Don’t Chase…Be Chased!

Over the past year or so, “The Rug Guys” has focused our posts on helping consumers and collectors understand and appreciate Oriental Rugs and how to care for them. Recently, however, we have received calls and emails from rug dealers asking our advice on how to beat the competition. After three generations in the business, Steve and I have learned a lot from both our successes and failures and we have never been shy about sharing our thoughts.

Here is an excerpt from one of our presentations at an Oriental rug industry conference.

Small store. Big Store. Megastore. We all feel the pressure from our competition. How should we compete? The knee-jerk reaction is to lower our prices. When it comes to Oriental rugs, the best way is to take a lesson from a generation ago – make it job #1 to provide great service. That starts by becoming passionate for the art of Oriental Rugs, and making sure your entire staff is educated and comfortable with answering customers’ questions about the oriental rugs that you sell. What has worked well for us is to have easy access to rugs that illustrate a wide range of styles and qualities so that you can easily train new hires and allow your customer to see and feel the differences.

You don’t need to become a scholar, although Oriental rugs are a fascinating study! What you need to do is learn all that goes into creating them. Take that simple step and you will unavoidably be awakened to the artistry and craft that goes into creating Oriental rugs of all types and qualities! You will become passionate about what you sell. Only then will you be able to instill those feelings in the hearts and minds of your clients and lead them to buy finer and more expensive rugs- if not right away, then the next time around. And even better, buy them from you!

Don’t work to sell one rug, but turn each customer into a customer for life. You do this by understanding what your real product is, making it unique, and working tirelessly to strengthen it.

If you pay attention and do it right, you will become the competition that everyone else chases!