No Such Thing as a Free Lunch...or Free Shipping

Free shipping has become an expectation for most American consumers thanks in large measure to Amazon. Shipping charges are the number one reason why online shoppers abandoned their online carts, according to a 2018 survey by Internet Retailer, further supporting the notion that Americans do not believe they should pay for freight. Other shoppers faced with a minimum for free shipping will make additional purchases, or buy more expensive products, in order to qualify for free freight, claims University of Pennsylvania Wharton School Professor Roy Berman.

Consumer ire caused by having to pay freight for online and other purchases reflects the economic principle known as “pain of paying,” claims Ravi Dhar, director of Yale’s Center for Customer Insights. “The reaction to free shipping goes beyond the normal way of looking at cost and benefit,” explains Dhar. It’s similar to the anger hotel guests have when they have to pay to use the Internet in their rooms. And often the pain of paying is more about the thought of having to pay for something that most of the time is free regardless of how much the consumer is being charged. Offering a discount that has the equivalent value to the shipping costs is not as effective as free shipping. Dhar claims that consumers will pay more for products if there is not a separate charge for freight.

Not all shipping is the same. Smaller retailers pay a higher rate to ship packages than large companies like Amazon, who leverage their scale and volume for lower rates. Similarly, Amazon has convinced consumers that they have a right to return any purchase without charge or consequence.

Amazon has helped offset its free shipping charge through its subscription service Prime. There are more than 100 million consumers who pay Amazon $119 a year for “free shipping.” That is more than $11 BILLION in Prime dues. Amazon’s strategy is to entice Prime members to purchase as much as possible on its site to take advantage of the free two-day shipping offer.

So how can smaller retailers compete with free shipping offers? There are a few different options available for showrooms.

• Reduce the discount offered to cover the cost of freight. This is a way to have the customer covering shipping costs without them feeling like they are. Some dealers do this with incoming freight from manufacturers as well.
• Increase the price of products to cover the cost of freight. This allows customers to feel like they are still getting a full discount, but you are covering any freight costs.
• Require a certain purchase amount to qualify for free freight, similar to what most manufacturers do. You will still be eating the shipping costs, but the larger orders will provide some relief. 
• Instead of itemizing your quotes, provide lump sums for projects. Your new bathroom fixtures are $22,583 and that includes freight. The pain of paying for freight may be alleviated by not seeing it as a separate line item. 

The fact is that shipping, like lunch, is never really free.

The Unique Customer Journey: Thoughts from Fellow Jeff Valles

Your company has been successfully working with this talented designer for years, but today seems a bit different. Do you handle her the same way as in the past? Do you start asking questions to learn what is different or do you simply listen a bit harder and slow down. I vote for the latter, you?

Truth be told, we must always keep in mind that every time a customer visits your showroom, their path on every project is unique. Not only is this meeting unique, but every meeting pertinent to this one job will be unique. Your customer still retains the trust, but time moves on and situations change. Who knows what has happened personally or professionally to any of the players since you last spoke?

In all situations, salespeople must always actively listen. If it is a first meeting, they must discover the pecking order for this particular group on this particular day. Who is the alpha? The client? Designer? Builder? For all we know, this might be the first time all have been in the same space together...what fun!

Your main job is not to expose any issues, but engage them in a way that they know you are there to help, listen and learn. If you start probing and expose issues, you and the group will have to deal with what is exposed. If that happens, the underlying issue is their trust in each other and in you. You are the outsider, therefore, the easy scapegoat.

Am I digging too deep on this? Our DPH industry, on average, closes roughly 35% of bids. We can improve that percentage if we improve the way we engage our customers.

Little things matter. One little flub can throw a monkey wrench into hard won trust and confidence of an old or new customer. I think you will agree that every sale is unique. Understand that each time clients enter your showroom they are on a unique journey. Engage with them to learn all you can.

I suggest taking a few minutes before your next PK to discuss this with your sales team. This simple awareness is important for your new budding sales heroes to understand. New salespeople are wrongly looking for repeatable processes to follow, and that will not play well in the long run. The best salespeople approach each meeting with an open mind. Their experience has them ready to engage each fresh opportunity and the unique collection of issues that job will drop in their laps.

Aesthetic Intelligence

Imagine using your senses to appreciate, elicit and create pleasurable experiences. That is exactly what Pauline Brown, former chairperson of North America for LVMH, describes as aesthetic intelligence.

Aesthetic intelligence touches all five senses. Think about dining at a great restaurant. In addition to fabulous food and an interesting well-executed menu, there also needs to be an ambience and acoustics that enable diners to talk to one another without having to yell. The lighting needs to work in different parts of the restaurant without casting annoying shadows. And don’t ignore the small details – the cutlery, glassware, table and seating and how they interact with the food to deliver the overall experience.

