Greetings Floor Dealers! Years ago I owned a carpet cleaning company. During that time there was a local charity selling coupon books with deep discounts to local businesses such as restaurants, lube shops, and—you guessed it—carpet cleaning companies. One carpet cleaner participated by including a coupon for "one room free, up to 200 SF." He [...]
Greetings Floor Dealers! There is no single strategy—no "silver bullet"—that will magically enable you to leave the boxes in the dust. Rather, you should implement multiple, integrated sales and marketing strategies that reinforce one another and position you as the obvious choice. With that in mind, let's take a look at some effective strategies you [...]
Greetings Floor Dealers! At the 2014 TISE West event in Las Vegas, I attended James Dion's class on the psychology of price. He said, "Price is just a number, yet consumer's are obsessed with it. If you want to know who to blame, look in the mirror." I agree. For years box stores and national [...]
Greetings Floor Dealers! Not long ago I was on a coaching call with Mark, a floor dealer from the Chicago area. "We love having Home Depot for neighbors," he said. "We take a lot of business from them." I spewed iced tea as I burst out laughing. "Details! Details! Give me details!" I said after [...]
Greetings Floor Dealers! In the last post, I introduced you to a Joint Venture formula that has made literally millions of dollars for flooring dealers across North America. As a refresher, here are the 3 steps I mentioned: Send the business owner a dollar bill letter (which is fun, interesting and grabs their attention) in [...]
Greetings Floor Dealers! Many moons ago I was toiling away, building a carpet cleaning company I owned at the time. One day I was looking over my sales figures for the previous six months, and what I saw caused me to spew a mouthful of iced tea in happy amazement. "Holy smokes!" I whispered to [...]
Greetings Floor Dealers! About two-thirds of my coaching for flooring retailers focuses on marketing and making more money. The other third focuses on helping dealers engineer their businesses so they can have the time and freedom to enjoy the fruits of their labors. After all, what's the point of investing the enormous amount of time, [...]
Greetings Floor Dealers! In the last installment, I made the case that the main purpose of your flooring business is not to provide jobs, sell stuff, help customers, or even to make money. (Or to keep your brother-in-law employed and out of jail.) The main purpose is this: to fund and facilitate your ideal lifestyle. [...]
Greetings Floor Dealers! JIM: What is your goal for your business? FLOOR DEALER: To make more money. JIM: What's important to you about making more money? December is a great time for floor retailers to begin setting goals for the upcoming twelve months. However, for most entrepreneurs 'setting goals' means figuring out how to make more [...]
Greetings Floor Dealers! Before I moved to Colorado, there is a lube shop I used to patronize that had such great customer service that I wrote a couple of articles about them, and even talked about them in some of my training manuals for flooring dealers. When I pulled up to the work bay—and before [...]
