Fitted Kitchen Trade - Health Advisory

High Risk Group

An ongoing study has revealed that prolonged exposure to fitted kitchens can lead to a heightened risk of contracting MME (Melamine Molecular Exchange).

This progressive condition is not related to any chemical component of MFC (Melamine Faced Chipboard). It's a consequence of the pressure under which the material is formed which can lead to leakage  at an invisible molecular level allowing the actual transfer of melamine molecules into the human molecular structure. At present the condition is thought to be irreversible, but current bio-genetic research looks positive.

One problem is that early symptoms are unlikely to be attributed directly to the condition. They include edginess and increasing rigidity of the joints.

Later stages, however, are indicated by an increasingly angular comportment and occasional unsteadiness. This may be relieved by placing the subject's back against a wall and manipulating the legs.

As the condition advances, the subject may become listless and emotionally flat. Asked how they are feeling at this stage a frequent response, in the industry vernacular, is "bored" or "completely screwed".

Without careful handling as the condition progresses, there is an increased risk that the subject may give way to base instincts and become completely unhinged suffering irreparable damage.

Low Risk Group

For those within the industry who may be exposed to natural timber components, such molecular exchange is extremely rare, perhaps because of the product's organic nature. In the few recorded cases, though, the seasonal effects are reported to be "quite astonishing".

Molecuar Exchange

Molecular exchange was first identified, in a different context, in a report by O'Brien/De Selby (1967):

“The gross and net result of it is that people who spend most of their natural lives riding iron bicycles over rocky roadsteads … get their personalities mixed up with the personalities of their bicycle as a result of the interchanging of the atoms of each of them …”

You can access the full report here.

Help promote MME awareness. Please retweet.

[Image credit:stockxchng/www.digital-delight.ch]

[Published 1st April 2012]

The Demise Of "Old Selling" And The Rise Of The Designer.

 

(Hint. See the black areas as heads in profile)

When I think of Old Selling I think of MFI at the height of it's powers.

They thought the process of selling could somehow be separated from the process of buying. Unfortunately, their laser-like focus on ‘The Sale’ often dissolved into a shortsighted blur when it came to fulfillment of the customers purchase.

This led to a curious kind of contradiction in which they managed to win sales and lose customers - with equal efficiency.

MFI treated a 'Sale' like it was some kind of laboratory-bred hybrid which would lend itself to mass reproduction by lodging the appropriate formula in the minds of sales staff.
With accountancy as the dominant discipline they mistook the bookkeeping entry for the real thing.

MFI’s new owners have acknowledged  that selling kitchens is “just too difficult”. So, thankfully, the public is going to be spared the misery of finding this out all over again.

So what is it that makes kitchens so difficult?

Well, for a customer, what exactly is a kitchen purchase?

Is it the dream inspired by a showroom display?
The actual design she sees on the computer screen?
Or her personal perception of it?
Is it the jumble of boxes that arrives on the back of the lorry on the day of installation?
Is it what’s left behind as the fitter sweeps up and drives off?
Is it the stylishly lit, fully stocked, proudly demonstrated, social hub of the next family gathering?
Or is it the recently discovered leak behind the dishwasher, the malfunctioning oven, the misaligned door?

For the customer it's all of of these, regardless of any dreamy preconceptions. As a retailer this totality is what you are really selling.

A kitchen is a product inextricably linked with services - design, installation, aftersales. All these components are interdependent. In the customers mind there is no distinction between them. The word “kitchen” is just shorthand for the whole experience.

It’s no longer possible to get away with a convenient separation  between the company's idea of a sale and the customer's idea of a purchase. The exchange has to have an inherent balance, a symmetry between the promise and its fulfillment.

Old Selling isn't good at this. It has difficulty grasping the fact that selling is more than just a challenge to the salespersons ego; more than a relentless push towards “The Close”.

Today’s sale never closes. It’s permanently open. It must be made and re-made with every customer engagement - before and after of the point of purchase.

For kitchens, a designer is better suited to this new environment than a Salesperson.

In a sense, at first encounter you don’t have anything to sell. As a designer your job is to co-create with the customer the ‘product’ to be sold/bought.

Design becomes the common ground on which you get to know and understand each other, as you must, in order to go the distance that lies on the far side of the 'sale'.

You are not aiming at a 'sale' but at everything that happens, and everything she will experience, beyond the sale. Selling is the medium through which you facilitate this process, not the purpose of the process.

The receipt of a deposit is just a formal record of a decision to buy that is made incrementally along the way. It’s the sum of your company’s virtual presence, its physical presence, its conversations, its perceived competence.

The design process offers an oblique means of establishing your integrity with a ‘Sales’ resistant customer and a way for the customer to confirm the validity of her initial perceptions.

Of course, the design skills I’m talking about here go beyond software proficiency and product knowledge - and they go far beyond  Old Selling too.

It’s a mistake to accept any separation between designing and selling, just as it is a mistake to let Old Selling get in the way of buying.

Related posts:

http://www.thekitchenword.com/blog/2011/8/17/fitted-kitchens-and-sell-buy-convergence.html

http://www.thekitchenword.com/blog/2011/7/13/to-sell-more-start-at-the-finish.html

Copernicus Kitchens Or Ptolemy Kitchens?

