How Adopting Ingage in the Midst of a Global Pandemic Helped Sun Design Grow Their Business
“I had a 37% increase in my personal closing ratio and as a team, we had a 13% increase in our closing ratio”
Sun Design has deep roots in the home improvement industry after being founded in 1988 by Craig Durosko. In 1993, President and Co-Owner Bob Gallagher joined the company, taking on the role of marketing, administration and sales. In 2005, Sun Design expanded into design build and have seen nothing but success since. They were first introduced to Ingage at the Remodelers Advantage Summit in 2019 and started using the platform in early 2020. Since then, they’ve experienced remarkable results that help drive their business forward, even in the most challenging times.
Sun Design is not new to challenge, but like everyone else in the industry, the COVID-19 pandemic brought obstacles they never would have expected. With more people staying home, many decided to finally tackle their home upgrade list, which led to Sun Design being inundated with potential clients. While this was exciting for Bob and his team, they quickly realized that trying to sell virtually with a PowerPoint presentation was wasting time and resources. Sales reps at Sun Design were often stuck having to skip through multiple PowerPoint slides that didn’t represent the customer’s needs. Even worse, they had to rely on the customer to walk the sales rep through their home via Zoom, which often led to shaky cameras, poor visuals and confusion for both the customer and the reps. Bob and Sun Design’s Director of Communications, Beth Walters, decided it was the perfect time to work with Ingage.
“Ingage has made us become so much more efficient, clients get more information that they needed - that we didn’t even know they needed - and we’re able to be more flexible on how we provide that information.”
After signing on with Ingage, the Sun Design team originally set out to design their own presentation, but they struggled to find a way to merge their current sales process with an interactive presentation. Bob and Beth decided to work with Ingage’s trusted partner and industry expert, Mark Richardson, who helped them adapt their sales process for virtual selling. Mark also brought in his expert presentation designer, Pat Mitchell from Condy Creative, who combined the new sales process with Sun Design’s existing collateral and content to build a professional and interactive presentation.
“With COVID, we were forced into selling virtually with Ingage and looking back, it’s one of the most intelligent things we’ve ever done.”
With the help of Mark and Pat, the Sun Design team was able to connect even more with clients, despite doing most of the work virtually. Ingage provides non-linear navigation so they can quickly move to different services they provide, which means they no longer have to worry about clicking through irrelevant slides and wasting a client’s time. They also rely on weblinks placed inside of the presentation that help them quickly open a web page to show Sun Design’s latest work. What may have the biggest impact though is their use of hyper-personalization for every presentation. Ahead of the initial sales call, a Sun Design rep will ask for images of the client’s home and some photos of their inspiration. The rep simply loads these images into the Ingage presentation ahead of the call so they’re ready for the presentation with the client. This has led to many design agreements signed during the first call.
Six months after updating their presentation with the help of Mark Richardson and Pat Mitchell, Bob saw a stunning 32% in the number of design agreements closed. Plus, his sales team as a whole boasts a 13% increase in closing rates since adopting the new platform. Bob attributes these incredible results to Sun Design’s engaging and interactive presentation that enforces client confidence and encourages them to sign a design agreement after just one sales call.
“The reason we had these outcomes is because our clients were benefitting from the effort– it really changed the game. They’re happy and fulfilled and signing design agreements more than they would have otherwise. There’s something to be said about using Ingage.”
In addition to a rise in closing rates, Sun Design saw a fairly quick return on investment (ROI) with Ingage. Bob attributes this to the design of the presentation and Mark Richardson’s sales process that often brings in higher deals. He also emphasizes the resource aspect of ROI, pointing out the massive amount of time his team has saved and the increase in consistency among every sales rep using Ingage. Bob has used the combination of increased close rates and time savings to inspire his sales reps not on Ingage to adopt the platform. And while COVID may have pushed the Sun Design team into adopting Ingage, Bob believes that it was the best choice they’ve ever made.
“Here we are making an immense return and have such a consistent and efficient improvement to our overall selling process.”
Sun Design is an architectural design-build remodeler that brings visions to life for owners of fine homes in Northern Virginia, Montgomery County, MD, and Washington D.C. thanks to a proven award-winning approach fueled by superior talent and workmanship. Learn more about Sun Design.
