I started the builder business thread and appreciate all the feedback. I have recently started doing business with interior designers and wonder what the rest of you have encountered with this group. In particular do you offer a percentage of the job for a referral?

No, no kickback or referral.

I am of two parallel minds on this topic. First is that the referral fee comes right off your bottom line. Are you too profitable? I'm guessing the answer is no. Can you just add that cost to the cost of the project? If so, OK.

Second is the ethics thing. I have yet to find a desinger that was willing to have her referral fee as a line item on your invoice that the customer sees. Doing something under the table with another professional on the project sets the wrong tone to the entire relationship. I make the case to designers that what I do for them and their clients enhances their project, and I earn my revenue. I make the project easier for the designer, and prove it with the documentation I've provided other designers on previous projects.

For what it's worth, I have never had any luck at all with any designer who asked for the fee. They always seem to ask right after they tell me they have a large project for me to "bid" on, and always in the first contact or conversation. The one time I did allow myself to be involved with a designer of this type, the whole thing turned out to be a huge mess, I believe in part because the designer then used the "I gave it to you, I can take it away" position to beat on me with.

"You can't cheat an honest man (or woman)....."

I am no way implying that I want to cheat anybody, but I have talked to several integrators and even read in books that it is pretty much assumed that the interior designer would get a percentage as a commission. In essence they would be acting as your sales person. The end customer is presented with a price for the entire project that they either agree with or not. What happens to the money after they pay their bill is not their concern. I'm just curious what everyone else is doing. I'd rather not pay any money, but the interior designers are spending money to market their products and attract the customers we both desire to work with. I don't see a problem with paying them something for this service. Is there something wrong with my thinking?

Assumed, otherwise you would not have asked the question in the way you did. I regret the implication, and apologize. I was speaking to the shady ones that had found me on the phone in the past.


Not as you characterize it here. My only reservation with your viewpoint is that clients sometimes what to know what they are paying for a specific item, typically a high-ticket plasma or tv. Once you begin to break out what it is you are charging for that the problems begin. Do you include the 10% fee in the total price? If so, your price does not match the "street" price. If you don't, you are misleading the client by playing a shell game with the numbers. How would that be handled?

Tests

This message was edited by QQQ on 02/09/03 18:16.

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Works, I would break out the price exactly as if I had a sales person. A percentage of the hourly installation cost is assigned to sales commision, marketing, vehicle maintainance, etc. The customer does not need to see what your built in overhead costs are assigned to.

Theaterworks is exactly right on all points.

One thing to beware is that the designer often will have, what do I call it, let's say "decor" issues with what the client really wants for audio and video, so if the designer is the one you work with, you may end up with a client who asks you why you did not do something some particular way. Or suggest an alternative that you suggested and the designer shot down. Make it clear with the designer that we all want to make the most of this situation by pleasing the client, and sometimes pure design issues and audio/video issues are at odds, so the three of you need to meet to decide how things are to be done. I have been engaged, without additional fee, by a designer, and when I accidentally met the client and described what we were doing, the client said, "F*** that! The designer has his/her head up his/her ass, and here is what I want...."

Yeah, that's happened to me, too. However, (slightly) more often than not the designers I've run into are genuinely interested in making the system sound good, look good, and work well for the client. Some have caught the bug.

At the end of the day, I just don't think I'm making quite enough money to hand some of it over to the designer. I'm already paying my staff, my landlord, the government and the local Harley dealer, and there's not much left over. "Line forms to the right....."