The Intentional Interior Designer: Building a Consultation Business That Prioritizes Life and Profitability
How Melanie Zaelich conducts 300 consultations yearly while maintaining a 3-month waitlist and preserving Fridays for family
In this episode of Interior DesignHer, we speak with Melanie Zaelich, founder of Happy Place Interiors and creator of The Designer's Blueprint, about building a consultation-based practice that enhances both your business and personal lives.
Many interior designers structure their businesses around the full-service model, combining design and project management. But, what if you’re an interior designer who just wants to design interiors?
In today’s podcast, Melanie explains how her consult-only business model has resulted in her working with over 2,000 interior design clients AND create time for an actual real life with friends and family.
Melanie breaks down how the traditional interior design business structure often limits both income potential and personal freedom, and reveals her structured framework that allows her to maintain complete control of her schedule while staying booked three months in advance.
You'll discover:
How her consultation-based interior design business creates more predictable revenue
Which personality traits determine success in the consultation model
The structured difference between full-service expectations and consultation boundaries
Why setting firm schedule parameters increases both profitability and satisfaction
How to build an interior design business that complements your life priorities
If you find project management consuming your creative energy while your personal time diminishes, this conversation spark a transformation in your approach to interior design. Many paths exist beyond the traditional full-service interior design model. A consult-only interior design business model is one that has worked very successfully for Melanie.
Listen to the podcast…
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Watch the podcast…
Chapters
00:00 - Intro
00:58 - Origin Story
04:18 - Happy Place Interiors
07:42 - The Designer's Blueprint
09:21 - Full-Service vs Consult-Only
24:54 - Interested in The Designer's Blueprint?
25:57 - Home Life vs Work Life
29:54 - New Designers
33:47 - What's in The Designer's Blueprint?
41:12 - Referrals
42:19 - Artificial Intelligence
44:54 - Full-Service AND Consult-Only Interior Design
Read the transcript…
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Melanie, you're definitely not the first interior designer to have taken to design as their second career or third career. But I think how you were in advertising and marketing prior to that is going to be pretty interesting to interior designers. So can you kind of tell us your origin story as a designer?
Melanie Zaelich - Happy Place Interiors / The Designer’s Blueprint: Yes, definitely. So my story is I started out as a graphic designer, and about 20 years ago or so, and I worked at some top Minneapolis design firms.
Not interior design, but graphic design firms. And then I moved into more advertising, and I became an art director. And what that means is I used to shoot TV commercials. So I would fly to New York or Atlanta or LA and shoot TV commercials.
And while I was at one of the agencies that I worked at, ironically, HGTV came out with a call. We have a local production house in Minneapolis that shoots a lot of HGTV shows, and they came out with a call to looking for somebody who had a room in their house who needed a makeover.
And I had just recently purchased my very first house. And I decorated and did everything, like on the main floor, but I struggled with my bedroom. So I answered the HGTV call, and I was on the show as the homeowner, not the designer.
So meanwhile, I'm working as a, you know, graphic designer, art director, shooting TV commercials. And then I was on hgtv. And that was just pivotal to me. The. The designer came over, the whole production crew came over and redesigned my bedroom.
It was one of those shows where it was like design on a dime, where they take what you have and revamp everything. And at the end of it, the designer did a fabulous job. And I just, like, looked around, and I thought to myself, oh, well, I could do this.
This is what I do for TV sets. When I'm setting up a TV commercial, I do all this. But I think because it was my own space, I couldn't separate myself from it. So that was really the. The seed that planted everything.
But meanwhile, I stayed at that agency for about 10 years and shot my TV commercials and did my graphic design. And about 10 years after that HGTV experience, the company I was working for was undergoing a lot of changes.
And I had started working on my friends and family's homes. You know, like a lot of designers, how they just get started, they start working on friends and family. And with the changes at my company and the experience of the HGTV and working with friends and family, that's when I decided to take the leap.
We leap of faith. And I, you know, I planned it out. You Know, before I like quit, but I planned it out and then I left my job and started my company.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Yeah, and the way your company works, it's a little bit different in that you focus exclusively on consultations as opposed to doing like all, every single thing. And how did you land on that?
Melanie Zaelich - Happy Place Interiors / The Designer’s Blueprint: Okay, yep. When I first started so, which was in 2016, after I left my corporate advertising job, I did everything. So I didn't start with simply consultations. I did full service interior design, home staging.
