We were lucky to catch up with Marcella Domonkos recently and have shared our conversation below.

Marcella , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Do you think folks should manage their own social media or hire a professional? What do you do?

Social media is a full-time job if you want to grow your client base and keep your followers interested. I manage 90% of my social marketing.
In high workflow weeks I have my assistants do weekly posts and stories to help. I have never looked into hiring a team to manage my social media.
For interior designers your posts and stories are a mix of personal and professional. I fear that hiring an agency to handle it all, it will make my work feel less personal and it’s hard to convey the whys and stories behind our design decision making. Having your internal team help you with your social is a great idea. They are attached to all of these projects just as much as I am and our passion for what we do really shines through our posts.
I would say 75% of my clients find me through social media or are referrals from previous client’s who tell them to follow us.
Our social media is our main portfolio and I strive to make sure who I am as a person and what my work means to me comes across in a way that makes potential new clients feel comfortable with working with us.
You never know who is watching.

Marcella , before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I am the principal designer and owner of MD Design Co. We have been working with clients since 2016. We have clients all over the board. From new builds, full home remodels, exterior updates, kitchen and bath remodels. We also take on refresh clients. These are clients who want to update their home without any construction. We update paint, hardware and furnishings. I started working as a designer with APEX Homes in Denver. They are a build design business who specialize in new construction. Since then, I have grown my business and have a couple assistant designers who help with orders, boards, sourcing and scheduling. On average we run 8 to 12 projects at a time that range from new builds to refresh projects.
We work and live in Denver Colorado but serve out of state client’s as well. We have several projects in southern California and have done work in Texas, Montana and Florida to date.
We pride ourselves on our flexible services. We work directly with the client on what they need from us, and we make it work. If they need us to find them the build team, source subs, fly out to meet them in person, just source soft goods or consult on a partially done project.  Most of our currunt clients are full scale projects. We work with them on the entire scope of the remodel from finding architect’s, connecting them with builders, contractors, designing and selecting all the soft goods. Sometimes a homeowner just needs to bounce ideas off of someone. We love those consulting clients as well. We do it all or as little as needed.
We find that when we make ourselves available and treat the smaller projects with as much passion as the full-scale projects those usually become repeat clients who end up having us work on their entire home over many years.

Thats the real measure for success in my opinion. When they keep coming back, we have earned their full trust and nothing beats that as a designer.

We’d love to hear about how you keep in touch with clients.

This is so important. Our main source of marketing is social media and referrals. We make sure with every project that we leave them with everything they need from us and more. This means working on vacation and taking late night calls, when necessary, this means going above and beyond for them even if it’s not in the scope of work you outlined in the beginning. I am consistently following up with all my clients and making sure that everything we worked on is still in good quality, running and that nothing is in need of repair.
I want every client who we have worked with to think of MD Design first when someone asks them if they know of a good designer.
Most of the time, we work with our clients repeatedly. They come back when they are ready to tackle their next project so keeping up with them in between fosters that trust and helps them see they are still a priority even after the project is complete. Most of our clients, by the time our project is done usually become friends and people I genuinely love to see.
Working on someone’s home is much more than design, we are given access to their private space, helping them make big financial decisions for their family. We know how special that is and take it pretty seriously.

Any advice for managing a team?

My career prior to design was in retail management. A lot of my training on how to run a team comes from that experience. I have found that to grow and manage a team that will ultimately make you more successful as a business owner is to hire people who are smarter that you or have the skills that you don’t possess. Your team should be able to bring ideas to the table that you yourself would have never thought of. I love when my team can design a space that blows me away or comes up with a new strategy on how to streamline our process.

Encouraging them to be 100% honest and letting them take the reins in areas that you lack gives them a purpose and ownership in your business. I think remembering that this is your dream and not theirs helps keep you in check.
Constantly asking yourself why they would want to work with you, what can I offer them to keep them coming back and want to give it their all is key to making a happy and productive team.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://mddesign.co/
• Instagram: @themddesignco

Image Credits
Photographer: Rae Barber of https://interiors.raebarber.com/