Smart Ways to Use Ideabooks for Communicating With Clients
Here are all the ways this Houzz tool can help your project run smoothly, whether in person or remotely
Not using Houzz ideabooks to collaborate on projects with your clients yet? Find out how this clever tool can enhance communication with your client, helping you with everything from getting a handle on their vision at the outset to nailing the finishing details and conveying complex information.
At What Stage in a Project Should you Use Ideabooks?
Ideabooks are an invaluable resource for pros at the very earliest stages of contact with a homeowner. Get potential clients to create one for their renovation to help you to get a clear sense of their vision.
As a project progresses, ideabooks are also a practical tool for collaborating on details, as well as being a fantastic way to keep projects moving remotely.
“Setting up an ideabook is one of the first things we discuss with clients,” says Amy Faulkenberry of ID Studio Interiors. “Houzz has been instrumental in how we communicate ideas for furniture and finishes with our clients.”
Houzz Pro software provides additional tools for sharing designs with clients. Houzz 3D Pro Floor Planner and Mood Boards visualization tools enable you to share specific paint colors, products and 3D and 2D models to communicate your ideas.
Learn more about Houzz Pro software
Ideabooks are an invaluable resource for pros at the very earliest stages of contact with a homeowner. Get potential clients to create one for their renovation to help you to get a clear sense of their vision.
As a project progresses, ideabooks are also a practical tool for collaborating on details, as well as being a fantastic way to keep projects moving remotely.
“Setting up an ideabook is one of the first things we discuss with clients,” says Amy Faulkenberry of ID Studio Interiors. “Houzz has been instrumental in how we communicate ideas for furniture and finishes with our clients.”
Houzz Pro software provides additional tools for sharing designs with clients. Houzz 3D Pro Floor Planner and Mood Boards visualization tools enable you to share specific paint colors, products and 3D and 2D models to communicate your ideas.
Learn more about Houzz Pro software
Interior designer Clare Crabtree of ClaranDesign made great use of ideabooks when redesigning the kitchen of her client, Sue Mould.
“Houzz made it easy for us to collaborate on the project,” Crabtree says. “You can create an ideabook and post and edit the ideas… I’ll post a picture [and say]: ‘Sue, I’ve just seen this in somebody’s house. Do you like it?’”
Mould agrees that sharing ideabooks really helped the project along. “Clare would save images so I could have a look and then respond according to whether it was something I liked or not. It’s been a great way to share ideas.”
“Houzz made it easy for us to collaborate on the project,” Crabtree says. “You can create an ideabook and post and edit the ideas… I’ll post a picture [and say]: ‘Sue, I’ve just seen this in somebody’s house. Do you like it?’”
Mould agrees that sharing ideabooks really helped the project along. “Clare would save images so I could have a look and then respond according to whether it was something I liked or not. It’s been a great way to share ideas.”
Use Ideabooks to Get a Handle on a Homeowner’s Taste
This is often the first way in which a pro will make use of an ideabook for a client project.
Before you even have a detailed chat about the proposed work, get your client — or potential client — to collect some images from across Houzz that illustrate their style and ideas. Encourage them to leave notes under pictures where relevant, highlighting the details they want to show you.
It’s a fantastic way to get onto your client’s wavelength.
This is often the first way in which a pro will make use of an ideabook for a client project.
Before you even have a detailed chat about the proposed work, get your client — or potential client — to collect some images from across Houzz that illustrate their style and ideas. Encourage them to leave notes under pictures where relevant, highlighting the details they want to show you.
It’s a fantastic way to get onto your client’s wavelength.
“We ask our clients to create ideabooks on Houzz so we can collaborate on the project,” interior designer Juliet Marsh of Marsh + Wiesenfeld says. “This is the easiest way for them to share photos they like and to give their feedback through comments. It really helps us to understand their vision.”
Marsh recalls a project where the firm redesigned a family house. With this renovation, it was important for the homeowners that the two children were involved in the design of their bedrooms. They were given a lesson on using Houzz by Marsh and her partner, Judy Wiesenfeld, and were then tasked with creating their own ideabooks. “This was very important, as they could show us what they wanted when they didn’t know how to describe it,” Wiesenfeld says.
Marsh recalls a project where the firm redesigned a family house. With this renovation, it was important for the homeowners that the two children were involved in the design of their bedrooms. They were given a lesson on using Houzz by Marsh and her partner, Judy Wiesenfeld, and were then tasked with creating their own ideabooks. “This was very important, as they could show us what they wanted when they didn’t know how to describe it,” Wiesenfeld says.
