I've been at my company for one year this month. A little over a year ago I was working pretty hard on a presentation for a company I had only heard of in Bellingham. They sold doors, trim, and hardware and had a stain shop on site. After a few long talks with Tom about which direction I wanted my career to go, we decided it best to go after something new. Bellingham being a pretty small area, in a down market, there wasn't much opportunity for designers. I set up a meeting with the owners of this little local shop about the prospect of setting up a cabinet department. Luckily they had already been thinking about extending their business, but had not made any steps in that direction yet. I met with them one morning, presentation in hand, and excited about all my ideas for their company. Long story short, they loved the ideas and decided it would be a good idea to bring me on as their cabinet designer/salesperson.
Well my ambitious numbers on the presentation didn't really work out as planned. The building industry was pretty slow which made it hard to find profitable jobs. The contractors were (and are) extremely loyal, let's be honest, it's hard for a lot of guys to trust a 20-something year old cabinet designer who just opened up shop in the area. Last, my prices were way too high for the market at the time. So after a few months of figuring out the appropriate pricing structure, me getting out of my shell (including cold calling, which I hate!), and more permits being released, we are finally making sales!
It's fun to look back on the last six years that I have been designing and remember the trends, companies, and places I have been...that's for another blog post...
The reason for this one is that I heard some industry gossip from our cabinet rep today...and it involved me!
We have only one other dealer in the area who sells the same cabinet line as our company. She seems to have a successful business, anyone today who is still in business is usually successful. She called our sales rep to find out if there was anything he could do about ME stealing HER cabinet business and clients!
When he told me this I had a couple of thoughts right away...
1) Really? I'm stealing her clients? We haven't sold THAT much to be able to 'steal' a client.
2) She knows who we are? Cool!
3) I felt bad for her, for a second, because quite possibly I have taken a couple of clients that were buying from her in the past.
4) Again, she knows who we are! Oh yeah, and she has a problem with us because we are obviously (and finally) becoming a successful cabinet company! Yeah, the cabinet company that we started from ground up in the last year!
I haven't considered us as being competition with anyone because most of the guys have been so loyal to their custom cabinet suppliers. Now I know there is competition out there and it gives me a little boost to keep on designing! So, I was pretty excited to hear that we are making our presence known in the cabinet world in our area! We went into the business hoping, but not knowing that it would be a success. Now that we are making regular sales, we are even getting return clients, and our name is finally out there as more than a door and trim company, I'm really feeling like this could be my home fore even longer!
As an acquaintance recently told me....
You're title is Marissa Perez, Kitchen & Bath Cabinet Designer, OWN IT! (...and that's my prep talk for the day!)
2 comments:
Hmmm...I have a comment on this subject but will have to submit it when I have more time.
-Rob
Excellent Missy. The Prize always goes to the persistent! Never forget that in sales, it's a drip game, a numbers game and basically, a relationship business. The deeperr the relationship, the more the trust, the more the responsibility is on you to deliver on that trust and to always be there and stand behind your product and to stand behind your word. I'm proud of you and I know you will be successful.
Love,
Dad
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