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COVER STORY
Taking it All The Way
New Age Interiors is there for its clients, right down to the last
detail.
By Howard Shingle
Melissa Fenigstein was born to run her own business. She grew
up in a business family; it’s her background. It seems inevitable
that in October 1998 she would leave her job as manager and leading
sales person at a design oriented firm to start her own business. “I
wasn’t born to be a doctor or a lawyer,” she says. “I
was born to run a business and design just happens to be the business
I picked.”
Maybe picked isn’t the right word. Fenigstein’s father was a furniture
manufacturer and as a student she worked there in sales. That job started her
down the path from one experience to another, all somehow related to interiors
or designing. She worked in an office and furniture store, attended trade school
and then became the manager at a design store.
And her family’s influence didn’t stop there, either. It was her
mother who told her she was working so hard and that she should be doing it for
herself. (Mothers know.) That’s how New Age Interiors, Bay Shore, NY, was
started, operating out of Fenigstein’s home for the first year and a half.
Soon after, as Fenigstein realized she just couldn’t find enough decorative
accessories and artwork available to the trade on Long Island or a shop that
had a good selection and the right price structure for designers, it was her
brother who offered advice. One night at dinner he suggested that if that was
the case—and after all she should know—then Melissa should start
a decorative accessories resource center for designers. The result: The Final
Touch.
“My family plays a big part in making me grow and giving me the ideas to
grow because I can do the work, but I need somebody to give me the shove in the
right direction,” she confesses. “The Final Touch showroom became
its own business, but it also became the operating offices for New Age Interiors.”
Now, wait a minute. Let’s go back a second. Do you mean that in just a
few short years Melissa Fenigstein quit her job to open her own design business,
and then shortly after opened her own resource center? Does she know what kind
of risks she took? Does she know what gigantic steps she took?
“That’s what they tell me,” Fenigstein answers. “They
say I beat myself up all the time saying, ‘I want to do more, I want to
do more, I want to do more,’ and ‘It’s not enough,’ and
everybody asks, ‘Do you realize what you’ve accomplished?’ So
I’m either modest or have unrealistic expectations of what I’m capable
of.”
THE WOW FACTOR
New Age Interiors is a small, design-oriented company that does it all. Fenigstein
will work with architectural plans on new construction—either residential
or commercial—or for clients doing additions or renovations or those who
simply want to redo an existing space. What she offers is “color schemes,
furnishings, window coverings, right through to every last accessory . . . as
far as they want me to take it. I’ve had clients have me buy dishes and
towels for them, too.”
But window coverings get special attention. “Every design job gets window
treatments,” Fenigstein says. “I feel draperies are a huge part of
home fashion. I can make a stunning room—the furniture is gorgeous, everything
is in place—and we go in and look at the room and I’m there for the
window treatment installation and suddenly they go up and the place becomes, ‘Wow!’
“I think there are three things that have that effect. Wall covering or
dramatic paint can take a beautifully furnished room with stunning fabrics and
everything and really take it to a new level; window coverings, and especially
draperies, have that effect; and also artwork on the walls. Lay people never
think to do that, or they’ll do one or two pieces when they really bring
a home to life and add such warmth and interest.”
Alternate window treatments and hard coverings such as shutters are among the
products offered by New Age Interiors, but Fenigstein admits to a special fondness
for the softer side. “I love fabric. I love draperies. They make me happy.”
OVER AND ABOVE
Most of New Age Interiors’ clients are on Long Island. Fenigstein will
drift into the city or out of state on a recommendation, but there is plenty
of work to be done locally. “Oh, yeah. They are trying to make sure there
is absolutely no empty land on Long Island,” she jokes.
“Our industry right now is a very busy industry. In our area people are
staying in their homes as opposed to stepping up, and because of that there’s
plenty of work.” One of Fenigstein’s current clients is a homebuilder
and, as it turns out, he is working on a new development of 25 homes and has
asked her to be involved. It will be a new type of collaboration for both Fenigstein
and the builder. This time next year she’ll know how well it goes.