But the consultations have always been there. It was one of the first things that I introduced and I did them the entire time. And the thing that happened within a couple months of me starting my business, I was super busy.
And I only continued to get more busy and more busy between the full service design, the consultations and the staging. So as time went on, I had to start making some big decisions like what do I actually want to do?
And within a couple years, I stopped staging. I sold all my inventory and I stopped doing that. So then I focused on full service design and the interior design consultations. And again, it was, I was too busy.
Now. I could have hired people, I could have grown a team. I know a lot of designers want to do that, but having like a large business where I'm managing people and paychecks and taxes and all of that, that was not anything I ever wanted to do, ever.
From day one, I wanted to keep things just more simple, keep it just me, small team, you know, solopreneur. So with that, I had to make another decision. Do I do, do I focus on full service or do I focus on consultations?
And it was kind of a no brainer for me, but consultations is where I went and I decided to drop full service. And I haven't been happier since. It's been amazing. It's been about two and a half years.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: That's what I was going to ask you. How long have you been focused exclusively on the consultations in that time? In that. Well, not just in the two and a half years, but how many consultations would you say you have done since you, you put out your shingle as an interior designer?
Melanie Zaelich - Happy Place Interiors / The Designer’s Blueprint: Since 2016, around 2000, give or take. I do about, you know, every year is a little different, but I do between 2 and 300 a year. Wow. Yeah. And how, how long would it take you on average to do one? Well, I have different types of consultations, so I have a 90 minute, I have a three hour, and I have up to six hours.
And occasionally that changes because I Might, you know, change up the type of services that I have, but that Those are generally 90 minutes, three hours and six hours.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: I got it. And sometimes maybe a shorter one turns into a longer one. They realize they need more or they want more
Melanie Zaelich - Happy Place Interiors / The Designer’s Blueprint: Yep. Often. Yep. Okay.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: All right, well, this leads us right into my next topic, which is I'm curious about your designer's blueprint program. Yes. If you could explain that.
Melanie Zaelich - Happy Place Interiors / The Designer’s Blueprint: yeah, I'd love to. It is in a nutshell, the designer's blueprint mastering a consult driven interior design business. It's the full name, but it is the steps to take to go from. To either add consultations or do solely consultations in your interior design business. But it's everything you need to do in order to be as successful as I have been.
And by successful, I mean fully booked for up to three months and as busy as you want to be. So in order to get there, I mean, there's obviously things that you need to do. And in the blueprint, I talk about branding, marketing, messaging, time management, mindset shifts, like everything that I've learned from either my 20 years of advertising or nine years in the interior design business.
And like about 2,000 consultations, and I just put it all together and then streamlined it because my path wasn't straight. You know, there was a lot of learning going on, and now that I've learned everything, I wanted to put it together in kind of a straight path for other designers.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Right. And there's lots of different models that a designer can set up their business as and can change over time. I'm a big podcast guy. I listen to podcasts a lot, and I listen to a lot of interior design podcasts that are focused on business. And for the most part, the message that I keep hearing over the last two, three years is that designers are almost expected to scale this business to not just a full service, we do everything, we project manage, but almost exclusively for luxury clients.
And there's only so many of those people around. So to me, I'm like, there's. There's so many other paths. And this just seemed to me when I found out about you, I was like, this is. This is great. And there's probably so many different designers who are not aware.
And I'm curious, can you maybe give me an idea of the designer who would thrive using this kind of service? Maybe somebody who only wants to do it part time or as a second career or supplementary? Do you find that maybe there's a type of designer that would do well with a consultation Service.
Melanie Zaelich - Happy Place Interiors / The Designer’s Blueprint: Absolutely. Yep. One thing I talk about in the blueprint is a mindset shift. So and, and part of that is if you, if you're a designer and you're not able to have the right mindset, then you're not going to thrive in this type of business.
Because the mindset from a full service luxury interior designer to a consultation based interior designer, they're very, very different. And I think any designer can certainly do the consultation based, but they're going to be most most successful if they have the right mindset.
So the mindset is, or the type of designer that would thrive is typically the person that hires a consultation based person. A designer is not a luxury market.
So a luxury market type of person who does hire a consultation from a designer is probably hiring a famous interior Designer for a 30 minute consultation at the tune of $2,000.
