Business by Design this month examines the mixed views on whether designers, decorators and others can -- or should -- work for home furnishing franchisors.

THIS MONTH:
+ "Working For, Not By Myself"
+ Don't Call Us, We'll Call You
+ The Decorating Den Option

"Working For, Not By Myself"
Michele Reed is making the kind of sales, money and impact at age 36 she feels she never could as an independent designer.

She says her "buying power" as a Decor & You franchisee in Severn, MD. will enable her to close $200,000 in sales this year -- and earn many times the income she brought in working on her own.

It cost Reed $14,500 to purchase a franchise from Decor & You, a national interior decorating company, and she pays 10 percent royalties on her sales. In return, she receives significant discounts from the company's hundreds of vendors.

"Recently, I spent four hours with a client," recalls Reed, who buys wholesale and sells retail. "If I was still an independent designer, I would have made $500 in hourly fees. Instead, as a franchise owner, I made $12,000 in sales -- of custom bedding, window treatments, and more."

Adds Reeds: "Now, I'm working for myself, rather than by myself."

The nation's home furnishing franchise companies offer their franchisees a business model, a national reputation, marketing and advertising programs, and sales training, in addition to vendor discounts.

To hear some national franchise executives tell it, Michele Reed's successful transition from designer to franchisee is the exception, not the rule. Typically, they say, design pros lack the sales and business skills to run successful franchises.

Don't Call Us, We'll Call You
Some smaller home furnishings franchisors are looking to expand, but they're not looking for designers and decorators to help them.

That's because they find it easier to teach design skills to business pros than to teach business skills to designers.

"We pull people from outside the home furnishings world, and teach them design basics," says Jim Evanger, the CEO of Designs of the Interior(DOTI). "We don't care if they're color blind."

DOTI franchisees sell everything from furniture to window treatments at their retail stores. The company seeks to sell franchises to business executives who, in turn, hire seven to nine "design specialists."

The founder of V2K Window Fashions, Inc. says his company, too, prefers to sell franchises to people with general business experience.

"We don't care about 'Dolly Decorator," says Bob Leo, the chief operating officer of the company with 110 franchises in 40 states. "We aren't interested in people who are more focused on being decorators and designers than they are on making money."

Decor & You, whose 30 franchisees run home-based decorating businesses, also looks to Corporate America for new recruits.

"It's definitely easier to turn salepersons into designers than vice versa," declares Josie Cicerale, who helped launch Decor & You in 1998. "Designers are taught in design school that 'selling' is a dirty word. We disagree."

The Decorating Den Option
Design professionals seeking to make a career move can expect a warmer reception at Interiors by Decorating Den, an organization with more than 400 franchisees worldwide.

The company welcomes designers and decorators to purchase a franchise (for $24,900), then take advcantage of the company's business, sales and marketing training.

"More and more of our franchisees have a formal design background," Jim Bugg, Jr., the company's president, points out. "The biggest struggle for most independent designers and decorators is getting enough clients. With us, they can make profits on products without worrying about an hourly fee."

Bugg hopes the design background of its franchisees will help the company achieve the reputation as "the world's premier interior design and decorating system."