DESIGNED TO SUCCEED

Start your own interior decor biz—
no experience needed!

START YOUR OWN INTERIORS BY DECORATING DEN

Franchise Facts: The estimated initial investment ranges from $40,351 to $46,184 and includes an initial franchise fee of $29,900. Service fees are seven to nine percent of gross sales and paid twice monthly. They may decrease based upon the cumulative level of gross sales achieved. A four percent contribution to a national marketing fund is also paid twice monthly. INTERIORS by Decorating Den can be operated as a home-based business, but about 15 percent of franchisees operate from small studio facilities in a non-retail environment. Each franchisee holds the rights to a protected marketing and development area.

All Franchisees are required to acquire a ColorVan® vehicle with permanent decal decorations suitable for carrying samples to the customer’s home. Most franchise owners lease or finance the purchase of the ColorVan® vehicle from an automobile dealer if they do not already own an appropriate vehicle such as a full-size van, minivan or SUV.

While franchisees often come from the design field, others transition from a variety of backgrounds including business management, law, education, health care, administrative assistance, sales and homemaking. About 95 percent of INTERIORS by Decorating Den franchise owners are women, but many have spouses who often join the business as active, full- or part-time business partners.

Training and Ongoing Support: Initial training begins as soon as a franchise is purchased. Preparatory work with a local field support representative is followed by two weeks of dedicated classroom and experiential training at corporate headquarters. Following initial training, continuing education involves classroom work, home study, meetings, seminars and on-the-job experience.

Franchisees/decorators are trained in design, product knowledge, business management, sales and marketing. An Executive Franchise Program designed for experienced franchisees teaches business owners how to expand with additional staff (administrators, decorators and installers) and marketing exposure.

Visit www.decoratingden.com to learn more about this company.

About a year ago, the executive committee of INTERIORS by Decorating Den was holding its quarterly meeting. The topic was long-range planning and conversation centered on the stability and financial well-being the family-run company had enjoyed since chairman James Bugg, Sr., had acquired ownership in 1988.

After all, INTERIORS by Decorating Den had evolved into the largest shop-at-home interior decorating service in North America under the leadership of James Bugg, Jr., CEO since 1994. With 503 franchise owners throughout North America, the company added more than 150 new franchisees combined in 2006 and 2007 alone.

But the Bugg family—Carol Donayre Bugg is the company’s director of design and author of four design books—realized that it needed to challenge itself in reaching its next plateau of growth. So the decision was made to look outside the company for its next president.

Forty-nine-year-old Jeff Bevis was named president of INTERIORS by Decorating Den on Oct. 1, 2007. The affable Bevis, formerly an executive vice president at Comfort Keepers, has more than 22 years of experience in franchising. James Bugg, Jr. became vice chairman while remaining CEO.

INTERIORS by Decorating Den was originally founded in 1969 as a shop-at-home, custom window treatment company. It has a solid history and the tenure of its senior executive team reflects as much, averaging more than 20 years with the company. The extensive industry experience and stable leadership of those individuals has proven particularly effective in maintaining strong relationships with the company’s franchise owners.

And though he’s the new kid on the block, Bevis has fit into the INTERIORS by Decorating Den corporate team as smoothly as pulling on a favorite pair of loafers. He knows why he was brought on board and has gone about the business of, as he puts it, making the company even “more productive, more market-focused and working at a little faster pace.”

Thus, the short- and long-term growth objectives of INTERIORS by Decorating Den are as impressive as the room makeovers of its decorators, who specialize in working with both residential and commercial customers who are moving into or redecorating a home, office or retail location by designing around the client’s lifestyle and budget.

Bevis said the company’s goal is to add 120 new franchisees in 2008, more than doubling the 59 that were added in 2007. He expects the INTERIORS by Decorating Den franchise network to reach 750 owners by the end of 2009 and grow to more than 1,800 franchises in the next 10 years, further solidifying the brand in the highly fragmented interior decorating industry, a good portion of which is made up of small independent operators.

“There is a tremendous growth opportunity for both adding new franchises and increasing our retail sales at the franchise level,” Bevis said. “Over its almost 40-year history, INTERIORS by Decorating Den has withstood market changes, upturns and downswings with a solid base and operating system in place. This has given us a proven foundation to build anew in the years ahead.”

