Sales/Communication

Marketing/Networking

Business Strategies and Planning

Technical/Computer

SALES/COMMUNICATION

The Art Of Asking The RIGHT Questions at the Right Time!
Clients learn about you by the questions you ask them! Most clients choose to do business with salespeople who ask questions...the right questions! Questions engage the client early in the sales process and lead the salesperson to a clearer understanding of their clients' criteria for hiring you vs. a competitor. Open-ended questions help the sales person to become a more astute listener and interpreter of their clients' responses.

Do you sometimes avoid questions about budgets? Do you struggle to find the right words to ask important information? Do you want a smooth and fluent way to ask questions that communicates a caring and professional image without any fear of sounding intrusive or pushy? When you ask for referrals, do your clients say, "I can't think about anyone right now."?

This seminar provides questions to ask before, during and after each appointment. Participants will develop a more confident communication style by learning to HOW and WHEN to ask closed-ended and open-ended questions that lead to the closed sale more quickly!

These questions will make a difference in how you:

•		Build rapport and trust BEFORE your first face-to-face appointment.
•		Sell more products than the product that they called you in for.
•		Effectively deal with buying objections.
•		Consistently generate a steady stream of referral business.

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Relationship Selling--Learn how to "read" and respond effectively with every client!
Buyers choose who they will give their business to based on how well the "seller" demonstrates a thorough understanding of their needs... not only for the products they require, but also for the way they make their purchasing decisions. Some clients are impulsive decision-makers, others slow & methodical. How we mold our communication style to the individual needs of our prospect is the way that the prospect decides to become our client!

This seminar will define Four Personality Types that require completely different communication and selling strategies to mold the relationship into a successful selling experience. Awareness of clients' personality types, buying styles, and communication styles will transform how customer presentations are designed to align with what each client values, appreciates and requires in order to do business with YOU!

Savvy Selling Strategies
Ditch the "pitch"! and focus on the key elements of what makes today's customer buy or NOT buy. Align your designing and selling style with your customer's individual personality type and watch your sales volume soar. Learn to "size up" the client's buying style in minutes and position yourself to close sales quickly and comfortably. Identify the "dos and don'ts" of relating to 4 basic personality types and apply the principles to the golden rule of selling: SELL UNTO OTHER AS THEY WISH TO BE SOLD UNTO! Learn how to qualify prospective clients before investing valuable time with the "shoppers" and "idea thieves". You will also learn how to apply visual presentation and communication strategies that build long-term client relationships.

Selling the Product Package
Today's client is a different "breed"...sometimes they know too much about their available resources and can be wary of buying the "whole enchilada" from a single source. With HGTV and the internet influencing their perceptions of achieving the "Designer Look", experienced design professionals have new challenges to overcome.

This seminar will identify specific ways to lead your clients to RSVP to your invitation to become their personal designer. You will learn the RSVP action plan for leading the client to embrace your design presentation, value your service... and sign the contract!

R- Relationship Focused
S- Service -Driven
V- Value-Added
P- Passion to PROFIT

You will learn how to:
Focus on the client's perspective, feelings and fears.
Assess the client's expectations & needs before you waste time with a "dead end".
Convince the client that the total design "package" is their best investment.
Exceed the client's expectations so that they remain loyal and dependent on you!
FACE these challenges with confidence!

Selling VALUE to the Price-Minded Client!
Do you "skirt" the budget issues? Do you design gorgeous rooms that the client wants for "less"?
Do you "give it away" because you fear the customer might find it "cheaper" somewhere else? Are the designs presented what the customer really wants and will pay for or what you assume they can afford?

Do you feel confident talking design...but awkward discussing money? Oftentimes we overlook the fact that profit is the ultimate goal of our appointments. With today's competitive market and client's access to information and resources, it is exceptionally challenging NOT to falter under the pressure of the "cheaper price" mentality. Effective communication and relationship building strategies are at the root of customer loyalty and trust in the products and services they buy.

The Psyche Of Sales
Our mental and emotional connection to our long and short-term business activity underlies every selling experience. How we think about our ability to sell can have a great impact on how we feel about the "ups" and "downs" all people in sales must deal with. Our perception about money and our personal buying styles directly relate to our selling approach and results. This seminar focuses on attitudes and belief systems that affect personal growth and performance as salespeople. Participants will sharpen their people-reading and communication abilities and learn specific ways to get into the heads, hearts, and wallets of their clients!
[This seminar functions well as an introduction to Selling By Design]

Selling By Design
Refuel your creativity tank with design ideas and techniques that will activate your client's "dream room" mentality. Trigger their spend button with visual presentations that will sell them an unshoppable design. Associate the anatomy of every room with the products that will turn it into a gorgeous and comfortable living space. This seminar will include super-selling strategies that merge communication techniques with design principles, adding drama to the clients' personalized decorating/design plan and value to their bottom line.

