A good relationship with your vendors can make a project sing. Here’s how to get it right.

In her first design internship, Shana Sherwood picked up a crystalline bit of business advice—the kind that still bounces around your head more than a decade later. These days, she is a partner at Sherwood Kypreos, the Los Angeles studio she co-founded with her husband in 2018. But in 2009, she was a student juggling internships at two “very Upper East Side” firms when one of the principals emphatically told her not to share her vendors with the other. “When I asked her why, she said, ‘Because you’re only as good as your vendors,’” recalls Sherwood, who has taken the message to heart (but without the competitive mindset). “At the time, I had no idea what she meant. But now, running my own firm, I get it. It’s true—you’re only as good as the people you choose to work with.”

Finding sources
Cultivating meaningful relationships with the partners who elevate your work can make your projects easier—and more enjoyable too. So, how do you find those magical partners that you want to work with again and again? Thankfully, attitudes about sharing sources have come a long way since Sherwood’s internship days, and most designers are more than willing to tip each other off to great vendors, whether it’s a trustworthy workroom or a fabulous wallpaper installer. Melissa Warner Rothblum, co-principal of Massucco Warner, an interior design firm based in Los Angeles and Seattle, says that a referral from a colleague is an ideal starting point when trying out a new subcontractor or brand. “If a designer friend has had a good experience with someone, that does hold a lot of weight,” she says. Sherwood agrees, estimating that referrals are how she finds most new resources. “Especially when we’re doing a project somewhere [less familiar] like New York, I’m going to ask my design friends there who they recommend,” she says.