Brown claims that luxury brands and their leaders need to develop aesthetic intelligence in addition to traditional, artificial and emotional intelligence. She points to classic examples of how aesthetic intelligence can take a commodity product and transform it into a luxury experience. Steve Jobs did it at Apple and Howard Schultz did it at Starbucks. Today, Apple is not as much as a technology company as it is a luxury products company. iPhone purchasers pay a 600 to 700% premium for Apple products compared to competitors whose functionality is equal and sometimes superior to Apple’s.

Using aesthetic intelligence enables your showroom to excite and delight your clients. Delight is not quantifiable, and most companies don’t have a clue of its importance. However, an estimated 80 to 90% of product purchasing decisions are based on how the product or service makes a person feel. Most sales and marketing professionals focus on features, functions, costs and benefits. “We really are in a rather unsophisticated marketplace for understanding how people feel, empathizing with it and actually taping into it. And delivering in ways that are genuine and uplifting,” Brown said.

Your clients want to dream. They want to aspire. It’s human nature. What are you doing in your showroom to leverage aesthetic intelligence and how your recommendations for your clients’ new baths will make your clients feel and enable their dreams to become realities?

Looking Forward to a Great 2020

A new year is a time for DPHA members to recharge their batteries and focus, entering the new decade of 2020 filled with optimism and confidence that this new year will be better for themselves and their businesses.

That's easier said than done. The question is: what are you going to do differently to improve the satisfaction that you and your team receive from showing up to work every day and truly improving your performance? Hoping to do better is not a sustainable strategy. The calendar changing from December 31 to January 1 will make little difference unless you ACT.

2020 can only be the best year yet if you commit to doing the same things differently, and look at different things to do. 2020 will be no different than 2019 if you don't set goals and action plans to achieve them. Make sure you have a metric that is easily tracked and milestones for achievement. Identify the resources that you need to reach your goals and where you will find them. What obstacles do you have to overcome and how will you get past the potholes in the road that deter you from achieving them?

DPHA is a valuable resource for goal achievement. Yes, we know that we are biased, but we have a bias for good reason. DPHA offers programs, content and a network that helps solve common problems, makes our members’ lives easier and more professionally rewarding.

We understand that almost every one of our members feels overwhelmed and do not believe there are enough hours in every day to finish one's to-do list. That's the best reason why DPHA should be on your 2020 radar . We simplify life and make being involved in the decorative plumbing and hardware industry less overwhelming. Here's to truly making 2020 the best year yet. Happy New Year DPHA!

In the 20’s Your New Best Friend Will Be in the Cloud

As our calendars flip from 2019 to 2020, we bid farewell to the iPhone decade. Yes, the iPhone was announced on stage by the late Steve Jobs in 2007, but its monumental effect changed the way we lived, worked and played in the last decade. That tool has enabled Facebook, Twitter and numerous other apps to help, hurt and advise us through our days and it is always by our sides. For many people, their smartphone is their first interaction of the day and the last thing they touch before going to sleep. It has truly changed the way we live and is poised to remain a large part of our lives in the 2020’s

So, where do we and our phones go from here? Will the 20’s be the decade of iGlass? Everything from our toothbrushes to our homes seamlessly connect to the internet, or automated vehicles taking us wherever at the tap of an app? My guess is that by December 2029, artificial intelligence (AI) will be the glue in all of these deliverables. It will be our constant companion at work helping us create better products and deliver exemplary service. While we are brushing our teeth, the toothbrush will communicate our vitals to our AI in the cloud and it will make sure all is good-to-go for the day. AI will be up there, with us everywhere we go.

Where all this amazing tech will take us, I have not a clue. But just like each decade before, it will be the most amazing decade ever.

Okay that is where the world around us wants to take us. But where do we want to go in the 2020’s?

How about more FUN in the 2020’s? I challenge all this tech and AI to add more joy to our lives.. We have always worked to make life easier and more fulfilling, but what about FUN? Let’s contemplate that. Yes, fun, you know those amazing moments when you laugh so hard tears stream from your eyes and you think you are going to have a heart attack. FUN. When you ride a wave and it spins you like a top and your nose is full of the ocean and your shorts are full of sand, and you just take a moment and laugh at what just made you feel alive. That is it! I want more alive, fun time in the 2020’s. How about it, AI, are you listening?

A Lesson from Jennifer Gilmer

What do you do to build relationships with your repeat clients? Jennifer Gilmer Kitchens & Bath in Bethesda, MD and Ashburn, VA is an award-winning kitchen and bath showroom that has been honored for its design expertise dozens of times, including a 2009 Pinnacle Award from NKBA. Owner Jennifer Gilmer is also a savvy marketer. Every week her existing and former clients, and others on her mailing list, receive a profile of a project that her showroom has recently completed. The profile identifies the type of project, style, designer and several pictures with a brief description of the goals the client wanted to achieve with their project and how the design helps to accomplish them. A recent update featured a new bath with the following description:

Two growing teenage siblings shared a cramped bathroom with a separate tub/shower space before we renovated to create a fun and dramatic bathroom that would grow with them as they got older. Dark graphic tile helps create a sophisticated space for even the most mundane daily routines. Eliminating the tub allowed us to increase the floor space. Keeping the same floor tile helps elongate and open the space. 2 separate sinks provide personal space for each.

