Do Home Owners Really Want “Selling” To?

I’ve had a pretty good week this week. I’ve signed up three large contracts for homes, replacing all the windows and doors in each. The largest is for a stunning self-build home that would have qualified for Grand Designs considering the number of delays and setbacks it’s had. If you follow me via our installation company Twitter account you might have seen it. Either way, all great contracts to pick up before Christmas.

Three homes, three different sets of products for each one. However they all had one thing in common. Every single one of those customers said that they chose us because we dealt with them in an honest, informative and relaxed way. Nothing like the typical double glazing sales process that our industry has become infamous for.

So, given the feedback we have had this week, and all year round, do home owners really want “selling” to?

Typical sales process is dead

That’s not to say it’s not being used. There are many big companies still using outdated and high pressure sales methods. It’s just they’re working less and less. The home owner is far more educated as to what to avoid when it comes to sales and our industry. Music to my ears!

At our place, we consider ourselves more designers than anything else. We specialise in the bespoke, custom and made-to-measure. As many of us now do. The variety of products available in our industry is now much more expanded than even just a few years ago. So the traditional hard-sell, high pressure, price drop sales methods are becoming less and less effective and accepted, given the detailed nature of our industry.

Add to that the fact that a lot of home owners are wise to the tactics the old guard of our industry still continue to try to use. This was something pointed out to me by the last home owner to sign up with me on Wednesday. He explained to me that the sales guy from one of the industry’s biggest national installers said that to qualify for the vastly discounted price he had just worked out that they had to go for the finance option. If they wanted to pay straight away with a deposit and balance, it would be three times as much! This home owner has been in sales himself, he was also a generally well informed person. He told me that he knew he was being fed BS and asked the guy to leave.

Whilst tactics from our competition make my life selling to home owners easier, it’s still generally bad news. We get tarred with the same brush before we even step foot inside someone’s door. What if previous companies had turned a potential customer so badly off the sales process that they shelve the whole idea of changing their windows and doors altogether. That equates to lost business, which is bad for our industry and the local economy. So whilst in one way it helps me, the wider picture is much more negative.

To sell or to design?

The comments and feedback from the home owners that have signed up with us in the past few days have all indicated to me that they did not want selling to. Rather, they would have preferred products and options to have been explained to them, and then be helped and guided down the design process. Ending in new windows and doors tailored to their needs and tastes.

We do this with all our customers. Whether it’s a single door or a window, or a brand new glazed extension, a bi-fold door or a house full of windows and doors. Each detail of each product is explained in full. We take the time to put together a bespoke quote based on the products demonstrated and the options picked by the customer. This process sells itself to the home owner, rather than us trying to employ some direct sales tactics that most modern home owners are now conditioned to tune out or push back against.

We have found that by spending the time with the home owner, we get the sale, establish a positive working relationship with the home owner, and both parties end happy and satisfied up until the end. So we get the same end result as what some would argue as selling, but without the stigma, home owner skepticism and general stress.

And this for me is where the good companies separate from the bad. I genuinely believe that most people do not want selling to. If a home owner makes an appointment to see a window installer about windows and doors, most are actually serious about buying. You’ll inevitably get the odd tire kicker. So if they’re already tuned in to the idea of new windows and doors, that a barrier already overcome. Why go ahead and make that potential new client hostile by throwing them off-guard with old hat sales techniques? They don’t need selling to, they need involving in the whole design and creation process, so they can expend some time and energy and build up an emotional connection with the purchase they’re about to make. For a lot of people this will be one of their biggest home improvement purchases.

This is the new way to sell. And it is selling, just not in the conventional sense. We’re moving past that, or at least some of us are. Money still has to part ways at the end of the purchasing process. So why not make that process as enjoyable and creative as possible?

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