Pending? Don’t kid yourself.

Those customers didn’t come to buy, they came for information about buying. Information which you could have given them so much earlier and more cost effectively.

Kitchen consumers start ‘buying’ long before they make the purchase - if you give them the opportunity, that is. If you don’t, then maybe, just maybe, they’ll come directly to you - but they won't be buying. They’re not ready. You haven’t prepared them.

Nobody (including you) buys anything these days without visiting relevant websites. That’s where we go to educate ourselves and gain some fore-knowledge, especially when we’re shopping for high value product like a kitchen.

So the question is: what do buyers find when they visit your website? Is it just a clone of so many others? Or does it answer the real questions buyers are asking themselves? Some of these questions are straightforward some are more subtle but no less important. 

The straightforward ones are about the tangibles - product features, quality, cost; the more subtle ones revolve around the intangibles  - competence, integrity, trust. How does your website answer these questions? A lot of fitted kitchen websites just don’t succeed here.

Your website (and your use of other media) should be laying down a digital pathway that leads prospects to you, as the embodiment of everything you’ve led them to believe, thus far. But, be warned, if the reality falls short of the digital story, they’ll smell manipulation and deceipt  - and they’ll walk away. 

But right within your business you have a rich seam of raw, factual content and copy. lt lies right where you and your current customers overlap and interact, the daily ‘sharp end’. What you need is a means of garnering, interpreting and crafting this in creative ways which answer your future customers' conscious and unconscious questions.

Your website isn’t about slideshows and widgets; it’s about content and copy that answers the questions that buyers naturally ask. But content means so much more than brochure shots of kitchens, and copy means so much more than filling in the web designer’s ‘lorem ipsum’ spaces with “Welcome to...established in 1990...”, and limp testimonials like “...lovely job. Mrs J., Oxford”. 

Buyers go to your website looking for ‘bread’ but too often they find only the ‘stones’ of brochure-speak and company vanity. Your website content and copy should work in harmony to inform, educate and reassure the buyer that you are worthy of inclusion in their short-list.

Yes, working this out will take time and money. But it’s a waste of both if you’re always trying to crank up the sale from a cold, standing start with a buyer who’s only at the ‘information’ stage.

Time to take a long hard look at your Pending File - and your website.

Related post:

Fitted Kitchens and Buy/Sell Convergence

 Image credit: stockxchange Image ID: 1220957 

The ads you place are 'selling'

Your Twitter words are 'selling'

Your Facebook presence is 'selling'

Your website design is 'selling'

Answering the phone is 'selling'

Arranging an appointment is 'selling'

Your timekeeping is 'selling'

Greeting a customer is 'selling'

How you look is 'selling'

Your mood is 'selling'

Surveying is 'selling'

Designing is 'selling'

Your Terms & Conditions are 'selling'

Your showroom is 'selling'

Your conversations are 'selling'

Off-hand remarks are 'selling'

Listening is 'selling'

Observing is 'selling'

Delivering a kitchen is 'selling'

Fitting is 'selling'

Cleaning up after is 'selling'

Booking a service call is 'selling'

Carrying out a service call is 'selling'

Handling a complaint is 'selling'

Your customer's reported experience is 'selling'...

To all of the above we should add -

"Or not!"

At what point, do you think, do customers actually buy?

Don't mistake the cheque, or the cash, or the credit card swipe for the 'sale'. 

They're just a puctuation mark in a continuing dialogue.

Give up looking for miracle marketing shortcuts.

Commit to the long term and dig in deep.

Image credit: stockxchng/Ayla87

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.
 

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

[Published 1st April 2012]

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

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. 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

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.

 These may not be the words we use, but it is what we are really saying when we complain about 'the way things are’.

Here are the facts:

The internet is indifferent to the overhead required to run your business model.
Customers are indifferent to the overhead required to run your business model.
Customers are adapting their buying processes to a changed environment quicker than you have adapted your selling and your marketing.
Customers will only buy at their convenience, not yours.
And they find the internet convenient -  the same way you do when you’re buying something thats not a kitchen.
You are going to have to start thinking like a customer, not a retailer.

As a kitchen designer, you may well have the skills to sort all this out.
Think of how you work with your clients. You talk to them and listen carefully. You measure the space available.  You invest your time, energy and skills designing a solution that makes the best use of the space available and the relevant components bearing in mind the customers needs and expectations.

Well, just think of the internet as big, awkwardly shaped space where consumers live and extend the same design principles to this environment. You need to get the dimensions of it and (re)design your business to suit. You have access to an endless range of ‘components’ which are as flexible as the space they are designed to address. They can also be constantly measured to see how well they ‘fit’, (or not) and can be freely expanded or reduced as required.

Unlike kitchens, these ‘products’ are frictionless and gravity free but good design principles still apply. You still need a sense of balance and proportion. You still need to have an eye for when something jars aesthetically or ergonomically, simply isn’t working or is not what your clients are looking for.

Just like kitchens, it takes a while to really get to know these products before you can get the best out of them and be confident and competent in their use. The best time to make a start is yesterday.

