Some designers become very attached to the idea of getting published. They believe that this project is going to be the project that takes them from where they are to where they want to go. If you’ve read Malcom Gladwell’s The Tipping Point, you may be familiar with the concept of the magic moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire. So yes, you may get published (and you’re more likely to be if you’re relevant on social media, more on this next week!) and yup, it’s definitely going to feel good for a moment, a week or maybe even a month or two. People will finally know who you are for that moment, until they forget. Do you remember who was on the cover of AD last August?

One And Done Is A Myth

One of the biggest complaints I hear from designers is that they got published and nothing happened. Well, what did you expect to happen? Because the fact of the matter is that the nature of running an interior design business means that you’re going to have to get published, again, and again and again for it to really matter, for it to start to pay off in a way that is meaningful to your bottom line.

It’s not about one and done. It’s about growth over time.

That means you’re going to have to have structures in place to support sustained visibility over time. It means developing a strategy that will support your growth, including marketing and lead generation, that will lead you to getting the kinds of projects that cause you to be published again and again and again. It means you’re going to have to be developing a point of view, a conversation that will make you interesting to editors. Because editors are looking for interesting stories, new stories, and if you’re going to get published more than once, you have to have new stories to tell.

Is that the kind of design brand you’re building?