Are you over-delivering in your proposal?

Interior designers often over-deliver at proposal stage — sharing mood boards, design direction, and creative strategy before a client has signed or paid a deposit. This episode asks whether that's genuinely good service or anxiety dressed up as process. Rhiannon Lee, AI strategist for Australian interior designers, unpacks where the habit comes from, what it costs you, and why simpler proposals might actually convert better.
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CHAPTERS
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0:00 Why are interior designers over-delivering in proposals?
3:20 What happens when you give away the design direction upfront
7:45 Is your proposal too long — or are you scared of your own price?
12:10 What a $15,000 course with three Zoom calls taught me about value
17:30 How to hold back the strategy without losing the client
22:05 Should your proposal be a one-pager?
26:40 How to use AI to audit your own proposal right now
31:15 Studio Build live round — what's coming and when
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RESOURCES MENTIONED
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→ Studio Build — 6-week AI implementation intensive: https://rhiannonlee.myflodesk.com/studiobuild
→ Studio CEO — 12-week business coaching program: https://rhiannonlee.myflodesk.com/f2hx86pcv4
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ABOUT RHIANNON LEE
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AI strategist for Australian interior designers. Former Oleander & Finch. Creator of the Studio Suite — Studio Learn, Studio Build, and Studio CEO — operational AI implementation for design businesses, not productivity theatre.
→ Instagram: @the_rhiannonlee
→ Website: re branded site coming soon 

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Transcript

0:29

Welcome to Designing Success from Study to Studio. I'm your host, Rhiannon Lee, founder of the Oleander and Finch Design Studio. I've lived the transformation from study to studio and then stripped it bare and wrote down the framework so you don't have to overthink it. In this podcast, you can expect real talk with industry friends, community, connection, and actionable tips to help you conquer whatever's holding you back. Now let's get designing your own success I paid four times what I charge in Studio CEO to get into a course last year, four times. And do you know what I got? A prerecorded videos, a Kajabi login, a Slack channel, and literally no one was talking. And I have never, not once, spoken to the person whose face is all over the sales page, all of the marketing, the person I actually thought I was buying access to under that topic, they were not there at all. They were not showing up. They were not walking anyone through anything. They were not accessible should anyone need them, and yet they were charging like quadruple what I charge, and they're selling more than me, and no one's asking for a refund. And I- it just got me thinking so much like why are interior designers building these 47-page proposals with mood boards and precedent images and material breakdowns and CAD drawings before the client has even given us the invoice? Like, are we over-delivering? Why are we giving away the strategy before anyone's even paid for it? I've been just thinking about it a lot lately, and I'm not, I'm not in either camp, what is right, what is wrong. I think we just need to have a really big conversation about it, about over-delivering and where it's coming from. Are we doing it because we love documentation and details, or because we're terrified of that end price point? Last week I talked about value pricing, and in order to get comfortable with value pricing, we live in a bit of a danger zone of over-delivering because we're uncomfortable about the big number at the end. But I have been burned by this many, many times in-- like early on, I would, you know, do these whole like design dossiers that went along with the contract, along with the invoice to show you that I understood the design direction when I was in the in-home consult. That is essentially concept one, and you know what it did? It made delivering the concepts less exciting for the clients because they're like,"We already saw this in the original pitch or proposal that you sent through to win the work. So you're not showing me anything exciting, and I feel like concept... two concepts had a price point, but you're not delivering anything different than what we saw in the original design dossier that came along with the contract and the onboarding information and the scope of works and the investment terms and all of this detailed information." I've also had feedback from clients in the past that, you know, they've sat on the proposal for longer than need-- they wanna say yes, they just don't understand. So I have overcomplicated that proposal to the point where they've needed to sit on it for two or three weeks and read through every little detail because it feels like, you know the scene in Willy Wonka when he walks in and he opens the contract up on the wall