Your Greatest Competitor

The biggest remodeling firms are often surprised when they realize they have less than 1% of the remodeling money spent in their market.

Why is this important?

To effectively grow a sustainable business, you need to stop focusing on just winning from other remodelers and begin to really focus on your biggest competitor.

What You Are Competing Against

Your client’s fears. Your prospect is fearful of you (about 50% of the complaints to the Better Business Bureau come from remodeling activity). Your prospect is afraid of making mistakes. Your prospect is fearful of costs and cost of overruns/change orders.

Your client’s ignorance. Your prospect does not know how to buy remodeling. They don’t understand what it is like to live in a remodeling project. They don’t understand what goes into the cost of a successful remodeling experience. They don’t know how to compare or value different remodeling companies.

Your client’s sense of overwhelm. After covid, people filled their time void with activities (eating out, traveling, playing sports, and spending time with family) so there is little space left for remodeling. Many times, a prospect will drag their feet only because they don’t have time for a project now.

Today, more than ever, you need to be the “voice of reason.”

Many years ago, I heard the adage: “People buy emotionally but justify their decisions logically.” The key to this simple premise is the logic—the reason. It is imperative that you weave logic into the remodeling decision process if you want the prospect to make their project a priority and ultimately proceed. Logic is what’s remembered the next day or week—it’s sticky.

Three Important Questions 

Asking your prospective client these questions can give them permission to proceed.

1. Why should they do this project?
2. Why should they do this project now?
3. Why should they do this project with you?

If you don’t know their answers or address them in your sales process, then don’t expect the prospect to know them. You really need to spend time practicing and mastering them, and here are a few examples of important logic elements that you need to plant into conversations with your prospects.

• “Over the past five years, remodeling project costs have increased 10-20% per year. A $100,000 kitchen project five years ago would now cost around $200,000. We anticipate this trend continuing. Don’t let your money vaporize by dragging your feet.”
• “Based on our analysis and that of industry experts, the impact of tariffs on an average remodeling project will be 3-5 %, but the real concern is the cost increase previously mentioned.”
• The cost of moving versus remodeling. The act of moving (including real estate commissions, cost of movers, transfer taxes, furniture, fixing up a home in preparation to sell it, and preparing for move in) is generally 10-20 % of the cost of the new home. (You will never recoup this). Why not take that money and invest it into your existing home and make it just the way you want it?
• “In the past 20 years, I have never had a client that did a remodeling project say, ‘I wish we would have put the project off.’ However, they often say ‘I wish we would have done this project while my mother was alive…she would have been proud.’”

There are many other ways to be the voice of reason and drop insights and stories into conversations. It is not which element of reason you use but making sure you use it or otherwise don’t be surprised if a prospect puts off a project.