And part of that is to say I had so and so help me design my house. You know, there's, there's part of that and so that's not the type of designer that I work with. The person that's going to thrive in this business model is the designer who really wants to empower the homeowner and teach the homeowner how to go about a kitchen remodel.
Well, let's talk about the countertops, like walking them through the process. How do you style your living room? Hey, let's move your furniture around and pull things from different, different rooms. You know, that kind of more hands on type of designer who likes to work with the homeowner and empower them versus saying hey, this is my style, let me put it in your living room.
You know, that's the difference and that's part of the mindset shift that if you're an interior designer and you're the type of person who really needs to control every aspect and make sure that your clients only use your contractors or subs, trades people.
That person probably isn't going to thrive quite as much because you have to be able to let go of some of these projects if you recommend a particular color to a client. Benjamin Moore Classic Gray.
Beautiful color. But they ended up painting it Sherwin Williams Alabaster, which is similar but different. It's more white. You have to be able to be okay with that. You know, you, you do your best, you empower that homeowner to make their own choices.
And the design is not really your baby anymore. You know, your, you're, you're a little bit more of a service provider than that designer mindset.
So it's it's a different type of mindset shift. Does that make sense?
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: It seems almost like you're an educator. Yep. And I think. Yeah, I really, I mean, no, go ahead, please.
Melanie Zaelich - Happy Place Interiors / The Designer’s Blueprint: I think that that person that has that mindset is going to have the most success, especially when it comes to client boundaries and whether or not they want to continue with a la carte design work.
If they want to do just the consultation and not any other follow up work, then they really have to be able to give that homeowner step by step instructions, empowerment so that the homeowner can go off and implement whatever the plan is, whatever the designer says makes sense.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Could you possibly share a success story of a, of a student that you've had that's gone on to create their own consultation business?
Melanie Zaelich - Happy Place Interiors / The Designer’s Blueprint: Well, the program is quite new. The program started, I launched it in November and I've got many students.
I, as far as I know, nobody has quite finished the program yet. But the feedback I've been hearing has been incredible about one particular student really has been talking about going through the program is giving her the framework in which to think about each aspect of her business.
Between her branding, her marketing, her messaging and even how she's. She currently offers a plethora of services, Airbnb, residential, commercial and all these different types.
And I've really set the framework for her to narrow down and niche what it is she's going to offer in her consultations. So we haven't launched one yet, but tons of great feedback in all those different niches or market niches like that definitely sees like there's potential there to do a whole bunch of different things.
Oh absolutely. And I think the market as far as who hires a designer for consultations only is growing. I mean there's a reason I've, you know, during COVID I was booked out for three months and I had a waiting list of over 100 people, which sounds fabulous, but it was quite stressful frankly.
But there is such a need and I think it really stems from Instagram and Pinterest. There are so many like DIY designers out there showing all these things. And I get hired a lot, not off my own Instagram page, but off other designers Instagram page because people see all this stuff on Tick Tock and Instagram but they want somebody to talk to in their home.
They see all these wonderful tips and tricks and decorating ideas and then they're like come to my house and teach me how to do this or show me how this works in my house. So thank you to all the Instagram designers out there.
But it, it really, people want that same type of service, but they want it in their home and specifically for them.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Yeah, I agree. And I, and I would say it probably started with hgtv.
You know, going back to your story, how people watch that and then they're like, well, I want this in my house. And then they contact a designer and they're, and they're, they get an idea of the price and I, maybe I can't afford that, but I don't just want to rely on YouTube videos and you know, if they can get you on the phone for, or zoom or however you're doing, we'll have to dive into that too.
The nuts and bolts of how you do your consultations, you know, it's not just the things that they're aware that they don't know. I don't know how to put up kitchen cabinets, but it's all those unknown things that, you know, that goes into a job that would never even enter their mind.
Absolutely. Yep. Yeah. And everybody wants granite countertops now. And nobody, nobody wants the old school 1970s counter that everybody. And but to do it at a price, that makes sense.
Melanie Zaelich - Happy Place Interiors / The Designer’s Blueprint: Yep. And even feedback I get from my clients is locally a lot give, being able to give.
My clients go to this store and look at these countertops, call this person for cabinet installation. Just having those connections and local recommendations are so valuable to people. So I mean, another thing about people who hire designers for a consultation only, I think part of it is, like you said, they call an interior designer, they get an idea of a price, you know, $60,000 to decorate a living room or whatever, whatever the price is.