There is also a link for more photos.

We would suspect a relatively high open rate based on a principle that customers who recently renovated a room in their home will want to see what others have done with their new renovations. Sending project summaries is an easy, cost-effective and laser focused tactic to keep your showroom in front of a group of individuals who should be your best source of referrals; your existing customers.

Cutting One's Nose to Spite One's Face

Affordable luxury is an oxymoron. At least according to Bernard Arnault, CEO of LVMH, arguably the world’s most prestigious luxury brand whose empire includes Christian Dior, Louis Vuitton, Dom Perignon, Hennessy, most recently Tiffany, plus 70 others. Arnault does not believe that LVMH’s brands should ever be discounted, ascribing to the notion that luxury brands need to have total control of distribution, pricing and how the brand is portrayed.

American luxury brands take a different approach evidenced by the abundance of factory outlet stores that companies such as Coach, Michael Kors, Ralph Lauren and others use to deplete inventory. And therein lies the contradiction or question. Can Coach and others be considered luxury brands when you can buy their products at 50% off at an outlet? That’s the question Pam Danziger, author and retail business consultant, asked in a recent blog which delved into the definition of what luxury is.

Danziger noted that European and American definitions of luxury differ. Dr. Martina Olbertova, founder of Meaning.Global, a brand strategy company, says American luxury is suffering because it has forgotten its roots, evidenced by luxury brands willingness to discount and focus too much on generating short-term profits over long-term value creation.

Olbertova notes cultural differences between Europeans and Americans that serve to define different takes on luxury. Olbertova claims when a luxury brand is discounted, it trades the immediate gratification of outlet sales for the long-term legacy of the brand. “Luxury is about the transcendence of time and space. While Americans are all about form, Europeans are all about the essence…True luxury retains value in time. It goes far beyond the present moment.”

The converse argument is that when American brands rely on outlets, they bring luxury to those who are not in the top 1%. Using their branded outlets lets American luxury brands control pricing and how the brand is portrayed.

What does this debate have to do with decorative plumbing and hardware? It has everything to do with perception. As Amazon continues to drive the commoditization of everything, American consumers desire and believe they are entitled to discounted pricing, free freight and the ability to return anything purchased without cost.

The Amazon effect, and to a lesser extent luxury brand discount outlets, makes selling luxury products in decorative plumbing and hardware showrooms more difficult. And true luxury products and the ability to tell their stories are what will differentiate decorative plumbing and hardware showrooms now and in the future. Otherwise showrooms will find themselves in retail’s version of hell, racing to the bottom by having to compete almost exclusively on price. The question is: can a decorative plumbing and hardware showroom be considered a luxury destination if the first consideration is how much of a discount needs to be offered to make the sale? Please share your thoughts on the DPHA Facebook or LinkedIn pages.

Holiday Thoughts from DPHA Fellow Jeff Valles

I hope everybody had a lovely Thanksgiving. A wonderful holiday allowing American families to pause for one day to celebrate the passing year’s blessings. Then consume mass quantities of delicious food.

As Thanksgiving fades into memory, Christmas Day is on its way. The massive barrage of advertisements for Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday, Giving Tuesday have passed and they have been replaced by a consistent torrent of emails, ads and banners telling me that I can only have XX% off if I buy now! It is all so annoying.

Outside of that noise, I do enjoy holiday shopping. I love to discover just the right gift for my family and friends. Each gift I select has deep logic behind it, and I know it is something they never would purchase for themselves and will treasure for years. I hope to watch them peel back the shiny paper and see a bit of delight on their faces when they discover what it is. I love that look! Then sometimes they unwrap the gift and look at me, what the….? Off to the return counter.

The important thing is that my time searching, not dealing or discounting, is time that I spend thinking about the wonderful people in my life and in small, very small, way give them a bit of Christmas joy.

Merry Christmas and Happy Chanukah.

Ohh, P.S. As Christmas 2019 passes, all will turn to talking about 2020. Before that happens, find a moment and congratulate yourself, yes you, for all the hard work you did in 2019. Every once in a while, it is good to look in the mirror and say, great job, well done! Cheers

How To Delegate More Effectively

Delegation is one of the more difficult tasks for showroom owners and managers. However, when you don’t delegate effectively you send negative messages to your team that you don’t trust them to perform to your expectation. You also limit your ability to grow because there is only one of you. To delegate more effectively, change the paradigm of how you interact with the team members who report directly to you. Flip the switch. Instead of you checking on the status of a project or deadline, have your team check in with you. Create a regular meeting schedule to discuss the status of current projects. Regularly scheduled meetings tell the team what you expect from them and when. It also sends the message that you are concerned with outcomes rather than process.

