It’s plain, simple and explains itself. It gets your customer started right away, with nothing to download.
Start with your best guess.
Paste in the customer’s email, add photos, upload plans, or just describe it. Your catalog, suppliers and colors, loaded when you set up, shape the picture. If anything’s missing, the link can ask for it.
Send the link.
The customer takes it from there.
They open the link, change the design, or take pictures of their place and upload them right there.
You stay in control.
You choose the options, see everything that’s posted, and send back each version.
Try it. Simulated. Nothing is sent, and any picture stays on your device.
Your brand
Your brand, start to finish.
Every link, page and update goes out on your company’s template. Your customer gets something polished they can share with their team and feel proud of, and that leads to more yeses.
See it as a sample company
Your logo and colors on every page, link and update.
Your name and number, so it still feels personal.
A clean page to share with anyone who weighs in, by link.
The same polished format on every job, from every rep.
Sample companies are fictional.
Who it’s for
From the corner restaurant to the poolside terrace.
The same simple workspace, whether one homeowner is deciding or an owner, landlord and GC are working through a whole property.
The workspace
They work it out together. You stay in control.
Your customer is empowered to make the changes themselves, without waiting on you for every idea. They comment when a change isn’t offered or they can’t quite get there. It all happens in your branded template, so there’s no loose drawing to shop around.
The old way
It can take 3 weeks to hear back about a change.
Then another week waiting on a drawing.
In between, no one can see what anyone is thinking.
A drawing sent as a file is easy to shop around.
With Valance
They’re empowered to make the changes themselves, on their own picture, with their team.
You see what they’re thinking the moment it’s posted.
It all stays in your branded template, with no loose drawing to shop around.
The process gets more fun and exciting for the customer and everyone involved.
Trying ideas stays private, so people can explore. Once a design or comment is posted, everyone on the job sees it, including you, and every version is kept.
The price stays to be determined until the design is final and you add it. A change to fabric, framing or size could change it, or it could stay the same.
Inspiration
Show us what you love.
Your customer saw something they can’t stop thinking about. They add the picture, say what they like about it, and see it on their own place, using what you actually sell.
The picture they loveTheir place“The scalloped edge, but in forest green.”
Attach anything.
Photos, plans, a spec sheet or a question. Every comment can carry a file, and it stays with the job.
It stays honest.
If they love something you don’t offer, we show the closest option and it comes to you.
Nothing gets lost.
No digging through email for that one picture someone sent three weeks ago.
Fictional example with generated pictures. Results will vary on real photos.
Bigger jobs
One awning, or a whole property.
Many awnings, several colors, more than one building. Your GC gets the whole picture, and a one-awning job never sees the extra steps.
Every building, in its own space.
Each wall gets its own realistic picture. Pins on the site plan show where everything goes.
One list for everything.
Matching awnings are one row, so changing a color on 15 of them is one decision.
Approve a building at a time.
A tenant sees only their own building. You see what’s approved and who’s holding up the rest.
Fictional example with generated pictures.
Why it works
People love what they help make.
When your customer shapes the design, it starts to feel like theirs. That sense of ownership is a big part of falling in love with it, and there’s research behind it.
Labor leads to love.
People valued things more after helping to make them, as long as they finished. Researchers call it the IKEA effect.
“I designed it myself” counts.
People would pay more for a product they designed themselves, beyond any better fit, because of the sense of accomplishment.
A say creates ownership.
People who helped choose a product wanted it more, even when it was no better, because it felt like theirs.
That’s why your customer starts with your best guess and real options from your catalog. They can finish what they start, and you keep the final say.
Norton, Mochon and Ariely, Journal of Consumer Psychology, 2012. Franke, Schreier and Kaiser, Management Science, 2010. Fuchs, Prandelli and Schreier, Journal of Marketing, 2010. These studies weren’t about awnings, so real jobs will have to show how much carries over.
Try it
See it from every side.
Example with fictional data, including the catalog and supplier. Pictures were prepared ahead, plain words use simple rules for now, and nothing is sent.
A bonus for your clients
Everyone looks good.
Pricing
Your first 5 jobs are free.
Pick a plan and use your first 5 jobs free; your plan starts after that. A card is needed to start. One awning job won pays for months of Valance.
One pool of jobs for your whole team, with unlimited reps. Set a limit for any rep, or let them share. Running low? Add jobs any time at $6 each, so nobody gets cut off. Unused jobs roll into next month.
A job is one building, once its first pictures are made. Color tries, changes and redraws inside a job are free, up to 15 new pictures per job. Your customers never pay. We set up your shop with you while sign-up is being built.
About us
We saw the wait, and we wanted to fix it.
Working alongside awning companies, we kept seeing the same thing. A customer asks for a change, and weeks go by before a new drawing comes back. In the meantime, no one can see what anyone is thinking, and a project that should be exciting turns into a long email thread.
We saw that delay and lack of visibility as a major problem, so we built Valance to address it. Your customer gets to see and shape their awning right away, and you can see what they’re thinking the whole way through.