Survey says: Your clients are chickens

An internet survey we’re conducting on our home page asks, “What is today’s biggest barrier to success?” The poll has been on our website for only a few days, and here is what you’re telling us so far:

Clients scared to pull the trigger - 32%
Economy in general - 25%
Home values/Appraisals - 13%
Cash flow - 11%
Getting beat up by clients - 11%
Financing/Credit problems - 6%
Material prices - 2%

I believe these results; I think you’re right. Why? Because until recently, I have been one of those chickens. For months now, I have been waiting to pull the trigger on replacing the roof on my house. Chicken no longer, I placed a call a few weeks ago to our contractor of choice to get the ball rolling. Enough was enough, and it was time to do my part to help this economy we’re all sick and tired of.

As a side note … the first contractor I called promised he’d call me back in two days, and then he didn’t respond until two weeks later via email after I gave up on him. While my wife and I grew more frustrated each day we didn’t hear from him, we decided he doesn’t deserve our business, so we called our second choice on the list and are awaiting word from that company. If the references we called are any indication, we will be very, very happy. Man I hope so.

Let’s talk about this first guy a little more. What’s going on here? Is he truly so busy that he can forget about his promise to call me within 48 hours? If he needed more time, why not call me to ask me for more time? I would have said yes. It wouldn’t have been a big deal. Just communicate with me, don’t ignore me. His silence and disregard for my business cost him the job and a few thousand bucks in revenue. He will not be replacing our roof.

Here I am, a client with dollars to spend in the depth of the worst recession we’ve seen in decades – ready to pull the trigger – and this contractor doesn’t care. Frankly, it’s a little unbelievable. Am I out of line here?

Anyway, the original point of this blog entry was to give you hope by telling you that at least one consumer out there isn’t scared anymore.

A design/builder friend of mine, Jay Grant, owns a storefront building on Main Street right in the center of his New Jersey home town. The very old building includes retail and office space, and provides Jay’s tenants fantastic exposure at the busiest intersection in the city.

One of his tenants had to close shop, so Jay is considering using the vacated storefront space as a showroom for his custom home business. He’s struggling with a few issues:

1) Should he spend the money to set up shop in this highly visible space?
2) If he does it, how should the space be designed?

Would it be his office only? What about a showroom? He could host fundraising events in the space to help the community while getting his name out to potential clients. He could use it as an office with a living-room environment to relax clients and get them thinking straight. He could do lots of things in the space. What should he do?

What would you do? Would you give it a shot? Would you run away? Would you jump in with both feet? Let us know.

You can post your comments in the discussion on our LinkedIn group. Joining is free.

Or, you can scroll up to the first paragraph of this blog entry, look to the right and click where you see, “Leave a comment” or “Post or view comments.”

Or, you can send me an email.

P.S. Jay is a columnist for RD&B magazine. You can read a sneak peak of his July/August editorial about this situation.

We asked readers what they’re talking about with their clients. This is what they said:

Future work – 46%
No one’s calling/talking to us – 28%
Killing time; just looking – 15%
Starting work today – 11%

The first thing I did when I saw these results was add up the percentage of readers that is having conversations with clients. A total of 72% are in communication with clients or potential customers, and I think that’s pretty good.

Did deeper into the results and you’ll notice almost half of you (46%) are talking about specific projects. Add the other 11% of you with clients ready to start work today and we’re talking almost two thirds of you in conversations about specific projects.

Regarding the 15% of you with clients who are just killing time by talking to you, remember this; Every conversation is an opportunity to sell. Builders, sell your design services. Architects, see if they need a pool house, or storage shed, dog house or even a child’s playhouse. Be creative and don’t write off the people you think are just killing time. They need something but don’t know it, and you’re just the person to tell them what it is.

Do these results reflect what’s going on in your area?

Maybe you didn’t participate in this specific survey. Here’s your chance to let us know what you’re talking to your clients about. Scroll up to the first paragraph of this blog entry, look to the right and click where you see, “Leave a comment” or “Post or view comments.”

Or you can send me an email.

A lively online discussion in our magazine’s LinkedIn group centered around the following question: Are the days of the McMansion over? I understand the thoughts behind the question, but the wording isn’t as clear as it could be. There’s more than one issue at hand here; There’s the issue of uninspired, ho-hum design and there’s also the issue of home size.

The more clear-cut issue of the two is that of home size. Yes, the days of over-sized homes for the sake of over-sized homes are gone, and for a few reasons. First, the economy stinks and it won’t return to full force for a long time, so the money simply isn’t there to fund unnecessarily large homes. Second, there’s this green movement everyone’s talking about, and most people equate green with conservation, and conservation with less, which means less square footage. Then there are reports such as the one from the American Institute of Architects last week that reveals home sizes have been trending down for a long time. That’s fact, plain and simple, which makes it easy to predict the future of home size.

As for the ho-hum designs most people think of when they hear the term McMansions, I’m not so sure its days are numbered. A nice home forever will be a symbol of wealth and success, and there will always be successful people who want to show off their wealth or at least create a perception of it. Many of these people either won’t know good design when they see it, or they’d rather sacrifice quality design for that dream kitchen or flat-screen TVs in every room. There’s nothing wrong with either of those options; they’re just more attractive than good design to some people.

Perhaps life after this recession will change the fate of uninspired design. The new economic reality might sway those with money to build custom homes in a way that ensures they get the most bang for their buck; in other words, with great design. And just as the recession has pushed all the tire kickers out of the trade show aisles, it might also have pushed out the designers who are not as committed to quality design as all of you. That pesky fly-by-night design firm down the street or on the other side of town that bought that fancy software might not be around as market recovery begins.

I believe we’re entering the era of right-size everything. Right-size homes, right-size cars, right-size vacations, right-size spending and hopefully right-size portions at fast-food restaurants are the immediate future. And probably in 15 or 20 years when we all forget about this awful recession we’ve just been through, we’ll get back to our old habits. But for now things will be different.

Ultimately, I can’t predict the future any better than you can. So who knows what will happen. I’d still like to know what you think. Share your thoughts with everyone. Scroll up to the first paragraph of this blog entry, look to the right and click where you see, “Leave a comment” or “Post or view comments.”

Or, send me an e-mail.