Selling Inspiration

Hi!  My name is Mitchel Zelinger and I first entered the sales area in 1985 when I graduated California State University, Northridge with a degree in Speech Communication.  The embarrassment and guilt of seeing my father, at the age of 60, driving his Datsun pickup truck from business to business with an upholserty cleaning machine in the cab convinced me to give him a couple of months of help in order to help grow his refurbished office furniture business and improve his own standard of living.

We purchased a thousand index cards (yeah, physical cards can you believe it!) from one of those business database providers and started making calls.  We made hundreds of calls a week - some with success, some with complete failure - but what I learned was that without "making the call" the "magic" couldn't happen!  More on that later.

Today, I am still making calls - as Director of Sales for Tangram Interiors, an office furnishings dealership - trying to "connect the dots" between our clients, our partners and industry influencers all while coaching a team of sales people to do the same, in hopes it grows this business and improves their standard of living as well.

On Tuesday, June 16th, we had what is now our annual Tangram Tuesday Dinner During Neocon (the commercial interior design event of the year) at Socca Restaurant.   Roger and his team, as requested, cook and provide as though it’s the best family dinner you’ve attended.  Needless to say, we had a great dinner with customers that were more like family than not.  Customers that work with Tangram Health+Space, Tangram Studio and Tangram were treated to a great meal. As I heard numerous times throughout the evening, the energy in the room was awesome. There were 52 of us in total and for me, the best part of Neocon, was our Tangram Family Dinner at Socca.

Old friends became better friends and lots of acquaintances became friends.  When my dad and I were running On-Site Fabricare (which specialized in refurbished office furniture), one of the great qualities of the company was how it “felt like family.”  I know that we all say that that is how we would like it at our place of employment.  I know that I say it quite often working at Tangram and although my dad is no longer with me to share the family experience, for one night lots of folks who work with Tangram got to feel and experience the Tangram Family.

Recently, Tangram Fabricators (the commercial flooring division of Tangram Interiors) was asked to assist our friends at InterfaceFLOR in installing some of their newest products from NeoCon at their showroom in Los Angeles. Our crew helped remove and load the “old” carpet (which was still in great condition) into a truck so that it could be donated to A Better LA - an organization that helps reform gang members.

We received the following note from Abby Lenon at InterfaceFLOR:

“I just want to thank you again for getting two terrific guys over here to help us. Your team worked hard and had such great attitudes. I hope you can share this story to show other how amazing Tangram is.”

Check out the video below to see how the Tangram Lift System can remove your “old” carpet and give your office a fresh new look with minimal disruption to your employees and your business and without the need for removing any of your office furniture.


If you would like to give a fresh new look to your office space design, let us know by clicking on the “Connect with us...” icon on the right.

The following is a guest post from Paula Christiansen on her first day at NeoCon.  When she is not selling custom office furniture with our Tangram Studio team, she is educating the commercial interior design community on the architectural products offered by Tangram Interiors.

I was anxious and excited to start the day at 7am.  I didn’t know what to expect as about 100 DIRTTBags gathered at the Hotel 71 on Wacker St for the annual DIRTT training and meeting session.  It was a great day.

Mogens was inspiring, as always, in his typical "colorful" way, followed by announcements of what’s new with the latest software released, upcoming product releases, sales updates and forecasts for 2010-2011 and strategies.  The afternoon was a session called "Thrills with Drills."  We were divided up into about 10 teams of 10 people each and handed power tools (grunt grunt)!  We were given a set of plans with an office design layout and a pile of stick built DIRTT product and a stop watch and someone yelled “go”!  We built a small office about 4’ x 4’ square about 5’ high, including power.  Each wall was different and we had to read the plan elevations to exactly match where all the tiles went, etc.  What fun!  And guess who’s team won? Yep, you guessed it.  My team, along with David Morgan from Tangram!  We made our local DIRTT reps, Donna Shirely and Mike Taylor proud.

Following this exciting activity, we walked to the new DIRTT showroom at 325 N. Wells Street for a cocktail party reception and sneak peak of what the world will see at Neocon. Wow, is all I can say. You MUST get over to the showroom to see it and bring as many people with you as you can. It is amazing.  Photos from my fabulous day and the showroom are on Facebook.

So today I was truly inspired. One of the best speakers, talking from the heart and with passion, Faye Washington with the YWCA spoke of her efforts to get the new YWCA built.

On a “wing and a prayer” (probably lots of prayers, actually), Faye spoke of her efforts and her teams efforts to get this state of the art facility built not too far from Staples Center. Faced with countless roadblocks and hurdles, but with an unnerving passion and spirit, Faye has truly moved some serious mountains. From the moment she said good morning to the assembled room of Central City Association of Los Angeles members, she had made her way into my heart. She was incredibly infectious that there is no doubt I will be helping her at some point.

Perhaps there is an element of her project that will require custom office furniture, beds or tables such as what Tangram Studio provided for the Midnight Mission, the lounge areas that Tangram can support and service or even commercial flooring from our Flooring Team.  But if not, Faye will still have made a lasting impression on me as well as the other CCA members. Her candor and passion truly inspired me this morning.

