Remodeling - February 2009 - (Page UR46)

Start Right Jeff Clark, of Metropolitan Design & Build, in St. Louis, typically brings a group of 8-by-10 before-and-after photos to the ﬁrst meeting. He sells prospects on what happens between the before and the after. won him the job was not just the company’s expertise matching remodeling projects to a range of historic home styles, he says, but “the fact that I hung in there and was persistent and professional.” Strategies to sell upscale remodeling jobs vary, as do the knowledge and resources of sales prospects. But it all starts with the same goal: “To get inside the [homeowner’s] head and learn as much as possible about what they’re trying to do,” Wentworth says. They end the same way too: when you’ve convinced the homeowner that you have what it takes to create something good enough to invest a lot of money in and have persuaded them to commit to working with you. Jeff Clark of Metropolitan Design & Build, in St. Louis, calls it “sequential and consummate.” Meeting by meeting, buy-in builds and prospects become clients. PREP WORK Prospects can find out a lot about you if you direct them to your Web site. But don’t just assume they’ll go. One company found, via post-project poll, that half its clients never actually visited its site. Sometimes they have an idea of what they’d like to see happen, but just as often they have only vague notions. Even if they come with plans, they may not know what the project costs. Typically they’re referred by others, including architects. They’ve heard good things about your work, and if they weren’t inclined to believe them, they wouldn’t be calling. But that’s all they’ve heard. “For the most part, [prospects] only know that somebody thinks very highly of us,” says John Rusk, owner of Rusk Renovations, in New York City. For the most part, [prospects] only know that somebody thinks very highly of us. John Rusk, Rusk Renovations, New York City Ultimately, in the run-up as well as in the first meeting, you want to seem interested in the project and excited about it, without appearing over-eager. You build the value of your company by asking the right questions and explaining how your systems and services provide a solution. “I don’t call it ‘selling,’ I call it ‘helping,’” Rusk says. “I want people to say: If you’re going to do a renovation in New York, you want to talk to Rusk. They’ll help you get approved by the co-op board, work with the architect to improve the plans, streamline costs, and value-engineer it.” He assumes that prospects are talking to two or three other remodeling companies, so his goal in that first meeting is to be the friendPHOTOS: LEFT, DOUG METHOD; RIGHT, JON MURESAN UR-46 Remodeling February 2009 remodelingmag.com http://www.remodelingmag.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Remodeling - February 2009

Remodeling - February 2009 Contents First Word Market Watch Linda Case Mark Richardson Shawn McCadden Ways + Means Bottom Line Sales + Marketing Field Notes By Design Tech@ Work Good Form Close Up Second Look Going Green Clinic Specbook Upscale Remodeling Start Right People, Process, Profits Interview: Sara Ryan Duffy, President of SRD International New + Notable Products Final Touch Green Speak Green Spec In Focus First Look Benchmark

Remodeling - February 2009

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