#441 - WORKING WITH SALES REPS
SUMMARY
This week David and Marina of FAME Architecture & Design discuss working with sales reps of material and product suppliers. The two cover common challenges, communication, and how suppliers make their products and companies more appealing to architects and designers. Enjoy!
TIMESTAMPS
(00:00) Issues with sales reps.
(09:18) Effect of good and bad sales reps.
“As much as the quality of the products matters, the service to sell that product also matters a lot. If it’s a great product, but the sales rep is not responsive, or you don't feel like you're being taken care of, you will also lose trust in the product. That's very important because maybe two years after the product is installed, the client might have questions about the product, and it's always good to be able to reach out to the rep if you need any support, maintenance, or advice on anything.” (11:25)
(12:28) Price transparency.
“It’s important for sales reps and the suppliers to be very good at providing detailed and accurate price transparency for materials if possible, or at least a ballpark figure. Giving blanket prices for building products is sometimes difficult because it can vary greatly depending on the quantity and construction details… but having a person who's willing to have that conversation openly and quickly is a huge benefit. Otherwise, we're in the dark.” (14:01)
(20:10) Acelab materials database.
“Acelab is a website that has a large library of materials and products. They have all types of building components that you can browse with a bunch of different parameters that you can adjust to search. It's also a good platform to browse if you're looking for more uncommon materials or things you have never used before, and you don't really know where to go for information. Google search is not really your friend because it can take you to random places in the world that's not even near you, that might not even be vetted by anybody you know.” (20:11)
(22:22) Accessible technical details.
(27:22) Materials sample.
(31:00) Materials supplier marketing.
(37:55) Communication between architects and collaborators.
“Being professional means being objective. The reason why architects are generally pretty good at being objective is that we go through architecture school, during which we give design presentations to a panel of people who provide critical feedback. So architects are trained pretty quickly in school to learn how to hear harsh criticisms, swallow them, and say, “Okay, I didn't enjoy that, but were they right? Yeah, they were kind of right about that thing. We have to improve it.” We are trained to do that. We build that thick skin and the ability to regulate our emotions.” (46:05)
“I like the design studio in school and in the office because I've always thought about it as being like a church in the sense that in this physical space that we're in, we have to be honest with each other and that's it. We're polite, but we have to be honest with each other. If someone proposes something and it's bad, we have to tell them it's not good and the reasons why we might go in a different direction. We can't afford to not have those frank conversations. We don't produce good designs if we don't do that. That is learned as an architect in the design studio in undergraduate school. You learn to think and work that way even if you're not happy about it.” (50:58)
(53:29) Product suppliers event.