And I think there is price is a part of why people are going to hire a consultation based designer. But there's actually more people. I mean, one of the things I cover in the blueprint is the market segment, like who hires in interior designers for a consultation only.
And, and one does have to do with price. And I think that's the most obvious one, you know, that people come up with. But it's also people out there who are more creative in their mind or, you know, whatever.
They're creative and they want their home to be curated and perfectly fit to them and they want to do it themselves. Like they don't want somebody come in and put somebody else's fingerprint, they want their fingerprint.
They just don't know what they don't know and they don't know exactly how to pull it all together. Or how to arrange their furniture, but they want to use what they have, they love what they have. Or they want to shop at antique stores, but they want the direction.
How, how big should the art be? You know, what, what types of objects would I look for at an antique shop when I go? So, you know, so there's kind of these creative people that just want help, there's people that just want to learn.
So you know, I get a lot of first time homeowners that want to learn how to decorate their home knowing that they're going to probably be in two or three other homes and they're not going to hire a full service designer for every home they ever live in.
They want to learn how to do it so they can evolve it as their family grows or their house changes or whatever. So there's a lot of like other reasons why people wouldn't hire a full service designer. Not just financial reasons, if that makes sense.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Well, no makes sense. And I also probably lump in time as well. Right. If, if you hire a designer to come in and reno your house, the goal is to get it done as quickly as possible. But if you're doing it yourself or with the help of, of a consultant designer, you could space this over time.
Do a room at a time, do a project at a time. You know, go and select. Okay, we're gonna, we're gonna do paint and we're gonna choose paint for every room in the house and we're gonna refresh. Okay. Then six months later, maybe they come back and say, okay, we want to change out the furniture in the living room.
I need help with that. Right. So, so that, that's an interesting way of doing it. And you know, I think that would. We, we talked briefly about local of, of you knowing where to send people to do things which twig me.
I, I'm wondering for you with your design clients, not, not the designer's blueprint, but just your personal clients. Do you find them, you're still in a local area or do you get them from all over the place?
Melanie Zaelich - Happy Place Interiors / The Designer’s Blueprint: I'm still primarily in Minneapolis St.Paul area. I do offer virtual consultations as well, and I do a good handful of those, but it's not my primary business. Locally I get, that's where I have, you know, the two or three hundred clients a year is local.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Okay. And, and that's. Geez, that's really good. That's, that's really good. Like I can see, I mean I live in Toronto, which is much larger than Minneapolis. I could just imagine the Number of designers here like, or somebody outside of Los Angeles or New York or Chicago.
There's so much business. Fantastic idea. Yeah, yeah. But I wouldn't be surprised also with you, I mean, the more your name over time is attached to consultation based interior design, you start getting more people from outside your local vicinities.
Just saying, well, your name is just going to start popping up on socials and on Google and whatnot and. Right, yeah. Now. And now you've got all these students that you're teaching through the blueprint. Oh, you've got a, you've got a great idea going on here. This is excellent.
Melanie Zaelich - Happy Place Interiors / The Designer’s Blueprint: Yeah, it's. I do love doing the virtual consultations and we can get a lot, you know, done in the consultations that on the virtual ones, the only thing that's a little difficult is I'm not there to physically move the furniture around, you know, but depending on the situation, sometimes I have people have like a friend, you know, if I think that furniture arrangement is going to be in the cards for them, then I will have them get prepared with furniture sliders and an extra set of hands or something.
But I really love working locally and being able to have that face to face contact with somebody. And the designer's blueprint, the way the program is set up is specifically for designers who want to work locally.
Everything that's talked about in the blueprint can definitely be applied if they want to do more virtual. But they're, the marketing changes a little bit, you know, from your local marketing to the national marketing. So that part would be a little different. But everything else is definitely set up for virtual or local.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Okay, let's say I'm an interior designer who's been listening to this podcast and like me, I'm like, you know, this is, this sounds like something I might be interested in doing. What would the process be like? Either I contact you via your website or a phone call.
How would the onboarding and the process go?
Melanie Zaelich - Happy Place Interiors / The Designer’s Blueprint: Yep, there is a website, the designersblueprint.com and you can sign up right on there. Also on that website, I think towards the bottom you can book like a discovery call type of thing if you want to chat for 15 minutes to say, hey, is this the right program for me?
