Copy Successful Designers... and you will be successful, too!

Bestselling writer and motivational speaker Tony Robbins said, "If you want to be successful, find someone who has achieved the results you want and copy what they do and you'll achieve the same results." In other words, if you want to run a successful design business, copy what successful designers are doing, and you'll achieve the same success.

So, what are successful designers doing? How do they work, think, act? Here are 3 traits that are common to successful designers:

1. Successful designers have systems
   What do you do when a call comes in? When you measure a room? When you hire a contractor? Do you have specific steps to follow for every part of your business? Or do you wing it? I used to! But I learned that "winging it" leads to chaos and confusion, and you certainly can't grow from there. Successful designers handle each part of their business the same way every time. They follow a system for everything. Systems lead to consistency, organization, and effectiveness.
2. Successful designers study marketing
   Unfortunately, being a terrific designer doesn't necessarily make you successful. In order to succeed in business, we need to be super marketers. Successful designers are either great at marketing, or they hire people who are. The most lucrative design firms actually spend more time and energy on marketing than they do on studying design.
3. Successful designers are detail-oriented
   This may seem obvious, but are you doing it? Successful designers take care with every detail of the business - from all aspects of office work to each element of design projects. This doesn't mean they do it all themselves (in fact, profitable design companies delegate a lot of the details. We will discuss delegating in a future ezine!), but they always make sure that every part of their business - down to the smallest details - supports their exceptional image.

You don't need to start from scratch. Just model what the experts are already doing, and you can have the same success. Good luck!