This isn’t about making or losing money doing a job this way versus cost-plus-T&M-or-whatever-else-you-call-it. It is just a vent about how difficult and time consuming the process can be, when you don’t sell from a showroom.
Customer is wanting a firm price, and really isn’t shopping you against competitors, it is just that he and she really want to know the one bottom line number. They’re OK with the ball parks that have been given, the job is a go, but they want the contract figure down to the decimals.
It is a good sized kitchen gut and makeover, with a whole lot of material costs involved as a portion of the total, and the list includes all the appliances and fixtures, plumbingware, cabinets, counter, floor tile, wall tile, accent items, lighting and switching goodies, finishes, etc. Of course, this stuff has been roughly specified in order to come to the ballparks, but now we need hard specs.
As there is most everywhere, there are businesses here with showrooms, packed with display items and samples, and catalogs, and those necessary private meeting rooms where you spend a whole afternoon with clients settling all this, so it is done all in one visit.
Easy on you, easy on the clients, everything is a wrap, when you sell from a showroom.
But here we are, virtual company, no showroom, no samples, just some catalogs, and the clients are absentee owners. The site is a vacation home, and they come every few weeks.
We basically have to lay the burden on them of hoofing it around to stores and showrooms down in the crowded megalopolis where they live, and be sure to have pencil and paper when doing so, and find and spec everything that is needed. And if you know how that goes, you can be sure that they will do things like transpose callout numbers and letters for things, find stuff that you cannot source, and more. Confusion will sometimes reign.
What a pain. They aren’t happy doing all the in and out of the car, the legwork, the phoning you and emailing you, and the whole process takes far longer than that one comfy afternoon done in the showroom with the great machine for doing coffee and lattes.
End vent.
Replies
No showroom here either. I know how you feel. I can't add to your rant, or subtract from it. I can only empathize and try to think of something clever to tell you later.
The bad news is you've done exactly the right things to be exactly where you are today.
"IdahoDon 1/31/07"
We've got showrooms aplenty including a few just for dealers (and their clients)
doesn't shorten the time or make things easier..
Common complaintI like this but it costs too much I don't like that because it's so common....
(but the price is right)
About a decade ago my sister got me into one of these high end show floors.. They had marble tile cut right out of a gold mine. You could actually see flakes and streaks of gold in some pieces.. really stunning looking marble and that's back when gold was still reasonable..
While I was there admiring the beauty of the floor a customer came in whining that there wasn't enough gold in her floor and it had too much "stuff" other than nice white marble.
There was a giant placard set up explaining the fact that each piece was differant and there was no continuety between pieces due to the nature of it.. She had to have read the placard to find the price.. and if that wasn't enough according to my sister they made everybody sign that they understood that before taking their money.
Yet here she was raising a stink hoping someone would go thru the cartons and select out pieces that were white and had gold in them..
Gene,
I've been working for a bath and kitchen designer/sales/installer for about three years now. We have two showrooms.
We design and contract the entire project soup to nuts. The appliances although spec'd by us, are usually on the clients dime.
It's pretty much one stop shopping.
This enviroment was one of the leading reasons I personally got out of the business. I felt strongly and saw the evidence that I was unable to compete against outfits such as the one I am working for.
Old school the clients would do all the leg work, make all of their selections and I would give them a price to bring it all together.
Now they can sit in the comfort of a showroom and make a good 75% of their selections.
Eric
Nothing to add here either.
I'm probably very similarly situated to you. There are few showrooms here in the local area, so most shopping has to be done at least a couple of hours away. That is just the way it is. There is no point in my going shopping with them, even if they wanted to pay me a day rate to do it. They simply have to go and make their selections. I know where to send them, where they'll be taken care of well, where the prices are fair and the service is great. I have first-name relationships with the good salespeople in those places.
Once they do their shopping I get a fax or email from the vendor and incorporate the pricing into my spreadsheet. Same as you.
None of my competitors has a showroom or probably ever will. If they did their overhead would go up accordingly and I doubt they'd take any work from me.
Never had much problem with such things. Whether the client picks cheap cabinets, tiles or lighting or high end, it's all about the same to install labor wise. I can normally give them a pretty close middle of the road budget figure. If it's too much or too little they can adjust accordingly.
Gene, ever thought of opening a small showroom yourself?
Do you think it would pay off in your small of a town?
Why not spend a day or two in the city with them? Schedule appointments and have a shopping list- $200 travel and $200 for a hotel you can have it all wrapped up.
YMMV
The awful thing is that beauty is mysterious as well as terrible. God and the devil are fighting there, and the battlefield is the heart of man.
- Fyodor Dostoyevski
I do this by e-mail, finding a selection of appropriate fixtures and appliances and sending the client images and specs right off the 'net, and prices from my suppliers with my markup added. They choose, I order; I bill them for all the time it takes me to deal with that.
I used to go into my suppliers' showrooms with clients and shepherd them around, but I have learned the hard way not to do that. Seems professional courtesy in the business isn't what it once was.
If a client insists on shopping and ordering stuff themselves, I let them do it...but I specify that if any warranty issues arise, it will be the client who will have to deal with the supplier/manufacturer; not me.
Note, I only charge 5% markup; my goal is not to make money selling materials--it is to keep control of the project for the client's own good. Everytime a client buys something that looks great in a showroom but won't work in his house, it costs him extra money. I prefer to make my money for honest labour. I don't need to make money billing the client twice for the same thing because his first choice of sink, for instance, simply won't fit. The client always subconsciously blames the builder for those sorts of screw-ups anyway. Human nature....
Just my two bucks worth....
Dinosaur
How now, Mighty Sauron, that thou art not brought
low by this? For thine evil pales before that which
foolish men call Justice....