by Ray Ducharme, Rave Reps

One of the biggest challenges facing all salespersons is qualifying a prospect.

There are two critical questions that must be asked: When are you planning to build or remodel and how much do you want to spend? We know that the prospects came into your showroom for a reason; but we need to determine if they are shoppers or buyers. 

Kitchen dealers - give this to your new kitchen design customers when they sign the contract with you. They will love you even more!

"Renovating a kitchen is an exciting and wonderful experience but it can be an expensive, complicated and time-consuming process.  Every detail must be planned and executed for it to be successful..."

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Kitchen dealers and designers -

Save time and missteps by reading this white paper about everything you need to know about installing cabinets - step-by-step, possible pitfalls, and all the pro tricks to getting cabinets installed correctly the first time, based on over 30 years of experience.

"Installing kitchen cabinetry is a specialized trade; it is different from finish or trim carpentry and requires a special understanding of working with already finished goods (cabinets). Cabinet installation also requires specialized tools in order to produce a quality product..."

Request the full report

A new dealer recently asked me if we could offer the pictured glass door for a client. They said the door style was critical for them to get this sizable project. Their actual words were this is the “Deal Breaker”. I contacted the factory on the dealers’ behalf and was told the door is available but would not be covered by warranty. I told the designer this and was asked why.

Well, because we know this will probably fail.

by Ray Ducharme, Rave Reps

Today, we find kitchen and bath dealers offering five or more cabinet lines. Indeed, we know some who offer ten or more lines. It seems everyone needs something specific to hit every price point possible or when a new designer joins the company they “must” have their favorite cabinet line. Do dealers really need a same week delivery line, an import line, and several semi custom lines in framed and full access and several custom lines? Does this guarantee the dealer have it all?  Having recently helped some dealers with retail sales we find this to actually be a bad idea. Consumers have limited knowledge about cabinetry, the get somewhat educated on the web but it's really up to the designer to direct the sale. Having too much to offer slows the selection process and the sale. Some dealers will say they need all these products to get the best pricing. While we agree that you need various price points to meet budget, salesmanship and design can make up for having to beat the next guys price.

Excerpted from a blog post by Ray Ducharme, Rave Reps:

And so begins the great debate... Qofmiwok, stated above about not liking the term engineered wood but really both particleboard and plywood are considered engineered wood. We have performed tests on both and found the when subjected to water both materials show some forms of distressing. We took samples of both high and low- grade cabinet quality plywood and particleboard and placed the samples in standing water for four days. Now admittedly this is extreme, if your cabinets were soaking in water for that long you probably had lots more damage to your house than just cabinets.

However, after the soaking the results were startling. All samples showed forms of distressing. Where the plywood delaminated and the particleboard swelled. The lower priced (quality) material did show more distressing than the higher quality materials. The interesting fact was the higher quality particleboard material showed less damage than similarly priced plywood. So you get what you pay for.