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COVER STORY
Player Coach
In person or on the web, Neil Gordon has a
game plan for success.
Everyone is looking to improve business. “That’s global,”
says Neil Gordon. The problem is too many people make haphazard
decisions about their businesses because they don’t have a
clear goal, or vision, they are working toward—and that’s
where he comes in.
THE DESIGNER'S
COACH 6 MODULES |
• The Leadership Coach—analyzing
the strengths and weaknesses of your business, examining individual
leadership competencies and creating a Strategic Vision.
• The Team Coach—creating a Team Chart and learning
the value of position and vendor agreements.
• The Marketing Coach—examining lead generating
systems, and how a great referral system can provide an endless
stream of great leads.
• The Sales Coach—developing a great selling and
design system, plus techniques of managing the client’s
mind.
• The Satisfaction Coach—creating ways that will
prevent problems creating flawless client fulfillment systems.
• The Negotiation Coach — examining how to price
products and services and learning effective negotiation skills.
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Gordon is The Designer’s Coach—and a whole lot more
besides. But his focus, his niche, right now is as a business and
design coach for interior designers and window fashions decorators.
Gordon is available, in person, leading accredited seminars and
for one-on-one coaching and on the Internet through The Designer’s
Coach newsletter and now Webinars presenting a series of online
seminars on coaching, home staging and, soon, window fashions and
beyond.
As The Designer’s Coach, Gordon presents six modules, each
touching on a different aspect of the window coverings business,
which he says are absolutely essential for success. They begin with
self-awareness and run through team building and working with others,
sales systems, marketing (with a strong focus on word-of-mouth marketing),
customer satisfaction and preventing problems, and closing the sale
with a defense against discounting.
“We work in depth on creating what I call a strategic vision,”
Gordon says, “which is imagining your ideal business five
years in the future. If you close your eyes and imagine it, how
would it be? A lot of people have trouble doing this.”
To help get things started, Gordon uses the orchid analogy: “Developing
a business is almost like growing orchids. To me, an orchid is the
most fabulous flower there is. It also is the most delegate and
intensive in terms of taking care of it. There’s a lot work
in growing orchids. You have to feed it properly, you have to water
it properly, you have to turn it, you have to set it next to its
proper neighbor, you have to split it, plant it. There’s a
huge amount of work, but the pay off is big.”
It’s the same for a business. It takes a lot of work. “I
have a worksheet of 20 different areas for creating your strategic
vision,” Gordon says, “and we work on this until it’s
done right. The first draft usually is not enough; it goes back
and forth. But once it’s done, then you have a roadmap for
making every decision in the business.” And that’s just
where Gordon’s coaching modules start.
To be even more accessible to business owners, Gordon now offers
coaching through live Webinars. It’s the newest aspect of
his business. “People love this because they don’t have
to travel; you can do it from the comfort of your home. Somebody
signed up from Australia,” Gordon says.
When a decorator enrolls in a Webinar he or she is provided a link
to access an Internet conferencing site. When the software runs
at least three windows open on the screen. In one, Gordon is seen
via a live Webcam and heard through the computer’s speakers.
Another shows a PowerPoint presentation to follow along. A third
allows for text messaging to ask questions during the presentation.
Looking ahead, Gordon sees Webinars as his prime tool to coaching
the most people.
What makes Gordon so successful in coaching are his credentials.
He is a certified Master Coach from the Behavioral Coaching Institute,
trained in validated, psychology based learning tools. His certification
ensures he has the experience, expertise and ability to apply what
is taught and get results. He serves as the National Director of
Design for Exciting Windows! And on the board of the Window Coverings
Association of America (WCAA). When it comes to window coverings,
he’s been there, done that.
“Window fashions decorators really connect with me because
I come to them not only as a business coach, but also with many
years of experience doing exactly what they are doing,” Gordon
says. “They can relate to that and find it very comforting.
“I’ve done it all in this business. There’s nothing
in this business that I haven’t done. I’ve installed
every type of window treatment there is, I’ve sold it, I’ve
made it, I’ve bled on it, I’ve trod on it, I have thousands
of stories both good and bad and I’m still doing it.”
OLD SCHOOL LESSONS |
Growing up in a family business can teach you
many lessons. Sometimes they are not the lessons you first thought
they were.
“I remember one day,” says Gordon, “I was
sweeping the floor and my father came over to me and said, “You
know, you’re sweeping the floor like and employee, not
like an owner.’ I asked him what that meant and he showed
me what it meant. He said when you sweep the floor like an owner
you move things away and sweep behind it, whereas an employee
doesn’t.
“That was quite a message. I tell that story in my seminars
now. I teach—I preach—that you have to work on your
business not in your business. Old school was really drilling
it into you that as an owner of your business you must do everything
in the business. Old school worked for many years, but what
would end up happening is that you became a slave to your business.
It prevents growth and prevents you from doing the things that
are necessary to build the business because you’re still
involved in the everyday part of doing everything.” |
SELLING STYLE, NOT PRODUCT
In Gordon’s case “still doing it” refers to Designing
With Fabrics, his Monsey, NY, custom retail and wholesale showroom
and workroom. He’s been at it since 1991 and runs a 1,500-square-foot
store with a 1,700-square-foot workroom. “Everything is in
one location, so now when people come in I take them to the workroom
and it’s impressive,” he says. “I don’t
have a competitor that can offer the full integration of service
that we can offer from designing it to fabricating it to installing
it all in-house.”
Gordon’s inauguration in business goes back much further than
that, however. It begins with his grandfather who started a housewares
business in the Bronx, NY, following World War II and includes his
father who also started a housewares business. The two became partners
in the 1960s and bought a store on the Bronx’s Grand Concourse.
It was a real family business complete with aunts, uncles and siblings.
“It was a busy store,” Gordon remembers. “Every
Saturday morning, every snow day, every holiday . . . my parents
didn’t stay home, my mother worked too . . . so they would
take us to the store and we would hang out at the store as kids.
We would have jobs. Sweep the floor and do all sorts of things and
that’s how I grew up. Either I was at school or I was at the
store.”
When his formal schooling was complete, Gordon kept learning and
applied what he learned. In 1985, after college, he moved to Florida
to open a kitchen and bath store. There, for the first time, he
got involved with draperies and blinds—first installing them,
then opening a workroom to create and fabricate everything he sold.
In 1991 he moved back to New York and started Designing With Fabrics
from scratch.
By that time his father’s business had become one of the first
to sell Levolor blinds and woven woods. He also sold stock roller
shades cut to fit. “That business exploded,” Gordon
recalls. Then came vertical blinds. But his parents stayed in hard
treatments and never got involved in soft treatments. So Neil did
and continues with it today.
“Anything with fabric is hot. I like to sell style. It’s
all about selling style rather than products. I have six areas of
style that I try to teach.
“Romantic, that’s typically a very soft and flowing
design done with sheers and a drapery and a swag, for example.
“The next style is Modern, which is contemporary treatments—usually
geometrically shaped cornices with drapery panels.
“Youthful, which is all children’s rooms.
“Elegant, typically silk treatments, interlined and combined
with trims.
“Historical treatments, which are more traditional treatments
using lots of layers. And the last one is Classic.
“When you go into someone’s home selling style, it becomes
something they can’t go out and shop around. People don’t
want to buy more things; they don’t need more product.”
Success, says Gordon, comes from getting top dollar for your products
and that comes from not selling a commodity.
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