2. Use Ideabooks to Communicate Style Suggestions Visually as a Project Progresses
The best way to help your client to visualize what you have in mind in terms of furniture, fixtures and finishes will often be with photos.
On Houzz, you can search through more than 24,000,000 images for examples of colors, layouts, structural elements, tiles, flooring, garden planting styles, fences and much more, and save your selection to any number of Ideabooks.
The best way to help your client to visualize what you have in mind in terms of furniture, fixtures and finishes will often be with photos.
On Houzz, you can search through more than 24,000,000 images for examples of colors, layouts, structural elements, tiles, flooring, garden planting styles, fences and much more, and save your selection to any number of Ideabooks.
3. Use Them to Educate and Inform
You can share more than photos in ideabooks. You can also save useful stories you’d like your client to read in order to fully understand a topic before making a decision.
The Stories tab on Houzz contains a vast archive of invaluable renovation advice, inspiration and information. Saving some of this useful reading material to the ideabooks you’re sharing with your client can be a helpful way to get to the heart of an issue more quickly when you do communicate directly.
You can share more than photos in ideabooks. You can also save useful stories you’d like your client to read in order to fully understand a topic before making a decision.
The Stories tab on Houzz contains a vast archive of invaluable renovation advice, inspiration and information. Saving some of this useful reading material to the ideabooks you’re sharing with your client can be a helpful way to get to the heart of an issue more quickly when you do communicate directly.
For example, you might want to share a story you’d like them to read before the project is even confirmed, so they fully understand the stages or costs involved.
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You might want to show them an idea you know will work beautifully.
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Or you might want to explain something complex in a simple format.
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Perhaps you’ve found a story that illustrates some options you’d like your client to consider, or one that simply contains lots of photos that will help them refine what it is they are after.
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It can also be useful to browse the Houzz Tour stories to share ways in which the project you’re working on together has been tackled in similar properties.
How to Remodel Your Kitchen
Homeowner’s Workbook: How to Remodel Your Bathroom
Your Guide to a Smooth-Running Construction Project
You might want to show them an idea you know will work beautifully.
5 Modern-Day Rooms Decorated With Antiques
5 Ways to Push the Envelope With Color and Pattern
Or you might want to explain something complex in a simple format.
10 Sustainable Features Pros Recommend for Any Home
10 Design Tips for Preventing Slips in the Bathroom
What to Know About Installing a Walkway of Pavers and Pebbles
Perhaps you’ve found a story that illustrates some options you’d like your client to consider, or one that simply contains lots of photos that will help them refine what it is they are after.
Why Custom Furnishings and Cabinets Are Worth the Cost
Pros Share 5 Laundry Room Features They Love
It can also be useful to browse the Houzz Tour stories to share ways in which the project you’re working on together has been tackled in similar properties.
4. Use Ideabooks to Bookmark Other Professionals
You will almost certainly already have a list of contractors and specialist professionals, but if you’re collecting some new experts, you can save their profiles into an ideabook too, and then refer back to them to go through their own photos and client reviews.
Tell us: How have you used Houzz ideabooks for your projects? And do you have any questions about how to use them? Let us know in the Comments.
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Learn about Houzz Pro software
Talk with your peers in the Pro-to-Pro discussions
Join the Houzz Trade Program
You will almost certainly already have a list of contractors and specialist professionals, but if you’re collecting some new experts, you can save their profiles into an ideabook too, and then refer back to them to go through their own photos and client reviews.
Tell us: How have you used Houzz ideabooks for your projects? And do you have any questions about how to use them? Let us know in the Comments.
More for Pros on Houzz
Read more stories for pros
Learn about Houzz Pro software
Talk with your peers in the Pro-to-Pro discussions
Join the Houzz Trade Program
An ideabook is Houzz’s virtual and interactive tool for saving and sharing photos, ideas, notes, useful Houzz stories and favorite profiles from the platform, with your client or for your own reference.
You can also create ideabooks full of photos and information you want to refer back to. It’s simple to label your Ideabooks clearly with titles such as “Kitchen Islands” and “Bold Painted Living Rooms” so your research is easy to file and find.
One of the most popular ways to use ideabooks is when working with clients. You can share your ideabooks with them, they can create ones to share with you, and you can also collaborate on them together, adding notes for each other to the images or stories you share.