Starting an Interior design and Decoration business in Nigeria
Putting a space inside a building in its right order, style and color has always been the need of home owners which creates a gap in the market’s demand and supply chain that gave birth to designers and decorators in the World today. Houses needing the services of a decorator abound and on the increase especially in the major cities of the West African country called Nigeria, like Lagos and Abuja.
As the beautification industry booms, there are lots of opportunities on both sides to key into. The most important thing is knowing the Job for which you are hired for or even hiring a creative designer on the part of real estate developers. Before we go in-depth analysis, we have to take a brief look at the definition of Interior design and decoration. What is interior design?
Interior Design is the document it takes to plan, coordinate and oversee the proper placement of fittings and fixtures in a space within a building in its best color, pattern and lighting effect so as to suit the clients brief and to show professionalism. One who is expected to turn a once unattractive space to a sparkling, beautiful, attractive and functional one with the use of drawings is called a Designer.
What is interior decoration?
This may have been used interchangeably with the one above, but there is actually a distinction. On the other hand, the difference is that Interior Decoration is the craft required to put the contents of a drawing (design) to work to achieve all that has been specified by the Design within the confines of a space (room). One who engages in the business of this kind of beautification is called a Decorator or Decor for short.
How to win Clients as an Interior Designer, Decor
Hunting for design Job opportunities is not easy, but there are means through which you can utilize to aid your chosen career path through customer attraction. They include.
Tendering for Design Jobs
Advertising / Publicizing
Marketing or Promoting on social media
Launching your blog or shop
Partnering with your materials Suppliers and manufacturers
Offering discounts or making prices affordable
Improve your business portfolio
Moving with fashion trends in the industry
Tender for new design Jobs
Be on the look out for new Jobs by participating in competitive tendering processes along with Builders, Civil and Structural engineers, Mechanical Engineers and Quantity Surveyors. The focus should not only be on private companies, a decor or designer should also be able to get his firm registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission CAC in Nigeria so as to be eligible to partake in Local, State and National Jobs and not just depend on construction contractors to sublet interior decoration jobs to them.
Advertise your business
One of the quickest ways to get your business seen by potential customers is by publicizing your works with them. There are lots of ways by which this can be achieved. The one to choose from depends on your financial capacities and capabilities and the nature of your business. In all, visual media means are always advisable to use. Different ways of offline advertisement include Television channels, Radio Stations, Billboards, Postcards, Flyers, Sign posts, Print media, Word of mouth etc.
Market or Promote on social media
So many entrepreneurs have testified to how social media has helped lift up their brand names from ground level to tremendous heights. These platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat or even TikTok can equally help you as an Interior Aesthetics professional to reach your target audience, market your works, and win more contracts. To further make use of other goodies offered by these social giants, you can pay to run adverts to reach the door-step of potential clients who might end up patronizing your company.
Never underestimate the power of hashtags. Use them when and where necessary. Twitter for example has a perfect tagging system that is sure to convert if you play your cards right, that’s if the pictures and videos of your previous works posted speak volume.
Launch your online shop or blog
Usually combined with your social campaigns as a sales funnel. Blogs or company websites are your brand’s robust online presence which could not have been afforded you by social media companies. Blogs help you tell your own story and give your followers a place to exclusively designate worldwide web as your company’s address through which the rely on for latest updates, announcements, tips and lots more.
You can go a step further with the unlimited resources your website affords you to launch a shopping mall to sell your products and services. More can even be achieved with owning and running your own domain as it aids increased visibility especially when you submit the web address on Google, Bing or Yahoo searches and take a step further to do Search Engine Optimization for better results.
Partner with your materials Suppliers and manufacturers
Another very good way of adding more customers to your list of clients is to partner with the wholesalers or retailers of your decoration materials like wallpapers, Furniture, Ceiling Chandelier lights and POP, Laminate flooring woods, Carpets, Glass, Ceramics, Rugs, Tiles, Paints, Office, Living room TV set stands, Kitchen and Bedroom Cabinets and many more. Make negotiations with them to do word of mouth marketing for you or display your services on their brick and mortar stores to increase awareness or possibly suggest decorators to the people who come to buy from them.
Offering discounts or making prices affordable
Although you should not render services below average market cost price, but if you can slash cost for your prospects while making the prices realistic and not just cheap, then you might be on your way to attracting high-paying clients who may end up in your list of satisfied clients.
Improve your business portfolio
Acquire new courses, study, research, aim for highly-placed clients, complete projects with mouths talking about it. Improve your skill in surrounding trade businesses like working tools manufacturing or supplying and many more areas of profile improvement that you may think of. In all, be versatile.