Trust your team’s ability to perform to expectation. After all, you hired and trained your team members. You don’t have to play a role in every decision that they make. Perhaps a better approach is to communicate what is needed and provide the support and resources necessary for your team members to be successful.

To delegate more effectively, get out of your comfort zone by delegating tasks that challenge individual team members and requires them to get out of their comfort zones to learn new tasks and take on new projects. However, don’t simply throw a team member into the deep end and hope he or she will swim instead of sink. Give feedback after a task has been performed and identify both successes and opportunities for improvement. Real-world experience is the best teacher and will help your team members grow personally and professionally.

When you delegate more effectively, you can spend more time growing your business.

Tinder in my Showroom?

“I like that handle, but could I see it in hand-relieved satin brass?” How often have you heard this on your showroom floor? Every day, without a doubt! It could be available in all the colors of the hardware rainbow, and the internet shows so many more images than you could ever show in your showroom.

This is a question that has been haunting showroom salespeople for decades and, I think, we just might have the answer. At the 2019 Lightovation show at the Dallas Market Center, a leading luxury lighting manufacturer had strategically placed 4’ x 3’ interactive touch screens amongst its spectacular products. The screens were programed so the user could simply swipe right to easily move from image to image. Even amongst hundreds of beautiful lighting fixtures, these screens, with their larger-than-life images, were the draw. 

An EXPERIENCE garnered more interest than the actual product. People would stand and swipe to their heart's content as the images were quickly delivered from its huge database. Yes, it was a large screen that was the star of a show attended by the purchasing agents from the top lighting showrooms in the United States and Canada. Not a specific fixture, product series or brand, but a SCREEN. Are we focused on our screens or what?

Brick and mortar showrooms are not going away, but if a physical luxury showroom does not incorporate a 21st century experience, that will hurt its image. Imagine a customer walking into your showroom and heading straight for the interactive screen. In a matter of minutes, they are flipping through faucets as fast as they can swipe. Customers travel to your showroom to interact with the actual product and still want to be able to see everything imaginable. They want to experience the best of both the physical and digital worlds in your showroom.

When a customer asks what this faucet looks like in another finish, no problem. You can show it to them on your 4’ x 3’ screen We cannot physically show it all, but we can show a large image of their dream look by simply accessing our mighty, mighty database.

The answer is to bring the internet power into your showroom. Slap a screen on the wall and voila, millions of cabinet knobs are alive! Unfortunately, it is not simply plug and play. It will take some programming, and access to properly configured vendor databases to make this dream a reality.

When I returned home, I did a little digging and discovered these two “Kiosk” companies. It seems kiosk is the preferred terminology in the self-serve retail world, as opposed to large touch screens.

• Zivelo 
• 10net 

I hope some vendors and showrooms can work together to make this happen in the DPH world. I believe kiosks will be a big showroom draw and expand showroom offerings to infinity and beyond...

The Tremendous Benefits of Connection

At a time when attracting and retaining best-in-class talent is essential and at a premium, showrooms need to do everything in their power to help ensure that their team members feel welcomed, appreciated and connected to one another. According to the Center for Talent Innovation, employees who feel that they belong in their place of work are 350% more likely to contribute to their fullest potential, yet 4 in 10 employees believe they are physically and emotionally isolated in their workplaces.

There’s an easy button to achieve a sense of belonging among your team. Researchers at the Center for Talent Innovation found that simply providing more opportunities for team members to interact and check in with one another boosts the sense of belonging. In fact, 39% of survey respondents reported the greatest sense of belonging when they can connect with coworkers. What does not work as well is face time with senior executives or being copied on senior executive emails. The researchers found, “by reaching out and acknowledging their employees on a personal level, companies and leadership can significantly enhance employee experience and make their people feel valued and connected.”

There is not a one-size fits all methodology that encourages team members to connect with one another. Connecting does not have to be complicated. Taking the opportunity to ask how someone is doing and what you can do to make their day better can go a long way.

The researchers also recommend that leaders in an organization seek feedback from their team members. Doing so demonstrates trust and talking about the challenges you face humanizes your relationship with colleagues and coworkers. It is important to note that you must also do something with that feedback, so team members don’t feel like their feelings are falling on deaf ears.

When you continuously express concern for the welfare of your team, listen intently to the challenges they face and take the time simply to ask how they are doing, you will fuel engagement, improve relationships and enhance the bottom line.

Welcomed Thoughts from a Fellow (Jeff Valles): Get Back in that Chair!

It is the third Tuesday of the month and as usual, this outside salesperson will be visiting account ABC at 9am, DEF at noon for lunch, LMN at 2:30 and finish the day at XYZ at 4:00.

This looks great. During a full day of outside calls, you have the chance to tell your brand stories to your targeted customers. That’s a lot of ground to cover, so let’s hit the road. One question: are you prepared?

