Featured Resource

Alexandra Gibson

Gibson Design Management provides unparalleled service to interior designers and their firms through offering a membership-based professional alternative to in-house staffing. Gibson Design Management was founded and is advised by a professional interior designer and ASID member with over 30 years in the industry. She built a successful interior design business and through years of learning what works and what doesn't has implemented systems, technology and hired the best people to ensure her business's success. Gibson Design Management allows you to take advantage of that 30 years of experience, the systems, the technology, and the people in order to make your design business more successful.

-Valerie Steil A.S.I.D.
Marc T. Nielsen Interiors

Benefits of Membership with GDM

We have been where you are. We know the aches and pains that design firms feel.

As members of the design industry ourselves and as operators of a small interior design firm, Gibson Design Management understands what it’s like to be in your shoes. In our own design firm, we have seen what works and what does not when it comes to ordering, tracking, and billing. We know which technology to utilize and which systems to implement in order to make sure that the project runs smoothly and efficiently. We know what to do to make sure that you make as much money as possible on your orders. Why go through the trouble of recreating the system when you can utilize a system that’s already been built, tested, and approved?

Membership in GDM’s Purchase Order Management consortium is both more cost effective and more time efficient than hiring a new employee or performing the tasks yourself. With a new employee, you have to pay salary, provide benefits, pay additional taxes, provide computers, phones, and space, as well as invest time in training and management. When you manage your own projects, you are losing valuable billable hours. You could be selling more goods, finding more clients, and working on more projects instead of spending hours placing and tracking purchase orders.

I manage purchase orders myself
If you are currently managing your purchase orders yourself, you may be costing your business tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars in increased revenue a year.

Please contact Gibson Design Management for hard number examples that show how membership could greatly increase your bottom line.

I have a part-time person that manages my purchase orders
While part-time assistants can be very cost-effective, they can actually cost you money in the long run by not being as time efficient. Typically, it takes several games of phone tag to get pricing, check on an order, or check on an invoice with a showroom or manufacturer. If the person that is managing your purchase orders is only in the office part-time, the delay in this phone tag game is greatly increased. This could cause your orders to take longer than usual, leading to unhappy clients, and fewer referrals.

I have a full-time person that manages my purchase orders
Is this full-time person a designer? If so, couldn’t they be better utilized producing billable design? Does this full-time person have talents in marketing and/or project management? If so, might they not be better utilized in gathering business or managing projects?

Typically a full-time assistant or junior designer will cost an interior design firm $30,000+/year plus taxes, benefits, computer, space, phone, and management and training time.

Please contact Gibson Design Management for hard number examples that show how membership could greatly increase your bottom line and how you could be utilizing your current personnel to grow your bottom line.

About Alexandra
Alexandra’s experience in business, love for the interior design industry, and innate entrepreneurial spirit led her to found Gibson Design Management in January 2008. Growing up as a professional interior designer’s daughter, and working as a partner in her family’s interior design firm, has shown Alexandra a great deal about the challenges that small design firms face in business.

Alexandra started her career in a corporate training program for sales and marketing for one of the largest homebuilders in the country, NVR, Inc. She excelled in NVR’s program by developing a working knowledge of blueprints, site plans, general construction practices, and mortgage financing. Alexandra marketed and sold over $10.8 million of new construction in two residential developments in Prince George’s County, Maryland for Ryan Homes, NVR’s subsidiary and was nominated for Rookie of the Year in 2003.

In 2005, Alexandra joined Gibson Design Group as the Director of Business Development and in 2006, she became a partner in the firm. Her main undertakings have been the development of marketing and public relations for the company, as well as creating and fine-tuning business systems and contract administration. In addition to serving as President and CEO of Gibson Design Management, Alexandra is the CEO and founder of BuildWorth., Inc., a construction consulting and outsourcing company that specializes in working with small to medium-sized builders. She is also the president of Gibson Investment Group, a real estate investment firm that seeks to develop a mixed portfolio of real estate assets for its investors, and a partner in Foxfield Investment Group, a group of investors that owns several pieces of real estate in the Charlottesville area.

Alexandra graduated from Vanderbilt University with a degree in Economics and a minor in Finance. When not staying busy in the business world, Alexandra enjoys spending time competing her horse and giving back to the community.

www.gibsondesignmanagement.com