and he's like,"For fire, flood, or frippery," and like they go through all these things and he's like,"You stole Fizzy Lifting Drink." Like it's a trap, right? So hopefully you... I- surely everybody knows the original Willy Wonka. I don't have to go into that. That can sometimes be what it feels like to receive a really in-depth proposal. I am not suggesting you strip it back to nothing and just be like,"No problems, no details. I cost this much. You know, I don't get out of bed for less than$10,000." That's not the vibe. I wanna have the conversation in the industry because I'm really curious as to what you guys think, because I see so much of what's happening. Uh, and a client inquiry comes in, designer gets really excited, they wanna show them what they can do. They build this beautiful, detailed, exhaustive proposal, and they include, like, all these pr- like images from Pinterest. They walk them through the process. They show them what the space could look like. You're essentially doing a mini concept presentation before they have paid a cent or signed or agreed. And in some cases it means that they take that and are like,"Excellent design direction. We've got it from here," and you don't get the yes that you're looking for. And the designer's telling themselves,"This is just good service. This is how I show value or how I articulate my value." But is it? Like, I'm not sure. I wanna sit with it for a little while. I'm pulling this podcast off the cuff of something I was thinking about. I was standing on my studio d- there's a deck on my studio, and I was standing out there in the sunshine. I was like,"What can I talk about this week?" I know that AI can feel, like there's just so much conversations about AI, and I was having a conversation with a designer who reminded me that I don't talk as much about the design business that I run. I am still a working designer, which there's only one other design mentor in Australia that I can think of who's still Actually two that still take clients in that way. Now m- my business is heavily reduced. Is now operationally one design project at a time so that I can invest so much of my time into designers, AI strategy for designers, and sitting in that niche, which is mine alone in Australia, which is the intersection between AI workflows and interior design businesses. But it's really important to me that I run an interior design business if I want to help you streamline and systemize an interior design business. There are at least three examples I can think of straight off the top of my head of design mentors in this industry who have not walked a space for a decade or more. They were a designer 10 years ago, and what we needed and what we did 10 years ago is just being regurgitated back to the new designers coming into the industry in a way that's somewhat dangerous because it's not relevant. It doesn't-- That's not how we work anymore. Like, we can automate things. We have AI. We have, we have to completely flip our workflows because just having a Canva presentation for your proposals is tired. And I know this probably sounds really rude, but I had a private coaching client just three weeks ago show me an example of her documentation. I went,"Ugh, can we please change the font?" Every designer who has bought these online templates, they're all shopping from the same place, and it all looks exactly the same. And if I'm tired of it, it's because I see all the designers' different proposals. But you're not differentiating yourself in the industry if you're buying all the same templates and not properly amending them. Like, it's as simple as, like, replace all on the font, and then yours doesn't have Britney. If I see Britney again in a design proposal, I might scream. And I'm so sorry, I'm just always gonna give it l- like how I see it, and it's nothing wrong with that template. It is such a great thing to have a template and to have a starting point. But please customize it in a way that works for your studio and steps you out and makes you different. And I think those particular people in the industry that are referencing what worked 10 years ago, five years ago it's just not as strong as maybe those that are currently working. Like, even things that I was talking about 10 months ago, I suddenly try to implement them in my Bush Court project, and I was like,"Ugh, you know what? This could be better. I don't think this is still the working solution for how I wanna deliver it." So I changed it. I used AI. I, you know, leveled it up, and then I shared it with my network through Slack and through my community to say,"Hey, I'm doing this now." Or when I switched to video documentation, I... As soon as I had run it in my own business three times and the feedback from my homeowners was like So different to what I had ever gotten, you know, that was so great. W- we're on board with the concept. We love it. I was like,"Right, this works." So I went and recorded a webinar to teach everyone inside of my courses how I record it, how I do it, how I upload it, how I deliver it, and it's end to end, and then it's a training module inside of my