Want to free up more time for designing by spending less time on admin and other behind-the-scenes tasks? Even small savings of time and effort can add up to big differences over time. That’s why we at Houzz have spent years developing our all-in-one software with input from designers like you, and are always refining it. With many intuitive features and a free trial, it can help your business from day one. If you're hesitant to try it out — maybe you don't see yourself as tech-oriented, or maybe you just think you don't have time to learn something new— the experiences of the six interior designers below who use Houzz Pro might change your mind.

Who: Katie Rainey

Company: Katie Rainey Design in Annapolis, Maryland

Overall Take: “I am the worst at technology,” Rainey says. “It’ll take me an hour to figure out how to put a period on my website.” And yet “Houzz Pro has changed my life from the beginning. [It’s] very easy to learn.”

What She Loves:

• Mood Boards. “I love the 3D rendering,” Rainey says. “It’s to the point where I can see myself now not being able to live without it. It’s such an amazing tool even for someone like me that’s not traditionally schooled in design. It’s a way for me to really learn how to draw and do dimensions and show something to my clients without having to learn a whole different program.”
• Time Tracking. “We can track our time and log it” without using a separate tracking app, Rainey says. “Houzz Pro has everything all in one place.”
• Email Marketing. “I can keep my leads, my clients, my vendors [in the software] and just send them out a monthly newsletter through that software.”

Words to the Wise: “If you really want to progress and grow, just be open to [Houzz Pro software] and adapt to it. Then you’re going to learn to actually love it once you figure it out, because it’s going to make your life easier in the long run.”

Who: Trevor Fulmer

Company: Trevor Fulmer Design in Boston, MA.

Overall Take: “I had spreadsheets and was trying to connect things through QuickBooks, and it was proving to not be efficient. Then I quickly jumped into what Houzz Pro was offering. I don’t know how someone could do it without it.”

What He Loves:

• Marketing Tools. “It’s been really beneficial to be able to create my own collateral, to design a website that’s easy to maneuver and has a nice user experience. I know the importance of photography and hiring a photographer to showcase your work. Just having an overall good brand presence and strong visual identity with logos…. It’s polished; it’s professional.”
• Lead Generation. “We get a lot of client leads from Houzz,” he says. “We have people reaching out for all various-size projects. We actually just received a new lead for a fairly large project. Just the visibility we get through Houzz and the fact that projects and inquiries do come through that platform has built my brand and built my business.”
• Tracking Features. “We really do all of our time tracking through Houzz Pro. That’s super important. And specifying products after we find them in Houzz Pro, and then adding them to our proposals or invoices, and then being able to track everything: knowing when something is ordered, when it’s shipped, when it arrived…”

Words to the Wise: “If it’s going to make your life easier, the investment of time upfront is worth it,” he says. “Give [the software] a try and see how it works out, and I think you’ll be pretty happy with it.”

Who: Asisat Edu

Company: DIH Designs in Washington, D.C.

Overall Take: “Before Houzz Pro, we were doing everything via Google Documents and Google Spreadsheets. Everything just took a lot of time — it wasn’t the most effective platform. Using Houzz Pro has cut our design and management time by half.”

What She Loves:

• The Clipper. “Before, we were literally taking screenshots of photos and putting them in or copying and fixing links into a spreadsheet,” Edu says.
• Selection Boards. “We have a bank that we can always go back to. I don’t have to go to a spreadsheet I did two years ago to find an item that I think we want to put in this home. It lives in Houzz Pro. That’s been very helpful.”
• Lead Generation. “We’ve gotten quite a few clients through Houzz,” she says. “It has definitely been a blessing for us in being able to get clients.”

Words to the Wise: “If you have an in-house program that helps to cut that time in half, why not? You’re saving that time. You’re also more effective. You don’t want to burn out early in the game, especially if you’re a new interior designer.”

Who: Jonathan Gordon

Company: Design by the Jonathans in New Haven, Connecticut

Overall Take: “Generally, the faster you move, the happier the clients tend to be.”

