Sales people and companies who sell to interior designers, is it too late?

Warning..this blog is extremely honest! Today I heard of yet another major showroom closing it's doors here at the Chicago Merchandise Mart. At first, I was so sad and then got very mad. Why? Because maybe, just maybe it didn't need to close if they had a stronger sales strategy. Yes, I know the economy kicked the wind out of our sales (get it?). But it seems more and more companies and showrooms are still unable [...]

3 easy steps to skyrocket your sales of interior products in 2017

Those who achieved or surpassed their goals...Bravo! Those who didn't, it's not too late to stop focusing on speculating why you didn't and just do something about it to change the outcome, permanently! I teach sales people an approach to selling to meet the challenges of today's marketplace. The old way of "pushing" product, by dumping product in front of a client, talking about how wonderful these products are and leaving it up to them to [...]

How do you accelerate sales from a new Interior Design product launch?

As long as I have been in sales, (arrgh... more than 25 years) August and September were known as NEW PRODUCT LAUNCH months. As sales people we always knew summer was a slower time, as designers and their clients were vacationing and wanted little to do with designing spaces. But comes late August and the product would come pouring in. To sales people this was our Christmas. Clients want to make their homes ready for the [...]

The NEW RULES of selling in today’s marketplace

  This is the 16th blog I've written on LinkedIN. (But whose counting, right?) I have written about how the marketplace has changed and we need to change our approach to selling to Interior Designers. I've written a lot on why we have to change and what we have to change. My last blog I laid out the 7 CORE PRINCIPLES OF OPTIMIZED SALES and yet many showrooms remain too afraid to change what they are [...]

What causes inconsistent sales for those who sell to interior designers (even seasoned ones)? Doing some things not all.

I had a huge epiphany yesterday about how optimal sales are achieved. I started sales training more than 20 years ago in the interior design industry. I have worked with and observed hundreds of sales people over the years. These are very capable, strong, people. Many with larger than life personalities. They were all beloved in the industry and many had been doing this a long time, you could say seasoned. And naturally their managers think [...]