Some interesting questions to ask before you schedule any and all outside calls:

• Do they know you are coming?
• What do you want to accomplish at each call?
• Do you have plenty of samples to share?
• Have you checked the companies’ websites and social media posts to know what they are working on and promoting?
• What happened on your last call there? Did you review your notes?
• What have been your company’s interactions with each customer since that last call? Do you need to bring any parts or soothe any ruffled feathers?
• DO THEY KNOW YOU ARE COMING?

This call routine was the first thing that was drilled into my head by my mentor, Al Dubin. If I couldn’t answer all of these questions, Al told me to get back in that chair! Unprepared salespeople were his number one pet peeve. R-E-S-P-E-C-T your customer and do your homework. You have to give to get.

I am still amazed at how often salespeople, sales managers and local representatives would stop by with no plan, no product samples and no idea of what was going on with our shared interests.

They would show up when staff was busy selling, purchasing agents purchasing, designers pitching, plumbers fighting inspectors and builders trying to find subcontractors. They would drop in at 11ish just to say hello and see if there were any issues or questions. People, time is incredibly valuable for all involved and must be used effectively. Put simply, no one should call on anyone if they do not have an appointment and a beneficial agenda for all parties involved.

Management has to be on top of this. Every sales call made should align with your company's focus and what your marketing team is promoting. It is amazing what a company can accomplish when all the teams have the same game plan.

Let’s stop unprepared calls; take that time and generate the quality and additional sales from your showroom visits that you and your clients expect and deserve.

A Lesson in Capturing the Attention and Trust of Designers

Almost every decorative plumbing and hardware showroom wants to know the secret sauce of becoming the go-to-resource for their local design community. 1stdibs has become the trusted online source for thousands of designers tasked with sourcing furniture, antiques, art, rugs and other furnishing for the home. The company’s website has more than 800,000 pieces that are individually vetted by a 1stdbis team member. Why has a website selling luxury products captured the attention and support of the design community? One reason is that 1stdibs makes it easy to search and to buy, streamlining the designers’ process tremendously.

Second, there are 100 1stdibs team members dedicated to the trade who help designers find specific products that may not be featured on the site. This gives a personal touch that most websites don’t offer. Third, 1stdibs eliminates much of the ordinary risk that would come from sourcing unique, limited edition or one-of-a-kind products. The company accepts returns for any domestic product, ala Amazon, and gives designers up to 90 days for returns.

The company also leverages its editorial platforms, a monthly magazine, a blog, email newsletters and social media to promote designers’ work.

So how can we apply these lessons in DPH showrooms?

• Make it easy for the design community to buy from you. 
• Allow returns within 90 days even for custom orders, just for design clients.
• Use your website, social media and other communication mediums to promote your good designers’ work.
• Have at least one team member as the go-to resource for the design community.
• Create a special designer-only section on your website that features customization capabilities, unique products and projects and limited-distribution lines that you feature.
• Use the DPHA Connections blog to help promote local designers’ projects and their partnerships with your showroom.

Welcomed Thoughts from a Fellow (Jeff Valles): What Gifts Should I Send this Holiday Season?

Let’s think about walking into a showroom, a purchasing office or an interior designer’s studio during the holiday season. What do you see? There are large and small Christmas trees, twinkly lights, cookies and candy galore, tall rectangular lavishly wrapped booze boxes and holiday cards by the score. Lots of people exchanging numerous gifts, thanking their customers for a great year and others trying to be remembered in the New Year. So many companies and individuals trying to make an impression. So what happens to all of those gifts?

The business holiday season is a traffic jam of companies trying to be remembered by old accounts or impress new ones. Is this where you want to spend your marketing money? Hoping that Johnny at ABC will recall yet another logo coffee cup that will motivate him to lead his next customer to your display? How many gifts will Johnny receive? Will yours be the one that is magically remembered? It is a big HOPE. But you don’t want to be that company that plays Scrooge and does nothing.

I would like to offer an alternative solution for holiday brand building.

I always tried to find a solid charity that offered a holiday card where we could place a picture of our complete team on the cover wishing Happy Holidays. The money went to a good cause and when anyone asked a team member, they had a good holiday story to share and show where they are in the card cover image.

Doing this freed our holiday marketing money to use during a time when it made a more substantial impression. By mid-January, a lot of people are back in the day-to-day workflow and miss the “entertainment validation” of the holidays. This is a good time to take a target to dinner, bring in a catered lunch or hand out gift cards. By waiting until the January holiday hangover, you will be the lone brand thanking key players and it just might wash away the gift they received from your competitor way back in December. Some companies that follow this plan have a large event in early spring to welcome the building season and rev everyone up.

This plan also removes the stress of trying to do the best thing for your clients and allows you to better focus on your family’s holiday festivities. Because isn’t that what the holidays are all about?

P.S. Let’s never forget that HOPE is not a strategy.

