FLOORING INDUSTRY BLOG & NEWS
Running Your Business
by the Numbers
Convert your goals into tangible results
When the word planning is used, the normal association is a process that takes a long time and often has limited results. Having a little planning structure can make the process a lot easier. A goal is a dream with a deadline. – Napoleon Hill The GOST formula is a good way to translate your…
3 ways to delight your GC
We enjoyed having Jerry Freeman of Spec-Intel on our Flooring by the Numbers LIVE! Show a couple of weeks ago. If you want to watch the replay you can find it here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJhTifxIn0Q He surveyed many GC’S and asked the question “what are the biggest issues you face in working with your subcontractors” Three things consistently…
Companies don’t buy floors. People do
In working with over 20 commercial flooring companies we have benchmarked the activities of their salespeople: Only 6% of their time is spent prospecting for new business. Nearly 50% of their time is spent tracking, emailing, estimating, and pricing their bids. And then they only win 1 in 5 of those opportunities! Let’s assume you…
4 ways to grow your business
Post pandemic all of us are rebuilding our backlogs and seeking ways to grow our revenues. What is the best way to do this? There are 4 ways to grow as depicted below: We’ve seen all four strategies deployed. But it is worth considering the associated risks. One example strategy is to open a new…
How to escape the hamster wheel
Do you feel you are running on a hamster wheel or a flywheel? Jim Collins wrote about the flywheel effect in his seminal work “Good to Great”— Pushing with great effort, you get the flywheel to inch forward, moving almost imperceptibly at first. You keep pushing and, after two or three hours of persistent effort,…
Commercial Flooring Headwinds and 7 Implications for 2021
We have worked and spoken with many commercial flooring companies and identified new business patterns having significant ramifications for owners in 2021 and beyond. Here’s a summary and the 7 biggest implications for your business. Market Dynamics 1Q 2020 was booming before the advent of Covid. 12 months on and there has been…
Are your salespeople carnivores or cannibals?
New sales hires look great on paper. Their resumes are packed with successes and they are a delight to interview. You expect your sales to explode after hiring them. Our clients tell us the reality is very different. “How is it we hired 5 salespeople over the last two years and our revenues have remained…
Don’t take off on the takeoff. Think about the customer first
This week’s blog is an exciting guest contribution from Jessica Harrison. Jessica is second-generation flooring and part of the leadership team at DCO Commercial Floors. Her experience is broad and, in this blog, displays her affection for the preconstruction function of the business. There is nothing more exciting to a Preconstruction team than fresh bid…
Your cashflow blindspot and how to avoid it
Remember our saying—Revenue is Vanity, Profit is Sanity and Cash is King? The first two are easy to measure. I’m sure you all know your revenue numbers and your profitability. But cashflow is mercurial. We all understand cash but where does it flow to? Often it doesn’t flow into the owner’s pocket does it! It’s definitely a…
Does high margin mean you are gouging your customer?
Have you ever heard these expressions: “That price would be gouging my customer” or “That is not a fair price” or “I think we are taking advantage”? If any of those beliefs are in existence within your organization … Snuff them out. Fast! It is interesting that the people who believe “gouging” is wrong are…
How to get higher margins through stronger relationships
Anyone can submit a bid. The best salespeople submit and win bids at higher margins. Why? Because the prospect knows likes and trusts them. The ability to command a higher margin is directly proportional to the relationship built by the salesperson. A funny thing happened last week. I was helping a client VP build…
How to benchmark your sales and delivery performance
The biggest cost within a commercial flooring business is labor and materials captured as COGS. The second most significant cost is the cost of selling and completing a job. Our benchmarking has revealed: There is huge variance in this cost from company to company It is not usually tracked or managed It is a goldmine…