Like, this is where I'm at. This is kind of where I want to go. Do you think that the blueprint would help me get, get here? So it's, that's also available. So an email, phone call. There's also 100% money back guarantee because I stand behind it
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: okay. I'm also curious you how you said you never really took to the idea of having, you know, this really large design firm with all sorts of employees and having to deal with all of that. How does running your business the way you do impact your home life, your, your day to day, not just the business side?
Melanie Zaelich - Happy Place Interiors / The Designer’s Blueprint: Oh, sure. Well, now that I've got it all figured out, it's great. But I mean, now it's good. But when I started, you know, I'm, I'm very lucky with my background, the 20 years of advertising and branding, because that really, when I started, I got busy within a couple months.
And I can I attribute it to my background that I was able to build my own website, make it look good, do the branding and everything, but everything from there, you know, my path was just wild, which affected my home life, right.
Part of me wanting to leave corporate America and my advertising job was my daughter was 2 years old, so my goal was by the time she hit kindergarten that I would be successful enough where I could attend the PTA meetings if I wanted to, or see her school plays or be flexible to have that home life with my daughter.
And my husband too. We can't forget about him. But, but because I was so busy trying to figure out the staging and the full service, I was overly busy. So that's why two and a half years ago, my daughter is now 11.
She's in fifth grade now, but back when she would have been probably third grade or so is when I was like, I need to cut off the full service. I need to call it down and perfect what I'm doing with the consults. And since then it's been great.
Like the work life balance is beautiful because I set my hours right, I have specific days, specific types of consultations can be booked on certain days because I do offer a la carte services. So I'll give feedback to clients.
They pay for everything. Like I don't do any work for free at all, but I do extra work. Like I'll do digital mock ups, fireplaces, and if you want to change it out to a different stone or a brick or paint it or whatever, I can do digital mock ups of these things.
So I have Fridays set aside where it's all client work, or I go up to the lake, right? Or I hang out with my daughter. Like it's whatever I want it to be, or I have, but I don't allow people to schedule on Fridays.
So if somebody's kid was sick and a client needs a reschedule, they'll probably land on a Friday. So it's really. There was a lot of organizing of time and implementing different systems and processes to make my home life easy peasy now and all of that I put in the blueprint because I don't want anybody else to have to go through the wild ride that I kind of went through to get to where I am.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: No. Well, you paint it, you paint an attractive picture for sure. Like I said about, you know, podcasts and, and how designers seem to be are being told what they should do to consider themselves a successful interior designer.
And to me, I never understood that. I mean, there's so many different paths, like different kinds of businesses that you can run and it's not going to be the same for, for everybody.
Definitely the local aspect. I want to come back to that. When it came to you as you made this switch, you already had clients and you already had a name where you were. If somebody was starting out, graduated, maybe had, say they'd worked for somebody for a couple of years and they were feeling this itch to go out on their own, I'm guessing this is a smart way to.
Even if they, they wanted to go that path of full service, this would be a great way to get started. And then as you need to build up contacts with contractors and trades and all that kind of stuff, do you find in this, in this first kind of swath of clients you've had for, for your, the blueprint that you're getting younger designers or is there any kind of demographic there?
Melanie Zaelich - Happy Place Interiors / The Designer’s Blueprint: Yeah, it's still, you know, it's still newer. But I do think what you said about like a younger designer maybe working for somebody, maybe wanting to branch out. I do think the consultations is a great way to get started.
And with the blueprint, I think it would help. What would help them is add, you know, obviously the branding of this new company. Right. The marketing of the new company. And also I go through super detailed about how to do a consultation.
So if they've only worked in the full service, you know that's going to be different than the hands on with people. So I go through that specifically. So I think it would be great. In fact, just this morning I had a young woman who is graduating in May of 2025 with her degree and I mentioned it to her as an option down the road.
And if you ever want to pursue your own, keep this in mind. But as far as the current people enrolled in the program, it's really interesting. They, they are all right now as much as I know because I don't know.
I know personal details or business details, rather, of about half of them, but not everybody. Okay? And I know these either because they're local Minneapolis designers or because we had this discovery call right, where they kind of told me what their situation is and how they want to grow.