Last night was the Calibre Awards. We had a group of 15 that included end users, designers and Tangram Staff in attendance to root on the Tangram Team that was up for 6 total awards. Many hours later, we received…not one award. But judging by the looks on the faces of the 15 of us and the energy we brought into the Hyatt Century Plaza Hotel, there is no doubt that we in fact did win.

William H. Hannon Library
nominated by: AECOM
In no particular order, our first disappointment was not winning for the custom educational furniture solutions that Tangram Studio provided for the William H. Hannon Library at LMU. This was a project we did with AECOM and as library’s go, this is no doubt the finest library in North America. The custom solutions that Tangram Studio in conjunction with AECOM came up with were a 1st place finish by my standards. 



Miller Children's Hospital
nominated by: Taylor Architects
We also fell short with the work we did with Taylor for Miller Children’s Hospital. In addition to the Steelcase furniture we provided, we also supplied the flooring throughout the hospital. This too was a 1st Place finish if I had a vote. The workmanship we provided was outstanding and as healthcare environments go, this facility is warm and friendly and is not the kind of healing facility I remember as a kid. It’s a beautiful installation. 



SCAN Health Plan
nominated by: The Urquiza Group, Inc.
One of the biggest disappointments was not being recognized for the work Tangram and Tangram Studio provided for the Scan Health Plan project. This is one of the first projects in which Tangram Studio added custom office furniture elements to standard Steelcase offerings so as to fulfill the design intent of the Urquiza Group. Manuel Urquiza had a vision for the space that only the industrial designers from Tangram Studio could have made a reality. This too was an awesome installation and given the competition we had for this award, then yes, we should have won in this category as well.


Beachbody
nominated by: Wolcott Architecture | Interiors 
The Beachbody project we worked on with Wolcott Architecture Interiors provided a space that in addition to having a “tight budget,” Tangram Studio provided custom solutions that was as tailored to the space as the pb90x video that Beachbody produces is for getting yourself into great physical shape. If the criteria for this category were minimal budget without sacrificing fit and finish, this too should have been a 1st place winner. 




The National Typewriter Company
nominated by: Shimoda Design Group
When our team of industrial designers from Tangram Studio walked the completed installation at The National Typewriter Company, the comments from our team confirmed the genius that is Shimoda Design. The custom office furniture acted as the perfect back drop to Shimoda’s architectural elements. By all accounts, this too was a 1st place finisher. It’s just that the judges did not agree with my own biased opinion.




HLW
nominated by: HLW International LLP
Working with an almost nonexistent budget, the Tangram Studio team was charged with taking HLW’s existing furniture and adding custom elements so that when HLW moved into its new offices, the existing furniture now had the appearance of having been designed for the new space. The marriage of custom elements modified to fit around and onto beams and existing structures was a well thought out office space design challenge. And a challenge that should have been rewarded with a 1st Place Finish, just not at this year’s Calibre Awards. 


I was reminded throughout the evening that all though we did not win any awards at this year’s Calibre Awards that the best in class and always First Place Finish by my account are the men and women that I get to work with daily. Their efforts are always great; their attitudes are always uplifting and collectively, it’s the best group of folks I’ve ever worked with. It’s a privilege that I get to work with them daily. As my mom would tell me when I was playing baseball in high school and after I personally had a bad game, she was always there to say “you are still number one!” And now I get to say to my team that although we did not win, we are still…number one!

One of our industrial designers for Studio, the custom office furniture division at Tangram Interiors, is visiting with us for the week. For his first day with us, we arranged to visit some local Los Angeles based installations. What a pleasure it is when you are in the company of greatness, and watching the Studio Team review their work at LMU, UMPG, Light Manufacturing, KPCC and Dreamworks was totally awesome.
As you can see by the photos, the beauty is in the details. The Studio Team led by Charlotte Wiederholt with great assists from Jeremy Knapp and Ron Rousell, when talking design, is the absolute best. Listening to the feedback from end users and designers about their work is second to none.
Seeing the design team on their hands and knees inspecting all of the concealed fasteners used for the Library Carrols at LMU and seeing Jeremy mentor Brad and Marlin about the qualities of felt at the KPCC installation and watching Charlotte show the benefits of a Cam Lock versus a Mod-Z connection at Dreamworks was truly outstanding. Seeing the curved panels installed at UMPG was also a site to behold. Working closely with Mozu, Studio designed a curved panel that was “breathtaking” to see installed.

We ended our day at Flemings at LA Live and it is obvious that Tangram Studio not only provides excellent and pristine design and finished products, but the team also knows how to enjoy themselves. In addition to working hard, Studio knows how to play hard. Working with Tangram Studio is like...not working at all.

I went to my mailbox at the office today and like we all do, I went for the larger of the envelopes. The first envelope was from IIDA.  I opened it up and out came the certificate identifying Tangram as a Calibre 2010 - Design Team Nominee for the National Typewriter Company with the Shimoda Design Group.

Better yet, there were more like sized envelopes as this one and just like a little kid looking to see how much money Uncle Les sent me for my birthday, I then ripped open, in succession, nominations for the William H. Hannon Library with AECOM, Miller Children's Hospital with Taylor, SCAN Health Plan with the Urquiza Group, Beachbody with Wolcott and HLW for their own offices.