It's challenging to capture the attention of your team in a face-to-face meeting. It's even more challenging when team members are forced to call in. Creating voluntary engagement is key to effective virtual meetings, writes, Justin Hale, in a recent HBR blog. Hale offers these strategies that lead to better virtual meeting results.
Comedian Jimmy Fallon recently joked, after being confined at home, that he really likes his wife. With many states shuttering all nonessential business as a means to stop the spread of COVID-19, and numerous BKBG Shareholders closing their showrooms, there’s a strong possibility that you are spending more time at home than you ever have. How do you remain sane when your kids may be bouncing off the wall, and most of your usual activities have ground to a halt. Without being able to go to the gym, watch March Madness, grab a beer at your favorite watering hole or go to the movies, we find ourselves in limbo.
In these uncertain and challenging times, it may not be prudent, advisable or even legal to work from your showroom. If your showroom or office has to transition to team members working from home, what are the most successful practices? Author and frequent blogger Austin Kleon offered the following guidance from his book, Keep Going: 10 Ways to Stay Creative in Good Times and Bad.
I am a huge fan of Del Poling. I had the great pleasure of learning from Del at a leadership workshop. Del coined the term four-year-old behavior. At the time, my daughter was two years old, but she demonstrated Del's four-year-old behavior.
My two-year-old daughter was at a neighbor's house and wet her pants. When asked if she had an accident, she said, "no." When asked about the puddle on the floor next to her, she said, "Cody did it." Cody was a golden retriever.
Do you know anyone who claims they don’t receive enough emails? Stop laughing. Email is the most prevalent business communication tool in use today. Everyone gets too many, and most are not wanted. How can your email get noticed and read?
First, understand your audience. Chances are those in the trades, customer service representatives and order processors do not have the same literary skills/education as your clients who depend on you to design their new kitchen or bath.
Have you ever noticed how crowded Apple Stores always are? It does not matter the location, enter an Apple Store, and swarms of people will surround you. Apple Stores attract crowds because going to an Apple Store is enjoyable. The open environment features lots of room and lots of products that anyone can test drive.
Apple provides pleasurable experiences by offering:
Independent kitchen and bath showrooms that do not install products they sell can improve their conversion ratios, margins and avoid competing solely based on price by taking a page out of the design-build playbook. When a customer wants to renovate their kitchen, bath or any other room in the house, savvy design-builders often prepare proposals outlining the scope of work, products specified and proposed timeframe. And then they quote one price for the entire job. Mrs. Jones, your new kitchen will cost $75,486. And if Mrs. Jones wants to know how much she might be paying for a faucet or sink, design-builders will respond by saying that the cost of your new kitchen is $75,486. The sink and faucet are included in the price
Showrooms may help their sales professionals succeed by establishing standard procedures and goals for first meetings with prospective clients. If the initial client meeting is in the showroom, the goals should be to understand what the prospect wants to achieve, determine the budget available for the project, to establish trust and schedule a follow-up appointment at the client's home to measure the space. The key to achieving these goals is to ask the right questions and listen intently to responses.
How can you attract more clients and customers? A simple answer is to communicate with them more effectively. Social media is often a preferred medium of choice for kitchen and bath showrooms to connect with clients and prospects. Four university professors analyzed a brand’s social media messages impact on a company’s most valuable customers and not so loyal customers.
The analysis examined the following five dimensions of brand experience:
The number one reason why showroom employees seek greener pastures is a perceived lack of appreciation by ownership for their contributions to the business. Many owners recognize and appreciate the contributions that team members make, but they don’t necessarily know how to communicate their appreciation effectively. Some find it difficult, and others erroneously assume that their team knows how the owners feel about them. Others believe offering praise too often marginalizes the effectiveness of acknowledging truly noteworthy contributions.
