Best in show: builder showrooms can make or break a business. Check out these tips on how to seal the deal with maximum appeal

Pool & Spa News, March 12, 2004 by Dan Nied

Richard Christiansen never underestimates the value of visuals. For this reason, he encourages his salespeople to throw leaves, rocks and other types of debris into the company's outdoor showroom pool.

It serves as a clever way to demonstrate the latest advances in in-floor cleaning systems. "You can see the debris being pushed through areas it needs to go through," says Christiansen, the residential sales manager at Paddock Pools, a Phoenix-based builder/retailer. "No one else around here has anything like that."

Paddock Pools' in-floor cleaning system display is located in its 10,000-square-foot outdoor showroom in Gardentown, Ariz., which it believes is the world's largest. It features eight pools and five spas, all landscaped in an attempt to appease any type of backyard.

The role and makeup of the pool and spa showroom has significantly evolved in recent years. Vanishing are the days of simple models and standard showcases. Today's showrooms feature interactive exhibits of functioning waterfalls and construction techniques. All these bells and whistles create a more knowledgeable and, therefore, more receptive buyer.

Blast from the past

When potential customers walk into the 1,900-square-foot showroom of Pulliam Pools in Fort Worth, Texas, they are taken on a trip through the past--and the present.

A special area is devoted to the history of the company, which has been handed down through three generations of Pulliams since 1916. Inside the 10-by-14-foot room, the walls are laced with old photos of construction crews. An antique wooden test kit with glass tubes has been put to rest along with ah old gunite nozzle. With a close look at the mounted photos, a customer might catch a glimpse of an 8-year-old Barry Pulliam, now the owner, mixing it up at a job site with his dad.

Pulliam's showroom also features elaborate displays with wall-mounted cross sections of pool and spa building materials. Pulliam estimates that his company makes a sale about 20 percent more frequently if a customer is exposed to his showroom.

"We sell a higher percentage of our product if a person comes into our showroom than if our entire meeting is in their backyard of pool room," he says. "We know that for a fact."

Pulliam's showroom is updated annually. In October, he inserted a full gazebo with grill and refrigerator in one of his exhibits to keep up with changing trends.

"If we had a lousy showroom, it would be a minus," Pulliam says. "If you have a sloppy store, customers would wonder if you built a sloppy product. It would be better not to have a showroom at all if it was going to be inferior."

Every aspect of pool building is on display in his showroom. "We have a plumbing display so you can see the way the suction comes from the pool," Pulliam says. "It is graphic because it is all exposed. When the pool is built, you don't see the piping. With the display, the piping is exposed. People get a grasp for how much piping goes into the pool."

The reasons interactive showroom displays have become so popular are simple: Not only does it put the buyer in the driver's seat of the sales process, but it makes the process more enjoyable, too.

Just ask the folks at Shasta Industries Inc.

"We're trying to make the process interactive, where the customer doesn't just sit down in an office and a salesman is trying to sell him something," says Ted Ciccone, marketing director at Shasta, another Phoenix-based builder/retailer. "Any of these ideas can be scaled down [for smaller builders]. The biggest thing is to make the sales and education process as interactive as possible."

Upon entering the 5,000-square-foot showroom, Shasta's customers receive a map. it is window shopping at its best. Within the map, each product on the floor is explained with written descriptions of pools and their accessible features. The map allows the customer to talk intelligently with the designer, according to Ciccone. "They can say, 'I like that Grecian design with the Antigua blue tile on it,'" he says.

More often than not, the impact of the showroom is reflected in Shasta's numbers. In fact, the company sold more than 3,000 pools in 2003.

It pays to display

A major key to educating the customer and forging a relationship lies in displays.

That's why Shasta fully landscapes three pool designs in its showrooms in Phoenix and Mesa. That's why Pulliam presents exposed piping that would never even be seen in the finished product. That's why Paddock Pools has two staircases leading to an underground viewing area to showcase the newest designs in in-floor cleaning systems.

Showroom displays not only need to educate customers, but they should also provide inspiration. Pulliam has uprooted the sidewalk in front of its facility and replaced each square with sample deck finishes, about 20 in all. Shasta pours a mountain of tile samples in front of its customers, challenging them to find the perfect texture.

"We've all had teachers or professors who droned on," Ciccone says. "And we've had teachers who have made the learning experience fun.