Kitchen & Bathroom Design Blog

It’s that time of year again!  September brings football season, changing weather, and the opportunity to meet our kitchen and bath design colleagues at the semi-annual SEN Design Group conference.  SEN is the kitchen and bath industry’s first and largest buying group.  As part of its goal of providing valuable kitchen and bath education to members, SEN offers a Fall and Spring conference every year.  These conferences are comprised of workshops, panels, and roundtables featuring nationally renowned kitchen and bath experts. 

Lang’s Kitchen & Bath team members are active in both a teaching and learning role at these conferences.  SEN members use this time away from the showroom to share experiences, find ways to improve business processes to better serve their customers, and learn about exciting new products from vendor partners.  The Fall 2015 Conference was held September 16-19 in Cincinnati, OH.

Sharing our Knowledge:

John Lang led several workshop sessions at the September 2015 conference, utilizing his business and coaching expertise to provide advice and engage in informative discussion with SEN members.  The goal of his workshops was to positively influence business processes in order to enhance the service provided to customers.

The workshop on “Good-Better-Best Sales Process” advised participants to use the good-better-best approach to budgets for customers.  This methodology empowers prospective customers to select their budget while allowing sales designers to stay flexible in their approach to clients’ budget choices and make upgrades as required when the process progresses. 

The second workshop led by John on “Hiring and Growing Your Team Today” explored the best avenues to find qualified applicants, how to identify what positions are really required, and what tools are necessary to find the right people.  Finding the right employees the first time around according to business requirements and budget, training them, and setting them up for long term success is key to aiding business success and client satisfaction.

These workshops and others on the four day conference agenda were well received by participants and sparked useful discussion.  They are sure to give the participants food for thought and provide useful insights in the year to come.

Learning about the Latest Trends:

 SEN’s vendor partners come to the semi-annual conferences to share and demonstrate their product lines, and in particular to make SEN partners aware of the newest developments.  This knowledge helps inspire kitchen and bath design teams to create innovative designs and make the best product choices for their customers.  Here are a few of the interesting products we saw at this year’s conference:

• Emser Tile is a new tile vendor partner for SEN. In addition to showcasing their products at the vendor partner tabletop, Emser hosted a session to provide product training. Their representative educated participants by presenting their product lines and offering advice on the best ways to sell the products.

• Zehnder is a provider of whole house ventilation systems and demonstrated their product that continuously extracts moist, stale air from wet rooms and supplies fresh air to other rooms. Their energy efficient systems provide an innovative approach to home ventilation that can enhance the quality of life in your home.

• Karen Wistrom, ASID and Vice President of Marketing for DuraSupreme Cabinetry, offered her expertise on bringing color to kitchen renovation and bathroom remodeling projects. She brings an understanding of design and how to balance incorporating color design trends with your personal favorites and perfect neutrals.

The knowledge we gained and shared will help to inspire our kitchen designs and bathroom designs this year.  Contact us today to find out more!