Have you ever wanted to pick the brains of an industry leader, an influencer, or someone who's shaping the future of our industry? Or maybe someone who's been in the trenches for a while and has real thoughts and opinions? Well, today we're going to do just that.

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We'd like to thank our presenting sponsors, Avanto, services and software that streamline how you operate and The Collaborative Network, a platform where leaders in the contract interiors industry unite.

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Sid:

Welcome back or welcome to the Trend Report, your inside look at the people, products, and ideas shaping the future of workplace design. I'm your host, Sid Meadows, and I'm glad that you've tuned in for this new addition to our lineup, Hot Takes, where I'm joined by a co-host. We spin the wheel of topics and share our unscripted hot takes in real time. And please join me in welcoming back to the show Doug Shapiro, the Vice President of Sales at JSI. Hey Doug, how are you?

Doug: 

Hey, Sid, always great to spend time with you.

Sid:

Well, this is gonna be fun. This is like totally random. We don't like, we're not gonna really talk very much about anything, but uh we're gonna answer all these questions. We got this fun wheel that should make a noise, uh, hopefully. This is our first time. So I'm gonna just say, hey, if you're listening, be sure you give us a little bit of grace. This is the first time that we're doing this first recording, and Doug makes a good guinea pig.

Doug:

So it's a it's an honor here. Check this out. Can I flex on my my coffee mug here?

Sid: 

Oh, yes, please do. Oh he's got a Trend Report coffee mug. Dude, you're cracking me up. I love it. I love it. And I don't even have one, I have just a normal one. I have one sitting back here somewhere. I need to right there. I need to go get it out. I don't do a really good job at like branding the show in the show. Like, I don't even have a shirt that says the trend report, I have mugs, but I need to do your mind, gotta get to work now. I mean, I don't even have a little logo on the screen, so we need to get a logo.

Doug: 

I know this it's just opportunity, growth opportunity.

Sid:  

That's right. And hey, this is the that's the word of the year, is growth. So, all right, you ready to get started? Let's go. All right, I gotta share my screen here. If you're watching on YouTube, you can see the wheel. You'll hear it. Hopefully, you'll hear it. So, all right, Doug, let's get this party started. All right, so the first question we're gonna hot take on is oh this is a good one. Is cold calling dead? That's the question.

Doug: 

I'll tell you what,  I don't know that it was ever alive. So I can't.

Sid:  

Oh, that's great. That's great.

Doug:  

Can something be dead if it was never alive? I don't know.

Sid:  

That's really good. I mean, back in the day, people I mean, people did cold call a lot.

Doug:  

Yes.

Sid: 

And do you still get cold calls on your phone?

Doug:  

Oh, I get a ton. I don't know that I've had a successful uh approach towards me. You know, I live in this sheltered world where my efforts funnel through uh, you know, a select group of not a select, but you know, a pretty solid group of dealers. And then it's the dealers, you know, that then take your work and kind of create these exponential opportunities through their networks. And their network, you know, that's a little different. They're reaching a much bigger crowd, and they're yep, they're not so rifled all the time in their efforts. So, you know, it it has to start somewhere. Not everything can be a warm lead. So I think maybe I'm just fortunate and a little jaded in my view.

Sid: 

So that's a great perspective because you're not actually doing that work yourself, but I think that it's not dead, but I think there are better ways to do it. So, I mean, if I get another LinkedIn cold outreach email, I think I might scream. Like from the rooftops. Because they're also bad, right? And then they're and they're they're also like, oh, you can be blah, blah, blah, and this person doesn't even know what I do. I haven't done any research about what I do, and I think we just have to be more specific, more intentional about cold calling. In my opinion, the days for dialing for dollars in our industry is done. You gotta be more intentional, you gotta be more targeted with the outreach that you're doing, and then you got to try to make it warm, and you can do that through social interactions and connections and things of that nature. Ask for a referral over to somebody. So I think especially like calling on the design community and some end users, it's just a waste of time. So, in my opinion, it's not dead, but there are better ways. How's that?