courses. So I felt like I was able to do that because I had I practice on my own homeowners. You know, I practice in my own business. I've done some wild things practicing for my students in-- and the people that I coach. You know, I've sent out very vulnerable emails, and I've sent out-- I've shared failures that I probably wouldn't share if I wasn't trying to see if that gets more engagement or, like, I'm constantly pushing the envelope a little bit. I feel like I am the guinea pig, and I'm okay with it. I want that. I, I wanna be able to do that because then I can realistically share valuable changes in the industry, things that, you know Or if someone says to me,"It's dead out there. It's just there's-- I'm doing everything and I'm getting nothing." I'm like,"Hmm, interesting,"'cause I'm doing very little and I've had three inquiries, so let's pick that apart a bit. And so because I am just curious by nature, this whole podcast episode is really just opening the question: Why are we doing it? Is it good service that we're doing this huge documentation, or is it a bit of anxiety? Are we doing it as part of our process because we're scared that the homeowner won't say less unless you prove yourself up front? I am that lifelong learner. I take all the courses. I've been in those$20,000 courses and paid the money, and I've seen what they deliver, and it's not over-delivered. It's not hand-holding. It's confidence to know I have curated the information. I have pulled the best of the best together. I have dropped it here. I've left it for you. You need to take ownership of that because success comes from, deeply knowing something is by doing something. It's why we've got Studio Build. And I'm really starting to think, is there a benefit in me showing up live every week, or would it be better to put extra time into tutorials and sit back? I'm not saying that, that I've made that decision yet. I'm just really thinking about it because other people are not showing up the way that I am. So is that me having some of that anxiety? I don't feel like that. I just feel like I would rather someone was there that has the knowledge that I can bounce my questions off, And I feel very strongly that 90 minutes of my time a week is, you know, it's a one-to-many model. It's not like I give each person 90 minutes. It's everyone dial in and I'll be there. I find that valuable as a consumer, so I tend to want to do that as the creator as well, to put that out there But often that$20,000 course, it's three Zoom calls, a Notion template, a Slack channel, and you just kind of figure it out on your own. There's a few sales pagey kind of automated emails. But those girls are printing money like, oh my gosh, which is go them. Like when one wins, we all win. But do you win if the experience isn't really there? I'm relating it to the design side of my business, but also the coaching side and the course creator side. And, you know, there are many arms to what I do. So, so I'm relating it to sort of things that I have done. But for you or for we as an industry, the ones out here building whole e-books for potential clients, whereas others are very clear, have just the sort of the scope and the investment. It's all laid out. Once you move forward, you get your welcome pack, you get inside of my world, and I unlock more information about the next steps and concepts. What I wanted to talk to today or what I wanted to talk about is making sure that, you hold back a little, get them to take you out on those dates and, get time, spend time with your client with the in-home consult, but then don't give it all up before you've even gotten the invoice. Because it feels to me like it's not because we're more generous. We're just sort of self-training ourselves to give so much upfront, but that means We can't over-deliver after the invoice and make them feel really special because we've been too generous upfront. I think that's because we don't trust our own pricing. Like that's all I can come up with is sort of thinking, oh, you know, are we trying to stack, value stack at the top end so that it's an easy yes? There are so many other ways we could get an easy buy-in to that value number, and it's in the emotional-- the emotive language. It's painting the picture. It's many of the things that I spoke about in last week's episode on value pricing. If you did not listen, if you haven't had a chance to catch up, by all means, as soon as you finish this episode, go back and listen to it or better yet, watch it on YouTube. It's it's an episode I'm actually really proud of. It got so much lovely feedback, and I, I really believe it's very helpful in terms of the trajectory of change that we need to be on in the interior design industry around pricing. Inside of a proposal we think if I want to charge$15,000 for this project I better show them it's worth$15,000 but we shouldn't have to justify or convince people about that$15,000 number at this point we're front loading everything and we're giving it all away and we do all of the sort of thinking the strategy the vision boarding before they've committed like don't tell me you