Life would be so much simpler if we didn't have to bother with customers. If we could just tootle around designing beautiful furniture and making it entirely at our leisure. However, sadly for those of us who make our living designing and making furniture - customers, or, if one wants to be a little more posh, clients, - play an inordinately large part in our lives. This article is based upon on my experiences of dealing with corporate and private clients over the 25 years that I have been functioning as a professional designer. My aim is to help those of you who feel intimidated by the idea of dealing with clients to appreciate that just like anything else it's a skill that can be acquired.

There is a school of marketing that is very workshop based. It involves taking a tunnel visioned view of life and suggests that if one were to first design and then make the most exquisite piece of furniture with no reference to anyone else's opinion except ones own, that, provided one were talented enough and of course one would be, that all would be well. This is based on the rather naive concept that "if you were to invent a better mouse trap then the world would beat a path to your door". In this view marketing comprises of first carefully wrapping the said beautiful piece of furniture and then placing it outside the workshop door , closing the door and waiting for someone to remove the said beautiful piece of furniture and push an envelope stuffed with £5 notes beneath the workshop door. I must admit although I tried this method with the occasional speculative piece of furniture that I have made in my career, but I can't say that I have had much luck with it, but then I have not had much luck by selling those pieces of furniture that I have made "on spec anyway." I think like many bespoke furniture designers, we end up toting these pieces of furniture around exhibition after exhibition until the entire world is thoroughly fed up with them. We can't sell them at a knock down rate because these are whizo pieces of furniture and at best we can hope to put them in a discrete auction where they might or, more likely, might not, realise the cost of making them. Yet if you don't have a customer then the whizo speculative pieces are perhaps the only place you can start. At least at the end of the job you will have something good for the of portfolio and hopefully it will then help promote and encourage real customers to ask you to make something if not the same then relatively similar.

I am always asked "does working with clients cramp your style" - well yes it does. Inevitably clients will be working from an image in their mind of the kind of work that you could do for them. This will be based on your existing track record. Either pieces that you have already made for other people, or upon drawings or designs in your portfolio that show the potential of your ideas - so yes, the average client will tend to be rather conservative but bear in mind you're asking them to take a chance on you. You're asking them to buy something from you that actually doesn't exist, so if you can give them anything concrete to hold onto such as an existing design that could be modified, then from their point of view it slightly lessens the risk involved especially when you are at the start of your career. You may not feel that you want to spend another three months making another version of that bloody awful table that you have just finished but if you have something better to do then you might well consider sub-contracting the making of the piece to that chap who left college at about the same time that you did and who, you know, hasn't got much work right now. If you can provide him with all the jigs and the drawings and he can make the table, then you are freed up to carry on developing your portfolio, that is providing you equip him with the right information to make the piece exactly to your requirements. If he fouls up, the responsibility for the foul up is yours as the designer not his as the maker.

Certainly clients can be restrictive but in my experience most of my clients have wanted me to make things for them because they like my style. They like the way I think and the way I draw. They like the shape that I put together and the overall spirit of the piece of furniture. This is what you as the designer are selling. You are selling the way that you think and feel.

So how do you go about it. OK so you 've got a contact. Someone has approached you. He or she may have seen a piece of yours at an exhibition or in a magazine or may know of your work through friends or existing clients. The first contact is important. At this point the thread of contact between you and your prospective client is terribly fine. It's up to you as the salesman, for that is what you are right now, you are no longer the designer you're the salesman and you're selling yourself. It's up to you to take charge of the situation and strengthen those initial threads of contact. If needs be improve your telephone manner. I know I'm awful on the telephone as I have a slight stammer and have since a child always been terrified of making phone calls to people I don't know. But you must be brave and simply get on with it. In the first instance try to find out what they know of you, where they heard about you and what it is they are interested in commissioning. Keep in mind Kiplings four great serving men, What, Where, When and Who. At this stage of the relationship you must be entirely positive, and throughout your relationship withyour client you must be entirely positive. 'No I have never made a serving table' doesn't go down very well over the telephone. What you must inspire is confidence. At the end of the telephone conversation having said yes you can make that draw leaf table and 52 chairs by next Wednesday, you make an appointment to go and see them.

Next confirm your telephone conversation in writing. This does three things to help strengthen those threads from the new client to you. Firstly, it reinforces the impression that you are efficient and reliable. It will alleviate any misunderstandings that may have occurred on the telephone. "You did say 6.30 "- "Er, no I meant 7.30". Secondly it gives you a chance to show off your lovely smart new headed notepaper (don't go spending a fortune on brochures and leaflets but do get some good headed notepaper and a few nice postcards of your furniture. This in my experience is all the "corporate identity" that you require. I spent tens of thousands of pounds on brochures and leaflets and find now that I get by with a really good portfolio, great letterheaded notepaper and a few postcards. Finally, your letter will remind your client of their appointment. 'Oh gosh, I'd forgotten that you were coming. Do come in we are having a dinner party for 12 you don't mind joining us do you. No don't worry it doesn't matter if you don't have a dinner jacket.'

Once you have got your appointment make sure that you set about assembling everything that you need to make that appointment a success. Check your portfolio, make sure it's clean and tidy and all of the photographs show your work to the best advantage. With my kind of marketing you're only as good as your weakest link and your customer will be making assumptions about you based upon how you present yourself. So check yourself over from top to toe. Are your finger nails clean, is your hair cut nicely, are your shoes clean, details such as this are much more important than a flashy watch or expensive clothes. How you show yourself is of course important and of course people will be making judgements about your status and wealth based upon the clothes you wear and the car that you drive but if your work is good you can overcome arriving in a Morris 1000 and wearing jeans and a clean T-shirt. What you can't overcome is rudeness - and it's rude to turn up late for an appointment with dirty fingernails, unkempt hair and an attitude that says 'I don't need you, I am a great artist and basically I don't want your work anyway.' Charlie Chaplin once said that one of the great rules of success in life is to turn up on time. By doing so you are showing courtesy to your potential client and respect for their time.

Once you are in with the client it is an important part of your job to make up your mind who is the client and who isn't. In the corporate situation this may be very difficult, you may be selling a design to a board or panel at which only one or two members really count. It's your job to find out who those people are. Is it the financial director or is it the chairman. Or is it the chairman's wife who historically has always handled interior decoration decisions within the corporation. With a private client it is sometimes easier to handle this dilemma. Usually your client will be the woman but she may not have entire control over the financing of the deal so both partners need to be involved. If you are meeting a private client for the first time and you are talking to Mrs Wealthy ask if she feels that Mr Wealthy should be there at least for part of the meeting. "Im sure he is a very busy man but I feel that it would help me if you were both present." I once had a client who made this part of the process extremely easy by saying "your brief is to design a piece of furniture for my wife as a 50th birthday present. You're to totally insulate her from any aspect of the cost of this commission and deal with me directly on that but regarding the design of the furniture, what it is and how it will look you will deal entirely with her. She ended up with a fabulous piece of furniture and he ended up with a sizeable bill but a very happy wife. So find out who is your client and then do a lot of listening. You're bought to this earth with two ears and one mouth, I suggest with the greatest respect that in a situation such as this you use them in exactly that proportion. It's all very well showing them your portfolio and talking about some of the beautiful pieces you may have made but it's much more important that you ask some questions about what it is they want made and that you listen very carefully to what they tell you. If need be make notes - most of us remember only 50-60% of what people tell us, so writing things down is again a respectful thing to do in a situation like this.

First published by David Savage in Furniture and Cabinetmaking Magazine

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