Doug:  

Yeah, I mean, the the ROI is so tough to justify spending hours and hours cold calling when you could be developing a relationship.

Sid:  

Return is so slow. I mean, it's just so all right. Let's spin again. I hope we get a really tough question this time.

Doug: 

Yeah, that one, I mean, I was pretty firm on that one.

Sid:  

Okay, here's the question. What's more outdated right now? The traditional showroom model or the way that we train salespeople?

Doug: 

I think it's the way we train salespeople. Okay, say more. Yeah, so it's funny because we were just having this conversation, said the opportunity to bring new forms of media into your training and to squeeze training into bite-sized nuggets and uh make training accessible when you're on the move, to make training competitive, to gamify it. I think learning as a whole has so much growth opportunity. Yes. So, you know, you can grow beyond training and just learning as it relates to everybody everywhere. So if we're not we're not evolving how we train, that is, I think, is the a much larger opportunity than trying to reinvent the traditional showroom model, which you know, of course, needs to move along, but there are aspects of the traditional showroom model which are still relevant today, which is that people need to touch and feel and see.

Sid: 

Yes, product in market, right? So I agree with you on the training. I think there are much better ways for us to train salespeople, to train everybody. And I think that we need to embrace the technologies as they're continuing to evolve to meet them where they are and give them bite-sized information. I do think that the days of saying, all right, you got to come to the factory for a three-day training on the launch of this new product, that's three days of your sales reps out of market, having to work late to respond to emails, that to me is no longer effective, right? I think coming to the factory is effective, but three days for training, not so much. You got to meet them where they are, you got to embrace the tools and give it to them in bite-sized nuggets because our attention spans are like wicked short, right? Totally. And then if it if you give it to them where they can access it on their schedule, then they can listen to it or use it or read it or whatever multiple times. So I think that's important. I mean, I kind of do think that the showroom is outdated a little bit because I think the showroom, it used to be like you had a display of this and you had a display of this and a display of that, and a lot of people, a lot of the dealers that I worked at had chair boxes with, you know, a row of their favorite chairs up on the boxes.

Doug: 

I can't see another chair box. I can't.

Sid:  

How do you get the chair off when you got a demo and somebody wants to sit on it and like jeeze?

Doug:  

You see the underside of the chair for the top row.

Sid:  

But I think that effective showrooms, and I've seen this done a couple of ways, should be set up like an office. Like set it up like an office, like have an executive area, have a workstation area, bullpen area, right? Have a collaborative area, have a you know, a wellness area. I went into a showroom somewhere and I forget where it was, this was years ago, and they had an entire healthcare showroom set up like a hospital. So when their healthcare customers came in, they could actually see and feel and use the product in an environment that they're familiar with. So that's what I think they should be. We need showrooms, we need our products in the market, but I think we should set them up just a little bit differently.

Doug: 

Yeah, I agree. I agree. More application-based.

Sid:  

Yes. You you and the fancy words, you always got the right words to say you know, this training too.

Doug: 

I think there's an opportunity to even evolve like the content itself, not just the delivery of the content, but you know, the old kind of feature function benefit, you know, formula. Yep, I feel like is giving way to storytelling. And that's another aspect of product training that I think we overlook. Like the story of a product is written while it's being designed. Yes. And uh if that's like not captured or not thought of, to me, that becomes one of the most central parts of the training that is oftentimes left out.

Sid: 

Because we tend to focus so much on the technical parts, right? Like, oh, yeah, chair goes up to this range and the arm goes up to this, and it's this wide, and you can do this with it, rather than the why behind. So there's actually a question that relates to this on the wheel. I'm gonna cross my fingers as I spin it again to see if that question will come up.

Doug:  

It's like a one in a hundred chances.

Sid: 

I know. We do miss us, we do miss storytelling, big time storytelling.

