How to Start Interior Design Business in India

Interior design involves the conversion of empty residential or commercial spaces into fully functional, aesthetically pleasing, and efficient homes or offices. This business involves a lot of creativity, efficiency, and aesthetics. In addition to these, interior designers are also required to keep up with the times with respect to new interior design fads and trends as well as new materials in the market.

An interior designer is also required to be business savvy and aware of the costs of different materials in market.
An interior designer should also possess good communication skills since he/she will spend a lot of time liaising with the client and suppliers or contractors.

There is a lot of job satisfaction that comes from seeing a smile on customers’ faces when they see that their residential or commercial space has been transformed into an aesthetically pleasing and fully functional space. Indeed, interior designers get to work on something that is very close to their customers’ hearts, i.e., their office, home, shop or showroom, or any other residential or commercial space, and therefore it is important to carry out the interior design business by paying very close attention to detail.

It is quite obvious then, that interior designers will need to be creative with design elements and to have in-depth understanding of their field.

They will need to be able to visualize the interior design elements in 3D and be able to present multiple interior designs to the client so that the client has many different options to choose and can then choose the one that he/she likes best.
Leadership qualities are also required in an interior designer because he/she will be liaising with contractors and suppliers as well as other team members, if applicable.

Many people graduate from an interior design college or university or gain experience as an interior designer by working under other interior designers and then look at starting their own interior design business. This article presents some key information on how to start an interior design business in India.

Complete Guide to Starting an Interior Design Business in India

Know Your Target Clients
The company will need to be registered
Initial investment will need to be arranged
An office will need to be set up
A good team will need to be put together
Put Your Business Online
Attend Trade Events In Your Town
The interior design business will need to be promoted on various channels

The above are necessary steps that need to be taken when wanting to start an interior design business in India. The steps presented above are looked at in more detail below

1. Know Your Target Clients:

Interior designing business covers many fields such as home furnishing, basement remodeling, antique furniture refurnishing, designing stunning home improvement logo, custom furniture covers, sales and installation, decorating artificial flowers and many more.

So, first, know who are your focused clients. This is directly helped to knowing the types of interior design business you should start.
Find out the market size and specific products/services that are highly demanded by your targeted audience.
Most importantly, try to analyze your potential customers expectation from your interior design services.
You must have a clear mission and vision of your ideal customers.

2. The Company will Need to Be Registered

Anyone doing a business in India will need to make it an entity and register a company, and this is no different for an interior design company. In India, there are many different options when looking to register a company and these range from one man companies to liability partnerships and private limited firms.

One may even choose to go the proprietorship or partnership firm route. In addition to registering the company, one will also need to obtain the PAN number in the name of the firm and obtain things like service tax registration, and shop and establishment license from the local municipality, among other related documents. Furthermore, a bank account will also need to be opened in the name of the business.

3. Initial Investment will Need to Be Arranged

When looking at starting an interior design business in India, initial investment amount will need to be taken into consideration and the amount will need to be arranged. This initial investment is required to get the interior design business up and running. Even if one is looking at making only a small initial investment, budgeting for basic costs should still be done. Some approximate basic expenses or costs related to opening an interior design business in India are

Logo design – Rs. 3000 one time expense
Company registration – Rs. 25000 one time expense
Trade license –Rs. 2500 per year
Domain registration and web hosting – Rs. 5000 per year
Visiting cards and stationeries– Rs. 2000 recurring
Internet subscription – Rs. 2000 one time expense and monthly bills
Website development Rs. 25000 – one time expense
Telephone lines – Rs. 2000 one time expense and monthly bills

4. An Office will Need to Be Set UP

The size of the office required for the interior design business will vary according to team size, but for those on a budget and small team size, even an office space of 300 to 500 square feet will do.

It is not necessary to rent an office in an expensive area of town until some contracts with assured cash flow have been won by the new business.

A minimalist approach may be taken to design the office space to keep the costs down.
If looking to keep costs low, one may use an office space that comes with lower rent, at least till some contracts have been won.
Simple desks may be designed along with purchase of low-cost but functional office chairs. The office itself may be the first interior design project and therefore some creativity can be incorporated in the design of the space.

5. A Good Team will Need to Be Put Together

In order for any business or venture to succeed and continue to maintain success, it is important for a good team to have been formed and this is no different for an interior design business in India. Therefore, anyone looking to start an interior design business in India needs to assemble a team that is both competent and professional and ready to take up interior design challenges for both residential and commercial spaces.

When it comes to complete interior designing projects on a turnkey basis, quite a large team is required to handle everything.
This may require architects, in addition to interior designers, carpenter, electrician, technicians, labor and sales executives, painters, plumber, and back office staff, among others.
However, when one is initially beginning to start taking up interior design projects, handling complete interior design business is not usually on the table and one may have much smaller staff till one has acquired more work and begun to grow the business.
However, it is important to have a balanced team that has a wide variety of skills to be able to tackle a wide variety of interior design projects

6. Put Your Business Online

These days everyone are using online platform like google search or any other local search engines to identify the best interior designers/decorators in the market and check the information such as prices, services offered, reviews etc.

Therefore, create a own website and try to start online branding or marketing for your business.
Please make sure that your website is easily accessible and loadable when users visited your page.

7. Attend Trade Events In Your Town

These days, trade events are the best platforms for giving your interior design business an exposure in your city.

So make sure to attend all the interior designing trade shows and register your presence whenever there is any events happening in your town.
Meet your industry experts and get their best ideas/suggestions for growth of your business.

How to Promote Interior Designing Business in India

Every business requires time and money to be spent on promotional activities and this is no different for an interior design business in India. In order to grow sales and sustain and grown the business, the owner will need to be smart and savvy with various sales and marketing options available. Innovative ideas will also need to be incorporated while deciding on the sales and marketing strategy. Since promotional activities play a key role in helping businesses succeed, the following sections are devoted purely to this aspect and present some useful tips that may be used to promote an interior design business in India.

- Important to Get the Basics Right
  In this digital age, there are a few basics that need to be gotten right and addressed before commercial promotional activities can begin. These include things such as whether a professionally designed website has been obtained for the company. When designing a website, it is quite important to have it professionally done by professional web designers, since this is what customers see when they look up the details of the business. After this has been done, it is important to create a presence on all the trending social media platforms of the day and to stay active on all these channels. These channels include Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and Google Plus. It is important to get a good portfolio created, designed, and printed to show to customers.

- Target Customers Need to Be Defined
  Irrespective of the budget that one has in mind for the promotion of any interior design business, it is important to have a targeted customer base in mind in order to get the most out of all the marketing activities and campaigns. This can also help companies save costs on marketing and allied activities. Obtaining a clear understanding of the targeted market and their annual income, job profiles, geographical location, and age group can go a long way in helping interior designer businesses match their offerings to the needs of their targeted customer group.

- Marketing Campaign Needs to Be Created
  After the target customer group has been created, it is important to create a marketing campaign that targets the specific customer group This marketing campaign will need to be customized so that it reflects that needs of the targeted customer group and presents the interior designer firm’s offerings accordingly. Having a marketing campaign run on social media platforms can be a good and cost-effective way to get the message out.

- Have a Way to Measure Results and Focus on What Works
  Measuring results is a good way to determine what is working and what is not and the marketing activities can further be modified be become more successful for the company.

Taking the above steps can help anyone start an interior design business in India