Soft Launch Kuiken Bros. kept the June 1 grand opening of the Succasunna showroom decidedly low-key as well, opting out of radio, TV, and print advertising and direct mail for the time being to focus instead on some target customer groups, including their core remodel and custom home accounts, architects, and designers. Architects, in fact, were the first official group to visit the showroom as part of an opening day dinner Kuiken Bros. hosted along with a local homeowner’s magazine.
“We thought we would have a small grand opening rather than a huge spectacle, and we’d like to partner with the architects because these are the products that they are specing,” Mulkeen says. “Really we’d like to use a grassroots effort as compared to trying to compete with major ads to let both architects and contractors know that they can come to us or call us up and we’ll have solutions.”
That’s not to say the showroom launch occurred in a vacuum. Since construction on the facility began last June, Kuiken Bros. has used statement stuffers to update regular customers on the progress of the showroom in addition to adding several pages to the corporate Web site announcing the KB Concepts launch. The company also held four “beefsteak” dinners over the past year to update contractor customers on the latest and greatest news from the pro dealer, and the stand-alone venture has always highlighted the evening. “The success of this showroom is very important because everyone is talking about it,” Kuiken says. “From small meetings with customers to company-wide employee meetings, everyone has been asking: ‘When is the showroom going to be open?’”
Like all of Kuiken Bros.’ locations, the showroom will be managed as its own profit center with sales measured against an expense structure. “We’ll know it is successful when the registers start to ring and when it begins to turn a profit,” Kuiken says, adding that expectations and confidence are high: The company already has an additional site ready for a second stand-alone.
Before that, Kuiken Bros. will be developing 12.5 acres adjacent to the Succasunna showroom for a new state-of-the-art lumberyard. While the showroom will always front the property with a stand-alone identity, Kuiken emphasizes the importance of continuing to have a linkage to the company’s core business. “We think we will have something that’s really special,” he says. “I really believe that employees and customers like to be associated with a progressive and growing company; it excites them, and that excitement in itself will always be beneficial for us as a company.”