How to keep your clients away from your competitors
Customer retention is a core business strategy which when employed, goes a long way to determine the number of your repeat clients as a skilled man or woman. They are,
Rendering quality service first
Engaging in Trust building
Reaching out to customers from time to time
Giving them enticing price offers
Asking for feedback for improvement purposes
Taking timely problem resolution seriously
Advising them on the best use of material and emerging technologies
Always be available when called
Update your Staff knowledge base to the most recent in the industry so as to continue to be seen relevant
The business opportunity there for you is to get clients to patronize you and to be able to retain and convert them to loyal customers by fulfilling their design needs, getting them to trust your firm, collecting feedback, improving your customer service response system among other duties of a designer to his client. Before continuing, we need to know if the business of interior decor is lucrative, profitable or not. That can be determined by answering this popular question below:
How much does an interior designer, decor make in Nigeria?
Designing is a skill that once learnt, will put a huge amount of money in your pocket from time to time. If you are wondering the average amount of money you are going to make venturing into this business, then you are in the right page. The business of interior design or decoration can make you up to nothing less than ₦20,000 naira per sizable space or apartment here in 2021 in Nigeria.
Need for interior designers
The need for designers can never be overemphasized. It cuts across functional usage of spaces to aesthetics. Below is a list of its various importance.
1. Space management
There are cases where the the usable space in a building is too small to serve the function of that facility, it is the work of a creative interior designer to manage spaces so as to accommodate other activities for which these spaces were meant for. This happens from Living rooms, Bedrooms, Toilets and events halls where the designer had to introduce shelves and other storage racking that will ordinarily make that space hard to use. This is done while taking beauty and other matching styles into consideration.
2. Improve user experience
The Comfort and satisfaction derivable from using a facility is of utmost concern to the decorator. Furnishing the interior quickly comes to mind. Care should be taken so as to select just about the best furniture, Chairs, Seats, and tables that will efficiently serve the purpose for which they were bought.
3. Increases the value of properties
When a space has been fantastically decorated, it increases the property when advertised for sale, rent in the markets. So, if you are looking to increase earnings, profits as a developer, talking about how to give your facility the needed interior design it deserves may be a starting point that will likely pay you handsomely in the nearest future.
4. Improves space functionality
The art of interior design enhances the usability of your spaces by providing needed features that will work in a coordinated manner with others to make for the efficient use of the available space. Functionality is a basic requirement of interior design, and so should always be taken seriously. If a space cannot serve users in unison, then it is not function, that is how you will know.
5. Saves time and Costs
This does not only occur in space management. When the clients brief is well-communicated to the designer, it goes a long way to better inform the decorator on how best to creatively introduce and arrange space equipment so as not to be an unnecessary waste of resources. In the real sense, money or time saved is cost saved and most clients would want that.
6. Easy maintainability
You can agree with me that a well-arranged space is always easy to access, maintain and use. Be it a Restaurant, Shopping mall, Factory or Warehouse, if any of these typically overloaded spaces are properly arranged, users will not find it difficult in using the facility and that is actually one of the biggest needs of interior designing.
6. Shows users lifestyle and social class
In what has become a full blown fashion, home owners now style, decorate and customize their spaces to indicate or showoff their social statuses, culture and traditional life. It now lies on the designer to get the sort for working materials in suitable and matching colors to be able to achieve it.
7. Enhances in-house safety
A tidy space will always reduce or possibly prevent the occurrence of hazards. Whether it is Factory, Events halls or Supermarkets, there are design safety measures taken to ensure a safe working environment. This could be done by covering up naked wires so as not to expose occupants to electric shocks, properly packing and placing work tools in the right places to avoid accidents and many more.
7. Beautiful and heart-warming looks
Aesthetics may have come last but it is not the least. In fact, a design without beauty is yet incomplete. Every decoration should have a complementing beauty. With the creative use of materials, color combination and lighting effects, attractive looks is rest. This factor should be taken seriously by the professional since it helps in marketing since works to the general public who will always notice it at first sight. Wrong impression should be avoided.
Famous Interior Designers in Nigeria
There are gifted Nigerians who are doing the design thing in very big ways. Our list includes decorators who have gone from most popular to the richest, local to international, partners of big brand names, creative minds with accomplished portfolio and others with attractive profiles.
Andrezini interior design owned by Adeniji O. Andrew
Sayaveth Interiors owned by Ehi Ogbebor
iDesign owned by Tola Akerele
Out of Africa Lifestyle
Blue Mahogany Ltd
This is our top five pick of companies in case you need to consult any one of them. Note that the list is just a recommendation as no affiliate commission is associated with it.
Living room Interior Decoration Pictures
Explore some of our best photo picks. Best living room Interior design and decoration | Credit: JP Asset Living room interiors decorated with exotic Furniture Interior design and decoration ideas for Sitting rooms | Credit: JP Asset