But for the ones that I know personally or business wise, they are semi established. They've been in business for at least six to 10 years. They, most of them are in a position where they offer everything, consultations and full service.
Most of them want to stop doing full service because of the stress, you know, and the anxiety. The stress, the time demands, the constraints, the I can't take vacation because so and so's house, you know, whatever.
Like the. All the kind of downsides of full service, you know, all those types of. So these people are all wanting to move into consultations or expand the consultations because they're not being profitable with the consults yet.
So they want to drop full service, do consultations, but make enough money on them, you know. So that's kind of where they're at right now.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Okay, could we go through some of the modules or chapters or sections of your, of your program, of the blueprint, and kind of give us like a hypothetical designer how they're, how they work their way through that?
Melanie Zaelich - Happy Place Interiors / The Designer’s Blueprint: Yep, yep. I call them. Yeah, there's six modules. I call them steps. But, you know, step one through six. Step one is really about creating your, like a solid foundation.
And I came up with four power blocks, as I call them. But it's about knowing the market, who's going to hire you. It's about, you know, your niche. It's about who your ideal client is. And the biggest part is how to develop a brand that showcases all these things and connects with your ideal client.
So that first step is huge. You know, just getting that's like foundation for everything. And then, and ideally, you know, a person enrolled would go through each step in chronological order.
And then you move. Once you have that foundation set, then you move on to your services and fees. What exactly are you going to offer and how much are you going to charge for it? And again, you can't really answer those things until you have your foundation set because everything goes back to your ideal client and you and who you're going to serve.
Right. Then you move on to the actual consultations. Like, once you figure out, like, what your services or the consultations, you might have packages, maybe there's a three consult package for renovations, you know, whatever it is Then we talk about going through and crafting the client experience.
And I get really detailed about that kind because what I've seen in a lot of interior design, like business Facebook groups and stuff is I've seen so many posts where a designer had some sort of a consultation and then the client didn't get what they expected, you know, So a lot of this is about setting expectations and how to do that and how to communicate those expectations clearly.
So that, because the goal is really every single consult that you have should be five star. So this section is really about how to do that. Because if you miss, if you miss on one, you know, and your client's upset or frustrated, you know, the word of mouth, the, you know, all that kind of stuff, right?
So there's a whole section on having like this amazing client experience and then we move on. Oh, and I talk about the tools, like, what do I have in my car, what do I bring to consultations? You know, like, we go through all of that kind of neat part of it.
And then step four would be talking about optimizing for efficiency, like automation, tracking time, like making sure that when you're working that you're being efficient and effective, right?
And you're not just like wandering, you know, not sure of what you're going to be doing, making sure that your clients or emails are always being taken care of, you know, so we talk about different things like that and then we go into step five, which is also a super big one, which is all about marketing, right?
Which again ties back to the first step, which is all about branding and your client, you know, so everything does just build on each other, right? So by the time you get to your focus marketing plan, you know who you're targeting, you know what you're offering, you know how much you're charging, you know exactly how to make this amazing client experience.
And now you bring it to market, right? And this is how you do it. And so that, that has a lot of, a lot of lessons. Each step has multiple lessons involved and after each lesson there's action steps to take, right?
So as you're going through, you're basically filling out your business plan and answering everything. So by the end you have everything laid out that you're going to do and how you're going to do it and who you're going to talk to and how you're going to talk to them. But in, in the marketing part is a ton about social media, SEO websites, we talk about messaging and there's, you know, I've Been on a gazillion interior design websites and you know, my background is.
This is my background, right. So there's a ton about messaging, ton about visuals. We talk about social media versus evergreen content. Like we get into like all of that and then step six is growing.
Diversification would be if you want to offer a la carte services, if you want to do affiliate marketing, if you, you know, all that kind of more quote passive income making extra money through vendors and trades people or different things like that.
And so by doing the action steps after every single lesson, by the time you finish step six or module six, everything is completely laid out for you exactly how you want it to be. Because what one designer offers, right.
Is hopefully going to be different than another designer. Like maybe somebody just wants to do paint and color consultations. Maybe somebody wants to focus in on the boomer market who are moving into these transitional housing, you know, the aging in place type of situation or neurodiversity, you know, and creating rooms and spaces for these kids with autism.
I mean there's so many things out there and part of what I do in the, in the blueprint is I have different ideas of different markets and niches that people could put potentially think about because I think as interior designers we, I don't know how but we just kind of think about your, kind of your basic needs.