With an affordable estimated initial investment that ranges from $40,351 to $46,184, INTERIORS by Decorating Den can be launched as a home-based business, giving individuals the opportunity to become part of one of the most prominent and comprehensive full-service interior decorating companies in the world.

Women represent about 95 percent of franchise owners. While franchisees often come from the design field, others have transitioned from a variety of backgrounds including business management, law, education, health care, administrative assistance, sales and homemaking.

“The media exposure we have attracted for our franchisees over the years has been fabulous,” said Sue Pelley, national spokeswoman for INTERIORS by Decorating Den. “That’s not something a typical independent interior decorator has a shot at getting.”

While the creative work of INTERIORS by Decorating Den continues to draw a national spotlight, Bevis has been busy working behind the scenes and has already introduced a number of initiatives designed to position the company to take advantage of the unprecedented growth in the home furnishings industry. Even with the downturn in the real estate market, Americans are expected to spend more than $170 billion remodeling their homes in 2008. The initiatives include:

1. An increased emphasis on training to improve the marketing and networking capabilities of franchisees under new training director Melanie Jakab, a former franchisee. The new offerings will be included in initial training, field instruction and a new online program that will eventually contain 76 different training modules. “It will provide enhanced selling skills, role playing and networking training to our franchisees, no matter how long they have been with us,” Bevis said. “It will give us added brand awareness and bring greater sales confidence to our owners.”

2. A more proactive, aggressive approach to awarding franchises in specifically targeted markets where there are either few or no franchisees. Although always successful, previous marketing efforts had no geographic or market focus. Twenty initial markets have been targeted for the first four months of 2008 including Kansas City; Denver; Westchester, NY; Albany, NY; Seattle; Portland, OR; Dallas; San Jose, CA; Nashville and Chicago.

3. The completion of a first-ever Franchisee Satisfaction Survey that resulted in a 74 percent response rate with the company’s overall performance graded 4.0 out of 5.0 by franchisees. “It was really a customer satisfaction survey since the franchisee is the customer of the franchisor,” Bevis said.

4. Creation of a new senior leadership team to better serve the needs of field support managers and regional directors. The U.S. and Canada have been divided into three geographic groups with a senior staff member dedicated to the support, training and success of the field services in each group. Franchisees will benefit from the added coaching, direction and mentorship of their field manager or regional director as a result of more proactive support from the franchisor.

5. The franchise sales process has been overhauled by injecting stronger prequalification steps to improve the screening of candidates on franchising websites. As a result, the sales process has been accelerated using electronic tools and the communication process streamlined to more quickly identify the most serious and qualified candidates.

6. Improving market positioning by organizing and consolidating the company’s industry knowledge to stay more abreast of industry shifts that affect individual product lines so that client needs are always met. “We have extensive knowledge of the home furnishings industry, but we need to catch up to what is going on in each of the sub-markets by product line so we can stay in step with client needs,” Bevis said.

7. Pursuing independent designers as franchise candidates by offering a specialized and unique program to those who see the value in becoming part of the established INTERIORS by Decorating Den network and operating system. “This is an especially exciting new pursuit because it will add market presence for us at an even faster pace,” Bevis said.

8. Increasing non-residential business share from 14 percent to 30 to 35 percent, resulting in the opportunity to widen franchisees’ contact networks, leveraging those client contacts to bring in more light-commercial jobs and training franchise owners to more easily identify, market and service the growing segment of small businesses. “Residential decorating services will continue to be our primary focus,” Bevis said. “However, a small but growing minority of our owners provide services in light commercial settings.”

9. Placing new emphasis on the Executive Franchise Training Program, which is designed to assist experienced franchisees that want to expand their business. Training modules will aid larger owners in building their business with more decorators, creating organizational structure beyond a one- or two-person operation and expanding their operational capabilities to achieve greater market share.

10. Viewing Canada as a strong growth opportunity. There are currently 32 Canadian franchise owners, mostly in Ontario with a handful in Calgary and Vancouver. “We think we have a tremendous opportunity in the Canadian provinces of Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia,” said Bevis, who estimated that 10 percent of franchises granted in 2008 would come from Canada. •