 I’m Joanne!
I’m an interior designer, educator and business coach. After studying Economics and Education at uni, the design world beckoned, drawing me to Christie’s in London, where I completed post-grad studies in art & design and then to Hong Kong, where I founded Eclectic Cool, a design firm and design store. . Eclectic Cool represented international brands such as Gubi, &tradition, HAY, Armadillo Rugs & Dinosaur Designs to name a few. My work and store have been featured in Monocle, Conde Nast Traveller, Elle Decor, Expat Living, Cathay Pacific inflight magazines, South China Morning Post and the ABC (Australia) network and more. I live on the south coast of Australia on a country property between the beautiful Australian bush and the Pacific Ocean with my husband and cavoodle. I’m the mum of three adult children.
