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The Selling Cycle - The Kitchen Designer sales plan
The selling cycle basically means ‘what the designer is trained to do by the kitchen company in order to obtain the best opportunity of a sale’.
This means that a lot of what the designer does while at your house is pre-determined.
When starting to work on behalf of a kitchen company, prospective designers generally undergo one week of intensive training. Most trainees haven’t even worked in the same industry before. So what are kitchen designers trained to do?
Step 1: Be Prepared
The first thing they are taught is to be like a scout… be prepared! This involves establishing the correct image. They need to make sure that they look like a professional designer when they leave their own house. The also need to make sure that they are going to arrive at your house at the correct time – probably early and wait round the corner.
They also need to have a good idea of what to expect when they knock on your door, so the office will have already have told them what you were like on the phone and given the designer tips on how to come across once you open the door.
Step 2: Break the ice
Breaking the ice – no, don’t worry – it doesn’t involve your freezer! The first thing that a designer is taught to do after entering your house is to gain your trust as quickly as possible.
Some kitchen companies tell designers not even to talk about kitchens for the first 20 minutes or so that they are in your house.
Designers are even told to stay away from the kitchen during this period. They are told to sit in your living room – and make sure that they talk about anything apart from kitchens.
The idea is to become your friend first – not to be perceived as someone who is really concerned about ‘selling’ you a kitchen.
A popular phrase that some sales managers use to emphasise this part of the selling cycle to designers is to ‘find the shrine’. This means that a designer should have a look round the living room and see if there is a large collection of videos, pictures – anything that seems slightly special or unusual – anything that the owner might be particularly proud of. Imagine that you are in your house… the designer comes in and you show him to your living room. The designer says, “What a beautiful collection of plants! You must have real green fingers!”. This immediately does two things… it makes you feel much more relaxed, because you’ll be encouraged to talk about something that you feel passionate about. It also makes the designer appear much more friendly, much less like the dreaded kitchen salesman – someone who you might just want to do business with!
Step 3: View Kitchen
Step 3 has to be undertaken before the designer talks to you about the door, the design and the price.
There are lots of key questions that the designer will ask you at this stage. Answers to these questions are pivotal to how the designer will adapt the rest of his presentation.
How soon are you hoping to get everything finished?
By asking this question a designer can establish whether or not to try and sell the finance package before designing the kitchen.
What are you looking for in your new kitchen?
The answer to this question enables the designer to decide upon a ‘close’ to the presentation. You might say something like “I’d really like an integrated washer, but I’m not sure if I can afford it”. This lets the designer conjure up a free appliance at the end – just the one you want! But was it really free, or did he build it into the price? You decide.
