When design is in your blood, it’s hard to imagine doing anything else. For Chris Cooley, owner of Michael Alan Furniture & Design in Lake Havasu City, AZ, a lifetime career in interiors began at her mother’s knee. “My mom was an art teacher and taught interior design at our community college. We grew up with it,” she says. “I believe you either have that design spirit in you, or you don’t.”
At Michael Alan, Cooley makes sure that her clients feel that design spirit, whether they come into the store to browse collections of furniture or to seek expert advice on creating their homes’ interiors. “We fill the gap between a design firm and a furniture store,” she explains. “Clients want that whole-home experience, and we’re able to show them how the right pieces of furniture are going to look and fit.” Cooley adds that people still want to feel and touch the items they are going to live with for years to come, and having a professional in place to guide them makes that encounter even more positive. It’s an experience, she points out, that cannot be found online.
Being in that sweet spot between retail big-box and boutique design gives Cooley and her team a distinct benefit: being able to complete the entire, finished job. “We’re not just delivering the sofa,” Cooley says. “We’re showing how it could look in your home with the options available to our clients, like side tables, lighting and rugs.” Cooley uses the example of a client who buys a chair for $1,000, but then gets it home and is disappointed when it doesn’t look like the $1,000 chair the client fell in love with at the store. “That’s because they haven’t experienced all the accessories around it to give it that complete feel, which is what we can help them with through the interior design side of our business,” she says. “With design and retails options, clients are getting the full benefit of what they deserve.”
Cooley, who shares that her business benefits from the second-home market in her area, knows that interior designers must raise the bar on what clients can see in the store. Alongside popular brands and well-known styles, her team offers unique pieces that Cooley finds on her shopping trips. “I sprinkle a lot of one-of-a-kind items in the store. It makes a difference. These are items clients will not find anywhere else,” she says. Some of her favorites are arrestingly colorful Indian and intricately carved consoles that the designers can help meld into a homeowner’s style. She and her team are always eager to help clients see how their cherished family pieces can meld with a new style or design scheme.
Customers who are quick to buy online present the biggest challenge for a storefront/design services operation like Cooley’s. “It’s important that we are truly building relationships so they have the complete experience,” she says. Working with a lot of repeat customers who can often only tackle one room or space at a time means that the Michael Alan team has an opportunity to build long-term relationships with their clients. For Cooley, that extends to her Lake Havasu community as well. Michael Alan has store events and fundraisers, including the Sleepless in Havasu fundraiser to support local breast cancer awareness that has raised more than $300,000. “I’m a strong believer that unless you’re giving back to your community and your industry, you’re simply not making a difference. Your community needs to know what you do and that you care. If you’re not doing that, why be in business?” she says. “And you’re not going to get that online.”
