Every discount you’ve ever given a client told them something you didn’t mean to say.
If you lowered your rate, you confirmed it was never fixed. If you passed along a discount without being asked, you told them your margins are bigger than they let on. Clients read pricing behavior like a signal, whether you intend to send one or not.
In this episode, we discuss the two places money moves in a design firm: services and product. Most designers treat them the same way. They’re not the same. Cutting hours isn’t the same as cutting your rate. Passing along a trade discount isn’t the same as competing on price. Confusing the two is the fastest way to downgrade your own positioning without noticing it happened.
There’s also a specific, deliberate way the most expensive luxury brands in the world still discount, and it has nothing to do with lowering price. Almost no interior designer uses this mechanism, even though it’s sitting right in front of them.
We name exactly where the line is, what it’s actually costing you, and the one move ultra-luxury brands make that most designers have never even considered.
