FromThePublisher_DWM_NovemberDecember2011

Volume 12, Issue 9 - November/December 2011

From The Publisher

A Letter to Dealers
BY Tara Taffera

Dear Door and Window Sales Representatives,
Although I write articles designed for you regularly, I recently realized that selling to homeowners and competing with all the other dealers out there isn’t easy. It seems when you enter a house and encounter the homeowner you instantly have to assess a variety of factors: What type of financing options do I offer? What type of sales pitch do I utilize? How long should it go: 30 minutes or an hour?

How do you know what will be most effective with a particular homeowner on any given day? Will the homeowner be like my neighbor in our middle class neighborhood who was extremely turned off by an hour-long sales pitch by a window representative? How are you supposed to walk in a house and instantly assess what they want? How are you supposed to know that this homeowner was already annoyed that she may have to potentially buy new windows for a five-year-old house (for more on this story, see page 54)? It seems like an impossible job if you ask me.

Then there are the financing options. Will the homeowner pay cash or will he/she opt for payment over 48 months? How do you know the best option to offer without wasting their time? I listened to a webinar on this topic recently and some valuable advice was imparted to dealers.

In this webinar, the presenter compared a company’s potential customer list to a lead bucket. He suggested that a lead is always a valuable lead and should never be discarded. Your company should troll the bucket constantly. But how do you do this without annoying the potential buyer? Again, it’s not easy.

I spoke to one window company representative who sells for one of the top three window manufacturers recently, and asked him about navigating these waters. He told me the company’s sales presentations are “geared toward overcoming objections.” For example, he’s prepared to hear the statements “I have other people coming” And “I want to think about it.” “We are well prepared to deal with that,” he said. “It is up to us to coach and train our sales reps to size up the homeowner.”

Again, it requires you to be quick on your feet and be an expert in human relations. It also makes me really appreciate the owners of door and window companies and how they must hire just the right people. One bad sales rep and there goes your reputation.

With all this in mind, we here at DWM/Shelter magazine have contacted representatives of some window companies who will start blogging on dwmmag.com about topics such as financing, the lead bucket and more. If you would like to share your knowledge, I would love to add you to my writers’ bucket. I appreciate you reading our publication and want to let you know we appreciate you.

P.S. If you don’t receive our email newsletters please go to dwmmag.com to sign up. You don’t want to miss the blogs and the articles that will hopefully help you become even more of an expert seller. Additionally, make plans now to attend Fenestration Day on April 12 which will include a day of education for dealers. For more information go to http://www.dwmmag.com/feneday/.