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Thomas Robinson |
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Price makes today’s sale. Quality makes tomorrow’s. |
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Of all the titles I have had in life I like Grand Pa the best |
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Tom Robinson has over thirty years of entrepreneurial business experience including, starting building and managing a land development and home building company that created over $200 million in real estate, running a small specialty retailer and acting as Director of Business Development for a wholesale stocking distributor of sinks and faucets. His books Selling Custom Homes, Selling Stone Countertops and May I Borrow Your Watch? are available on Amazon.com or by clicking the links on this page. Tom is currently Director of Business Development for ANO, Inc. Arlington Heights, IL. Tom Welcomes your comments and questions. trobinson725@gmail.com
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Past President of Home Builders Association of Greater Chicago and Chicagoland Builder of the Year 2004 |
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Excerpt from Selling Stone Countertops
Sales is like the beer wagons that you see in the commercials during the last football game of the year. You need four big strong Clydesdale to pull you beer wagon. Three horses or even three horses and a pony will not successfully pull your wagon. Like the beer wagon your sales program has four components that work as a team and are co-dependent and interrelated. The first component is a quality product. Quality is defined as a product that meets the needs and expectations of the consumer. If you are selling a car to a college student whose primary concern is that he does not need to put too much of his beer money in the gas tank and it will get him home once a month to see his girl friend then a three year old economy car is a quality product. But if you are selling a car to a wealthy doctor who wants to impress his friends, neighbors, colleagues and even himself then you likely need to offer an imported luxury car. Obviously the "quality" level is different in a three year old economy car and a new imported luxury car but each is quality to the consumer. Not only do you need to offer the right level of quality to the right customer but to maintain your sales program long term you need to be honest with your customer and yourself about what you are selling. You cannot offer an economy car and sell it as a luxury car. It might work once but not in the long term. When I was selling homes we had a saying, "Sell the sizzle not the steak." However, if you sell the sizzle you still have to make sure you have a steak. Selling the sizzle without a steak to back it up is fraud.
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