Jeff Valles

With all of the goings on over the last two years, many of us have lost sight of our customer base undergoing a significant change. Baby Boomers have moved into the background as Millennials are entering their prime earning time and make up a significant portion of decorative plumbing showrooms' professional and homeowner customers.

When I open the ballroom door and enter the 2022 DPHA conference, the booths catch my eye but I am looking for familiar industry wide faces and those new personalities that i do not know.  The DPHA conference is all about the decorative plumbing and hardware, period. It presents me with the opportunity to see new products from decorative plumbing and hardware focused vendors, industry relevant education sessions and opportunities to interact with the people that manage and own DPHA businesses.

As an owner or manager, your laser focus is on each vendor’s profit and, mistakenly, assume that your salespeople share your bottom-line focus. I suggest you are focusing on the deliverables, and they are involved in the process, the sales process. In most cases, you will not be able to move your salespeople to your side of this question by simply showing them the money. The way to move them is to show them how these HVVs will fuel their desire to be a great showroom salesperson.

When a product niche reaches this level of performance consistency, most manufacturers gravitate toward the same basic product platform. Is a faucet from vendor A really that much different than one from vendors B, C or D?

I have been back on the road for a while and have just returned from another week-long tour. I would like to report that the decorative plumbing showroom world remains vibrant and as diverse as ever. The question that I am most asked is: How are showrooms and customers reacting to COVID-19 in their business practices in 2022?

During my 2022 travels, I have noticed one combined practice that both delights and concerns me. Many salespeople and trade professionals have consciously sped up their product selection process by condensing the sales/selection process.

Any business can install factory displays side by side, set a few toilet, cabinet, mirror and faucet looks and declare the space a decorative plumbing showroom.

Defining product market fit is not an easy task for a stand-alone decorative plumbing showroom. It's especially complicated for showrooms that are a part of a multi-product brand that may supply PVF targeting plumbers, HVAC targeting builders or any of the many building products with re-distribution models.

We are now in the new year and are still being assaulted with everyone’s thoughts on what will be trending in 2022. During the last few weeks, people and companies have been enlightening us as to what they think will happen in the new year. It seems everyone is chipping in their predictions on everything from this year’s hot colors to the Dow Jones Industrials. Please, no one can consistently call the future, unless they are the source of the future, and, you know, the best decorative plumbing showrooms can be that type of source. Every product, brand and display you have added or changed is a reach into the future of decorative plumbing products in your market, and you should be damn proud of that. 

The nasty secret that we decorative plumbing folks hold close to our vest is that only a handful of architects, designers, builders and maybe a homeowner or two have the ability to completely design, procure and build the bathroom that they envision.