There may have been as many industry partners as design professionals on hand last week at my presentation for an ASID chapter.

Maybe more.

The ample IP turnout at my “Supersize Your Success” program for the ASID Los Angeles chapter was a familiar sight.

I’ve noticed an increased effort in recent months by showrooms and manufacturers to reach out to design pros at industry events.

What are the other ways for industry partners to connect with designers and others?

A while back, I surveyed managers of some of the nation’s most financially successful showrooms, and they shared these ideas:

+ Conduct designer focus groups

+ Build strong road rep programs

+ Turn the showroom into an event center

+ Keep showrooms looking “fresh” by updating signage, lighting, etc.

+ Smile and dial: call designers often

+ Handwritten thank you notes

+ Meet and eat: take lunch to top designers

+ Interactive showroom and manufacturer’s websites

+ Website columns on how designers can increase sales

+ Newsletters

+ Ezines

+ Blogs

+ Free publicity

+ Speaking engagements

+ Design review book (competition finalists get work published in coffee table book sold in showrooms)

+ Bring in business speakers

+ Make business coaching available

+ Offer business-building books and tapes

+ Ship out product samples

+ Quick response time

+ Flexibility of hours (weekends, etc.)

+ Simplified ordering

+ Customer niche / specialized products

+ Say “yes” when you should say “no” (cover for your customers)

+ Showroom tours

+ Voicemail

+ Think globally (One Dallas showroom sells $10,000 sofas and $70,000 kitchen sets over its website.)

+ Frequent buyer awards

+ Cross market with other showrooms.

Fred Berns is a trainer and coach for design industry partners and design professionals worldwide

Happy New Year!!!

Now that a challenging year is behind us, consider this: What’s it going to take to make 2010 your best year yet?

Good answers to some basic questions.

You don’t need slick advertising or a glitzy new web site or trendy new product lines to make this your “career year.”

You need answers. Answers to questions about goals, what’s working, and what needs to work better with your design business.

Many design professionals never consider the kinds of issues raised below. That’s why they’re so unfocused and unprofitable.
 

What do you want to be when you grow up?

No-Service-Just-Online-Design.com? Home Depot? Under A Buck Blinds? If not, stop trying to act like or compete with them.

Create your own unique message. Target your own market. You make a great you, but a lousy somebody else.
 

Why you?

Competition has never been tougher. It’s never been easier to buy elsewhere the design services and products that you sell.

What do you offer that your competitors — especially the lower priced ones — don’t?  Don’t say “good customer service.” Every other design professional in your area talks about the same thing.
 

Who’s Lovin’ Ya, Baby?

Kojak, the TV cop, raised a key question there. Who are your blue chip clients? How have you built rapport with them? How do you stay in touch with and generate additional business from them?
  

How Do You Find the Fatcats?

Where and when do you get your best clients? What marketing strategies work best for you? What are you MVP (Most Valuable and Productive)promotational activities?

 What’s Makin’ Ya Money?

What are they buying? What’s your most lucrative product or service? How much of your income comes from your design consultations? From product sales? What percentage of your sales comes from residential clients? From commercial clients?
 

Who’s on Your Team?

Who do you turn to for help when the going gets tough, as it did last year? 

Do you have–or can you create–an advisory board with a financial advisor, a lawyer, a business coach? Who are your mentors? Are you aligning yourself with top clients and/or allied professionals?

Fred Berns is a trainer and coach for interior design professionals around the world.

The biggest of decisions are made in the slowest of times.

Times like these, for example.

It’s when we have the most time on our hands that we often make choices that profoundly affect our future.

This certainly qualifies as one of those slower times, thanks to the holiday season and the economic slowdown.

As a result, you have been given a gift — the gift of time.

Use that gift wisely.  Analyze your business and career, and figure out what worked and what didn’t during this challenging year.

Look back, and determine which of your design services and products, and what types of clients have been most profitable for you.

Look ahead, and develop a sales and marketing plan for 2009.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: our industry will never be the same once the economy bounces back.

Competition will intensify, and clients will be more demanding.

Those design firms that thrive as well as merely survive in the future will have to excel at sales and marketing.

When it comes to the business of design,  “good enough” will no longer be good enough.

So where does that leave you? Are you prepared for the challenges ahead — or is it time to consider other alternatives, and careers?

The Legend of the Tamworth Two movie full

Some weighty questions there; the kind that you’ll need time to answer.

I recall confronting some wrenching questions of my own seven years ago, in the aftermath of 9/11. At the time, I was speaking and coaching in a wide variety of industries, of which interior design was one.

