I LOVE mentoring emerging designers. They’re so eager and excited to launch their design biz, and bring wonderful fresh energy to our industry!

If you’re an about-to-graduate designer you probably have the same questions as many other new designers. I’m here today to answer 1 of the top 3 questions I get: Should I get an internship?

Internships? Yes!

I’m a big fan of internships!

They’re a great resume builder, perfect for figuring out if a particular niche suits you, and amazing at leveling up your practical skills!

I’m also a fan of unpaid internships. (Stick with me here…)

Instead of getting paid a piddly amount of money for being a glorified coffee-getter and sample room organizer, I’d much rather you get practical, insightful information you can use as you develop your career. If you offer yourself as an unpaid intern you can actively shape the experience and make sure you get actual value and mentorship from the experience!

Where can you find an internship?

Obviously you can look for posted internships, or you can take a lesson from my first intern, Katie. She proactively reached out to me, a solo-designer at the time, because I was doing exactly the kind of thing she wanted to do – helping regular folks get happy at home. She reached out and asked to be my intern – for free.

I was in no position to hire at the time, but a free intern? What did I have to lose?

If you take this approach, think about what you want to learn from the person you’ll be interning with. Ask for regular weekly meetings to check in and learn from them. This should be time when you can ask questions about things you saw that week – interesting interactions with clients, vendor choices, whatever.

Most importantly, think about how your internship can level up both your resume and your practical knowledge. How about interning with a cabinet maker or upholsterer? The more you understand about *how* things are built, the better equipped you’ll be to help your clients. How about interning with a showroom? The more you understand about sales and profit margins, the better you can decide if that will be part of *your* process.

The key is to be strategic with your choice. At worst it’ll give you practical insight into our industry so you know what you do – or don’t – want to do in YOUR biz. At best it’ll develop into a mentorship relationship, and maybe even a job!

Things to Watch Out For:

🤨 Watch out for internships that just have you organizing samples and getting coffee – your learning opportunities may be limited. If you’re not getting real value for your time in terms of learning and growing as an emerging designer, you should be paid.

🤨 Watch out for designers who overpromise. They may have great intentions of meeting with you weekly and mentoring you, but if they fall short and you’re not getting value but you’re still doing helpful things for them – you should be paid.

🤨 Watch out for designers who don’t have great business systems. You can still intern for them because you’ll get to peek behind the curtain at a hot mess, but you’ll have to work harder to corral them and get value for your time. If you’re improving their systems but not learning anything new, you probably deserve to be paid.

Only you can determine what will make an experience valuable enough to make it worth your investment of time, but I encourage you to consider unpaid internships. They tend to be easier to land and, done well, they can be more valuable than design or business school, and you won’t even have to pay any tuition!

How to Reach Out:

If you’re ready to courageously reach out to business owners, take the time to do it right.

What to do:

1. Be personable, and reflect the brand of the company you’re reaching out to. My company, for example, used light and happy language and a lot of emojis 😅 so writing to me in a stiff, formal way would signal to me that you’re not the right personality fit for my brand or my clients.
2. Be specific, and make them an offer they can’t refuse. Think about the non-design skills you have to offer. Maybe you can leverage your old job skills to help them out for 5 hours a week in exchange for 5 hours a week of client-shadowing and design mentorship?

What not to do:

1. Don’t waste their time. I’ve never met a business owner with “extra” time on their hands 🤣🤣🤣 so while it’s okay to comment on a cute cat photo on their instagram feed, you really need to demonstrate that you value their time and that you know how important efficiency is to the bottom line.
2. Don’t be afraid to follow up. It’s okay to say “I know you’re busy and have a full inbox so I’ll follow up again in a week with a quick phone call to make sure this made it to you.” (Threatening me with a phone call was always a great way to get me to answer back lol.) Grit and persistence is a business strength so following up once or twice is a-okay. Just don’t be a pest (obviously). 😉

I hope that helps as you launch your design career! If you’re going out on your own and want to make sure you have the “back-end” of your business ready before you launch, consider business coaching. Just like your school tuition it’s definitely an investment, but if you pick the right coach for where you’re trying to go, you’ll definitely get there faster and with fewer expensive mistakes along the way.

If you want to build a flat-fee, no-more-markups residential design biz like I did, I’d love to shorten the learning curve for you!

Wondering what the biggest questions I get asked by emerging designers?

1. How do I get clients? Especially without a portfolio?
2. I want to go out on my own, but first I want to learn from someone else. How can I get a job without industry experience?
3. What should be in my design agreement?

Wondering what the biggest questions I get asked by established designers?

1. How do I get clients to trust my advice and stop second-guessing everything?
2. How do I get more of the kinds of clients and projects I want and less of the kind I don’t want?
3. How can I shorten the design cycle and get clients to make decisions?
4. How can I get clients to stop texting me at all hours, and sending me random Wayfair finds?

I’m here to help you work through questions just like these, and signing up for a sesh with me is as easy as picking a date on my coaching calendar!

Wish you could work with me as a business mentor but not quite ready to make the investment? I offer free hot-seat half-hour sessions for brave souls willing to share their Big Question with the world. If you’d like to apply for a hot-seat sesh, fill out this form and tell me the Big Question you want me to answer! 🤓

I’ll be here when you’re ready, and I know you’ve got this! 💪