“Innovation without discipline leads to disaster.”

—Jim Collins

Greatness does not come from circumstance but a mixture of conscious choice, discipline, and innovation. Kitchen and bath firm owners who keep only a schedule of rigorous discipline can expect to continue getting par for the course results.

Most of us want success beyond what we’ve already achieved. Owners who are consistently disciplined and innovative can lead their companies to sustain greatness.

Level five ambition

In his New York Times bestseller Great by Choice, Jim Collins defines 10 X companies as those which maximize and expand their results ten times over. Such results are worlds away from the 10% net profit margin kitchen and bath firm owners should aim for. As you can imagine, the leaders of these companies are incredibly ambitious.

There are three key traits of 10 X leadership.

1. Fanatical discipline comes from maintaining our core values and engaging tasks with unshakeable consistency, high-performance standards, and methods of operation.
2. Empirical creativity is the blending of discipline with innovation. Leaders who use empirical creativity look for creative solutions from innovations proven to work to surpass the obstacles they face.
3. Productive paranoia is maintaining disaster preparation. Owners with this trait will be ready for economic downturns with a meticulously thought-out action plan.

Discipline is not enough

The signature of mediocrity is chronic inconsistency, but discipline alone is not enough to lead to sustained success.

In 1912, Great Britain and Norway were competing to be the first country to reach the South Pole. The British used ponies, which were believed to sustain work in sub-zero temperatures. Norway’s expedition leader, Roald Amundsen, took an innovative route. Amundsen decided to study with Indigenous people living in Arctic temperatures to find out how they trekked across great distances. Amundsen discovered they used dogs to haul their gear through the ice. Amundsen decided to use dogs, and Norway beat the British to the South Pole by five weeks.

Amundsen applied empirical creativity to his decision-making. His innovation may have been novel to European thought, but it came from the tested standard of people who lived in subzero temperatures year-round.

Be creative to reach your goals – but innovate from proven success.

Know the cause of your success

All great businesses follow a recipe for preserving their core values and stimulating progress. The greatest danger for a business owner is not knowing why they’re successful in the first place. If you haven’t pinpointed what makes your firm successful, how will you be able to sustain your success? How would you be able to reach higher levels of success?

Southwestern Airlines is one of the world’s most admired companies. They’ve made many innovations to streamline their business and give their customers excellent service. Its greatness came from its founder and former CEO, Herb Kelleher.

Kelleher focused on having happy employees. He observed how excellent service led to increased business. Kelleher also decided to streamline the way the company would run. As a result, Southwestern Airlines only flies 737s. Many significant advancements for the company came out of this one decision.

Since Southwestern only flies 737s, all their pilots can fly every aircraft in the fleet. This is a tremendous leap in efficiency.

Southwestern Airlines’ gates have the same setup and rapid turnaround, so their planes get in the air faster. Additionally, they have a simplified maintenance system. These impressive benefits came from one genius decision to fly only 737s.

Kitchen and bath firm owners can make a nice profit selling cabinetry. But the way to becoming a great kitchen and bath firm comes from making the simple decision to give your customers what they want.

Be the one-stop remodeling firm for your clients’ needs.

Your clients want their investment to be beautiful, cost-efficient, and smoothly installed on time. It’s repeatedly been proven that kitchen and bath buyers want to do all their shopping in one place, so they save time.

When your firm is the one-stop source for all your clients’ kitchen and bathroom remodeling needs and delivers superb, rapid service, you can expect:

• Repeat clientele
• Increased inflow of prospects
• Outstanding testimonials
• Increased gross profit
• Opportunities to expand your enterprise

Expertise and convenience

There are two practices in the kitchen and bath industry that can lead firms to sustained greatness.

1. Pricing speed and transparency 

Interactive budgeting is a process whereby the sales designer and prospect develop the costs of a remodeling project together – before a formal design is made. It’s an innovation proven to work.

With interactive budgeting, the prospect is fully aware of the financial impact their choices make every step of the way. This empowerment has led prospects to invest more in their remodeling projects since the mid-1970s.

Using DesignAlign delivers some amazing benefits:

• Prospects can easily, even remotely, select from Good-Better-Best options
• Save up to 75% of the typical time for securing client commitments
• Increase closing percentages upwards of 75% on opportunities
• Increase annual sales by 100% or more
• Charge up to 40% higher prices
• Improve owner returns by over 200%

Imagine your firm’s increased productivity, efficiency, and commitment speed when this unique selling system streamlines your operations. With its intrinsic pricing transparency, DesignAlign empowers kitchen and bath firm owners to scale their operations – and generate greater profitability like no other resource!

2. Leveraging business analytics

Consistent discipline and innovation lead to better business. Still, many owners shoot from the hip allowing jerky-jerky results to run the show. Besides streamlining your selling process, DesignAlign will enable owners to leverage business analytics so you can make sound decisions on time for a frequently fluctuating market.

DesignAlign’s CRM features real-time analytics so you can make intelligent decisions based on your business’s numbers – such as when to launch your first satellite showroom. This capability will give your firm a considerable advantage over the competition.

Each of your sales designers will also have a dashboard to track progress with their prospects and clients. As a result, your sales team will communicate more effectively, deliver enhanced customer service, become more productive, and sell a lot more!

In short, DesignAlign has everything you and your team need to put your sales at your fingertips.

When you combine your tireless work ethic with an innovation proven to speed up sales and generate astronomical gross profit increases, you’ll produce amazing results for your business.

—SEN Leadership Team

Master strategic planning, selling more into each job, leveraging technology, Good-Better-Best selling, and other smart implementations at one of SEN University’s valued online business courses – or contact Shannon Blair to attend our in-person schools.