Within a few days after the attacks, I lost 13 speaking engagements and coaching contracts.  Suddenly, I had no business.

All I had was time.

I used that time to do some serious soul searching.  I sought answers to the question: what’s worked best for me, and which industry has been best to and for me?

Pollyanna dvdrip The answer came to me late one afternoon: the interior design industry.

I realized that my best, most loyal and most lucrative clients were interior design professionals.

In that slowest of times, I made my biggest of decisions: to offer my coaching and speaking services exclusively in the interior design industry.

A recession is no time for retreat.

That’s the message I’ve shared recently with design industry partners struggling to navigate choppy economic waters.

The Art of War dvdrip Did I say “recession?”

Well, that’s the word that an increasing number of politicians and media analysts are using, so I’ll toss it out there, too.

So what can vendors and suppliers do at a time like this?

Some suggestions:

+ Be flexible. Offer options to customers who are fretting over their finances. Examples:  payment plans, financing, discounts for cash, etc.

+ Don’t Prejudge Your Prospects. Assuming they can’t afford you is bad business. Let them decide if the dollars are doable.

+ Save the Best for First. Show prospects your best, before exposing them to the rest. Be dazzling in your display.

+ Differentiate Your Company. Nothing differentiates you more than your “Only.” Finish this sentence: “We’ve the only manufacturer(showroom, supplier, etc.) who…”

+ Sell Yourself. The most important sale you’ll ever make is the Personal one. Communicate with confidence and present yourself with polish.

+ Follow Up Fast. Don’t give prospects the opportunity to “shop” you. Call tonight the customer you saw today.

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Toxic Skies psp

+ Hang Tough. If you’ve been in business a while, you’ve faced challenging times before. Hold your ground, keep your eye on the ball, and wait it out.

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A sign is on my mind.

The Clearing buy

Shattered film

Posted in the Denver airport is a sign that reads: “The Ten Best Jobs for 2015 Don’t Exist Yet.”

The sign, which promotes a local business school, got me thinking about the future.

What will our industry look like in seven years?

What will the interior design class of 2015�focus on?

Dagon move

What will clients in 2015 ask for?

It all brings to mind that Atlanta designer who’s 20-something, multi-millionaire prospect told her that the only way she would be able to design his new home was if she was adept at texting.

That’s because,� he said,� he had no time to see, call, or email her.

The future is now. Are you prepared?

Cop Dog aka Marlowe full Make the most of your honeymoon.

In many cases, your relations with a client are most positive shortly after you begin working with them.

It’s during this “honeymoon” period when the client is most enthusiastic about and communicative with your company.

It’s the golden period when you’re still getting to know each other and well before their questions and concerns might surface.

Dane Cook: Isolated Incident the movie

There’s no better time for you to ask the client for leads, referrals, testimonials, permission to photograph the project and other favors.

There’s always the chance, of course, that you’ll stay on the very best of terms with your client throughout the relationship and will become the best of buddies thereafter.

Your goal should be to underpromise and overdeliver, providing the best in customer service.

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But why take the chance? Why not take seek the client’s assistance early on, when the bells are ringing, the birds are singing, and� everyone is on that “honeymoon high?”

Empire Records video

You don’t have to be a techno-wizard, and it doesn’t take rocket science to create a killer website.

It takes 21 steps.

Here are those steps, as I spelled them out in my recent tele-seminar entitled “21 Keys to a Killer Website:”

1/ Keep it Simple. The average website visit is 4 seconds and two clicks. Get your message across fast.

2/ Make it Easy to Use. If visitors get lost, you are�the Big Loser.

3/ Speak to Your Specialness. What’s your USP(unique selling proposition)? Your Only? Your Brand?

4/ Sell Yourself. “You” are the one thing prospects can’t get elsewhere.

5/ Describe All Your Services and Products. Under-educated prospects don’t buy.

6/ Solve Problems on Each Page. Visitors have questions. Does your site have the answers?

7/�Get Them to Return. Don’t stagnate, update! Offer fresh articles, tipsheets, links, client profiles, etc.

8/ Make it Interactive. Q&A columns, surveys, and search boxes get visitors involved.

9/ Choose Killer Keywords. Track down the words others type in to find you.

10/ Use Killer Keywords. Put the right words in the right places: the title bars, atop pages,�at� the front of paragraphs, etc.

11/ Think Links. They increase your visibility, credibility and search engine rankings.

12/ Call for Action. Give visitors a “next step:” call, buy this, download that, give your contact info, etc.

13/ Make it Easy on the Eyes. Steer clear of busy backgrounds, fancy fonts, animation and flash.