haven't driven home from an in-home consult recently opened a pinterest board because you're like I'm going to brain dump what I was seeing in the home what I was thinking for the transformation and you do get home and do like 30% of the work up front in terms of 30% of the concept iteration before they've actually paid the invoice that's why it's so disappointing when we lose and I think that's why we overcompensate in the proposals I also see this happening all the time the amount of women I support who have opportunities with developers that they then lose two to three weeks worth of time pulling the proposal together really going deep really over delivering in that proposal for that opportunity a developer is generally just wanting to protect their margin and they're wanting to see a really low price point and I'm not going to talk too much about this on a public forum that's certainly something I coach inside of private coaching but I think that we are wasting a lot of time impressing people before we have a yes from them and then get ghosted right that's why ghosting hurts so much we get so confused when people ghost us because we put so many hours but they didn't ask you to do that you did that of your own volition when they take your ideas and go to another designer that shit hurts like it happens happens all of the time I can't even with that it's not ethical but it you didn't also it's not behind a paywall you gave it to them for free at the time of proposal or in follow-up documentation from the in-home console you're like yeah when I was there I was thinking this or after that after I left you I went down Swan Street in Richmond and I was in this lighting store and this would be perfect for the bathrooms nope zip it you guys are giving it all up you've got to go on some dates before you do and when I say you I mean we like I speak to myself in included in this I've gotten so much better at this in the last specifically two and a half years I think as I've stepped away from the busyness of my studio and had more of a coaching role when I am pitching and proposing it's a lot cleaner it's a lot firmer my boundaries are a lot stronger and I know what stays behind the paywall and what and also I think it's because I have been burned I have over delivered in such a way that when it's time to show the concepts I feel like the client's not that excited and it's on me because I gave it all up already when you do that, I feel like I hear a lot more of like,"Yep, thanks, we got that. We'll think about it," and they just never come back. And even if you've got good follow-up practices, it's very hard to convert when they're like,"Well, we pretty much know what you were gonna do for us, and we can go and do it." I once spoke to a designer who was sharing even the links when she was sharing her, like, I guess look and feel mood boards before they'd paid a single thing. I was like,"Babes, you- you're literally giving them a free design." So I know most of you out there are not doing that, but I thought it was good to share because it's, like, it's not to shame anyone. It's just to say, can you imagine? A- and is this coming because we're just so desperate not to lose the opportunity to win the work and to, to really justify and overcompensate for asking for that 15K. We've already solved their problem if we're giving it up at proposal. We've shown them exactly what's possible, and you've done half the job at proposal time. It's wild. Why would they actually need to hire you? Or that's when they come back and say,"Actually, we're gonna take out... we don't wanna do this, we do..." When it's'cause you're 50% of the way there, so now they only, they only wanna pay 50% of the cost. They only see 50% of the value. And I'm definitely not saying don't have a detailed proposal. I'm not saying don't explain your process or your scope, the investment, any of that sort of stuff. But I am saying, check yourself before you wreck yourself. Like, are we okay out there? Are we over-delivering because we love pulling together proposals? I love pulling together proposals. One of my favorite things is concept, and then I'm like,"Ugh, now I have to go do the work." Like... But I love... If I could just run a concept business, it's probably why I was an e-designer, because it's so close to being a concept only next. I live for that part of the job. But, you know, are we over-delivering in the proposal because we love to, like, pull it together, make it look beautiful, and are we actually scared of the number that we're pitching to win the work? Are we building this, like, 48-page document because that's generally... because it's actually how we work best, or is it because you think they won't see the value unless you prove it up front or they see, like... Because finalized detailed documentation is pages and pages, and it is all the CAD drawings, and it is incredible, but why can't you just have a screenshot of somebody's finalized pack and get them excited about what they could get as opposed to trying to give it to them before you've done the work? And, you know, it got me thinking when I was out on