Around the 16th-17th century, Ptolemy’s view of the Universe was that Earth rested at the centre and all the planets, including the Sun, revolved around it.

Copernicus came along and was able to prove that, in fact, the Sun lies at the centre, with the planets, including Earth, in constant orbit around it.

With regard to kitchens, instead of the Earth and Sun, let’s consider companies and consumers.
 

Ptolemy Kitchen Co. believes it lives in a commercesphere at the centre of a wider consumerverse made up of thousands of orbiting customers.

Copernicus Kitchen Co., on the other hand, recognises that it’s the  consumersphere that lies at the heart of a commercial cosmos made up of thousands of orbiting companies.

This shift in perception may be quite subtle but the implications are significant when it comes to communicating with the marketplace.

Ptolemy Kitchens loves broadcasting. The megaphone is the weapon of choice to "get the message out there". When it comes to creative copywriting, fiction seems to be its strongest talent: "Up To 70% Off!" is a popular theme. “It's a numbers game. Just get them in the door and we’ll do a sales job on them." That’s the mantra.

But broadcasting 'buckshot' is expensive, inherently indiscriminate, and wasteful. Think of the average 1% return on a direct mail shot.

Copernicus Kitchens takes a different approach. Its method is closer to GPS than broadcasting.

It has ‘communication satellites’ in constant orbit around the consumersphere. These are configured for two way communication to determine a mutually agreed destination. Only then can they help to plot a course by providing useful, relevant information and a customisable  journey plan.

Broadcasting can be reassuring. There’s a certain comfort in hearing the echo of your own message  even as it ricochets off unintended targets.

The GPS method, on the other hand, is finely focussed. It requires constant listening to the consumersphere and continuous fine tuning. It’s results may be measurable and cumulative but patience and discrimination are required - and an aptitude for working in the dark.

Copernicus Kitchens, though, is in it for the long run.

Ptolemy's had his day.

You Don't have To Sell To Everybody

 

You don't have to sell to everybody. Sooner or later you come to accept this.

Maybe it's age or experience or the simple realisation that with each passing project a little bit of your life is used up in the process - uncosted.

Eventually, you may learn to read the signs and know when to walk away - or send the customer away. Always respectfully, of course, with regard to both the customer and yourself.

This is probably even more important now that things are economically tighter. Attempting to satisfy the demands of the wrong type of customer can suck any profit right out of a job, and make your life a misery at the same time.  When you get that gut feeling, don't second guess it. Get out early.

This is not cynicism. In fact, not doing it is what leads to cynicism.
Only an open mind with a healthy sense of self worth can make the right judgment.

The fact is you're too good at what you do; you take it too seriously and responsibly to let a small minded customer take your energy away from giving your best to those who can see and appreciate your commitment, notwithstanding snags along the way.

Some are brave enough to set the ground rules right at the outset:

http://www.revenuejournal.com/blog/why-i-dont-work-with-jerks

http://www.walkerdesigngroup.net/pages/rant.html

Better to lose the sale than make a loss?

Image Credit: Michal Zacharzewski SXC

Who Are Kitchen Showrooms For?

The October edition of KBB Review provides some challenging reading for independent kitchen retailers.There were several article which, if you ‘join the dots’, point to a very uncertain future for mid-market independent showrooms.

Take Paul Whier’s (Interiors of Harrogate) comment in the KBBReview roundtable for example. “We can have literally nobody in the showroom all week and then at the weekend we could do a whole weeks business”. Sure, you can argue that the weekend’s business justifies the other 4 or 5 days overhead but could this be an indicator confirming  reports that consumers now do as much as 70% of their research on the internet before they even want to talk to a salesperson? Are they perhaps avoiding the showroom until the need to 'touch and feel' overtakes the determination to by-pass a sales pitch?

Time was when the retailer and his showroom acted as the intermediary between the supplier and the consumer. Now the showroom is an intermediate facility between the net and the consumer.

This is a significant shift and not without implications. This is already most apparent in the appliances market but who’s to say that your showroom is not just a convenient demonstration point for softclose drawers, granite tops, led lighting or whatever, subsequently bought elsewhere?

Paul Collier (Leekes Ltd.) alludes to this when he says “They’re looking for more of a deal and want to shop around - so before they would’ve bought the furniture, the appliances and the granite in one go they want to look elsewhere for each part”. The composite sale is literally disintegrating.

Then Steve Root  (Roots, Faversham) brings up a point that a lot of retailers will be familiar with; regardless of the displays you have the customer will often end up buying from a sample door and worktop. The case can be made that the general showroom ambience is a positive psychological factor in this purchase - but now we have to ask at what cost?

There appears to be some evidence that upmarket showrooms with distinctive, established brands are immune to all of this but, as Paul Whiers points out, there is margin threatening competition there too.

The question is - does the changing consumer buying process justify the substantial investment required by an independent dealer to set up and run a fully furnished showroom?

In another article in the same magazine Dan Fletcher (European Kitchens, Bathrooms and Bedrooms) did the sums and bravely concluded that, for him, the answer is no.

I suspect that the twin forces of a growing internet business and an ever tightening financial environment will lead to more independents weighing that value judgment very carefully.

The ground continues to shift.