I advertise the 100 kitchen, I sell the 30 one

What goes in the advertising

I don't advertise the €25,000 kitchen. In the ads, on social media, in the catalogue, it's the one at 70 or 100: shaped at 45 degrees throughout, handmade, the one that explodes when I post it. With no price. The message is: come to the showroom. People who see it and can't afford it comment “what a dream”, and that comment works for me, because the clients who can afford it read it. People who see it and come in arrive with a high idea of who we are.

Collections as price bands

Within the same brand, as you grow, you create collections: same brand, different design, different price, different positioning. We have five, kitchen and bathroom in parallel. The top collections have a single multiplier; the entry-level one has a deliberately lower multiplier, to attract younger clients who dream of the 100 kitchen but today have 30. This way they can still say they have one of our kitchens, with the same quality they see in the advertising. And in a few years, with a second home, they will come back for the one they dreamed of.

In the showroom you sell to the budget

The client walks in with the dream of the 100 kitchen. The designer shows them around, offers them a coffee, and with the right questions, asked without a questionnaire and in a tone of innocent curiosity, finds out the budget: “What kind of kitchen would you like? In what material? Had you thought of a figure?”. Then they design the project on the right collection for that figure.

You like the 100 one and you have 30? I'll sell you the 30 one. You have 70? I'll give you the one you wanted. You have 40? I'll offer you the one in between. But I won't let you leave without the order.

It's rule number one for our team in the showroom, and I repeat it at every meeting: nobody leaves without a project and an offer on their budget. Marketing has spent money to bring them there. Letting them go away “to think about it” means throwing that money away and handing them to the competitor who gives them a discount the next day.

You don't go below the line

The hard part is not going below the entry-level collection. If you have a budget of €10,000 you are not a target client, and the designer has to be able to say so politely, and perhaps suggest a bathroom instead of the kitchen. The temptation for salespeople is to please everyone, give the extra discount, invent the cut-down version. Every time you do it you lower the perception of the brand for all your other clients, and you lower the return on the whole funnel: the leads you paid for, the videos you produced, the trust you built. The entry-level collection exists for exactly this: to have a product for people with less, without selling off what is worth more.

The game, in one line

Communicate at the top to attract everyone, sell to the budget so you don't lose anyone in the target, don't go below the line so you protect the brand. Three rules, and the third is the one that decides whether the first two work.

From my classroom courses and from my book Direct from Milano. Figures and examples updated to September 2026.