Sommer: 'No limit' idea applies to bedding
By Larry Thomas -- Furniture Today, June 12, 2006
Henderson, Nev. — During his years as a buyer and sales trainer at Minnesota-based HOM Furniture, Tim Sommer marveled at the retailers' ability to sell $6,995 gas grills.
The outdoor cooking season obviously is a short one, but that didn't matter to consumers who had made up their minds they had to have a top-of-the-line grill.
"There is no (price) limit when you have found their 'thing,'" he said. "Those grills looked like a piece of restaurant equipment. You could cook a two-inch steak in 14 minutes."
Sommer, now vice president of strategy and channel development for specialty bedding producer Dormia, believes the same "no limit" principle hold true for consumers shopping for bedding.
Few are willing to spend $6,995 on a mattress, but many don't bat an eye at spending $1,000 to $2,000 or more, he said during a presentation at Furniture/Today's Bedding Conference.
"I believe a customer is committed to spending $1,000 on a bed ... so we don't need to justify that first $1,000," he told the audience of mostly bedding retailers, manufacturers and supplier. "We need to communicate that this purchase is life-altering in nature."
Obviously, sales training is critical, and Sommer noted that "the first and most important sale (a store owner) has to make is to the sales staff itself."
He said store owners and managers must "create a culture of learning" and go out of their way to involve normally reluctant sales associates in the training process.
"Generally, they don't want to invest a minute of their time on something they aren't getting paid for," he told attendees.
He said store management, for example, could allow a group of associates to select a specific model to be used for an upcoming promotion. This strategy was used frequently at HOM, and Sommer said the mattress picked by the group always sold well.
"When that bed hit the floor, it was a monster. That bed never failed," he said.
Sommer also said management should be selective about who receives the training, since such sessions rarely are effective for top-tier or bottom-tier performers. One way to involve top performers, however, is to allow them to conduct a portion of the training, he suggested.
In addition, he said, training should be done in a modular format — generally in half-day sessions — with regular follow-up as trainees work the sales floor.
Perhaps most importantly, he urged the retailers and manufacturers in the audience not to get bogged down in product specifications such as coil count and foam density. Consumers, he said, generally don't care about that information and are not impressed with a salesperson's ability to recite those numbers.
"I think they're after what a better night's sleep provides — and that's a better lifestyle," Sommer said. "There's no need to get bogged down in specs."
His employer, vertically integrated Dormia, was formed when retailer Advanced Comfort acquired specialty sleep producer Classic Sleep Products, which specializes in latex and visco-elastic foam bedding. Dormia has 25 company-owned stores, mostly in major regional malls, and is adding about one unit per month.
Classic Sleep, the manufacturing arm, produces bedding at its factory outside Baltimore. It is targeting Top 100 bedding retailers through a selective distribution policy.
Sommer said the company's target market is consumers between 35 and 59 with annual household incomes of more than $75,000.