Opportunity Knocking

Americans are increasingly choosing to remain in their homes as they age.   Baby boomers, who were born between 1946 and 1964, represent approximately 72 million folks and account for about 20% of the population. They will be nearing their 80's in the next decade, which is typically the age Americans move into senior housing. The age of people who enter senior housing continues to climb, however. Partially due to better health, but more likely the result of wanting to and being able to stay in their existing homes. 

This trend creates tremendous marketing and service opportunities for decorative plumbing and hardware showrooms to help their clients age in place. Barrier-free showers, shower seats and decorative grab bars are some great tools for allowing your customers to stay in their homes for longer. Decorative plumbing and hardware showrooms should develop expertise for assisting their clients to convert their bathrooms and kitchen to allow them to age in place gracefully.  

Welcomed Thoughts from a Fellow (Jeff Valles): Recap of the 2019 DPHA Conference in Seattle

As always, the 2019 DPHA conference was abuzz every day from 7 in the morning until well after midnight.  It has been another good year for our industry, and most are enthusiastic about their individual futures and excited about the expanding opportunities in the decorative plumbing and hardware market.

 

The days were punctuated by captivating product booths and many varied discussion topics.  Below are the more popular trends and topics that were consistent threads in my many conversations:

• Business remains strong with some secondary markets anticipating a small slowdown in early 2020.
• New products introduced were mostly simple upgrades and product line tweaks with only a few truly new products presented.
• People are interested to see if industry consolidation will continue and how it will affect the DPH showroom world.
• The industry needs to remain focused on luxury versus premium. 
• Where do the fascinating new technologies fit into our hand-crafted product business?

 

The education sessions were anchored by talented, insightful people.  Here are my key  takeaways:

 

David Avrin enlightened us by helping us to:

• Locate customers we did not know existed
• Continually work to surprise and delight our customers
• Remove FRICTION at all points of customer interaction
• Allow your team members to make what they think is the best decision versus “doing what the book dictates”
• Learn why your customers want to buy
• Remember trust is the root of a good relationship

 

Jay Acunzo open our eyes to:

• Never stop looking for the next big thing
• Never wait for what was the next big thing to die before moving on
• Never stop improving your business' unique draw
• Never stop evaluating your process and structure
• Understand what the anchors of your business are
• Build on and refine what is working
• Meet your customer where they are
• Make your business’ culture embrace change and creativity

Designer Panel: Overcoming Confirmation Bias, What The Trades Really Want 

• Do not get rid of printed catalogs
• As a group, they do not want to buy plumbing on the Internet
• They need more door hardware training to improve their confidence with product applications
• Trades cannot always get to the showroom to work with a client, and might send in client alone with STRICT instructions on what to show them
• They need CAD files now and will soon need BIM (building information modeling) product files
• A lot of clients are not adventurous and want their entire bathroom designed from one brand’s product series with no deviations
• New product updates are important, so please ask how each designer would like updates delivered (email, text, etc.)
• CEU’s are important but not mid-day
• Designers need finish samples to complete client design presentations - why are they so very hard to get?

The DPHA conference allows the talented people in the DPH world the opportunity to focus on bettering their businesses. Other gatherings are focused on product and purchasing programs. Last week we talked about everything from what ERP to use to earning customer trust.  If you did not attend, you missed the opportunity to gain valuable insights into your business by bouncing ideas off of some very knowledgeable and engaged people.

 

It is now only 11 months till our next DPHA conference.  Please make plans to join your fellow Decorative Plumbing and Hardware professionals in New Orleans, October 22 - 25, 2020.  

 

The more we work together the more our industry will improve for the benefit of us all. 

A Whack on the Side of the Head

The key to creativity is to look at the same things differently.  In his classic work, A Whack on the Side of the Head, Roger Van Och advises that when you do, great things happen.  Here is a great example.  A man named George de Mestral was inspired by how the burrs from plants stuck to his clothes.  Looking at the plants through a microscope revealed that there were hooks on the end of the burrs that would attach to the looped fibers in clothing.  The ah ha moment was to create a hook and loop alternative to conventional zippers.  And voila – Velcro was invented! 

Looking at the same things differently is easier said than done, because the human brain is not wired to look at things that way.  The brain defaults to the familiar.  What one needs to do to avoid the familiar is to de-familiarize.  That’s what a lot of artists, inventors and entrepreneurs do to spur creativity.  Famed author Tolstoy described common objects from a distorted vantage point.  

But how do we de-familiarize?  A technique offered by New York University Professor Adam Brandenburger is to observe commonalities from a different perspective.  “Not just name what is around us, but come up with new names.  Not just consider the whole, but break things up (or down) into pieces.  These techniques can help us see our way to the new and revolutionary, whether in the arts or business.”

Another technique is to take a page from Sherlock Holmes, who once famously told Watson that “you see, but you do not observe.”  Holmes frequently would discuss what he saw with Watson to help make the nonobvious obvious.  Do the same.  Write down or discuss with others your observations.  What are you not seeing that’s not obvious?

