It’s not about our kitchens, it’s about theirs
We don’t just mean what ‘makes the kitchen designs and products different’, anyone can see what they offer by looking at their customer website; we mean ‘what makes goodbrother different in terms of its business model’.
If you’re looking at a few different options, or you’re already from a background in this industry, you’ll probably have a good idea of how a traditional kitchen business works. There are plenty of businesses with great product ranges and a genuine commitment to putting the customer first. So rather than give you another list of brand values, let’s look at what goodbrother actually does differently, and whether that difference is enough to build something successful on.
Where the traditional model falls short
Most kitchen businesses still sell in much the same way. The customer spends an afternoon walking past display after display of kitchens they never asked to see, a designer draws up a plan largely from scratch, and only then does the customer see a price – which is usually the moment the conversation turns to discounts, and to whether a cheaper quote could be available elsewhere.
Anyone who has worked in that model knows it can be a costly system: large showrooms, displays that need replacing every few years, and hours of design time spent on customers who may never buy.
goodbrother’s founder came into the industry from marketing rather than kitchen fitting, which may explain why he was prepared to question a model that had been around for years.
The price comes first, not last
goodbrother customers choose their style and set their budget before the design is finalised, seeing the exact cost of every element right down to the handles, taps and drawers, and the design is then built within that budget.
It changes the whole nature of the sale. There’s no awkward price reveal at the end, no need to invent a discount to rescue a deal, and far less reason for a customer to take your design down the road to be undercut, because they’ve watched the price take shape alongside it.
Direct factory pricing gives you the room to stay competitive without relying on those old tactics, so your time goes into helping customers decide rather than haggling over the final figure.
Listen first, talk later
Customers can start designing their layout online long before they book an appointment, so they arrive informed, engaged and already invested in a kitchen that feels like theirs. The appointment itself follows three stages – exploration, refinement and decision – curated by your team but led by the customer, with 3D design technology showing exactly how the finished room will look before anything is signed.
The goodbrother team describes that approach as “pretty much the opposite of what most of our competition does”, and it’s also why a goodbrother showroom can be smaller and carry far less display stock than a traditional one. Its job is to support a conversation rather than show off every possible combination, which means less space to pay for and less stock to keep up to date.
One business, from first sketch to final fit
Fitting and project management are included in the price, and customers can expect to be standing in their finished kitchen around eight weeks after their design sign-off. They deal with one business from start to finish rather than juggling suppliers and contractors, and that matters to you as much as it does to them, because the whole customer journey sits within your business rather than being handed between different suppliers and contractors.
What doesn’t change
Kitchens are still bought from people, on trust, after a good conversation with someone who knows what they’re talking about. Quality still matters, which is why every kitchen is made by Baumann in Germany, and a local reputation is still built one finished kitchen at a time.
What goodbrother changes is everything around those fundamentals: a leaner business model, a more straightforward sales journey, and more of your time spent with customers who are ready to buy. As goodbrother always says “It’s not about our kitchens, it’s about theirs” and that’s a very different proposition from simply putting another kitchen brand into a showroom.