the, on the deck here, I was like, what if it was just a one-pager? I'm not saying that's right. I wanna have the conversation. What would happen if the proposal was just like,"Here's the scope, here's the outcome, here's the investment, here's when we start, here's how you pay"? That's all they really need. What if we kept all of the strategy and the look and feel and the design direction and the creativity inside the project where it belongs instead of putting it up front? I think I said it last week, I said it the week before, simple does sell, and I think people can sometimes feel quite overwhelmed about the process and intimidated by design language, by scope procurement. The word procurement isn't natural to people. They're like,"Oh, what is that? Oh, okay, so where you go out and shop it for us or where you go and source." There's so much industry jargon that we use, and we've convinced ourselves that more equals better when, you know, the rest of the world is out there charging four times as much as we charge for a hell of a lot less. Or, you know, really successful studios have this proposal down pat, and they're not mucking around in Canva for days. You know, I've got a very streamlined process now using Project Studio and templates. I do not muck around with my proposal. Penelope extracts everything I need from the transcript. It gets dropped into the proposal, and it gets sent off, and we do not share concepts. You know, once you pay your deposit, you unlock your living client portal. That is where you will start to see some of the design come to life, but not before. I don't know what came first, the chicken or the egg. Is it the industry sort of teaching us to build bigger proposals, more detailed quotes, more hand-holding, more free strategy? And then yet they don't do that in their own businesses, like coaches or other people that might say, you know,"Do this, do that." I think it's really important that you're getting your information from someone who's actually iterating and doing that for themselves, like those other mentors that I know of and myself that are working with design clients and going,"You know what? That's too much." There's, uh, templated legal documentation that you can get contracts for your business. If you have a simple floor plan review strateg- uh, package, for example, uh, and that's what you sell in your business, sending a 38-page contract is so intimidating to the client, and sometimes we just don't even think about that. But I don't want them to get that. I want the abridged version where they get a one-pager, and it's just everything that's necessary to deliver this floor plan package, not 38 pages of industry stuff that, goes into trades and responsibilities, things that are not relevant to doing a floor plan review at all. So I guess when I talked about different coaching containers and different deliveries, it was to give you the idea that, you know, if someone's selling a$15,000 course and you get three calls and a Canva template, that's not over-delivering. They're not anxious about what it is. They've just gone,"This is what I've promised. This is what has been delivered," and as long as that matches, the value is the number in between, and you are kind of the same. They're not proving their value every time someone asks a question. They've decided what they're worth. They've gone in, they've built something that works at scale, and they've moved on, and we can too. Why are we still writing books worth of individualized customized content for pitching work, pitching proposals, proposals that may not go ahead? I do not have the answer to this, by the way. I'm out here pondering. I just think it's worth asking. I think it's a conversation the industry deserves to have. Maybe you all disagree with me, and please, if you do, I love to know what you think about this. Drop into my DMs@the_rhiannonlee and tell me, Are you happy with your proposal? Do you think it's too big? Do you think it's too small? Have you ever had feedback from clients? Hard to get feedback from a ghost, so if they go somewhere, you may not know it was because of that. And look, I'm not saying that over-delivering is losing you clients. I'm saying, like, maybe it feels...'cause sometimes when I see things, I am a consumer as well of other services. You know, I've got family photography booked for this weekend. I've got other things. I'm always watching how people deliver their automations and how they deliver their information and do I feel loved and supported when I've given this person money or do I feel like,"Ugh, gross, I gave you money, and I didn't even get anything." You're not connecting with me. I'm very, very hyper-aware of this stuff because I wanna build the best client experience for my, um, designers that I work with and people that I'm helping put AI into their business. I'm always looking, like, how do we make this client experience a bit better? So I would say to you, keep your eyes out on that same stuff. Like, if you need a... Thinking of a service, I nearly said dishwasher repair, but, like, if you've got something coming up where you're going