Welcomed Thoughts from a Fellow (Jeff Valles): No, No, Not That Mask, Oh Vendor, Oh Vendor!

A large vendor had just entered our market and we were just crushing it.  We had no displays. When a customer sounded interested, we brought them into the warehouse and opened boxes to present the products.  Every time, the product captivated both the customer and the sales associates.  This was going to be good.  

Then, the corporate mask descended over the product line.  The rules and conditions of their “program” appeared.  To become a full-fledged distributor, you HAVE to display this, and it MUST be supported with these products.  Oh, and the display WILL look like this.  

A large portion of the line was not for our customer base, and the display looked like an alien spaceship.  It was...unique.  We pleaded our case and were politely informed that they would think about it.  A few months later a quasi-competitor brought in the entire program and we were told to order from them.  By then, sales had diminished to nothing.  It was an opportunity missed.  Even more frustrating for me was that I had done the same stupid thing in my early years at Phylrich.  It was a hard lesson learned.

Each DPH showroom is unique for the simple reason that they are all owned and managed by confident, assertive individuals.  On paper, DPH businesses may focus on the same target markets, but their styles, product mixes and cultures are crafted by their owner.  Today they are referred to as entrepreneurs.  They are not generic individuals, their businesses are not generic businesses and they should not have to follow a generic program.   

Let’s also not forget the premium and luxury market clientele, whom many of our showrooms target.  Interior designers, architecturally-driven builders, open-minded plumbers and style-conscious homeowners do not gravitate to “factory displays”.  Stylists and style lovers are attracted to knowledgeable people presenting dynamic displays.  I cannot even begin to number the times a person of these talented professions would tell me that they were so turned off by that sterile “generic display”.  

Please do not make DPH showrooms wear the corporate mask of what a remote merchandising person concocted as best for the general market.  There is not one general luxury market.

Meet with your distributors and co-create a go-to-market strategy backed with numerical goals and targeted market penetration.  With a program in place, both parties can get to work and make it happen.  Please stop trying to put a constraining mask on a successful entrepreneur and their company.  This is a sure-fire path to mediocrity.

So on November 1, 2019, after the ghosts of the past have settled back home, let’s stop with the black and white ideas and rote proposals and let’s work together to surprise and delight the style-conscious individuals by removing the generic mask and let the showrooms unique style shine.

Welcomed Thoughts from a Fellow (Jeff Valles): Websites Only Take my Jobs on Price! Horse Pucky…

Last week I wrote an article with the opening line, “So why is it that 47% of top interior designers purchase products online?” and most of the comments from fellow DPH professionals were that the websites offered free freight and lower prices.  Wake up gang, that isn’t the major reason designers are buying online.  We are losing more business to digital savvy designers that are specifying and buying on the Internet.  Jobs that we will NEVER know about.  Sure, there are top shelf luxury designers that are price obsessed, but most are looking for easy access to information when and where they want it.  

 

Every time you lose a job to a low-ball bid, you hear about it directly from your customer.  It hurts badly and sticks in your mind!  All that time, all that effort, amounted to nothing.  What about the job at that same design house that was completely specified and purchased online?  You knew absolutely nothing about it and were not involved at all.  What is worse for your business, losing a job to a low balling #@!*#**, or never getting a whiff of a large job as it was all worked on online? 

 

After the recession, website companies remained unsophisticated and price was their key advantage.  Now the surviving sites, and new designer-oriented sites, offer an addictive  combination of an easily navigable user interface and anywhere, anytime accessibility with live solid phone and chat support.  This has absolutely nothing to do with price. Do not mix these two up.   Price competition is not going away, but in the luxury market it is not as big an issue as we portray it.  People will take the easiest path first.

 

If a customer comes in and says they want to order a bathtub from lowestofthelow.com, just let them.  Make a note on your calendar to check back when the job is trimming out and ask how that worked out.  I think you will remind them not to do that again.  I suggest not fighting individual pricing debates, unless it happens often.  There will always be sites and stores that offer silly pricing.  It is really not worth your team’s time, and you are worth your profit.  Take the energy and focus it on the future.

I was not aware how many talented designers were specifying products online until we started to receive RFQs that were 100% built on websites.  When we reached out to these good clients, they told us it was nothing against our team or showrooms, it was that our website was hard to work.  So they matriculated their favorite brands’ websites that offered them the intuitive interface they craved.  Now that hurt.  We did everything right except offer our good customers the tools they wanted.

 

We have to believe big.  Big like when we opened the business.  We knew everyone would come because our look was so damn good. Let’s take that same attitude and build magnetic web sites. 

 

Note: Please take another look at the proposed strategy to build a better understanding of what your always changing customers need.  It will limit the hurt in the long run.  “So why is it that 47% of top interior designers purchase products online?”   

