Summer is here... Kids are out of school, beaches are getting packed and vacations are scheduled. In south Florida summers are hot! But the snowbirds have all flown north and we get our roads back. We no longer have to wait in lines at our favorite restaurants and if you can stand the heat it is a good time to go to Disney! 

Speaking of scheduling vacations there are a few important summer schedules we wanted to share with you. 

 Devon & Devon will be closed from August 9th and returning on September 1.
This is the last week for production of custom orders to be shipped before the August shut down so please get your orders submitted to Devon & Devon asap. June 13 will be the last day for all furniture/ vanity and marble orders to ship before the August shut down. Please let us know if you have any questions or pending orders and Devon & Devon will do its best to accommodate them.

Watermark's  factory will be closed the first week of July (6/30/14 to 7/6/14), returning Monday July 7, 2014.  All plating, polishing, machining, and assembly departments will be closed for the summer vacation. Our office and parts department will be closed from July 4-July 6, returning Monday July 7, 2014. 

Resetting and Relaxing is an important part of the Happy Selling process. We wish you and your families a great summer filled with great memories!


Happy Selling!

Happy Selling Happy Living is a testament to a tough time in my life when my world was falling apart and slowly being glued back together. It is a reminder of how dear to my heart my family, friends and industry are to me and how lucky I am to still be here to enjoy them. 

A little more than a year ago when I had my heart attack and essentially rose from the dead I thought things will never be the same. And they are not. As a matter of fact mostly everything is different. I no longer smoke, I eat a lot better, I exercise more (still not enough) and I even changed my career path all to spend more time on what matters most, Happy Living! 

I hung up my hat as President of Watermark in order to not spend as much time traveling and more time sleeping in my own bed. To spend less time stressing over missed connections, lost hotel reservations and missing my wife and kids for the life of a local rep in Florida. It so far has proven to be a great move for me and my family and I can't believe I waited until this point to do it.  Don't get me wrong I miss certain aspects of my former career like the friends I have made worldwide over the last 20 years but true friendships will never die. I have missed the control of making decisions on my own, but I don't miss the stress of those decisions.  The beauty of my industry is it is very tight knit and everyone knows each other, which also is the ugly side of my industry. But through thick or thin the support and love that I have felt by most is the driving force behind what I do everyday. It is the thought of providing for my family that makes me who I am. Not the financial type of providing but the love type of  support. The daddy type of support and the husband my wife thought she was marrying 16 years ago today. 

So while Happy Selling is important it is worthless without Happy Living! 

Happy Selling!

Jody

Authenticity and integrity should need no policing – but sadly they do!

 Catching my breath from the wave of trade shows that happen over winter and into spring including; KBIS, ICFF,
ISH, Salon de Mobile and the HD show, my take-away is that there are many manufacturers and brands who continue to push the design envelope to create original and unique products. There are also some who seem to take their ‘inspiration’ from others. I’m talking about ‘knock-offs’.

 The expression ‘imitation is the sincerest form of flattery’  actually is a damaging expression when played out in our industry. I’m not being naive, I know that at its core, a faucet can be considered just a ‘water-delivery system.’ In our world we know a decorative fixture is so much more. Any manufacturer who has created a faucet that they have fully designed, carefully thought out and patented should be confident that their design is unique to their brand.

So how is it that ‘knock-offs’ hurt us? Why should we care? Even more importantly, why should the consumer care? To put it in terms that everyone can understand;‘knock-offs’ diminish everyone who uses them. Buying a
‘knock-off’ may save the consumer money, but it hurts the economy, reduces profitability and encourages the theft of what we know as intellectual property.

Intellectual property refers to a number of distinct types of ‘creations of the mind’ for which a set of exclusive rights are recognized. This is also known as patent law. I’m not going to give a dissertation on patent law or the rights to which manufacturers who have patents applied to their designs are protected. I will give you an example of how important patents are to a brand: GRAFF has over 50 patents for faucet and handle designs in its portfolio. And I’m sure many other manufacturers have patents on their original designs. Too many patented designs are not the problem: manufacturers who continue to ignore patents and design products with virtually the exact same look and feel are the problem. The cost to enforce patent infringement is exorbitant and prohibitive to manufacturers. The question of course is how to stop the piracy. And whose responsibility it is to respect the patents that manufacturers have.

The R&D costs to develop and create a design require enormous time and effort; up front costs are quite high and that’s not including engineering, testing and tooling costs. So when a design is knocked-off by a manufacturer who can take that design and bring it to market more quickly and more cheaply (because they’ve bypassed all of the previously mentioned steps) – the consumer has every right to be confused and interested in buying a less
expensive version. How would they know?

This again begs the question of whom and how any of this should be policed. Barry Goldberg, owner of Union Hardware, a high-end kitchen and bath showroom in Bethesda, Maryland, subscribes to the phrase, “differentiate or die.” He makes sure his showroom carries products that are well differentiated; offering his clients top-of-the-line products from many manufacturers across many different design sensibilities and price points.

ISH trade show producer, Messe Frankfurt, in Germany, has taken it upon themselves to rigorously go after knock-offs. They call it “Messe Frankfurt against Copying." This initiative ensures that exhibitors and visitors are fully informed about the registration and assertion of intellectual property rights. Over the years they have physically confiscated hundreds of knock-offs during ISH. This is a level of support that we think manufacturers would like to see here in the United States as well. Every trade show should take a closer look at their policy. Trade shows work hard to bring value to their exhibitors, and if the shows are becoming “malls” for imitation artists who can get these
  knock-offs to market faster than the original manufacturer, everyone loses.

Outside of trade show policing, what else might be done? As a Director of the DPHA, I’ve had many discussions with my colleagues, and the consensus is that even at the showroom level, we must have an awareness of, and respect for a brand’s identity. Showroom owners need to educate their employees and customers about what good design is, and about the manufacturing process, so they will understand that a product made with lesser materials under lesser controls that ‘looks’ like a faucet design they like is just bad business. And purchasing such product is a bad investment in their home or project. As with everything, integrity should be considered. Even for something that is a‘water-delivery’ system.

Keeping it real and as always, Happy Selling!