Many firms outsource accounting and other administrative work, but what about the entire procurement step? Designers who’ve tried it weigh in.

Here’s a thought experiment. The next time you’re looking through your portfolio, pick a single image and really examine all the furniture and finishes, and think about how many individual tracking numbers, purchase orders, invoices and emails it took to pull that room together. The sheer volume of logistics that goes into interior design can be staggering. For many designers, it’s a mountain they are simply no longer willing to climb. Instead, they are choosing to outsource this decidedly uncreative aspect of their job so that they can focus on their strong suit: being creative. After all, designers get into this business because of their vision and style—not to spend their billable hours sitting on the phone with customer service, trying to track down a sofa that has failed to materialize on time.

Heather Cleveland, a solopreneur in the Bay Area, recalls hitting a wall in 2020. She was completely overwhelmed with work but wasn’t ready for the overhead that comes with hiring a full-time employee. “I had taken on 26 clients in 2020—I was traumatized by the fear that the work would dry up, so I said yes to basically every job that came my way. I pride myself on having a very organized process, but I started to make mistakes,” says the designer. “I knew I needed help, but I’ve hired assistants in the past and by the time I paid their salary and benefits, I would joke that they were making more than I was. Staffing is expensive.”