In part 1 I made the point that mediocre service is rampant across most industries, retail flooring included. The flooring world is getting more difficult and competitive, not less so, and if you expect to prosper long-term you must rise above the legions of the mediocre. This is especially true if you want to have [...]
“Watch what everyone else does – do the opposite. The majority is always wrong.” -Earl Nightingale Most of the sales, marketing, and differentiation strategies I teach floor dealers and write about in this column break convention and completely ignore industry “norms.” I do this because unconventional strategies offer the biggest return on investment for [...]
Selling high-end products like hardwood can be very lucrative for dealers. However, dealers don't sell nearly as much of their high-end lines as they could, so they miss all the additional profits that premium products can generate. I attended the NWFA Wood Expo and spoke with wood manufacturing leaders on the reasons why dealers don’t [...]
“*Flooring World,” the employee answering the phone said in a bored tone when I called for an appointment I had with the store owner. This fellow had no enthusiasm in his voice, and his tone suggested that I had interrupted his day. He obviously didn’t realize—or didn’t care about—the negative impression he was making on [...]
“If ten people walk into your store, how many wind up buying,” I asked the dealer from Connecticut during a coaching call. “Around three,” he replied. “That’s a 30% close rate, which means that 70% of your walk-ins are not buying. Which means 70% the time, energy and money you spend getting people to [...]
“The number one reason customers don’t buy is lack of ‘Wow.’ We’re not losing customers to competitors, we’re losing them to other industries,” said Terry Wheat, founder of RFMS. I was in the audience at Domotex listening to his presentation on selling, and I had to agree. When a customer walks out without buying and [...]
“I’m looking for Tupperware containers,” my wife told the retail employee. “Where can I find those?” “Uh…try aisle nine,” replied the employee, who then went back to what she was doing. She couldn’t be bothered to help a customer find what she was asking for. I visited an office supply store recently. The store was [...]
HomeAdvisor was getting sued by a group of eight home-improvement companies. Here are just two of the several allegations: The leads sold to the companies are “overwhelmingly bogus” and “illusory.” They are often “over distributed” or contain, among other things, disconnected phone numbers, people who are not homeowners or contacts for nonexistent residences. When companies [...]
“I’ve told my sales team they need to increase their closed sales, but nothing improves.” This was the sentiment expressed to me by a frustrated flooring dealer. Actually, I’ve heard this complaint in various forms from many dealers. The problem occurs because retailers inform their salespeople of the end result they want but fail to [...]
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 [...]
