Page 41 - Lighting Magazine March 2019

Building Bonds
he value that lighting showrooms pro- vide designers has been a very hot topic in recent years. As we shared in a feature article in our October 2018 issue, the ever-changing market has
brought even more competition to the forefront, including designers who opt to create their own direct accounts with their favorite manufacturers.
St. Louis-based interior designer Wendy Dorton has the unique perspective of experiencing that value rst-hand when she found herself in a proj- ect crisis. She was working on a client’s home and had all the steps timed in a perfect progression.
“My client’s painter had put sca olding up for his crew and we had ordered lighting that was speci cally scheduled to be delivered — and in- stalled — before the sca olding came down and the ooring was installed,” Dorton recalls. “The lighting order fell through at the last minute, which was going to delay everything else down the line. I decided to take my client to a Metro Lighting showroom, where we found a beautiful xture and bought it right o the oor. It was delivered and installed that night. Having that experience made me fully appreciate what a valuable service show- rooms provide. I decided it was the type of career I’d really enjoy: it would keep me in the design and lighting world while being able to use my experi- ence and Metro’s resources to make a di erence for other designers.”
Dorton joined Metro Lighting three years ago as a Designer Account Rep. “Designers are a very important part of our business, so we want to show them a lot of extra love,” she explains. “Our business relationships with them o en extend into personal relationships, which has helped build great loyalty. Even though our designers already have their own very nely tuned senses of style, they are juggling so many di erent features of their projects that it’s very helpful for them to be able to lean on us as their lighting experts.”
Rachel Lansing, a third-generation fam- ily member of Idlewood Electric, which has three showrooms in the Chicago area, and the
O ering a broad assortment of accessories and furniture as well as lighting has helped Metro Lighting become a favorite among St. Louis-area designers.
“Designers are a very important part of our business, so we want to show them a lot of extra love.”
—Wendy Dorton, Metro Lighting
March 2019 | enLIGHTenment Magazine 37