Madeleine MacRae

Madeleine MacRae is founder and owner of MM MacRae Coaching & Consulting, where she brings her clients real-world experience from working for over a decade with contractors, dealers and manufacturers in the home professionals industry. She can be reached at info@businessmentormadeleine.com. Opinions expressed are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect the position of the National Glass Association or Window + Door.

5 Tips for Retailers on How to Sell from Home

The tech exists to make the transition from in-home to from-home selling something practical and quite easy to manage.

Instructions Not Included

I vividly remember the moment when it dawned on me that every single person—from the most successful business owners and CEOs to the janitor sweeping the floors, the attendant at the gas station and everyone in between—is making things up as they go along. For years, I assumed that, with rank…

Video Introductions

Video is not a fad. It is no longer a “nice-to-have” addition to your business. Video is highly relevant now and it is the key to the future. Consider that, according to the Cisco Visual Networking Index: Forecast and Methodology, 2016–2021, “every second, a million minutes of video content will…

Fishing for Customers

Not long ago, I was on a call with a potential client who was lamenting the fact that he didn’t have enough leads in his business. “Once I get in front of them, we can close the sale,” he told me. “But getting in front of them—that is the issue.” Some variation on that theme is one of the three…

Create Warmer Leads Faster

Do you know where any particular client enters into your sales funnel? Are they at the bottom, moments away from a buying decision? Or are they further up the funnel, where they are gathering data and information in order to make a go/no go decision for their project? Understanding where your…

Prep for Show Season

When we take time to plan for the future, we set ourselves up to get a leg up on our competition. There are a few places in the home retail sales business where future planning can save big bucks. Home shows are one of them. Home shows can be a great source of leads, can help increase local brand…

Fishing for the Ideal Customer

Improving Leads Management

Many business owners and managers seek my help to create more sales leads. While lead generation, marketing messages and advertising can all be super tough nuts to crack, the problem may not always be on the generation side of the subject. Before spending a ton of time, money and effort fixing a…

A Competitive Edge

In-home sales consultations can be an intimidating practice—for both the sales rep and the homeowner. Sending a total stranger out to a consumer’s home and crossing our fingers that the homeowner likes them and feels comfortable inviting them in is the first gamble we take in our sales process.…