All good kitchen designers have a common quality. . . patience.
Much has changed since this blog was first published more than 5 years ago. But patience has become an even more important feature for kitchen designers. See HGTV and search on Google on the Internet can convince inexperienced remodelers that they know what they are doing. Patience to help owners understand that they need design and selection assistance has never been more important for cooking designers than it is at this time.
Customers with a little knowledge can prove the patience of kitchen designers.
For example, having a client tells you that, since this is your THIRD The renewal of the kitchen that they do not need their help can make you want to get your hair. Kitchen designers know that it has been good for years in our work. A full -time cooking designer could sell and help supervise 50 kitchens a year. And each one is completely different, which requires their own unique skills for problem solving and budgetary and construction considerations. We simply could not be competent in our work if the budget designs and businesses that we recommend, since experienced professionals were not superior to what a rookie could propose.
Often, the first conversation that a kitchen designer has with a client begins with them telling us why they don’t need our help. Patience is needed to listen to this almost daily from the people you are trying to help.
Below there are a couple of fun examples of kitchen designers and our battle against patience:
Doug Mottershead is a well -known kitchen design professional who appears in some of our YouTube videos. Patience must be Doug’s second name. 20 years ago, when Doug and I worked together for Showroom Walk-in customers often they would have the following experience:
“Hello, how can I help you?” I would greet them.
The client told me that they had all their measures and wanted to sit at that time and make a design.
“I’m sorry,” he would explain: “But I work with an appointment and to make sure that the design work I do is professional, I need to go home, see space and measure it. Can I make an appointment for you or answer questions?”
At this point, the client would be annoying and frustrated and seeing Doug on his desk, he quickly passed it to me and will ask Doug the same question.
Doug’s response was always the same if he didn’t currently have a client in front of him. “Oh, I would love to help, please sit down! What’s your name?”
“I see in the measures of the two walls of the kitchen drawn here that one wall measures 10 feet, and the other has 12 feet. I need to enter the measures on my computer in inches, so should I put 120 and 144 inches?” It could be Doug’s first measurement question. “Yes,” the client would respond with confidence.
“You don’t have a window on any of these walls, is there one that we should put?” It could be Doug’s next question.
“Oh there IS a window in the middle of the ten -foot wall. ”
“How big do you think it is?” Doug would ask innocently.
With the hands stretched about three feet away, the client would respond uncertainly “about this big”
“That seems approximately 36 inches,” Doug would respond enthusiastically. “Does that include the edge of the window? And should I put it in the middle of the wall?” Doug could ask below, since uncertainly rapidly grew on the client’s face.
At some point during this interaction, the client would finally ask the magical question. “Could you go out and measure?”
“Sra. Jones I would love to visit his home and measure?” Doug would answer, then the doug dating book would come out and the first two appointments would be programmed.
Advancing about three months later, I could see Doug and Mrs. Jones finishing her cabinet order. “Mrs. Jones, has designed a beautiful kitchen!” Doug would exclaim. At this point, I would lean to see the design of Mrs. Jones on the Doug computer screen. And, of course, I would see another Doug Mottershead cuisine design of Doug and simply smile with approval.
Doug’s surprising patience has driven him to register sales in each company for which he has worked.
Another person who appears in one of our YouTube videos is Mark “The Pickleman” Mitten.
Mark reproduces “The Engineer” in our video below. As an old comic brand standing is very fun and, as a good friend of mine, he has heard stories about cooking designers who try patience. About 15 years ago, Mark used his sense of humor and information on my stories to torture Ed Sossich, a friend of mine from the kitchen designer that Mark had heard me talk.
Fifteen years ago, Ed worked as a kitchen designer at a Lowes store when Mark approached him posing as a potential client.
Mark greeted Ed sitting on his desk with the following:
“Hello, since it seems that you are not doing anything, I would like you to put the design of my kitchen on your computer. I have all the measures in my head and because I have designed a kitchen before and I am a real estate professional, I do not need any design help from a designer. When you finish putting MY I design on your computer, I would also like to talk to whoever is in charge to get a discount. “
Mark observed Ed’s expression slowly change and the color on his face gets red when he finished his prepared speech. He waited patiently for Ed to absorb everything and just before Ed could respond to Marcos. “Sorry man, I am a friend of Paul Mcalary and I could not resist bursting your stones. I know you are a friend of yours too.”
Mark’s joke is not really uncommon.
Kitchen designers will sometimes leave voice messages for other designers with whom they have not spoken recently starting with a voice disguised and leaving a frustrating message before revealing who they are. As designers, we receive patience test calls and voice emails frequently, so it never ceases to try the patience of another designer. Just like getting a guard at Buckingham Palace to smile.
Here is the main one as the variation of Kitchen Design of this internal joke:
