As a log cabin manufacturer, we work with many types of clients. Some of them buy from us to build up their recreational parks. Others order from us in bulk for their showrooms, like supermarkets. And others buy from us under the private label agreement. Yet, there is a specific type of partner that most often orders from us bespoke timber houses and use our bespoke order system to its highest capacity. These partners sell to their clients a dream log home, which the haven’t yet seen. These partners employ certain techniques in helping their clients pick the right type of log cabin or log house, so it could adhere to all their requirements, serve all of their needs and fulfil the dream that they have.
In this blog post, we would like to showcase several techniques that our partners employ that may benefit every type of partner we have. While these may seam like basic sales techniques, it’s the basics that we always come back to when all else doesn’t seem to work.
Create a fantasy
First of all, the client most often already comes with specific dreams and fantasies about their dream log cabin. It can be realistic, or not at all, but what you as a sales partner should do is to cultivate that dream and guide it to a reasonable outcome. It’s a bit easier to do when the client can already picture what kind of bespoke log cabin homes are on their mind and how they would like to mash them together to form their dream log house.
It’s much harder when a client can’t quite picture what is it they want exactly. That is where your experience and the extent of your catalogue will come into play. In cases like these, show them your previous projects. Also show off a standard log cabin array. If something will catch their fancy, expand on that idea and build a unique glulam house design, both on paper and in their minds. That is how you cultivate a great fantasy – putting everything on paper and showing it back to your customer.
Asking the right questions
Now, in order to promote said fantasy and steer the customer away from the unattainable, you must ask the right questions. These can be from the most mundane questions to large, all-encompassing ones, constructed to understand your client better. Start with the obvious question about the location and the land available to gauge the size. Also take note on the details about the location: is it a lakeside, or a forest, perhaps a part of a camp? How many people should it support? Then move on to the more broad questions, like what kind of log cabin they imagined? Are they conscious about ecology? Do they imagine themselves sitting on a porch, enjoying a cool drink? Or are they more into skiing and are worried about the storage space?
Learn about your customer. Leave the questions of budget for the last and offer them to allow you time to create the dream glulam house plans for them. Perhaps entice them with a sketch before you present your final offer.
A glimpse into the future
This is exactly where your partnership with us becomes exceedingly beneficial. All the information you acquired during the consultation with the client, including hand drawn sketches, will be crucial for us. With all that information, we will build a detailed offer, with a final price included that you can pass on to your customers. They will be able to take a good glimpse into their future glulam house design through a 3D model we build from all the data our partners give us about the project. Not only that, this offer our partner will receive won’t have any trace of ever being from us, because as private label producers, we prepare these offers for our partners with their branding and their insignia. All this within 24 hours.
That is how you get your customer to stay interested, engaged and how they keep their dream alive in their minds, before it whisks away into forgetfulness. Speed, accuracy and diligence.
Final thoughts
These three stages of sales, whether in shorter or longer form, apply to most sales of log cabins and log homes. With our detailed offers, we support all of our partners and help them reach the success in all of their sales efforts. We are happy to report that our endeavors do not go to waste: all of our partners report 20% increases in their profits after they have started working with us and we are proud to be a part of their success. Perhaps, with our experience, knowledge and the high quality of our production, we can be a great partner for you as well. Let’s talk business!