Put Your Pedal to the Metal With Motorization

A map for adding profitability to your workroom

BY ELIZABETH GERDES

“Motorization” can be a scary word and concept for workrooms. While this field might seem solely for techies who leverage sharing the latest advances with their clients, creatives shouldn’t count themselves out of this product category. The implied complications fade away with a little patience and understanding that this isn’t a phase—it’s the future of our industry.

If you’re worried about breaking out of the comfort zone that is the four walls of your workroom, focus on the growth— both professionally and personally—you will experience by introducing motorized materials. Grow your confidence and your business with these three simple steps.

1 Start Small

Someone somewhere once said that if you used motorized window treatments daily, it would take the fear out of selling them. Put that to the test, for example by ordering a motor to be inserted into a tubal headrail system. Fabricate a roman shade and hang it in your workroom. Utilize its convenience with a remote and make it open and close every day. Nothing really changed about the fabrication process, except now a motor was added into the tube.

Look for opportunities in new projects to continue exploring the possibility. If a client asks for drapes for their new home that has an existing motorized track installed, think of this as an easy—and low-risk—way to become familiar with motorization. You might find that the motorized track is similar to everything you already know about tracks.

2

Learn From Your Mistakes

Once you feel comfortable with the idea of selling motorized treatments and possess a factual foundation, try giving quotes. You might be naïve in the beginning, like ordering too large of a motor and thinking it will work no matter the situation. If you pay closer attention to the weight and dimension needs of the shade and/or drapery, you can save money on the overall cost of the project and know when to use that large motor.

Just like fabrication, you learn pretty quick from your mistakes. If you show up to an install and your drapes are too long for the window, you learn pretty quickly to recalculate the way you fabricate for the next time. The same goes for motorization.

The more you educate yourself, the more you will sell them with confidence and the more money you can add to your bottom line. If I can do, you can do it. Just go for it. The technology today is much better than even five years ago. You may be amazed at how easy it all is!

The more you sell, the more questions and requests your clients have and the more you become familiar with this field. Let’s just hope you charged enough not to lose money on the job, but if you didn’t, consider it education.

3face Your Fears

Take advantage of the community you’ve created with your vendors and installers. More than likely, they’ve been in your shoes and felt the same trepidation. Kick off your schooling by asking questions and absorbing all the information you can from people in person and online. Remember that it’s your journey and your business, only you can dictate the pace.

If you’re not sure this is a field for you, start slow. Make something for your workroom. Whether it’s a shade, shutter or drapery, use it every day. Get familiar with what it will and won’t do. Learn how to program motorized treatments yourself. V

Recognized as an industry leader, Elizabeth Gerdes is the owner of the awardwinning custom drapery workroom Stitch Above the Rest in Woodstock, GA. For the past 17 years, she has been designing and fabricating custom window treatments for residential and commercial spaces. She loves a good window treatment challenge and gravitates toward nontraditional projects.

» StitchAboveTheRest.com