What He Loves:

• 3D Floor Plans. “Ever since people saw the little 3D fly-through [on HGTV], everybody’s like, ‘Why can’t we have that?’ Let’s say that you’re doing a kitchen in a nice house and you’re looking at high-end appliances. You’re more than likely spending $200,000 on that space. Don’t you want to know what it’s going to look like before you spend the money?”
• The Clipper. It’s “a lifesaver,” Gordon says. “It gathers the information for you — click, click, click, click.”
• Invoicing. “It used to be that invoicing was detached from the CRM, was detached from all the other pieces that make the backbone of the business run. Having things under one hood has been nice,” he says. “You create the invoices; they sync with QuickBooks. You don’t have to worry about replicating things or exporting giant spreadsheets from place to place in order just to keep your finances on track. [Houzz Pro] handles it.”

Words to the Wise: “If somebody doesn’t want to adopt Houzz Pro, what’s holding you back? You need something that’s going to push you forward. Unless you’re planning to close up shop in the next few years, you need to do something to keep you fully organized and ready for the world as it is now.”

Who: Holley Pokora

Company: Holley Pokora Interior Design in Philadelphia, PA

Overall Take: “The efficiencies of having Houzz Pro software are just head and shoulders above trying to do it yourself.”

What She Loves:

• The Clipper. “I think it’s so much fun to clip new products,” Pokora says. “Let’s say I’m looking for art. I go into all my vendors, I do the search, the criteria, the size. I clip the product; I have everything there.”
• Automation. “Every purchase order, I was typing up from scratch,” she says. “Every invoice, I was typing up from scratch. There’s just no way to be productive doing that. Taking on the software has just ramped up my procurement profitability incredibly.”
• Invoicing and QuickBooks Integration. “One mistake that other designers make is not having the payments completely upfront before you do anything with that money. The invoicing through Houzz Pro can help you with how you present those documents, and Houzz Pro communicates directly with QuickBooks.” 

Words to the Wise: “If somebody’s hesitant and is operating like I was with QuickBooks and typing up invoices and purchase orders, just have them call me,” she says, laughing. “I mean it. I think for the cost, [Houzz Pro is] the best money I spend, frankly, on my business.”

Who: Rachel Larraine

Company: The Design Coven, a nationwide mentorship program

Overall Take: “I was literally doing stuff on spreadsheets, creating invoices, and trying to track everything. It was just a huge time suck. You can have a whole job doing that on top of design. When I found Houzz Pro, it was just a relief, like, ‘I can actually get things done. I don’t have to worry about tracking; it all interconnects.’”

What She Loves:

• Client Dashboard. “The client has a dashboard and an interface that they have access to. It also empowers them to know, ‘Oh, yes, what was that thing? Oh, I can go back and look.’ I’m not holding any gates closed for them.”
• CRM Tools. “I love being able to message directly on the platform so that the client isn’t texting me or messaging me on my personal email,” she says. “That is huge.”
• Tasks. “You can assign tasks to people; you can even assign tasks to clients. If they have homework that they need to do before the next meeting, I can say, ‘OK, Sarah, you need to approve this bathroom by Wednesday, so that we can get this on order in order to be on time with demo.’”
• Takeoffs. “I use takeoffs to calculate my square footage for my tile, and then I meet with the contractor on Zoom, looking at the takeoffs, showing them what I’m doing, getting their feedback,” she says. “I’m like, ‘OK, because of this pattern, how much overage do you want me to get?’ I need to make sure that that is accounted for, and I love the takeoff system on Houzz because it helps me with all the guesswork.”

Words to the Wise: “You can’t put a price on the time that you’re going to save. Think of how many hours you spend, and how much do you charge an hour? If you’re spending that searching for something that you can get in a second, that’s huge.” And “once you get into [Houzz Pro software] and you start doing it, you’ll learn. You will adapt. Somebody will help you. It’s like you just have to jump.”

Ready to streamline your business and take back your time? Try Houzz Pro free today!