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If you invite somebody into your home to plan something for free they are going to sell you something. Don't be so naive as to think anything else.
Many people think that the only way to buy anything is to get three quotations and choose one. Think about that, how would you like to be paid for one day's work in three? How is it meant to work, the cost of giving you a free plan and design for your kitchen, bathroom, replacement windows or whatever has to be built into the cost of something that is sold. Why do you consider it fair that it is built into the cost of two products or services that somebody else buys?
When you get multiple quotations what you are getting is peace of mind. That is the benefit to you as a customer, you have seen rival offers and chosen one therefore you are more confident that you have not been ripped off. But who has? Clearly the people who have given you your peace of mind have been screwed, those who provided you with that free plan and design that you didn't buy.
More fool them eh? Would you feel as comfortable if you knew that the people who provide that peace of mind for you have been conned? Most salesmen in this position are paid on commission, often 100% commission, although some are paid a ridiculously inadequate basic salary simply to allow them to tell you that they are salaried consultants not nasty high pressure commission-only salesmen. It is a fig leaf. The basic salary buys a little company discipline, the right to treat people as employees rather than as agents with the self-respect that such status affords. You pay peanuts and you get to tell your monkeys what to do.
I have known people go out to sell a kitchen who are so poor that if they don't get a deposit from the customer there and then they will not be able to afford the petrol to drive home. That is high pressure selling.
If you are ever looking for a sales job always pay particular attention if any company starts asking you about the make, model and year of your car. It is a very bad sign that they are as interested in your car as they are about you. It should suggest to you that they intend to make you do a lot of driving. Another bad sign is a short interview. If they will take you on after a three minute interview what kind of cowboys are they? Sales jobs like these run on enthusiasm, you can't teach somebody how to be be an ace salesman in a one week training course, you can give them some basic tricks and fire up their enthusiasm and hope for the best. Two months later if there is anybody still going that's a bonus.
If you as a potential customer are dealing with somebody who is sent a long way to offer a design service they have to have a good prospect of getting your business, to send them otherwise is a waste of time and money. The best way to test out whether the service is really a free plan and design, just a quotation, the best strategy is to say that you will be able to make the appointment but you don't think that your partner will, maybe, maybe not. If it is a no obligation quotation that will not be a problem to them, if they make it a problem that is because they intend to sell to you there and then. If only half the decision making team will be there there is no point in sending in a salesman. For all the talk about equality in the real world major purchases such as home improvements always require joint decisions, to send a commission-only salesman to face a “single-legger”, half a couple (either half) is a waste of time and money, they won't do it unless they have no other alternative prospects that day. Of course the skilled manager who books the no obligation free plan and design will be smarm personified and they will seem completely reasonable and will suggest that another day might be better for them as well for some bullshit reason or another. Don't listen to what they say, be aware of what they are trying to do. If they want to ensure that anybody who could have a veto or an input is there then you should assume that they plan a full sales pitch.
Don't imagine for one moment that you can say yes the next day. Buyers are liars is the mantra. They will say whatever it takes to get you out of the house. They never come back is another mantra that gets drilled into the heads of the salesmen. In many cases it is impossible for the person giving you that free plan and design to be paid if you do not say yes there and then. It is company policy. One bite of the cherry. If you don't get it there and then you will never get it. Many companies will send in another salesman working with a different price list if the customer shows willing. In the case of Britain's leading kitchen company they used to send in a different company, selling exactly the same product, with the same photographs in the brochure, only by studying the detail on appliances could you tell that one was a mirror image of the photograph in the other company's brochure.
One memory that sticks in my mind is talking to the bloke that was sent in to clinch a deal I had made. The kitchen was in Stoke-on-Trent. The customer was delighted with the design I had done and she would not be persuaded to change it, the other bloke redrew my plan exactly and signed up the deal. There is no room in the home improvements game for sleeping on a decision. If you leave empty-handed you remain empty-handed.
The customer doesn't want to hear your sob stories and they will never believe them anyway, but they will believe bullshit if it seems to be what they want to hear.
Have you ever been invited to view a showhouse that somebody else is living in? Of course not. It doesn't happen. But the showhouse close is a classic. The salesman has to come up with a plausible reason to come from the price he first presents to the final bottom-line price. The showhouse close suggests that you can have this kitchen that's really too good for you, that you can't afford, at a special price if we can get it classed as a showhouse, it works on a combination of greed and vanity. It is pure bullshit.