Sponsor:

We'd like to thank our supporting silver sponsors, KISP, who helps furniture brands visualize and sell product before specification. Navitas Credit Corp. Your financial solutions for today's office. And Web Configurator Services, the leader in AI-powered online product configuration and quoting.

The Trend Report Community:

Hey, let's pause here for a second so I can share something exciting with you. This podcast has always been about more than the episodes for me. It's been about you, the people listening, and the conversations that we're creating together. That's why I started the Trend Report Insider Community. This is a small private space for people who care about our industry, who want to stay connected beyond the podcast. No noise, no pressure, just thoughtful conversations and shared perspectives with industry friends, both old and new. You can learn all about this membership at sidmeadows.com/community, and be sure to use the coupon code FIRSTIN at checkout in order to get 50% off your monthly membership. And this is a thank you for already being part of our community. This discount is valid through February twenty-eighth. So for less than a cup of coffee a month, you can come in and join the fun. Visit Sidmeadows.com/community.

Sid: 

So let's see what we got. This is a good one too, Doug. If you had to remove one step process or tradition from how we sell furniture today, what would it be and what would immediately be improved?

Doug:  

Oh wow. I could only remove one, huh?

Sid:  

We've got a lot of steps in our process. It's one of the most complicated that exists, I think.

Doug:  

Yeah, we yeah, yeah, no doubt. You know, I

Sid: 

You want me to go first while you think about it?

Doug:  

Yeah, you go first. You go first.

Sid:

So I have a couple of answers to this question. And when I was putting the wheel, the questions on, I was like, I don't know that I have an answer to all these, but now that I'm talking to you, I have an answer to this question. The step in the process that I would remove from how we traditionally sell furniture, there are two of them. The first one is the antiquated, outdated, unsuccessful, in my opinion, bid process. The bid process sucks. Nobody wins in the bid process. The customer thinks they're winning. The design firm thinks the customer is winning because they put a bid out. Nobody is winning in the bidding process. And that needs to go away. You need to interview your dealer and or your partner manufacturers. And based on those interviews, you need to select a partner and then negotiate pricing with them based on what your real desire is for the way you want your space to look. We could get rid of the bid process all around. And the funny thing is the design firms and the end users have no idea how much it cost an office furniture dealer to participate in a you know full building bid or whatever. It's expensive, and internally it costs a lot thousands and thousands of dollars to do it. So that's one. 

Doug:  

I wonder if one of the things that continues to drive the bid process as a leading option is uh just list pricing. To me, just list pricing is so confusing to end users. It means nothing. It means nothing. You know, I understand that it sort of gives you uh gives people an opportunity to have an advantage in a marketplace through commitment, yep, you know, volume tiers, things like that to achieve certain levels of discounting. But really, I mean, there's got to be better ways to offer some sort of advantage. Or, you know, I don't know. It just feels like list pricing is one of those traditions from selling furniture that I would love to see eventually go away.

Sid:  

I well, I agree with you. And there are brands that have tried to change this, and the dealer community revolts on them.

Doug:  

I know, I know. There's so much embedded in that that is it's just it's I it may it just may not happen.

Sid:  

Yeah. But you also have brands that subscribe to an inflated list philosophy, and they offer, you know, really big discounts. So the net comes out being at or the same or less or whatever, right? But if you're a brand that has an inflated list and your lateral file is $5,000 list, and a brand that doesn't have an inflated list, theirs is $1,000. What's the dealer picket?

Doug:  

Yeah, it's so confusing.

Sid:  

Yes, it's ridiculous. All right, we're gonna spend one more wheel. That's actually a really good answer. I'm glad you thought of that one because that's not one that was on my list.

Doug: 

No pun intended.

Sid: 

All right, let's see. We're gonna get a good question this time. Well, that was a good question. They've all been pretty good. Oh we're both laughing at this one. This is somewhat related to the one of the previous questions. So what do we really sell, Doug?