14/Make Photos Work For–not Against — You. Small photos of big rooms don’t work. Large photos of small details do. And remember: little captions can say a lot.

15/ Make Your Home Page “Rock.” It’s all 50% of your site’s visitors ever view. It’s gotta be great.

16/ Create Credibility. Include testimonials and your physical address.

17/ Make it Measurable. Monitor numbers of visitors, page views, when people visit and for how long, what sites send you traffic, etc.

18/ Keep it Current. What’s new? What’s now? Update us on your services, staff, awards, clients, etc.

19/ Spread the word. Promote your site via email, ezines, postcards, voicemail, news releases and other ways.

20/ Pick to Click. Among the best interior design industry websites I’ve come across: KeystoneInteriorDesign.com. Check it out.

21/ Hire a Propellerhead. Tap a technie to handle the website tasks that you can’t — or don’t want to� –do.

Providing good customer service in competitive times like these is not just a good way for design industry partners to do business.�It’s the only way.

One reason why: unhappy customers in general — and designers in particular — don’t keep secrets.

• The Legend Trip release

The Strategic Planning Institute reports�that:

+ The average upset customer tells nine people about it. One in five will tell more than 20.

Congo movie full + The average business never hears from 96% of its unhappy customers. But 90% of them won’t buy from them again.

+ For every complaint, the average firm has 26 customers with problems.

The Grifters the movie

+ Of customers with a complaint, 70% will do business with you again if you resolve the problem — and 95% will if you do so quickly.

You’re better off keeping your current clients happy, than chasing after new ones.

Scram! movie

The long term value of each client is more than 100 times the value of a single transaction. And, it costs five times as much to attract a new customer than it does to retain an existing one.

If� you’re with one of� those manufacturers and retailers out there struggling to compete with the big guys, I have a suggestion for you.

Let’s have tea.

Join me for a cup at a small coffee and tea joint here in Boulder, CO. called Peet’s.

Now would be a good time, before you head out to Neocon, before you attempt to get heard above all the noise that your bigger, better known competitors will make on the show floor.

A guy named Jay at the store named Peet’s can give you a lesson on how to stand out from�the better-known companies.

I was looking for and not finding a Starbucks recently when I stumbled into Peet’s.� I ordered a cup of green tea from Jay, the gentleman at the counter.

Jay didn’t just inform me that�Peet’s offers several varieties of green tea. He educated me about the differences.

He began by pulling out the Peet’s “tea wheel,” a cool, little thingamabob which rates the various teas on�things�like their astringency, body, flavor, character,� and aroma.

Then he set�out on the counter samples of the� Sencha, Jasmine, Genmail Cha and other varieties. The idea was to�show the differences in the color, texture and aroma of the leaves.

Elsewhere, I would have been told� the names of the various teas.

At Peet’s, I� got a seminar — �a workshop, �a continuing education course –on the differences between them.

When I made my choice, Jay handed me a timer to make sure I allowed proper “seep time.” And he presented me with a booklet on how to grade, select and brew tea.

Jay — and Peet’s– get it.

They get the fact that, to compete with the big guys, you have�to offer an experience customers don’t get from the big guys.

I’m a believer. There are dozens of coffee and tea joints in this area but, from now on, I’m sticking with Peet’s.

Not just because of the tea I got there. Because of the lesson I learned there.

When I think of good “time managers,” I don’t think of design showroom managers.

Many of the managers I’ve met at design center showrooms, in fact, make poor use of their time. They work hard, but they don’t work smart.

That’s why they’re more “busy” than they are profitable.

Which is why I thought of showroom managers when I read a book recently titled “Getting Things Done”

• The Master of Disguise release

by David Allen.

Allen suggests you put all tasks into one of three categories:

Futurama: The Beast with a Billion Backs full

1/ Do It Strays buy : take action yourself if the task can be done in 2:00 or less

2/ Delegate it: assign a task requiring more than 2:00� to someone else, if they can do it better.

3/ Defer it: this applies to a�task for which you’re the right person, but which will take more than 2:00 of your time.

Speaking of showroom managers — and time — they’d be better off focusing more on current rather than prospective clients.

I’ve cited these numbers before: the long term value of each client is more than 100 times the value of a single transaction. And it costs five times more to attract a new customer than to retain an existing one.

When showroom managers think of time, they should think of “Now.”

And they should remember that yesterday is a cancelled check, tomorrow is a promisory note, but today is a blank check.

How to master your time and maximize your profits is the theme of our new audio program, Work Less, �Earn More�.
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