If there’s one thing many kitchen and bath professionals dread, it’s price objections.

They shouldn’t. Questions about price are buying signals. Prospects must be at least somewhat interested in your cabinets to ask about their cost.

Often, they aren’t looking for the best price. They’re looking for the best solution to their design problems.

Price negotiations are no time for original thought.

That’s why you should memorize and share, at a moment’s notice, a list of reasons why you’re worth your design or consultation fee, margin, mark up, etc.

Fee “justifiers” can include things like your…

+ Experience
+ Design specialties and expertise
+ Awards and other recognition
+ Clients: who you’ve served, and how
+ Education

Another way to justify your fee: Explain how you save your clients time, money and headaches, etc.

Keep the following ideas in mind the next time you talk price with a prospect:

+ You can set and get any fee if you can differentiate yourself from competitors who charge less.
+ It doesn’t matter what you say about your prices. What matters is what you say about yourself. How you charge is less important than how you promote yourself.

+ If a prospect says you’re “too expensive,” she means that you’re not a priority right now. Your mission: Educate her as to why investing in your service should be a priority.

+ If someone calls your rate “too high,” say: “Too high compared to whom? Too high compared to what?” Establish their price parameters.

+ Compare apples to apples. When you’re told a competitor’s bid is less than yours, make sure there’s a fair comparison of everything that both firms offer.

+ Share your “only.” Nothing justifies higher prices more than the phrase: “I’m the only window fashion professional in this area who…”

—Fred Berns, an interior design industry coach, is the author of the audio program “Overcoming Price Objections: How to Turn Price Bellyachers into Believers.”

I spoke last week with Alex Wilson, founder of BuildingGreen and executive editor of the Environmental Building News.

Alex was just named the 2010 winner of the Hanley Award for Vision and Leadership in Sustainable Housing, and will be speaking at the upcoming West Coast Green Conference in San Francisco.

BuildingGreen has been in my secret toolkit for many years and it is the first place I turn when needing information on a green material. Looking for a “green” cabinet manufacturer? Well, BuildingGreen lists 74 articles and product listings for you to review, as well as a detailed discussion of the issues in cabinet manufacturing, including formaldehyde and wood species. Think of it as the Consumer Reports of Green Building. Their unbiased (and often surprising) reviews don’t play any favorites or have blind faith in any company.

For nearly two decades, BuildingGreen has published their Environmental Building News (EBN) and has always been ahead of the curve on controversial topics in Green Building. They explained the good and bad side of the vinyl industry way back in 1993. EBN discussed the controversy surrounding waterless urinals in 2002. Any green building issues you’re grappling with now are ones they’ve likely dealt with years ago.

While Alex and his staff are inundated with new product information, he continues to be surprised with new innovations in materials. He is particularly excited to see the West Coast Green innovation pipeline.

When asked for a wish list of products he’d like to see, Alex immediately asked for an alternative to polystyrene (you may know it by the brand name Styrofoam™). This oil-based product raises many concerns over the chemicals, flame retardants and the blowing agents used to install polystyrene. He is currently obsessed with finding below-grade insulation alternatives to polystyrene, and has been featuring some on his weekly blog.

Recently, BuildingGreen revised their previous position on another controversial subject—the use of fly ash in building products.

Fly ash is the powdery soot byproduct from coal-fired electric power plants. Since the burning of coal provides up to 85% of our electricity (depending on where you live), a great deal of this waste product is produced. Some 71 million tons of fly ash were produced last year, resulting in 71 tons of mercury byproduct.

Depending upon the use of the concrete, fly ash can be substituted for 20%-50% of the Portland Cement in the concrete mix. There have been reports of some people using as high as 70% fly ash substitution.

“Like most people in the Green Building field, we used to think fly ash was great virtually all of the time, since it kept this waste material out of the waste stream,” Alex explained. “But concern about the leeching of heavy metals [mercury, for example] has caused us to modify our position somewhat. We are no only recommending fly ash in applications where 1) it’s locked up, as in concrete, and 2) the fly ash replaces the carbon emissions that would normally come from manufacturing Portland Cement.”

Officially, BuildingGreen no longer considers the use of fly ash in products to be beneficial unless it offsets greenhouse gas emissions.