Another bullshit close is the exhibition close, as it happens we've just got three kitchens left special stock that were made for a big exhibition, we can sell these off cheap. If I could get this stock for you would you buy it at [fill in the price you were going to drop to anyway]?
Some people can manage the honest close, I depended upon it for all my time in the job. How easy it was to pull off depended on how big the drop was. Bullshitters need a huge drop but that makes the honest salesman's job harder. The company I worked for liked to operate a 60 and 60 drop. They would drop 60% off the price to come up with a price to put to the manager, who would ask a few questions and then say yes. Some of my colleagues didn't bother to telephone the manager and just held the phone to their ear and made the right noises, at least they did until the phone rang, there really isn't anywhere you can go when that happens. I suppose these days they use their own mobiles so it would be easier. The other 60 refers to the second drop, they can still do a deal at 60% of the dropped price, as long as they don't do it every single time. I remember the biggest kitchen I ever designed, the plan came out at nineteen thousand and I tried a pathetic drop close on the man and he said to me “if you can do it for seven and a half I'll have it.” If I can, will you is the mantra we were taught. I made sure we had a deal, If we can do it for seven and a half you will buy it? Yes. I didn't expect that to be acceptable but it was and that was my first ever sale. A few months later we had a total change in company policy - honest prices! And I found that because that range was on special offer I could offer the same kitchen to anybody who wanted it, for seven thousand two hundred, no bullshit.
However my colleagues were wide-boys. They couldn't cope with honesty. They didn't know how to ask for the business, they only knew how to drop the price and give a lie to justify why it could be done and why it had to be agreed to right there and then. I found it very refreshing to sell on honest prices. All I had to do was describe the product well, ensuring that I got the customer thinking that it was a quality product and I'll do my best to get what they want for their budget. Then came the presentation. Drawing pictures of something that isn't there. This was theatre. I loved it. I prided myself on being a good designer, (I'm a designer, would a salesman wear a waistcoat like this?) listening to what the customer wants and putting it in the plan, if they can afford it. The plan wasn't that special to look at, I wasn't great at drawing, but the designs were always sound. I sold them in the space, running my hands along imaginary worktop, there, a tiny almost invisible sealed join, caressing the handles of cupboard doors the handle is here, at the bottom of a wall cabinet, and here, at the top of a base cabinet, no stretching. Listen, that's right, it closes quietly, almost as quietly as that. If they don't want the kitchen it doesn't matter what the price is they will not be interested. They want it. They have to or we will all have wasted an evening. All I need to do is get them a price. More tension. They should have a figure in mind, if I have done my job right they will be expecting my plan to come out over their budget. If I have done everything right the price will be a pleasant surprise and they will say yes before I really have to ask them.
Selling something big like a kitchen is better than sex. I remember one of the most ecstatic moments of my life was on the morning of Christmas Eve. I had done a huge presentation on a huge farmhouse kitchen near Chester, I didn't think they were really happy with the doors, outside my control, but I worked hard at getting everything right. But they said no. I had telephoned my boss to say I had failed. It was looking like it would be a depressing start to Christmas but something happened, I can't remember what it was all I can remember is being a mile down the road with a signed invoice in my hand and a feeling that other people only get with fasting and chanting or very illegal and expensive drugs.
I still enjoy selling stuff now but the sales are smaller and closer together (I hope) so they aren't quite so intense. The pleasure in selling doesn't come from ripping people off, that sours it, a good deal well done is better than selling overpriced crap. Another sale that sticks in my head is the longest sales presentation of my life. It took a whole day. I went in the morning, they made me lunch and I left as it was going dark with their business for a beautiful seven thousand pound limed oak kitchen with dark wood-nosed worktops and stainless steel appliances, the top of the range. I can still see the kitchen I designed for them despite the fact that I have never seen it. I can take no. That's fine. It is maybe that bugs me. Maybe is the killer. Maybe means no. They might not even know it but it does, maybe means no. For the salesman who did the work. The company might still pick up the business. But maybe means no. Some of my colleagues didn't take that lying down. “I'll give them something to think about. Wait till they clean their teeth tonight, then they will have something to think about and remember me by.” If you do have a salesman round to your house and you don't buy anything remember to give your toothbrush a good soak afterwards, just in case. |
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