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36 | Kitchen & Bath Design News January 2015 O ver 40 years ago I learned a simple marketing axiom that made good business sense to me: Put your clients' needs ahead of your needs, and you will get what you want. It kicked me into tak- ing action with overhauling our company's sales process. I wanted to get a faster commitment than the 8-10 hours it was taking me to make a sale, and I wanted to increase my sales volume. My premise was that if I could speed up the process of earning a client commit- ment, I could sell many more jobs each year. So, what would it take on my end for a prospective client to give me a retainer check and take them of the market quickly? I thought about it and con- cluded that they needed to feel comfortable with (1) the de- sign solution process and (2) the price of their new kitchen. So I decided to take a risk, and help prospects accomplish those two objectives during a revamped home consultation that would last two to three hours rather than the custom- ary one hour that my training called for. The key was having them collaborate interactively with me on developing one possible design solution and a budget for that design concept. What a difference that change made! By helping prospects "own" the plan and the price in a totally transparent conceptual pro- cess, they became clients in one-third to half the time. My sales volume doubled al- most overnight, and my gross proft margin grew from 35% to 51%. As a sales designer earning a commission based upon a percentage share of the gross proft, I ended up trebling my annual income. That people could make an important buying decision – without me even taking mea- surements, drawing a floor plan and elevation to scale, "stick-pricing" the cabinetry and/or developing an exact fxed price – was a stunning revelation! This new sales process was such a meaning- ful educational experience for prospects that I was perceived as an impartial consultant and a better value for their projects, despite ultimately charging 30-40% more than my competition. SUCCESS THROUGH SOCIAL INTERACTION I was recently reminded of why this revised sales process was so transformational for me when reading a new book, Give and Take by Adam Grant. Grant is an organizational psychologist and Wharton Business School professor who spent the last 10 years researching why helping oth- ers will drive one's success. According to conventional wisdom, highly successful people have three things in common: (1) motivation, (2) ability, and (3) opportu- nity. But Grant's extensive research discovered a fourth factor. Maximum success also depends heavily upon how we approach our interactions with other people. There's a choice to be made. Do we try and claim as much value as possible during these so- cial interactions? Or do we contribute value without wor- rying too much about what we receive in return? Grant compares the three fundamental styles of social interaction: takers, givers and matchers. Takers have a distinctive signature; they get more than they give. In business, that materializes into an adversarial approach where there are winners and losers. That, incidentally, characterizes the traditional sales process for which I was trained and remains the prev- alent one even today in the kitchen/bath industry. Givers, on the other hand, pay more attention to what others need from them… helping, mentoring, collabo- rating, sharing credit and making connections. They are a rare breed in business. Matchers try to preserve an equal balance where their social interactions are based upon the principle of fairness. Grant's research concluded that givers end up at the top of the success ladder. "By operat- ing as a giver, you create value for yourself. We too often ste- reotype givers as chumps, but they turn out to be surprising- ly successful," he wrote. That was my experience when I began giving out de- sign ideas to prospects, and sharing realistic budgeting numbers for each product and labor category of cost. I'd been trained never to give up ideas until the design was crystallized, the estimate completed and the fnal pre- sentation made. But clearly, the speed and transparency by which I delivered a "design solution" and "project price" in the prospect's home gener- ated value for both my clients and me. Though I hadn't thought of myself as one at that time, being a giver fueled my sales success. THE RIPPLE EFFECT Grant continues: "When givers succeed, it spreads and cas- cades…when takers succeed, someone loses. Givers succeed in a way that creates a ripple efect, enhancing the success of others around them." That, too, was my experience when I decided in the 1980s to ex- pand my business into three additional locations. I then leveraged the suc- cess of this new sales process by teaching others to use it. A 10-session adult evening edu- cation class was developed so people with some sales ex- perience in other industries, and a fair for or interest in design, could learn whether they might be successful as a kitchen/bath sales designer. Fourteen individuals graduat- ed from this course, completed a three-month, on-the-job training program, and within another year or two became big sales producers at one of the new branch showrooms. In today's dollars, they averaged $845,000 in annual sales at 51.5% gross margins. Being a giver fueled the success of my business expansion. When I started SEN in 1994, I shared the psychol- ogy and mechanics of this successful sales process with dealer/members. Pretty soon, in SEN conference roundtable meetings and workshops, they were trumpeting suc- cess with the sales process and advising their fellow members how to implement it. Indeed, members shared their budgeting spreadsheets and developed the process further into a three-column "Good-Better-Best Selling System," making it even more efective. As a result, they drove our group's gross purchases from our Vendor Partners to new heights and the subsequent rebates paid out to members ran into the millions. Being a giver fueled the rippling success of the buying group business. Now that rippling effect as a giver is going through an even bigger, more excit- ing evolution. Last year, SEN launched the frst automated k/b dealer operating system of best business practices that connects on the front end with CAD and Quickbooks on the back end. As the centerpiece of this software, the SEN Good- Better-Best Selling System will enable dealers to interactively work with prospects to trans- parently shop within their operation, empowering pros- pects to put together a kitchen or bath project just the way they like it at a cost they can aford. This technology unites all aspects of the kitchen and bath industry and advances institutional growth. Ken Peterson, CKD, LPBC, is president of the Chapel Hill, NC-based SEN Design Group. For more information about this topic, please contact Peterson at 1-800-991-1711 or kpeterson@sendesign. com. Peterson also welcomes any comments, questions or concerns. "Put your clients' needs ahead of your needs, and you will get what you want." Why Helping Others Will Drive Your Success To increase your bottom line, focus on how to best meet your clients' needs, as this will drive continued success. Read past columns and features and send us your comments about this article and others by logging onto our Web site: www.ForResidentialPros.com Bettering Your Bottom Line { Ken Peterson, CKD, LPBC }