Right. Or your basic living room design or, or house renovation. But there's so many different little markets and places that people could work and that there's really a need for.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Yeah, I, I've got a friend who focuses exclusively on biophilic interior design and it's kind of a buzzword right now, but she's been doing it for almost 20 years and it stemmed out of a personal thing for her like how she brought that into her life and then she became a designer as a second career and it was just a no brainer.
So there's so many options of what you can do. Yeah, I'm wondering about. I've got a couple of questions based on what we just said. Referrals. How much of your business is referrals?
And would you assume that the same thing would kind of track with somebody who was, who just got into setting up a consultation based service?
Melanie Zaelich - Happy Place Interiors / The Designer’s Blueprint: My referrals. You know, it's kind of funny, I only started asking where did you hear about me?
About a year or two ago. So I haven't been tracking it that long. So sometimes I'm referred by somebody but it never came up right in conversation. Now I ask Specifically who referred you, But I would think about 25.
20-25 is probably referral based, give or take.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Yeah. And I mean, repeat business. We talked about that. I think that would be a fantastic way to keep your pipeline, you know, constantly refilling.
Another question I was wondering about is we touched briefly on technology and automation. The big thing right now, obviously, is artificial intelligence. And I remember, you know, a few months ago, suddenly all the interior design podcasts started talking about it and people, people across all sorts of industries started freaking out that, you know, we're going to be replaced by robots, blah, blah, blah.
And I think what you're doing is like that exact niche where AI and technology almost can't touch. Right. Like a lot of the behind the scenes stuff, the back of the house stuff. Right.
Fill your boots on automation for that. All, all your bookkeeping, procurement, all those kind of things will probably have a strong AI influence. But you sitting down, you know, and looking that, that homeowner in the eye and them understanding that you get what they're saying, what they want.
Right. And I'm like, so it's almost like you're kind of bulletproofing your business from technology.
Melanie Zaelich - Happy Place Interiors / The Designer’s Blueprint: Absolutely. Yep. And I know there's a lot of AI programs out there where people can like, virtually design their own space or whatever, and I'm not concerned at all about that because even if people see a picture like that, they don't know how to do that.
And it's kind of like what I said earlier about all the Instagram and Pinterest, that all the posting that designers do, people still need somebody in their house to show them, you know, they, they can't make the leap from one thing to the other.
So as far as AI is concerned with the homeowner and what I provide, I don't see any competition.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: And I mean, to further back that up, all of these AIs are trained on all the information they've scraped off the Internet.
How is the interior design advice scraped off the Internet going to match up to what you know or what a designer who's been doing this for 20 years in a specific locale, who knows all the, the best stores to go to, who the best trades are?
I mean, until they can pull that information out of your brain and put it into their, into their model, it's. It's apples and oranges.
Melanie Zaelich - Happy Place Interiors / The Designer’s Blueprint: Absolutely. Yeah, it is.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Okay. Well, this has been fantastic. That's all the questions I have. Is there anything you think I've missed that, that we should cover?
Melanie Zaelich - Happy Place Interiors / The Designer’s Blueprint: I don't think so. I think, I think we covered everything. I guess the only thing else that I'd want to say is that, that I think there's even a big market for full service design companies that have a team.
I think there's a really good potential for that full service design company to have like a segment that does just consultations and has specific designers that just do those.
Right. So you have a big firm, they probably get a lot of calls and I think that these big firms think, oh, it's small potatoes and then maybe some cases it is. But if they had one or two consultation based designers on staff to do those consultations, it can also grow their full service side.
So I think that there's an opportunity for those companies to do this and maybe it's a freelance designer, maybe it's not a staff member, but like a contract designer that goes out and does consultations on behalf and so, and so big design firm.
Right. So I think there's opportunity for those firms to grow. But I do think that the blueprint with the, how they'd have to market different and knowing the markets and the mindset especially and how to manage those expectations, I think that would be really valuable for them if they were interested in having a branch or a leg with just consultations.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Yeah. And do you think, I mean, I think they probably would need to definitely make that, that separation between their, their full service. You can't be. Which makes sense, right. If you've got nothing but designers who are doing full service and you say o, okay, I want you to take X number of hours out of your week to do just consultation, that's going to cause drama with your schedules.
