There are a few questions that many people are uncomfortable answering. The most famous one is “what is your budget” or “how much do you want to spend”. The reason people are uncomfortable is because they may have had bad experiences with shady salespeople.

I remember driving by a car dealership one time, and saw the car I’ve wanted for a long time. It was a 1969 Camaro, in perfect condition. I had to stop. While I was admiring it, the car salesman came out and started making conversation. I had one question for him. “How much is it?”. To my surprise, his answer was a question back to me. “How much do you want to spend for it?”. Shocked at his response, I bounced back, “well, how much is it?”. My patience ran out when he still answered with a question. “How much will you offer?”. To that I answered “I’ll give you fifty bucks” and walked off the lot disgusted. Nobody wants to deal with someone obviously trying to take their money.

That’s an extreme example of why people don’t trust salespeople. Because they don’t feel like they know the salesperson’s intensions, especially when asking how much money they want to spend.

Well, the cabinet industry is entirely different. Your kitchen designer is not looking to use up all the money you can possibly spend. Your designer is trying to give you what you truly want as a final result in your home to make you happy.

That being said, the question “what is your budget?” or “how much do you want to spend?” is REQUIRED for them to know how to effectively and in a timely fashion get you the kitchen you want. The reason for that is that a kitchen can cost $10,000 or $100,000, depending on what you want. If your budget is $10,000 it drastically affects the style and type of cabinets that you can buy, as well as the design you will end up with. So your designer should not waste your time by designing a kitchen that would be far above your budget only to find out you can’t do it.

Designers that ask the right questions early in the process as the most effective ones. You don’t want to waste your time on things that don’t make sense. Help your designer understand everything about what you’re trying to accomplish so that they can steer you correctly and quickly into the solution to make you happy.

Other early questions your designer might ask are the following:

• What’s your timeframe for your kitchen? – Designers must know this so they can properly (if possible) get all things in order to meet your schedule. They know how long it takes to get cabinets, countertops and everything else ready. If your timeframe is a week, then they know there’s already a disconnect. Also if it’s a year they can coach you on what things to do now and over the coming months to prepare.
• Have you decided on any styles or brands yet? – This will help them understand how far you are along in your preparation and learning process, and how best they can help coach you.
• Who is the decision maker? – This is important because sometimes the decision maker is not brought into the process until later and he or she might disagree with the solution because they were not involved. It’s best to have them involved up front and throughout.

At Brakur Custom Cabinetry we have the best designers around. They are professionals that will guide you through every step of the process in the most effective way. The kitchen of your dreams is not far away. If you’re ready to start the conversation with one of our experts contact us here.

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