Thomas Sanderson

LoLo-a-GoGo wrote: »

Ok, so having worked as a 'Sales Designer' for TS I can tell you how to get the best possible price for the products they sell.

There is a lot of smoke and mirrors when it comes to the TS sales pitch so be careful - Firstly I will say that on the whole the products are fantastic and stand out head and shoulders above a lot of the suppliers out there but like has been said several times already in this thread they are way WAY over priced (And a lot of the products are not as exclusive as they claim and are widely available from other local suppliers who get their fabrics from Hunter Douglas, TS's parent company)
The sales pitch is drilled into the 'designers' from the outset as they want them to follow their process from start to finish (This is why the job suits mindless, stupid people with low morales and lack of brain cells to begin with).

To get the best price here's what you need to know - the First price the designer gives you will 99'% of the time include 'Free Furniture' which is actually adding a 5% premium to the cost of your order so get the 'designer' to remove any furniture and the associated cost first.
Now you have the true 'Full Price'. This is where the nasty calling to check stock levels and manager calls start, if yo have the time let them go through this and start discounting but be warned they will tell you anything they think you want or need to hear to close the deal on the day.

The 'Designer' can give as much as an additional 45% discount from the 'Full Price' quoted - scary!! After speaking to their manager they MAY be able to give another 5% discount but don't let them get this far, show them the door.
Now this is how you get the BEST price - the 'Designer' has 3 days to close the deal, after which the deal ownership gets passed over to an external company (Owned and run by the sales directors God Son of all people!!) and this company has the ability to give up to an additional 10% discount!!
So lets look at this with some figures shall we....lets assume the first price you are quoted is £5250 (£5000 for blinds plus the 5% charge for the 'free furniture') - remove the furniture and the price drops to £5000.....get the discount the 'designer' can offer you of 45% and the price has now dropped to £2750. Now after waiting over 3 days you get the 3rd additional discount of an extra 10% and now you have a price of £2250!! A Massive saving of £3000 (55%) from their Full Price - now that's a saving!!

Best of all, and here's the bit I love the most....the Direct line manager of the Designer you had sitting 3+Hrs in your living room gets charged a % of the extra 10% discount you just saved as a penalty so they get billed for the 'designer' not closing the deal and 'allowing' the sales directors God Son's company to close the deal and the designer gets nothing for all his or hers hard sell - so you now have a top draw product at a slightly more realistic price maybe, just maybe of enough customers follow this process TS will rethink their sales techniques and listen to and treat their front line 'designer' with just a little bit more respect - after all these are the guys and gals that do the actual hard work day in day our TOTALLY at their own expense!!