Leadership Live

My wife and I recently spent a week taking a 1300 mile odyssey touring on vacation. Driving this amount of distance we passed a great number of flooring stores. Several days into our trip, I asked over lunch what stores she had seen that impressed her. The sad reality is that she could only remember…

Frequent readers know that I am constantly stating that we learn our best marketing lessons when we look outside our own industry. I was reminded of this again this week when reading of the passing of Allen Bernstein, former CEO of Morton’s Steakhouse. He was the chief architect of their expansion from one Chicago location…

According to a recent report, most workplace safety investigations by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration against retailers are initiated by employee complaints rather than workplace accidents. The report also indicates that California and Pennsylvania are among the top states where inspections and citations occur. The November/December 2014 issue of Premier Flooring Retailer included an…

We have again reached the time of year when distractions become more commonplace. If one is not disciplined, it’s easy to spend all day at the workplace, yet accomplish very little. Even though December is not traditionally a booming month for flooring sales, important tasks still remain to be accomplished. In my experience, one of…

The flooring industry is blessed with a promotional advantage that I believe is being underutilized. According to a study by Perception Research Services International, which was published by the AARP, seventy-two percent of consumers 50-64 years old say “made in the USA” labeling significantly influences their purchases. And eighty-one percent of people 50 thru 64…

In sports, we hear the term “home field advantage”. When we are visiting a customer’s home or office to measure and estimate, think of the customer as having the home field advantage. You will often find a very different person than the one you met initially in your store. They now have their comfortable shoes…