Selling As A "Second Language"
Why do some design professionals achieve greater business success than others with equal design talent? Selling is the only way to actually see the beautiful and innovative designs we enjoy creating. Selling skills are learned skills...the "natural-born" salesperson does not exist! This seminar will relate sales communication skills with design knowledge and techniques. Your visual persuasive skills and proficiency using the sales language will build your client's confidence in their decision-making ability. Learn to eloquently "romance" the products and create design plans your customer will not be able to resist (or duplicate with anyone else)! Words are your most powerful selling tool...this seminar will help you to become a masterful architect of the sales language!

Qualifying Before The Appointment
A well-executed client pre-appointment interview can make the difference between working in a "Freetail" or Retail design business! Conversational fact-finding is an art and a science that requires fluency with "money talk". This seminar will teach the communication skills and verbiage that will help you extract truthful answers from clients about their money and how they expect to invest it in their design project(s). You will learn how to educate your customers about custom pricing and custom value, as well as how you can position yourself to close sales on the first face-to-face appointment ...or at least walk away with the retainer check in hand!

BallPark Estimating
Learn the formula that will make your initial quoting and estimating faster and easier. Clients depend upon the professional to lead them to the window treatment designs that they love and that they can afford to buy! The goal of this seminar is to teach the salesperson how to spontaneously calculate approximate price ranges for a variety of hard and soft window treatment types. The participants will learn how to use the cost per linear foot formula, so that they can educate their clients about cost factors and variables--EARLY in the design/sales process!

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MARKETING/NETWORKING

Keeping the Client Funnel Full
Proactively create a consistent flow of new clients and be rid of the "yo-yo" sales patterns in your business. This back-to-basics seminar emphasizes fun and cost-effective ways to significantly expand your customer base. Explore innovative strategies for generating repeat and referral business. See an updated version of a design seminar that taps into the needs and desires of today's more sophisticated and knowledgeable consumer. See how easy it is to teach them enough to need you more.

Stop Waiting For the Phone To Ring...How to PROACTIVELY find new clients!
Do you know the difference between passive and PROACTIVE marketing? Are you spending enough time and energy actively prospecting for new clients and reconnecting with previous clients? This seminar is designed to turn passive attitudes into marketing mania! The goal and focus is to define specific ways to attract new clients and access new referral sources. This seminar will assist the experienced business owner in reinventing their business-building activity and teach the new business owner to become a confident networker.

Generating Repeat & Referral Business--
Action Steps To Make It Happen!
Wouldn't it be wonderful if our phone rang every day with calls from our best clients calling us back to do their next project? What if the phone rang daily with new clients calling to schedule an appointment because they heard such glowing reports about the great job you did in their neighbor's house? STOP DREAMING! Yes, this scenario can and will happen when a solid client base has been established...but it's not likely to happen as consistently and often as you would like!

Our best source of business will always be from our satisfied clients who often need incentive and inspiration to reconnect with us for scheduling their next appointment or referring their friends, family, neighbors and business associates to us.

NetWORKING Strategies--How to turn the contacts into clients!
Do you know the difference between great networking and successful networking? Does your networking activity put you in touch with people who could generate new clients but they never do? This seminar teaches effective results-oriented strategies that make the time energy and money you invest actually pay off! You will re-define networking requirements that relate to engaging verbiage, frequency of contact, follow up, personalizing and relationship building. The goal of this seminar is to teach you how to create a source of free advertising--your own personal sales force and marketing team!

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Designing Your Business Results
Struggling to get your business to pay you what you deserve? Stuck on the business "plateau"? Settling for sales volume with marginal growth? Regardless of how many months or years you have been in business, every successful business needs a growth plan. Consistently and continuously building sales volume, selling higher ticket, and attracting new clients are key elements we know we must focus on BUT, oftentimes, we are so busy doing the business we have no time left to plan and execute our business goals. For new businesses that are trying to create momentum or seasoned businesses that are stuck in a "holding pattern", this seminar will present the business plan in simple steps that are personalized and believable! Learn how much control you have to implement specific skills and techniques that will build your business to the NEXT step.

