Lean Design Blog: Authentic elevations and the salesperson’s story

I had the pleasure of meeting and having dinner with Charlie Scott the other night. Charlie owns a very successful national consulting firm called Woodland, Obrien and Scott. Among other things, his firm focuses on the voice of the customer in the building industry. Within minutes of meeting and talking with him he brought up the subject of one of my biggest beliefs about design – that elevations must be authentic. Brilliant! From that moment on I knew Charlie and I would be fast friends. During this conversation he explained the concept of the salesperson’s story to me.

Charlie’s belief is that builders have to eliminate anything that might conflict with the salesperson’s story. The salesperson’s charge is to sell your home. To do this they need to have an authentic story about who the builder is and the quality of the homes they build. A specific example we discussed was shutters. If shutters do not visually close to protect the window, regardless of how the other elements of the elevation look, the home is not authentic. How can the salesperson describe and sell your homes with something as basic as this is wrong with their story?

There are countless elements beyond shutters that should be taken into consideration while designing new homes or retooling existing elevations. Make sure to create designs that are telling the right story, your salespeople will love it and so will your customers.