Why I’ll pay more for enthusiasm...

and your customers will, too

My husband and I are total design geeks. I subscribe to 742 design magazines and check Chris Loves Julia like it’s the news. If I had a manifestation candle I’d probably light it and think about Amber Lewis and Pierce and Ward insisting on collaborating to design my home while I politely agree.

My husband’s brand of design click bait is more like: “Super-modern geothermal cabins in northern Sweden”– less practical, but also awesome!

Alas, like the cobbler’s children, our home has no shoes. We know what we like when we see it, but we can never decide on anything, so our home has a lot of spaces like this:

A nice person might call this a “minimal design aesthetic.” I call it “just buy some freaking chairs and a lamp Torrance, you’ve lived here for three years!”

We’ve experimented with Havenly (pretty good!) but lately have been feeling ready for the ultimate commitment: hiring an interior designer!!! EEKKK!!!!!!

We searched for months and then we found her!!! Our dream designer!!! We were so excited we stalked every inch of her website and instagram just thinking about how much fun working with her would be.

I sent her a contact email talking about our project and how excited we were and how awesome we think she is, and the next day, I received this reply:

Ummm, no. You are not for me.

You see, I’m extremely biased in this situation, and I happen to think that my project is the COOLEST PROJECT EVER. Guess what? I want you to think so too.

Lots of people can get a job done- but I need enthusiasm. I’ll 100% pay more for enthusiasm.

We all want to believe that we’re secretly the favorite project/client of whoever we’re working with.

Likewise, your customers want to feel that you are excited about the specifics of their project/store/etc!

This reminded me of a recent blog post I read on designer (duh!) Emily Henderson’s blog recently that I loved so much I sent it to my entire sales team. It describes how they ultimately decided on an architecture firm after interviewing five different ones, and this quote really jumped out at me:

“This is the exact project we love to do”

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That sentence will make you so much money (and incidentally also make your job more fun!).

Even though we all love enthusiasm, when it comes to interacting with customers and clients I think that our interior designer friend, with her cool response and lack of evident enthusiasm is actually in the majority.

Most of us are so nervous about looking professional and being taken “seriously” that we forget we’re talking to people- especially when we’re talking to clients or prospects. And especially when we’re talking to clients from big famous companies.

I’ve been there, too. I used to try to sound like a robot, so clients would know I was a real, serious company with a real, serious product to sell. But it didn’t work and it never felt like me. I quickly learned that being your wonderful, enthusiastic self means you often end up attracting wonderful, enthusiastic clients and buyers, too.

Plus, it’s so much more fun to show your personality! My advice? Don’t blend into the crowd. Be yourself.

And the next time you’re drafting a client email or about to hop on a sales call, put yourself in your clients’ shoes. Think about what sort of personality you would like to hear on the other end of that email or Zoom call– then let your enthusiasm shine through!

xx,