A friend of mine needed flooring for his home, but he didn’t know any flooring dealers. So, he went online and Googled flooring stores in his area. He looked at the websites and read the reviews of the dealers appearing in the top three search results. All the websites and reviews looked pretty similar, so [...]
"We’ve been advertising with Angie’s List and Home Advisor, and running Google Adwords." That's what a dealer from Colorado told me during a consultation. We were meeting because he wanted to discuss additional ways to market his business. “What’s your monthly ad spend for all of those?” I asked. “About $6,000.” “If ten people walk into [...]
In Part 1, I outlined why developing referral relationships with other businesses is such a powerful and important strategy for growing your business, and I presented two strategies for developing these relationships. Now let’s look at some additional strategies for developing and nurturing those relationships. 3-Step System Step 1: The unusual mailer. Send letters to [...]
“How many Realtors send you referrals?” I was on the phone with a dealer from Texas, and I was trying to determine from where his sales were coming. He mentioned that he worked with Realtors who send him referrals. “There are five that send me referrals pretty regularly,” he replied. “How much revenue did these [...]
“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 [...]
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 [...]
The dealer who has implemented systems and strategies so he/she can succeed in any economy is in a far stronger position than the dealer who is forced to ride the economic roller coaster. I want you to be in that first group, which is what this series of articles is about. In Part 1 I [...]
