Chicago-based designer Dan Rak, a former tax lawyer, has taken an analytical approach to maximizing his vendor relationships: He quantifies his firm’s spending to showcase the value of his business.

Dan RakCourtesy of designer

How has COVID changed the way you present to clients?
We’ll do a big first round of sourcing and pull the bulk of the space together with online images. We’ve realized that we don’t struggle with getting people to buy from photos, but that’s somewhat new. COVID changed everything, because we didn’t go into showrooms for 12 months.