Today we’d like to introduce you to Deb Mitchell.
Hi Deb, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
I believe every creative has a truth about their work that deserves to be clearly seen and confidently spoken.
But finding the right words isn’t always easy to do for themselves.
Early in my career as a copywriter, an editor gave me advice that has never left me. She said, “Start every project by writing one true sentence about your client that you want the world to know.”
Today, that idea actually is still at the core of my approach to creating brand messaging, website copy, and content marketing for interior designers, who make up about 99% of my clientele.
Much of my work is about uncovering what’s already remarkable about my clients. Their unique backgrounds that shape their work, their seemingly intuitive processes that are actually them making incredibly hard decisions quickly because they know exactly what to do and what not to do, and their drive to make their clients happy. What they see as simply how they do what they do every day, homeowners may see as the exact reason why that’s the right designer for them.
Like many entrepreneurs, I didn’t originally set out to start a business. When the youngest of my three sons started school, I got a job working in-house for a well-known interior designer here in Charlotte. I became the first point of contact for her potential clients, answering inquiries, walking them through the design process, and listening carefully to their questions.
As part of this designer’s team, I went to High Point Market where she introduced me to other designers and encouraged me to start a side gig writing blog posts for them, which I did.
These experiences shaped me in ways I didn’t fully realize at the time.
Not only was I learning all about the design industry and meeting incredible designers who, while they were exceptional at their craft, struggled to talk about their work and what made them different and valuable. But I was also hearing what homeowners were unsure about: timelines, how pricing and fees worked, and what they could really expect from working with a designer.
I realized quickly that being clear and being gracious were equally important in the communications between designers and their markets, and that designer/client trust is the most important factor for successful home projects, no matter how large or small.
Then in 2016, I launched my company to help designers build this trust with their prospects. I expanded from just blogging for a handful of clients to working with designers across the U.S. and Canada, helping them clarify their brand voice, elevate their positioning, and create brand messaging and website copy that actually reflected the level of work they were producing in order to attract the kinds of projects and clients they most wanted.
Over and over again, when I present their newly written messaging and hear the same response:
“That’s it! That’s what I’ve been trying to say!”
Sometimes there are even happy tears. Not because the words are so unique and different, but because I’ve understood the designer, and being understood is one of the most powerful and profound of human experiences. It’s what I love most about the work I do.
When someone captures your value in a way that feels true, it doesn’t just change how others see you; it changes how you see yourself.
My work isn’t just about writing website messaging. It’s about helping interior designers reclaim their voice and lead their businesses with clarity and confidence.
I believe deeply that when it comes to marketing, you don’t need to be louder to get better clients. But you do need to be clear about what you’re saying, and you need to believe it yourself.
When your messaging aligns with who you truly are, everything shifts. Marketing no longer feels gross and fake. Sales conversations are easier. Your boundaries get stronger. You show up differently in your business and clients come in already feeling clearer about the value of your work.
The problem with even the best messaging, however, is that it only works if the right people see it. I’ve been dancing around this issue for years in my business, learning about digital marketing, local SEO, and best practices for social media marketing, blogging, and email marketing. I’d give my brand messaging and website copywriting clients help with these areas whenever and wherever possible, but because I was positioned as a copywriter, most designers weren’t coming to me ready to hire anyone for that kind of help.
But I knew with everything in me that I had the answers interior designers were looking for. So in October 2025, I rebranded my company (renaming it from Deb Mitchell Writing to Deb Mitchell Co.) and expanded my services to include visibility and marketing strategy in tandem with messaging and copywriting.
Now, I help designers not only write amazing messaging, but I also help them put it in all the right places so they get found and hired by the right people.
Marketing and visibility, to me, aren’t about chasing trends or gaming the algorithms. They’re about making sure the right people hear your message so you can create the work you’re meant to create.
In many ways, I’m still doing what the Charlotte interior designer and that editor taught me years ago. I’m just doing it at scale.
My mission is simple:
To help interior designers be fully seen, understood, and valued.
Because when creative professionals understand and can articulate their own value, they don’t just grow their businesses… they lead them.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
It has neither been a smooth road, nor has it been a straight one! While I worked part-time for the interior designer, I also worked part-time for a boutique book publishing company. I also spent several years as a freelance writer for local and regional publications where I took story assignments from editors and pitched story ideas of my own. Thinking this was my path forward in my writing career, I took journalism courses and even joined a coaching program for freelance journalists.