Portland Cement, the key ingredient in the mixing of concrete, is one of the most carbon intensive industries. The processing and heating of the cement are responsible for 8%-12% of all carbon emissions. Since concrete is a required part of virtually every building, a substitute like fly ash could go a long way to cut carbon emissions.

I wrote about it back in 2006 and the logic of using fly ash to replace a portion of the Portland Cement still makes good sense. After all, cement manufacturers are already substituting up to 15 percent of the Portland Cement with fly ash to save money.

You can read more at BuildingGreen, download the latest issue of the Environmental Building News and read Alex’s weekly blog.

———-

—Eric Corey Freed is an architect and author of four books, including Green$ense for the Home.

I have taken TWO EPA lead law courses now, and friends and colleagues have taken some, too. The best I can say is that it’s like a game of telephone around a campfire. By the time everyone injects their brand of denial, horror and interpretation, you can ask 100 people about what it all means and get 150 different answers. One of my plumbers the other day said “Oh, that doesn’t apply to me/us (meaning plumbers)” Hmmmm? A heating contractor said the same thing. Others said, “We’re not working on pre-1978 houses anymore.” As I stand there in disbelief, I ask them to explain. That is a huge waste of time! Were we talking about the same law?

As a general contractor, it seems it all falls to me. If I get a job in an 1820s home or any pre-1978 home for that matter, I’m going to stand there and look at it and say, “I’m all alone here.” I got a letter from a lady who read my editorials, and she said two contractors so far have told her, “Look lady, this law is a killer. Therefore, we’ll do your work for you, but NO written contracts … and NO checks.” Nice!!

I still haven’t received my “Firm” certification back from EPA. I’ll bet they cashed my check for $300.00 though. I bought special “DANGER” signs that include: no eating, no drinking, no smoking, no entrance, etc.—$282.00 worth in case I have a huge job with multiple entrances, or two or three going at once. My stupid little stockpile of masks, suits and filters and gloves that cost a thousand dollars will be good for about one day. I think I may buy a couple cases of Depends adult diapers, too—one for the workers so they don’t waste a suit “setup” every time they have to pee, and one for me in case an EPA inspector ever shows up on the job site, or, calls my office about a job I did three years ago, to tell me they’re coming in immediately to look at my records!

If you look up the EPA regional offices, mine—for Connecticut—is in Boston. This makes me think a bit. Did they impose such huge fines, $37,500.00 per violation per day possibly because it will be like an execution if they ever catch somebody, or intentionally go after somebody to make an example of them, destroy them and discourage the rest of the herd from trying to escape the bureaucracy? I have to think that’s the right answer. So, you take in all the varying info, create your own anti-poison plan from your imagination, try to implement it the best you can, and take your chances.

The bottom line is to protect your workers and present and future inhabitants of the buildings we work on from lead exposure. “Control your dust and debris!” they say.

“OR ELSE!”

We will all (well, some of us will) try to do our best with the info and our plans, as we always have, scared to death now of screwing up even once. If any lessons came out of this for me, it’s twofold:

1. Lead is dangerous under certain conditions. (Like if you EAT it or breathe its burning fumes)

2. Whenever the government tries to be Big Brother, well, it’s a cluster-you-know-what, and it costs lots of money.

In my humble opinion,

—Mark Brady

Well, not exactly. The press materials for Formica’s latest offerings—eight new graphic high-pressure laminate patterns—arrived in my mailbox last week when I was crazed with getting our September issue out (which, if all goes well, will publish in two weeks). In addition to a CD, I also received samples of each pattern, which is why I decided to write about them.

Fun, funky and, in some cases, a little retro, the patterns fall into three series.

These include Geo, which was inspired by a bird’s eye view of the crisscrossing of roads, streets and highways on a map. Four colors are available: Geo Fossil, Geo White, Geo Folkstone and Geo Citadel (shown here in order)

Dogbone gets its name from the repetition of a dogbone-like shape (that is probably hard to see here) and comes in two colors: Dogbone White and Dogbone Storm.

And then there’s Strand, an existing line, which has been expanded to include Wenge Strand and Burnt Strand.

As I mentioned before, the patterns are kind of fun to look at and to imagine in a kitchen, which is what my art director and I did for a few minutes just to give ourselves a break from the issue.

But then again I’m just an editor, so I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts…—Alice Liao