Greetings Floor Dealers! I’ve surveyed hundreds of floor dealers across North America. In my surveys I always ask these two questions: How are you promoting your business? The answer I virtually always get: Internet, newspaper, radio, TV, direct mail. What are your results? The answer I virtually always get: lousy, hit-and-miss, unpredictable, disappointing. In spite [...]
Greetings Floor Dealers! Over the space of just a couple of months, I had the bad fortune of getting three holes knocked into the sheetrock of my home. One was caused by my daughter’s head when she fell over backward from a chair in her room. Another was caused by my son when he was [...]
Greetings Floor Dealers! Are Your “Marketing Pots” Ready For The Recovery? I’m a huge fan of The Deadliest Catch. I think I’ve watched just about every season. They’ve done such an amazing job producing this show that you feel like you know these boat captains and their crews personally. Like millions of other fans, we [...]
Greetings Floor Dealers! Sales legend Zig Ziglar says that most sales people are “professional visitors.” Does this describe you and/or your sales team? C’mon now…be honest. Does it? There are a bunch of reasons why this happens, but the biggest is because sales people forget why they are there in the first place. (The second [...]
Greetings Floor Dealers! Have you ever had the experience of getting a whole cluster of sales rejections in a row? I certainly have. Over time I began to notice a pattern: it seemed that these “rejection clusters” happened far more often when was feeling down and discouraged, or questioning the value of what I was [...]
Greetings Floor Dealers! Americans are pre-conditioned to purchase in packages. Here are some examples: Meal deals (fast food)—burger, fries, drink all for one package price. Car washes—my car wash has about 10 different packages ranging from a simple exterior wash to a complete detailing of the vehicle including shampooing the upholstery. Inner Circle Club—Gold level [...]
I had a little too much fun in the snow this past winter. I'm new to Colorado, so snow is still a novelty to me. About the second or third storm of the year, enough snow stuck to bury the roads. Time for some fun! Being a California boy, I couldn't resist the temptation to [...]
Greetings Floor Dealers! I know, I know…I can almost hear the howls of protest. “But Jim, we’re in a recession! How can I raise my prices?” Easy. Just do it. It always cracks me up when I hear someone say, “Oh, my competitors are cutting my prices.” My immediate question is, “How? Are they sneaking [...]
Greetings Floor Dealers! As the owner of your business, being the rainmaker is your most important job. Making the shift from seeing yourself as a “flooring store owner” to a “marketer of flooring” is the key to unlocking the financial potential of your business, and to achieving the freedom and lifestyle you want. Most store [...]
Greetings Floor Dealers! The “Schedule Warning” strategy is a fabulous way to turn a negative (for your clients) into a positive. When a dealer is booked solid and can’t fit a client’s installation in right when the client needs it, the temptation is to get apologetic and turn gyrations trying to shoe-horn them into a [...]