Everyone dreams of bringing in that one HUGE deal that will set your company for a lifetime. It’s the kind of deal that can make you a name in the industry or bring financial security like you’ve never had before. For cabinet dealers in our industry, that could mean...

Clean water and plumbing are afterthoughts for many of us, but they are luxuries that many across the globe do not share.  Our team at BreakFront recently decided to get involved with the non-profit group charity: water to help raise money and awareness to the global...

A solid kitchen and bath sales process should begin with listening and properly qualifying a prospect’s needs; and then the goal should be getting in the home for a measure.  Your team should be properly trained and fluent in your sales process, they should be highly...

So the big box store is coming to town and now it’s time to compete with them.  Many cabinet dealers in this situation discount their ability to make a sale and think the only thing the buyers are attracted to is cheap kitchens. So, what do they do to compete?  They...

Selling remodeling jobs and kitchen and bath projects is not easy work. It demands all of a salespersons time since there are too many ways to make a mistake. Yet, many remodeling companies ask their salespeople or designers to wear multiple hats, dividing their time...

Rumors started spreading a few weeks ago as dealers began calling us that they had received a strange letter from Cardell. As it turns out, the letter wasn’t from Cardell, it was from a firm representing Wells Fargo who apparently owns the credit agreement with...

The other day I needed something from my father’s house, and I was told it was "in the attic."  I figured it would be a 5 minute trip – you know, grab what I need and get out. But when I climbed into the attic, I was stunned.  Amidst piles of boxes (some of them were...

As a business owner it can be extremely frustrating to lose a new sales opportunity, but I bet you’d agree that it’s even more frustrating to lose an existing customer. Customer turnover can be one of the biggest headaches of running a business, and many people fail...

At the end of each month, we take time to look through all of our articles and resources to see which reign supreme. This month we wrote about switching suppliers, sexy dealerships, the jury duty customer experience, pinpointing your buyer persona, and more. Hot...

Each day 4,100 children die from water-related diseases across the world - all of those deaths simply because they don’t have access to enough clean water. Dealers, remodelers and contractors all deal with water every single day. Our industry is one of the few that...

Sometimes companies get so caught up in marketing and selling that they forget who their target prospects really are.  So they cast their nets blindly into a vast sea, with less-than-stellar catches. Have you ever looked at an advertisement and thought to yourself,...

House hunting can subtly shift from bold, new adventure to the inevitable pain-in-the-ass move that you’re about to encounter. Since I’ve finally sold our Michigan home after nearly two years in order to move to Charlotte, I’m over the new adventure part. So, as...

If your business were able to look in a mirror, would it like what it saw? Would it be able to truthfully look at itself both physically and internally and say to itself, "Dang, I look good"?  Do others seem to be attracted to your business? And, how does it look when...

800 million people live without clean water every day. Thousands of children die due to waterborne diseases every day. Children are taken out of school to fetch water with their mothers every day. Providing clean water for villagesthat don’t have access to any can...

Would you consider your dealership or remodeling business to be sexy?  It probably isn’t on most business owner’s agendas to strive for this designation, but we’re here to argue that it should be. Now, we’re not talking about hiring attractive people or setting...

This past weekend, 20+ new features were unveiled in the Fall release of Equilibrium Operational Management software, including the highly requested catalog creation tool. Equilibrium’s new Catalog Creator allows users to create catalogs for any product or service...

It used to be that marketing your company or product consisted of buying a few newspaper ads, putting some radio ads in rotation, and making the occasional 30-second TV ad. Consumers would then see and/or hear these ads and bring their business through your doors....

When is the last time you took a stroll through the ol’ sales attic?  As we mentioned in a previous article, you should think of your sales attic as a culmination of how your team sells today. When prospects say no, they go on up to the sales attic – then it is your...

In part 1 of this post, I shared my jury duty experience, where we were all treated like children.  The culture there was terrible and it got me thinking about culture at businesses in general… What’s imbedded in your culture? I read a lot on the blogs and LinkedIn...

It’s amazing how a day (or two) in public service can teach you how to reflect on your company culture. Take jury duty and airlines, for example. When you operate in a box (or a tube at 50K feet), your view of reality can warp significantly over the years.  This...

Salespeople and showrooms seem to be focusing an awful lot on products, and that just might be their biggest goof.  Do they do it because salespeople and designers have become lazy and only want to sell what makes them money? Or maybe because they truly believe that...

It’s a pretty common occurrence in the kitchen and bath industry to get misled by your supplier and end up burned in the end. Sometimes it doesn’t happen for a long time, and in other cases, it happens right after you sign the deal. If you’re going to be switching...

As a small business owner it seems like every day is a struggle to survive and that financial success is always in the distant future. But what do you do when that day finally comes – your business truly is successful? There are dangerous situations that can derail...

Take a moment to think about the last few times you thought something but didn’t say it.  Sometimes it seems best to just bite your tongue, right? But, that doesn’t mean what you wanted to say wasn’t worthwhile.  In part 1 of this article, we went over some of the...

No matter what position you hold in your company, from administrative assistant to owner, you can’t deny that sometimes you feel like everything is balancing on a wire and one wrong move might knock your company down. You can see that with increased sales, inadequate...