to engage a service provider, watch very carefully how they pitch for the work, what kind of proposal you get, what kind of level of invoice, and I guarantee you, if anyone else, you know, a$15,000 job does not come with a 40-page presentation of images and information. It's just simply like,"Yep, great. The roof tiles need replacing. It's$15,000. We have availability at this time, and these are next steps." Pretty simple. The whole purpose of today is just to ponder that question, are we ma- are we the ones making this harder than it needs to be? Like, is there any opportunity to streamline that even? And I would 100%, if you have not done this exercise, let's go and do it right now. Go to Claude or ChatGPT, upload your most recent proposal and ask it to roast it. Like, look for operational leaks. Look for areas that could be streamlined. Is the language using the correct bias psychology? Could I change the wording in this to make this an easy yes for the person who received it? That is a incredibly valuable activity to be doing today. Don't wait, like straight away, because why wouldn't you? You can get like incredible advice from AI actually looking through it and picking it apart and looking for opportunities to improve. Yesterday I did my Claude seminar for Studio Build. So it was a 90-minute how to set up Claude, how to create projects and skills, and how to understand what Claude does. And when I had finished, I immediately downloaded the transcript. I went over to Claude inside of my project that knows everything about Studio Build and I said,"Okay, this is what I promised from this week. This is the word for word transcript of what I delivered. Look for any disconnection. Is there anywhere I can improve? What worked? What didn't work? What has to change before the live round kicks off at the end of June?" Yes, that is a little Easter egg in here that no one else knows about. There is a live round coming. And yeah, it roasted it for me. But what was great is it starts off with what worked, what was amazing. You know, this is... And it was sort of pumping me up a little. It was like,"This is generally, genuinely one of the best analogies I've ever seen. They all got it. These people were really connected to what you were doing. These people felt a little bit confused." It could pull it out from the transcript. What didn't work, you know, the pace is brisk at, is a generous term. It, the, it's fast. It's hard when you are doing something new But you know, you have the recording. So we have these big conversations. So if you are looking to improve your proposal or you're worried after you listen to this episode today that,"Yeah, actually, am I over-delivering?" Have up- upload it, have that conversation, do that analysis. And I think the second we stop over-delivering out of fear about the number and fear of losing the opportunity and fear of a no, no is a good thing in your business. If you have 100% conversion and you never hear no, you're too cheap, you have a problem. Like, this is not a good thing. I wanna hear no sometimes, but I also just wanna build up everybody's confidence. That's what the value calculator that I'm making is all about. It's like, I need you guys to just see it, believe it, and just present it and move on. Like, the yes or the no is to the detriment of the homeowner. They either do get an incredible outcome, somebody advocating and a beautiful transformation, or they DIY, mess it up, do it themselves, or they go with something cheap. And that's not your choice. That's not up to you. Okay. That's it. That's it from me. Ted Talk over. Big mini rant about value over. Uh, if you enjoyed this episode and you are watching on YouTube, a comment share, subscribe, share it with a friend, please. Especially, all those people that dropped into my DMs last week about value pricing, I would just love it if you pushed that into your stories on Instagram or shared with one other designer and said,"Hey, give this a listen this week. This was really helpful for me." I know we all come through the ranks with designer friends. We all are a supportive industry, so sharing it with a couple of those and going,"Hey, what do you think of this?" Or even this episode and saying,"Do you think your proposal is, like, small, medium, or large, and why?" Let's have the conversation. I will chat to you in my DMs. Bye for now That wraps up another episode of Designing Success: From Study to Studio. Thanks for lending me your ears. Remember, progress over perfection is the key. If you found value in today's episode, go ahead and hit subscribe or share it with a friend. Your feedback means so much to me, and it helps me improve, but it also helps this podcast reach more emerging and evolving designers just like you. For your daily dose of design business tips and to get a closer look at what goes on behind the scenes, follow@oleander_and_finch on Instagram. You'll find tons of resources available at www.oleanderandfinch.com to support you on your journey. Remember, this is your path, your vision, your future, and your business. Now let's get out there and start designing your success