In this 3-part case study, you’re going to learn how a flooring dealer transformed the effectiveness of his sales team and quickly tripled his net profits. Part 1 will focus on the dealer case study itself, and Part 2 and Part 3 will delve into specifics on how you can quickly implement this kind of system into your business.
A big challenge for dealers is finding salespeople with experience in the flooring industry. If none are to be found, dealers must hire people without experience, which means many months of training before they become producers for the business. And after all that work? Often the salesperson will quit or go to work for a competitor.
What if there’s a better way? What if you could get a total newbie salesperson producing big revenue for your business in just a few weeks instead of months? A step-by-step Sales Closer System can make that happen.
Daniel Knigge is a salesperson for Russ Bundy, a flooring dealer from Utah. Daniel had very little experience in the flooring business when he began using a Sales Closer System.
“I started only six months ago in the flooring business,” Daniel told me. “I’m very green. My residential margins were 30%-35%. It was emotionally stressful. I’d end the day, be totally exhausted, and realize I hadn’t closed any sales. It was discouraging.” To make matters worse, he works right down the street from two home stores. “People would come in and say, ‘Lowe’s quoted me this price,’ or ‘Home Depot quoted me such and such,’” Daniel said. “I was constantly having to compete on price. ” Things changed when Daniel switched to using a Sales Closer System.
“I closed the first seven out of seven people. Since then my overall close ratio has averaged 85%. Our residential margins are now averaging 40%.”
I asked Russ how it feels having a system that you can turn over to a totally new, green, never-worked-in-the-flooring-business-before salesperson, and have him immediately begin generating these kinds of margins and close ratios.
“It’s pretty amazing, and gives me a lot of hope about building my business,” Russ said. “In the past, I felt like it’s really hard to bring someone new in. It takes a couple of years to get them trained. What if during that time, they aren’t successful and they don’t generate enough money, and you have to start over from scratch? So, to be able to put somebody into a system takes a lot of pressure off of me from needing to teach them everything about how to close a sale.”
He went on to say that hiring a new salesperson is always kind of scary. “It’s kind of a crapshoot,” he said. “I think other dealers can relate to this. You can bring in a good person, but put them into a bad sales system, and they may not last very long. But you can bring a mediocre person in and put them in the right system, and even they can be successful.”
Within 87 days of implementing an on-purpose sales system, Russ’ year-over-year revenue was up 13%, but the increase in his net profits is what’s really impressive. “We’re also getting higher margins,” he said. “So even though we cut all our advertising, our net profits have literally tripled.”
Raising his margins to a 40% average (up from 30% – 35%) meant that Russ was able to bank all that extra money that he’d previously left on the table. It was basically pure profit, which is why a seemingly modest margin increase can exponentially boost your net. The converse is also true. Cutting your margins by 5% can devastate your net profits.
In Part 2, you’ll learn how you can quickly duplicate what Russ did in your own business.
To Tons Of Customers!
Jim Augustus Armstrong is The “Coach”
Jim Augustus Armstrong is the President of Flooring Success Systems, a program that equips dealers to double their profits, cut their work hours in half and beat the boxes! Many dealers have totally transformed their businesses and their lives for the better after joining Flooring Success Systems.
See what real, live dealers are saying!