I was cobbling out a living from these various gigs, but I was also just seeing what would stick. I wanted someone to give me the right opportunity (again, I wasn’t looking to start my own business at this point).
But in pursuing the freelance writing avenue, I actually was building my own business. I just didn’t see it that way at the time. I was subcontracting with the various media outlets I wrote for and I was learning how to get clients in my coaching group. I learned about digital marketing and how to write a good pitch email vs. how to write a good connection email. I was learning how to be a business owner without even realizing it, and to this day, I still use almost everything I learned then.
When I launched my business in 2016 to write blogs for interior designers, I ran into the issue of not being able to charge enough for what my clients wanted me to deliver. Understandably, my designer clients wanted and needed their blogs to present them as professional and polished, while also showing their own unique personalities and points of view. It takes time, skill, and research for any ghostwriter to be able to capture their clients’ voice. And while I was great at it, it took me several hours to complete each blog post. Few of the designers I was in contact with at the time were ready and willing to invest the kinds of fees a professional writer would have to charge for that level of work.
In other words, the service I was best at providing did not match the market I was in.
That was beyond discouraging, and I almost quit.
But I realized there were two things I could try: change my service OR change my market.
I did both.
First, I realized I was trying to sell too much value in too small of a service. By expanding the service to include website copywriting (and blogging, if they wanted it, as well), I was actually matching the value I was capable of delivering to the perceived value of the service for my clients. A blog post (while they all wanted it to be perfectly on-brand) could never hold the same perceived value for them as website copy (an evergreen calling card for their brand that would represent their entire business online for years to come) could.
Then, I recognized that the same clients who wanted to pay a small amount per blog post probably weren’t the clients who wanted to invest in amazing website copy, so I started marketing myself to more established clients who saw the value in investing in their brand’s messaging.
I went from spending the time and research it took to understand a designer, their business, and their clientele and write a blog post for $50 apiece, to doing all the same prep work and writing my client’s website copy for $1,000 a page.
I met more and more designers, as well as vendors, brands, and even podcasters in the design industry. I made the decision to always be true to myself by leading with a spirit of helpfulness and curiosity about others, and that has served me very well in building rich relationships with amazing, influential people in the industry and beyond.
While it hasn’t been an easy road by any stretch, there’s no substitute for everything I’ve learned along the way. My hope is that I’ll be able to help smooth the path for others by sharing what I now know.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
Deb Mitchell Co. is a boutique marketing strategy, brand messaging, and copywriting firm that helps interior designers elevate their positioning, clarify their messaging, and get found by the right clients. With over a decade in the design industry, we understand designers deeply. We know the many nuances involved in marketing their businesses. We partner with designers at every stage, from brand new ‘baby designers’ to seasoned design firms, to help them navigate their visibility challenges and get clients, whether that means landing their first design project or upleveling their business to be able to take on fewer, bigger projects each year, and everything in between. Our unique insights into the expectations and trust signals that make all the difference in marketing and messaging for luxury design mean we can help you get where you’re trying to go, both today and in the future. With a custom-tailored approach to working with our clients, we solve designers’ biggest messaging and visibility problems so they can reach their own individualized goals. Under our expert, personalized service, designers can finally stop feeling invisible and focus on the design work they’re here to create.
Can you tell us more about what you were like growing up?
I grew up in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and as I always say, I think the stork got lost, as I was clearly meant to live in the Southeast, not the Southwest!
I was always overdressed as a child, preferring pleated skirts and twin sweater sets to jeans and t-shirts. To this day, I work from home, but I never work in sweats. I get DRESSED. I just feel more like me when I do.
I was a huge reader. My favorite thing was to go to the library over Christmas break and the day after school let out for the summer and get a tall stack of books to work my way through. Reading, more than anything else, is what taught me to write well.
I took ballet. I took French. I loved to cook and bake. I did not fit in with Albuquerque, NM, that’s for sure!
One thing that always frustrated me was that while I wanted to be a writer, I never had story ideas. I knew early on that I wasn’t a fiction writer, and unfortunately, I didn’t know what the other options were. I majored in English Literature and minored in Art History in college, which suited me at the time. Knowing what I know now, I really should have looked into marketing communications or something to support my penchant for messaging.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.debmitchellco.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/debmitchellco/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DebMitchellCo
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/debmitchellco/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@debmitchellco
- Other: [email protected]