Twenty-five Ways To Meet (or Exceed) Your Clients' Expectations
Every business needs to keep their existing customers and find new ones! Clients must have reasons to remain loyal and continue to choose you over the many other sources & options they have available! This seminar will emphasize the service component of business relationships that will make your clients' buying experience one that they will embrace over and over again.

You will explore twenty simple, creative and unique ways to make your customer feel special enough to keep coming back....even when they know they can "get it cheaper" down the street!

How to Stay Motivated In A "Lonely" Business
Home-based offices, commission selling, "road warriors"--the challenge of business ownership is greatest for many who work alone! This seminar teaches effective strategies and daily activities to sustain a healthy focused attitude and a productive balanced schedule to achieve optimal results. Reduce stress and work happy! Learn specific ways to: SELF-MANAGE, TIME-MANAGE and LIFE-MANAGE. Are you living to work or working to live?

Systems for Success
Today's business owner faces an ongoing challenge of keeping all the "balls in the air"--the paperwork, appointments, data entry, seminars, learning new products, keeping track of discontinued samples, placing and tracking orders, networking, follow-up...the list is very very long! BALANCE is the elusive goal that so many struggle to achieve. This seminar teaches simple ways to work with structures and systems that simplify the business building process. The overload of daily activities and long range business planning need not be so exhausting and stressful. Systems for success will provide the strategies, steps and structure to make your business more manageable, profitable and enjoyable.

What the Busy Businesses Do to Stay Busy...AND MAKE MONEY!
Today, clients have more options, resources, information, and buying requirements than ever before! Earning the business loyalty of the customer has become a greater challenge, regardless of the type of business. The businesses that learn from their customers and listen to what the customer's needs, desires, and challenges are, are those that can count on customer loyalty! This seminar identifies what is MOST important to today's customer, their expectations, and requirements for choosing who they give their business to! Participants in this seminar will identify ways to differentiate their business, products, and services from their competition. They will create a list of ten ways they can be viewed by their customers as unique and most valuable!

This seminar will define specific ways to turn your favorite clients into your business growth partners. You will learn how to stay in touch without the fear of "pestering" or annoying your clients. You will acquire verbal skills that will create incentive for your clients to fill your calendar with pre-qualified referral clients. You will learn how to inspire clients to adjust the "future project" time frame to the "let's do it NOW" mentality!

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TECHNICAL/COMPUTER

The Power Of Technology Learn how technology impacts your design business in three areas: Business Management, Marketing, and Client Presentation. (CEU approved)
This class will identify specific ways that technology impacts business image, growth, management and branding. Designers will learn how to integrate technology into their, marketing strategies, project management and organization and client communications and presentations.

Virtual Design--Use Adobe Photoshop Elements To Wow Your Clients!

Learn how to dazzle your client with design details...add drama to your client presentations...kick up the "Wow Factor" to impress your clients and your workroom like never before!

The goals of this seminar are: To introduce the designer, who has avoided computer technology, to a variety of ways their computer can simplify the design and sales process and save them time and to educate decorators & designers about the Adobe Photoshop Elements program capabilities that will help them create impressive visuals for their clients and workroom.
The participants will increase their knowledge, skills and abilities that relate to using a computer to:

•		Use Adobe Photoshop Elements to edit digital photos to crop, adjust size, clarity, and color.
•		Create window treatment designs from scanned drawings.
•		Position and size designs to fit on window in digital photos of clients' rooms.
•		Create detailed work orders with window treatments drawn to scale using click and drag technology.
•		Add text labeling to work orders that will communicate all essential details to the workroom and installer.
•		Use the Adobe Photoshop "Tool Box" to creatively edit treatments to meet specific design needs.
•		Add color and/or fabric patterns to line art images of window treatments.
•		Create a "Line-Art Elevation" from a color digital photo to show the client a beautiful "rendering" of their room design.
•		Printing, emailing and saving images for client and workroom organization and communication.
•		Using scanned images from product catalogs to "click, drag, & drop" into digital photos...show how the Framed art or mirror will look on that wall!

Class size is limited. Bringing a laptop computer, pre-loaded with Adobe Photoshop Elements (2.0 or 3.0), is not required, but is advised in order to maximize the educational experience.

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Customized training programs are available
for individuals, and for small and large companies.