Otherwise, most clients are repeats or direct referrals, and many have become
good friends. It’s a testament to her client relations that they stayed
with her when she went off to start New Age Interiors. “I had a couple
of really terrific clients, and I almost feel like they took it as their responsibility
to see that I had succeeded and to make sure that I had recommendations for new
business. They were terrific to me. Very loyal is actually an understatement
because they went over and above.”
To this day recommendations and word-of-mouth advertising has been Fenigstein’s
mainstay, although that may be changing. “We have been doing some print
advertisements in a local home décor magazine. We get a great response.
It’s not an inexpensive thing to do. It’s costly doing full-page,
full-color photograph ads, and I have to have the rooms photographed and that’s
expensive. But I made a decision in the last year that I want to do a lot more
photography, and I made a deal with a photographer that he will have constant
work from me.”
Fenigstein’s business side understands that advertising is an investment
that pays off in jobs. “I can go back to each advertisement that comes
out and tell you which jobs came from it. So the advertising is getting paid
for and then some.
“In some businesses I don’t think they know exactly what comes from
their advertising. They do all sorts for research and ask people, ‘Where
did you hear of us?’ and that kind of thing. But I can say this job came
from this advertisement in this issue. In most design jobs you’re with
the customer for months, so it’s easy. When I get them on the phone and
they say, ‘I saw your ad,’ we write that down when we start their
file. So we know.”
THE VISION THING
Transitional is the big design theme for New Age clients, even if some would
be surprised to know that. “Most people on Long Island think they are really
Traditional, but I’m not sure they understand what that means. They are
more relaxed. It’s not quite as serous as true Traditional work. I work
with a lot of young families with kids. I want to make their homes very beautiful,
but also very livable. I want them to be able to enjoy their homes and not worry
so much, and you can achieve both.”
Comfort not only is a major theme in her design work, it’s also important
to Fenigstein’s customer relations. “I don’t want anybody to
ever feel uncomfortable. When people are really comfortable and they know they
are with the right person then from Day 1 the job is better,” she says.
Because she charges a consultation fee, Fenigstein will invite new customers
to visit her showroom first to see what kinds of things she offers. “I
will do a kind of mini-consultation at no charge and speak to them about their
project and show them around the space and tell them exactly what we do—break
it down for them, show them how it goes from plans to pictures right to the end.
If I’m the right person for them I will set up consultations in their homes
where they’re real comfortable,” she explains.
She then proceeds to make their dreams come true. “That’s what I
think people pay me to do. They have a vision in their heads, but they don’t
know how to do it. It’s my job to get inside their heads, and somehow see
their homes through their eyes and make it. Very few people hire designers to
completely make the vision. Usually people have some idea of what they want,
they just don’t know how to achieve it.”
The process begins with asking a lot of questions and showing clients a lot of
photos, even if they are photos of rooms the client isn’t working on. “I’m
looking for a feeling,” she says. “Once I get an idea of what color
scheme people are looking for, I will brainstorm and put together a fabric fashion
show. I’ll hold up fabrics and get a ‘Yes,’ ‘No,’ ‘Maybe’ out
of them. That will tell me what color scheme appeals to them, that will tell
me a feeling—are they more formal, are they more casual, do they like texture,
do they like patterns—by how they answer questions about the fabrics. From
what I get a positive response to, I’ll then try to create a look off of
that.”
That kind of one-on-one service continues right up to the last day of a project.
Fenigstein is always there in person for the final installations. “I find
that you end up with much happier clients,” she says. “If there are
any problems I’m there to instantly troubleshoot. When it’s just
the client, they might think something is a huge problem when it’s nothing.
Custom service-wise it’s an important part to be there. People hire designers
because they want their hands held a little bit. So I’m there to hold their
hands. It makes them feel comfortable.” |