Doug: 

Oh, wow. This is so multidimensional because you could argue that what a customer buys and what you sell are actually kind of different. You know, the customer buys the products, but you sell trust, you sell intelligence, you sell care. You know, so I I I think those are great things, different, different things.

Sid:  

Uh those are really great answers and not any that I had actually thought of. So when I think about what do we really sell, I don't think we sell furniture. I think we sell dynamic spaces that help our customers improve overall employee satisfaction, improved productivity. I think what we really do is we don't sell, we solve a problem. Totally. And we solve the problem that our customer has. The challenge with this is that if you ask a lot of people like what problem are you solving for this customer, they have no clue. They have no clue what problem they're solving.

Doug:  

Yeah, that's a that's a big oversight, you know. Like I mean, it's it's almost like you're the you're the doctor and the patient walks in and you just start throwing medicine at them without knowing really what their problem is.

Sid: 

Yeah, you need this chair because it's my favorite chair. I'm not gonna tell you that, but you need this chair, right? And you need this desk. And so I think that we just get so caught up in the actual physical product that we forget to really ask some probing questions. In our last interview last year, we talked about asking questions, and I may have mentioned this, I don't know. But like somebody reaches out to you and says, Hey, I need to buy a hundred chairs. So you quote a hundred chairs to them.

Doug:  

Yeah.

Sid: 

But what we don't do is ask the questions, hey Doug, what is happening in your business that is causing you to need a hundred new chairs?

Doug:  

Because right, that's gonna open up a whole bunch of doors.

Sid:  

Oh my gosh, they need high adjustable tables, or they just bought high-adjustable tables, or I don't know, you name it. It's a list.

Doug:  

Like how how do you become that master question asker? You know, because it it's a it's not just a it is a skill, but it's also sort of a state of mind. It's being ultra curious, interested in the other person. We talked about what makes for a great podcast host, and and you were even describing how you know certain people might hear something brilliant, and then there's no follow-up question, and that would drive you nuts. And it's like that that's almost like the salesperson has to be a great podcast host. 

Sid: 

Yes. Ask the question and find out why. And I think we miss that. We find out what we don't find out why they're buying because we're so busy and they need this, and I got 50 things on my plate to do, and I got to get this quote done and that quote done, and we just respond to they need to 100 shares. But why do you need 100 chairs? What's happening in your business that is driving the need for 100 chairs? That's leading to understanding the problem that your customer has, which might lead to you selling more products to them that address the bigger need. Maybe it's acoustics, maybe it's sound masking, maybe it's you know, office pods. I don't know. The list goes on and on about what it could be if we just ask questions. Oh my gosh. That was great. So, Doug, what'd you think about that?

Doug: 

That was fun. That was fun. Actually, go ahead. I actually was thinking about, you know, how could we do this? Uh, in you know, so I we have sales reps all over, we have these all hands calls. I'd love to pick a few, put them on the spot, and uh and roll the dice, ask some questions. That would be fun.

Sid:  

Well, it's pickerwheel.com is where the wheel comes from. And you can literally make a wheel whatever you wanted to, you can brand it however you wanted to, and all your colors, like I did, and that kind of stuff. So, I mean, Doug, I really appreciate you joining me today for the first one. You're a great guinea pig. I think we had some really fun conversations. We are over time, but as the listeners know, that's pretty typical with me. We go over time a lot.

Doug: 

Well, Sid, great to spend the time with you. I appreciate you having me on.

Sid:  

Oh man, it's uh great to have you here, and it's always fun to catch up with you.

Sponsor:

We'd like to thank our community bronze sponsors, Catalyst Consulting Group, RESEAT, and Staffing Plus.

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Outro:

And to you, the listener, thank you for joining us today on the Trend Report. Your inside look at the people, products, and ideas shaping the future of workplace design. Go out there and make today great, and we'll see you in the next episode. Take care, everyone.