A word of caution, though, when you go looking for advice think of web people as you would kitchen fitters - their skill, knowledge and experience are invaluable to the process, but you wouldn’t necessarily want them designing your kitchens.

When it comes to your online presence it’s not about web design. It’s about business design, using relevant and appropriate digital components with the advice, knowledge and support of the tech guys to achieve the outcome you want.

Like good kitchen design it’s the intelligent and purposeful arrangement of the components that will determine the quality of that outcome.

It’s past time for complaining about the way things are. What you’re really complaining about is the way things were.

I’ve just got back from holiday in Italy. I love going there. It can be such a peculiar mixture of mild anarchy (the traffic) and gentle conformity ( the daily ‘passegiata’).

I stayed in Spoleto, and as I sat, late one afternoon, outside the bar at the Duomo refreshing myself after a long hot hike through the surrounding hills, a young boy careered down the long flight of shallow steps and rode a wide arc around the piazza to abandon his bike in the cool shade of some stone steps. Within seconds another six or seven boys had arrived with the same flourish. They were all about 10 or 11 years old. ‘Goal posts’ were quickly positioned, teams picked and soon ‘the beautiful game’ was underway. The influence of the national team was evident; style was at least as important as skill.

At a crucial point early in the game a slow paced Nonna, making her way across the piazza, wandered across the goal mouth unnoticed, until a random deflection of the ball caught her a soft, glancing blow. She turned immediately and gave off loudly to the boys. They all stood slightly embarrassed and absorbed the reprimand with respectful patience. Not one of them uttered a word of defiance or retort. She resumed her amble and they gingerly resumed the game.

Some intense play followed until, suddenly, an attack was abandoned and the ball was passed back to the goalkeeper as though a man had gone down injured. One of the boys had just spotted the Nonno shuffling along the same trajectory as the Nonna. Play was suspended and friendly words exchanged as he made slow progress across the piazza and off the field of play. Then the game resumed.

This little vignette, taking place in a timeless medieval piazza, illustrated for me what I feel makes Italian design so attractive. The old and the new are seldom seen in opposition, rather they are like the tick and tock of some eternal clock.  The daily presence of the ancient past makes for a comfortable familiarity, devoid of any unduly reverential deference. It is neither an embarrassment nor an impediment to the present. There is an easy respect for it which seems to acknowledge that the present moment was always inherent in it. It’s what brought us to here.

The sense of scale and proportion in the surrounding preserved architecture remains evident in even the most sparse of contemporary Italian design. There is as much sensitivity to the role of space as there is to the design of the solids that occupy it.

I always come back from Italy with my design soul refreshed and inspired.

There’s been some Twitter talk recently about ‘free’ design, the general inference being that it is inevitably of a lesser standard than ‘paid for’ design.

This is simply neither true nor logical.

It implies a sliding scale of design competence based on price paid. If this is the case, then those complaining about free design would have to accept that designs which cost more than theirs are automatically superior in quality, meaning that their designs are merely mediocre. Would they be happy with this interpretation?

Any kitchen designer, good, bad or indifferent, is free to charge as much as or as little as he chooses. There is no automatic correlation between design talent and price charged.
A higher price won’t make you any more talented, nor a lower price any less talented.

Most people in the trade would accept that, rightly or wrongly, the word ‘free’ is often used as a substitute for the word ‘included’. Free design, in other words, has been accounted for in the retailers margin. This is perfectly acceptable, and the argument which says that those who ultimately buy are then paying the price for all the designs that weren’t bought is entirely spurious. Should the same logic apply to rent, rates, insurance etc. and an admission fee be charged for the “just lookers”?

Independent kitchen designers have a different problem.

There are so many variables within kitchen manufacturers catalogues that the ultimate usefulness of a design from an ‘independent’ designer is questionable.

For example, if a design includes some standard UK sizes ( 500 & 1000 modules) and the customer subsequently decides to buy an Italian kitchen (450 & 900 modules), the plan won’t tally and this will have significant implications in terms of design detail.

Presumably, this dilemma is resolved by that retailers ‘free’ design service - and the customer is left wondering what exactly they paid the ‘independent’ designer for.

Personally, I don’t believe independent kitchen design represents the best value for the  customer. It’s a case of broad knowledge versus specific knowledge. The kitchen consumer is best served by the designer who has an in-depth knowledge of his product and how it can be skillfully configured to suit the particular constraints of any given kitchen.

The best artists, they say, work with limited palettes.

For a fitted kitchen retailer, design is about so much more than geometry. Design is the medium through which he starts to understand the client in the round and it is as much this relationship and understanding that will carry things through to a successful conclusion as the competence of his design. This is the problem with independent design. It’s a kind of designus interruptus; there’s  something missing, something never quite consummated.

Of course, I could be confusing ‘independent’ design with ‘subcontract’ design, in which case it’s not inconceivable that the main contractor could advertise ‘free’ design whilst continuing to pay the designer.

Now that would be a dilemma.