Greetings!

Why Do People Haggle Over Price?

How many of you can remember the time your father took you to buy the family a new car? I remember those days like they were yesterday. We drove around, found the right car and drove from dealer to dealer negotiating the best deal. My Dad did not care about the award winning service department, the professional sales people, or the costly inventory. Beat this dealer's price and off we go with a new car for the family.

While you may chuckle at this memory, as a youngster it can have a profound impact. In my adulthood, I found myself using the same approach as my father when buying big ticket items. How easy it is to try and beat a sales person up to obtain the lowest possible price with no consideration for other factors. Of course, my buying behavior changed when I chose professional sales as a career. Suddenly I realized the best deal is not always about price.

So how does this relate to us at Quad-Lock and our partners? When we are engaged with customers, we need to realize that some people grew up the same way I did. Here are four key points regarding selling Quad-Lock to consider when price seems to be the main topic of conversation.

• Value. There has to be perceived value between Quad-Lock and the competition.
• Familiarity with concrete. They have to be sold on the ICF concept.
• Lowest cost. People can be programmed to negotiate.
• Smart choices. With so many options to choose from like wood, CMU, precast and SIPS, we need to be able to differentiate.

We could all use a reminder that value should be more important to the buying decision than the lowest price. Who has not heard, "You get what you pay for." There is a lot of truth to that statement. With Quad-Lock you are guaranteed value. We have the best engineered ICF on the market with available R-22, R-30, and R-38 configurations. The product attributes coupled with the strengths of our technical and marketing departments make buying Quad-Lock an easy decision. And, this is all before we get to the BIG VALUE - energy savings, reduced construction waste, labor savings, potential tax incentives, LEED or "green" certification, low STC ratings (sound) and more.

Remember, focus on the total lowest cost which must include the other value items and not just the price. Price will become secondary if the value proposition is at the forefront of the conversation.

Happy Selling,
DJ Ketelhut

Greenbuild Hits Record Numbers

At the beginning of the month we attended Greenbuild - the US Green Building Council's annual Convention and Expo, held at McCormick Place in Chicago. From all accounts, it was a huge success, in fact, "Huge-R" than planned with almost 23,000 people attending. Greenbuild has consistently grown their attendance numbers by 50% year over year and this year was no exception. People were literally spilling out into the hallways from over-stuffed seminars. The exhibition hall was packed with people hungry for solutions to the green building projects.

This is a huge tribute to the momentum that green building is seeing today. In a recent issue of Green Builder Magazine, I read an article that summarized a McGraw-Hill Construction / NAHB homeowner survey. Basically, they say they were wrong, the green residential market isn't going to be a $7 Billion industry over the next couple of years - it's going to be a $40 Billion dollar industry.

When reflecting on the state of sustainable development I am in awe of how quickly this movement has gained mainstream traction. There are more interesting 'tidbits' that I've seen recently. For example, did you know that the number of green business stories published in the country's ten largest newspapers this year has already doubled last year's total? And, of all the stories on environmental sustainability published since 2000, half appeared in 2007? These numbers and what they suggest is staggering. As I sit here and try to draw parallels to this sort of wholesale adoption, I struggle to find any product, service or strategy that has enjoyed this type of mass acceptance so quickly.

Right now, we are bearing witness to one of the most sweeping mind-set shifts in our history. Importantly, we have the answers to feed this hungry market with workable, sustainable and cost-effective solutions. Let Quad-Lock's Green Checklist act as your starting point for hot discussion & solution topics.

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Sincerely,
Quad-Lock Building Systems