How Will You Win?

It seems like a simple question that people at a business should be able to answer off the top of their head. The owner, leadership, and the team should all be able to answer in unison. Like, “We are the most dirt-cheap sum bitches you will find north of the Mississippi. Nobody but nobody can beat our prices!” I say, “well said”! At least the whole team is on the same page. (even if they are directionally challenged... a map can fix that) The point is- They understand the strategy for winning. Low prices.

The fact is that we are headed into the most challenging time our industry has ever faced. Worse than the crash of 2008 which absolutely sucked! This is very different. It’s not about cutting expenses to the bare bones and then gathering with Dorothy and Toto in the root cellar and waiting for the storm to pass. Nope. This is a horse of a different color!

So how are you going to win in an unstable market that has been producing lousy results for the last couple of years and may not see daylight until 2028? I wish there was better news but between the fed rates, inflation, and a jobs report that would wake up Rip Van Winkle, the picture isn’t exactly Rosie.

Oh, what to do? We could sit around, whine about it for a while, complain it’s not fair, and in the end, that time spent won’t add up to a hill of beans and you will find yourself pretty much back to where you started… more defeated and more convinced that the world has tied your hands and all you can do is wait & watch. Solid strategy. Or you might look for the answer to the most important question facing kitchen-and-bath dealers and manufacturers today. How are you going to win?

Will you decide to win on price? If so, you had better build your entire company to be the low-cost provider and have supply chains that won’t get pepper sprayed with tariffs.

Will you win because your product is better—more styles, stronger quality or faster lead times? Product matters, but competitors can improve their products too.

Will customer service separate you? It certainly influences buying decisions. So do talented sales representatives. But nearly every company in our industry promises better service, stronger relationships and more support. Since the number of people in our industry that have attended customer service training just surpassed 10… there is a boatload of work to be done here…. The runway is wide open.

Those things are important—but increasingly, they are the price of admission.

The next winners will offer something much harder to copy: a better way for the entire customer journey to work.

Customers do not experience our industry as separate manufacturers, dealers, designers, fabricators, installers and technology providers. They experience one project. When those pieces fail to work together, the customer feels every delay, mistake and communication breakdown.

That is where the opportunity lies.

GroveWorks is being created as a first-of-its-kind kitchen-and-bath ecosystem—a place where businesses can collaborate, share knowledge, improve processes and use technology/AI to deliver a better customer experience.

It is not about making every company the same. It is about helping strong independent businesses become even stronger by connecting capabilities that have historically operated in silos.

Price, product, service and salespeople will always matter. But the real competitive advantage will come from how well we anticipate customers’ needs and how effectively we work together to fulfill them.

The future will not be won by creating a slightly better version of what everyone else is already doing.

It will be won by building something customers can genuinely feel—and competitors cannot easily reproduce. That amazing experience that lives in the team and shines on the customer.

GroveWorks. Where Collaboration Takes Root.

Want to Be Part of the Conversation?

The ideas behind GroveWorks are already taking shape through Elevate—our live group program for independent kitchen-and-bath businesses.

Elevate is where we dig into the real questions facing dealers today: how to grow, how to adapt, how to use new tools and technology, and ultimately, how to build a business that is positioned to win.

Sessions are held live on Microsoft Teams.

Interested in joining us?
Send us an email or message us on LinkedIn with ELEVATE, and we’ll send you the details for the next session.