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

After surveying someone's yard, Phoenix-based Shasta Industries Inc. invites the customer back to the showroom to work with a designer. A special AutoCAD program, which is a pool design software package, is then used to find the best shape and look for the pool.

"Let us look at your yard and see your views and the type of lifestyle you have around the pool," says Ted Ciccone, marketing director at Shasta. "How you are going to interact with that pool is going to help form the shape of it.

"We can use our CAD to figure all that out in the showroom. As a customer describes his likes or dislikes, the designer is going to be showing that on a monitor."

The appeal of the showroom design system was a matter of convenience for Dal Pino. He wanted to give people a chance to come in, see what his company had to offer and design their pool--all at the same time. If his suspicions are correct, the design studio will make for a less tedious process.

"Our perception is that we can give you a better process in a more efficient manner and, if that ultimately sets us apart from other companies, that is good," Dal Pino says. "It will give us a private area away from the distractions of the home."

In lieu of displays, Mission Pools in Escondido, Calif., bases its showroom philosophy on a series of design stations that include tile samples, piping features and CAD designs. "We have people do design work more artistically in free form," says company owner Bruce Dunn. "It just depends on the individual and what they are comfortable with. All presentations are done to scale so someone can do a layout in the backyard."

Though Dal Pino will not divulge the specific cost of his showroom, he calls it "a fairly major investment." He adds, "We are spending an awful lot of money to develop this. A lot of folks in this industry have little investment other than a briefcase and a piece of paper."

--D.N.