April started where March left off. Another great month for me personally at my own place of work, and judging by the comments coming in on Twitter, it sound like the fourth month of the year has also been just as productive.

Month on Month Rise

Since the beginning of the year, the amount in which we have sold each month has gone. This might sound a fairly obvious thing to say in a positive sales year. Many of you would expect increased sales month on month. However as most will know, over the last few years and whilst we’ve had to endure through leaner years, sales patterns went out of the window. The traditional “sales curve” as we knew it went out of the window and we had business coming in in fits and starts.

Now though, we have a four month curve and it seems that traditional sales patterns may be on the way back. So far, we are trading at seven weeks ahead of targets, and a large glazed extension sale today confirmed that we had surpassed our second quarter target. We can now focus on getting ahead of ourselves for the third quarter and making the most of these good trading conditions.

On the face of it, it also seems that many others are enjoying some very profitable business right now. I see on a regular basis reports of record months and targets being beaten. However I do also understand that there are other places around the UK are not finding business as brisk as I am reporting. I guess there will be variations up and down the UK, with some busier than others. But I do believe that given time, all of us will start to see benefits.

Leads Steady

A constant theme this year has been a steady lead flow. We’re still not at the same levels pre-recession. In fact I think there is a significant gap between leads now and leads pre-crash. But the leads we are sitting and for customers who are genuinely looking to buy, and buy well.

Order values have been very high all year. At the moment orders of £20k are becoming the norm and we are probably arrogantly getting used to these sorts of regular orders. So when a dry patch comes along I guess we’re going to feel it. Still, it is these high order values that have been getting us way over our targets. One thing we can take from this is that the customers we are seeing are quality ones. I would hate to spend my time doing three leads a day on time wasters and people not prepared to listen and learn.

Triple Glazing Questions – Leaves More Questions!

April also saw the highly successful Triple Glazing Question debate at the Ricoh Arena in Coventry. You can see my full live coverage of the day here: https://www.doubleglazingblogger.com/triple-glazing-question-live/

Whilst the event was very well run and got a number of key people in to speak to give their opinions, I was surprised by how negative most of them were. There were plenty of reasons why triple glazing was hard work, the number of barriers it had to break down before coming commercially viable. Yet very little in the way of solutions. Personally I think that was the industry’s way of saying “unless we all get our heads together, this aint gonna work!”

But the organisers would argue that the point of the debate has been achieved. It was to get people within the whole of our industry talking about it. To stir up creativity and thought and hopefully try and find a way to bring an effective and genuinely beneficial triple glazing option to market.

Agree?

Has April been a month of positivity for you or is your business still searching for that pot of gold some seem to have found but others haven’t? All comments welcome in the section below.