Selling Solutions- Redecorating for Spring

In almost every retail outlet you can find the employee who has either been trained at some level for interior design or is the “expert” in it because it’s the favorite hobby; they are the “go to” person that all their friends call on for advice. The Selling Solution for Spring Redecorating begins what that employee. After having read through this article, you’ll need to sit down with them and discuss selling the Spring Redecoration Solutions by room and by product group.

In each room the redecorating process can include new paint, flooring, lighting fixtures, paintings, pictures or prints, furniture and accessories. Depending on the nature of the room, obviously those items will be different. As an example, carpeting might be favored in a living room or bedroom but not in a kitchen. Hardwood floors might be great in a living room and kitchen but most folks don’t want them in their bedroom. That redecorating specialist on your staff can help you make a list of options for each room and begin a “style sheet” concept that can be used to guide your customers through redecorating purchases. Depending on your geographic location, there might also be a theme desired, i.e. boating, beach, log cabin, hunting cabin, contemporary, pool hall, sports, etc.

For each room to be redecorated, the room type and theme must first be identified. Is it a

• Living room?
• Bed room?
• Kitchen?
• Family room?
• Recreation room?
• Study?
• Home office?
• Craft room?
• Dining room?
• Man cave?
• Woman cave?

However your customer identifies the room is what matters. What they see in their mind and want the end result to be is what you’re expert is trying to determine. If it’s gender specific that needs to be known as well.

What is the theme and color scheme? After your customer has identified the room, intended use and gender (if necessary), the overall theme and color scheme needs to be identified. Will the theme be “natural woods” but then the colors desired are light? “Light” and “darker” can be all your customer has ever thought about if they thought about it at all. They may not have made any attempt to write down or even identify what they really want the end result to be. And then there might be some natural conflicting challenges. For instance, your customer might be designing a home office and they want it to have a natural wood theme but it has three windows and faces south. That’s going to mean it has light coming in those windows most of the day and creating a dark wood space might be challenging.

The intended use of the room will also determine the flooring type and color thereof. Your expert should be adept at determining flooring suggestions that maximize sales while also managing costs for your customer and delivering what they want in their end product. A home office being put into a room that has hardwood floors might be perfect for a rolling office chair, but not so great for guest chairs that scrape, scratch and slide on that same floor.  The need to replace the flooring is unnecessary and cost prohibitive in some cases but an area rug (or two) might be ideal. On the other hand, a home office going into an already carpeted room might be fine and just require a behind-the-desk mat for that rolling office chair.

In the particular cases of bedrooms, home offices, living rooms, rec rooms and “man caves,” placement of furniture, lights, computers, televisions, monitors, printers, etc all has to be taken into consideration. Connectivity can become a challenge and no one wants bundles of ugly multi-colored wires visible. Certainly they should be planned for a safe layout whereon no one risks tripping over them, pulling on power cords, or other hazards all too often created and ignored. Your redecorating expert should know which employees in other departments are their “go to” people for solutions in those areas, i.e. computer/entertainment connectivity or lighting.

For specific color schemes or themes, the natural lighting has to be considered and will impact artificial lighting, but the many options for artificial lighting almost require a different expert. Will there be ceiling fixtures? Floor lamps? Table lamps? Does any specific area need more focused light than another? Does the customer want indirect lighting? Will there be plants that require UV lighting? Will there be a fish tank that needs to be placed away from the windows to avoid algae blooms but still needs proper display lighting?

Prebuilt style and design sheets can help your redecoration expert go through the list of ideas and questions, identifying your customers’ needs and desires and building options for solutions. Once that has been done, various pricing options can be identified based on the customer’s budget with upselling kept in mind by your expert employee. A final option to offer the customer a discount on the list of products they will purchase for a given project, stored in your system under the customer and project name. The discount is a small impact on your overall profit margin when you take into the consideration the value of their personal data you store and can use to send them sales materials, discount coupons, special event notices and more in the future.

It all starts with identifying that one expert employee who loves and is skilled at redecorating.