But if you have a separate branch altogether doing that, that's another excellent idea. Maybe for a design firm that is doing full service that would like to grow instead of just looking at doing more of what you do, offering this as a separate service, brand new set of clients come in the door
Melanie Zaelich - Happy Place Interiors / The Designer’s Blueprint: and even though there's, you know, the people that would hire the consultation designer versus a full service, they're very different people. But it doesn't mean that that person who would hire the consultant doesn't have friends who would want the full service. Right. And so many of my clients that I work with that hire me are actually really good.
They just need a little extra guidance and direction. So sometimes I walk into a house and I'm like, wow, this looks amazing. Like what am I going to be able to help? And then they have all these specific little questions that they want but those types of people might have friends that are more interested in full service.
And then they see my client's house thinking, oh my gosh, your designer from big firm helped you do this. I want to call that big firm and have them do it all for me. So I think there's a good crossover. And I also think that if an owner of a big, a bigger firm, right, with staff, they could also make local connections with consultants to referral base, back and forth referrals.
Because I still get, even though it's clear on my website, as clear as I can make it that I do consultations, I get full service inquiries all the time. At least five a week, if not 10 a week between bath kitchen remodels, full service, like the whole nine yards.
So partnering up with local interior design consultants or consultant based companies and big service firms, there could be a really great partnership to boost each other. Because I really think that, you know, a lot of designers talk about the general public not having a good idea of the value design brings.
And I think that the more people that experience design, whether it's through a full service agency or a consultant type person, the more people that experience it, it's going to become more common knowledge like, oh, designers can really bring the value.
And I don't have to spend, you know, $50,000, right? But I got the value of design because I think as an industry as a whole, we want people to understand the value that we bring. We just have to start bringing it on different levels.
If that makes sense.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: No, total sense. I knew I was going to love this conversation. I am so glad we did this. I am so glad. That's perfect. I will make sure all your contact information for both your design services and for the blueprint program are in the show notes and all that good stuff and hope to circle back with you again and we can have another chat maybe in six months or so.
Melanie Zaelich - Happy Place Interiors / The Designer’s Blueprint: That'd be fabulous. I would love that.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Okay, fantastic. Thanks a lot, Melanie.
Melanie Zaelich - Happy Place Interiors / The Designer’s Blueprint: Thank you.
Why Interior Designers Benefit From Considering The Consultation Model
Why Interior Designers Benefit From Considering The Consultation Model
Interior design education often focuses primarily on full-service business models. Melanie reveals that successful interior designers create alternative structures that offer distinct advantages:
Consultation-based interior design creates more predictable monthly revenue
The model eliminates contractor management while maintaining design influence
Clients receive valuable expertise they implement at their own pace
Your professional calendar becomes more controllable and predictable
Your creative energy remains focused on design rather than project management
This approach enables interior designers to connect with a broader range of clients while maintaining professional excellence and personal satisfaction.
The Consultation Business Blueprint
According to Melanie, successful consultation-based interior design practices depend on four structured elements:
Building a solid foundation with her Four Power Blocks system to attract ideal clients
Understanding the different motivations and needs of consultation clients
Establishing clear professional parameters from the initial client contact
Implementing efficient systems that maximize consultation effectiveness
Creating marketing strategies that specifically attract consultation-ready clients
The difference between interior designers who thrive with consultations and those who struggle isn't design talent—it's having a structured, strategic business approach.
Transform Your Interior Design Business Through Strategic Consultations
Interior designers who implement Melanie's approach report meaningful business transformations:
More consistent income through higher-volume, systematized consultations
Improved schedule control with clear start and end points to client relationships
Enhanced creative satisfaction from focusing on design rather than management
Greater professional autonomy with the ability to designate personal days
Increased client diversity by serving different segments of the market
The goal for many interior designers extends beyond financial success to creating a business that complements rather than competes with personal priorities. Strategic consultation-based practices achieve this balance by refining how interior design expertise is delivered to clients.
Connect with Melanie Zaelich - The Designer’s Blueprint
If you want to explore building a consultation-based interior design practice that maximizes both profitability and personal satisfaction, connect with Melanie at:
Instagram: @happyplaceinteriors
Free 15-minute discovery call to assess if this model aligns with your goals
The Designer's Blueprint comprehensive program
Private Facebook community for ongoing professional development
Join the Interior DesignHer Community
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