“If ten people walk into your store, how many wind up buying?” is a question I often ask dealers. The national average is about three in ten, so this gives me a benchmark. I know dealers who close seven or eight out of ten - more than double the national average. How is that possible? [...]
“Whenever I hear dealers claim closed sale ratios of 70% or 80%, I don’t believe them because the national average is only around 35%.” I was on the phone with a floor dealer who needed help closing more sales. He made that statement after I told him about dealers I know personally who are getting [...]
Even with dealers in some markets experiencing relatively high sales volume, now is a very challenging time to be in flooring retail. Box stores and online discounters continue to create downward price pressure, and many local retailers attempt to compete by cutting margins and using cheap-price advertising. However, by using the right strategies, getting margins [...]
“I have to cut my margins to compete,” a floor dealer recently complained to me. This is something I hear fairly often. So what’s the solution to preventing margin erosion in a market full of box stores, online discounters, and other cheap price competitors? In a word: differentiation. If you don’t create differentiation, you are [...]
In this installment, I continue with a series of interviews with industry leaders on what they see successful retailers doing to grow their sales, keep margins up and beat the boxes. In the last interview, I sat down with Bob Eady, President of T&L Distributing headquartered in Houston, TX, to get his perspective on what [...]
With competition from box stores and online dealers, rising costs, and pressure to cut margins, flooring retail is a tough business, especially if you don’t have the right sales and marketing systems in place, referral customers are key. I interview industry leaders on what they see successful retailers doing to grow sales, keep their margins [...]
Dealers are finding it more difficult and expensive to get new customers through advertising. That's why to maximize your success, it’s critical that you maximize the dollars you generate from every sale to maximize your advertising ROI (Return On Investment). Nevertheless, my informal polling of dealers that attend my live seminars and webinars has shown [...]
Every flooring prospect has an unspoken question on their mind: 'Why should I buy from you instead of your competitor?' If you don’t effectively answer this question you wind up losing customers and competing on price. One effective way to answer this question is by creating differentiation, and I spoke with Lindsey Waldrep, VP of [...]
Over their 30 years in business, FC News has presided over massive changes in what constitutes effective advertising for flooring retailers. 30 years ago dealers could run a newspaper ad with a special offer and generate enough immediate business to make a profit. The same with direct mail to a purchased list, display ads in [...]
In Get An Unfair Advantage Over Big Box Stores Part 1, I shared how I was on a coaching call with Mark Bouquet, a Flooring Success System member from the Chicago area who said, "We love having Big Box Stores for neighbors. We take a lot of business from them." In this installment, I will share strategies [...]