Lessons Learned in Rebranding Chipotle

Chipotle’s brand suffered major hits from several food safety challenges,  causing the stock price to free fall by nearly 67% and forcing the company to rebrand and rebuild its reputation.  It’s been a remarkable turnaround.  The current stock price is up 90% in 2019.  In a recent interview, the company’s chief marketing officer Chris Brandt explained the strategy used to rebuild Chipotle’s reputation and re-earn consumer confidence.  

Brandt stated that Chipotle has always been a disruptive brand.  His goal was to promote what makes Chipotle special.  He moved the branding away from comparing Chipotle to competitors, opting instead to focus on what makes Chipotle great.  Brandt believes that effective marketing involves innovation, storytelling and collaboration.  “You have to find the stories of the brand and tell them, because today’s consumer – particularly at Chipotle where almost half of our customers are Gen Zers or Millennials – want to know the story behind the brand…People not only want a conversation, they expect you to have one and understand what the brand stands for,” Brandt said.

Chipotle’s story relates that the chain uses real, unprocessed ingredients that are responsibly sourced using classic cooking techniques to make delicious food.  You will never see a microwave, can opener or freezer in a Chipotle.  Brandt helped enhance the Chipotle story by focusing on what happens behind the scenes.  He compared the preparation process to a farmer’s market and wanted to show customers how Chipotle uses real culinary skills to make delicious food every day.  That was the inspiration behind the company’s highly successful “Behind the Foil,” advertisements that feature real employees talking about what makes Chipotle great and what they value the most. 

But how can we take this lesson and bring it into decorative plumbing and hardware showrooms?  

• Consumers want to know what your brand stands for and, for many DPHA members, there are compelling stories to tell.  You don’t simply sell tubs, faucets and vanities, you help make lives more enjoyable.
• Personalize the experience by determining what is most important to your clients, which is not something that can be obtained online or through a home center.
• Have an ongoing conversation with your existing and prospective customers.  That’s one of the reasons DPHA provides an easy button to do so by publishing the customizable blog for members every week that members can use as their own.
• Take advantage of DPHA’s smart purchasing guides that answer the questions that your customers ask most often, promote your ability to be a trusted advisor and make their bath and kitchen renovation process easier.  

Welcomed Thoughts from a Fellow (Jeff Valles): Design Professionals are Purchasing 47% Online

Did you know design professionals are purchasing 47% of their project materials online?

Anna Brockway, co-founder and president of Chairish, shared the following data in her presentation at Business of Homes’ Future of Homes 2019 conference in New York.

• 84 percent of professional designers start their sourcing online
• 81 percent of designers buy high-end items after first viewing them online
• 47 percent of all products in a typical design project are purchased online

After sharing the data, Ms. Brockway reflected, “Considering that furnishings are the third-largest spend after the household itself and cars, the shift to online should come as no surprise.”  I would venture that any significant purchase somehow involves the Internet. 

Before you start looking for a buyer for your showroom, let’s dig in a bit.  These statistics do not say where the designers spend a majority of their time shopping, nor what type of website the purchases were made.  Were they purchased from internet-only sites or the internet site of their preferred showrooms?  We continually hear that customers want to buy when and where they want.  In a showroom, on the phone, by email, or online.  Your DPH showrooms must be where your customers are. Your showroom and team are the most knowledgeable in your market and it is time to investigate a digital expansion. I think it is time for DPH showrooms to better understand their target customers and what they expect.

I suggest meeting them individually, starting with the key interior designers in your market.  Please do not only select designers by dollar sales.  Quite a few designers use a DPH showroom to make or confirm their specifications and then send the specification list to the homeowner or the builder or the plumber.  You know who I am talking about.  

Here are some helpful questions to get what you both need to work together effectively:

• How can we improve our brick and mortar showroom to make it easier for you to work with and without your clients?
• How can we improve our website to make easier for you to work with and without your clients?  Many “A” designers ask their clients to visit specific websites and note what they like.  It is a big time saver.
• Do you want access to your quotes online?  If so, what information do you need?  
• What information would you like us to send you in a monthly product DPH update?  New Products? Best projects finished? Top salespeople selections and comments? 

Take all that glorious information (data) and save it. 

Then repeat the process with the builders that build what your top designers specify and might be purchasing.  This is not about only your good builder accounts.  Talk with those that are in your target market even if they do not buy from you.  You will learn a lot. 

Now you have a lot of data that you need to work through and decide what your next steps will be. 

This is not the simple path but, I strongly feel, an important opportunity to grow your business.  It would be a shame to let this business go to another just because your brick and mortar business is missing sales that you could capture on the Internet.  The Internet is not going away and it will continue to gain market share. 

If you would like to discuss this, please email me at jwvals@gmail.com.  

P.S. I believe the site  Business of Home and its podcast are a must reference for the DPH industry.  We have a tendency to separate ourselves from the “other” decorative showrooms but they are fighting many of the same battle you encounter every day.  They cover smart, talented, design industry leaders who share their issues and discuss and detail their next steps.