Hardwood Floors August/September 2019

We are the expert in what we do, how we do it, and how to hire and transact with us to make this the best experience for all parties. If you are all things to all people and chasing every prospective customer, be prepared. Kirkland Tibbels, my favorite philosopher, says, “If you do not value your own offer, no one else will.” You’ll be asked to be fast, good, and cheap. The only people harmed in the price and timeframe war are you and your family. Tactical Tips to Consider Create a brand foundation document and review it daily. It should include your purpose, vision, mission, values, differentiator(s), positioning statement, and character. To help me communicate clearly with our customers and prospects, I review our brand foundation daily. Oneof thebestways toensure youare safewithaprospective customer is tocreate your transactionandeducate your prospective customer about howtohire andworkwithyou. At a grocery store, youdon’t opena cereal box and taste it before youbuy.There are rules for being a customer atTarget, a car dealership, abank. You can set your rules aswell, andoneof thebest tactics tohelp is the useof a terms sheet. It’s not a commitment or a contract, but a meetingof theminds betweenbothparties. During the estimate, I describe in writing what Artistic Floors by Design does and does not do, as well as some performance notes about wood flooring. Before providing an official price to our homeowners, they must initial the terms sheet. Although we’ve had a discovery call to determine whether we’re a good fit, the terms sheet is the best identifier of fit as well as ease of working with a customer and also is an indicator of the decision-making party. Measuring your brand value can be done in several ways. Think outside of the box with this concept. Perhaps you measure lead generation and closing rates, but what about how many of your customers accept your terms and review your work online, and which of your crews have the best reviews and why. These are just a few tactics, but they won’t work by themselves. The key is to determine your value and plan your brand based on your resources and your target customer. If you have questions for me or would like to see what I mean by brand foundation or terms sheet or measures, please reach out. I’m just a phone call or email away. g Joni Rocco is an NWFA Certified Professional, Wood Floor Sales Advisor, and Co-Owner of Artistic Floors by Design, Inc. in Parker, Colorado. She can be reached at joni@artisticfloorsbydesign.com.

The same is true with building a valuable brand, as we have done through our work with Influence Ecology. You must know the facts before you start the work, including inventorying your resources (human, tangible, and intangible) to become very specific about your customer and the help you offer to that customer. It’s fine if you want to work in a bunch of geographic locations and for different demographics, but the more specific you are with your customer, the more specifically and powerfully you can demonstrate your value. The popular athletic brand Lululemon has gone so far as to name their target customer and clearly define her demographics and psychographics, and that brand of athletic wear is valued at more than $20 billion as of June 2019. We work for remodeling homeowners. Why? Because our resources direct us to do so. We have subcontracted crews for large commercial projects previously, and we hated the work. It was soul crushing and miserable, and we were constantly concerned with cash flow. We chose to move in another direction and hire employees, then put them on a path to become NWFA Certified Professionals. Yes, it takes time and money to do so, but when considering what we wanted to do, it made more sense. You might love the adventure that commercial work provides, and that’s great. Go do it! Look at Eric Herman, founder of State of the Art Wood Floors. If you don’t know him, follow him on social media and learn from him. His work is beautiful, and he’s doing what we chose not to do. It makes him happy, and he’s built the networks and systems he needs to demonstrate his company’s valuable identity in his New York City marketplace. We know that our resources do not allow for large-scale production work. Artistic Floors by Design is made up of a handful of highly skilled people doing award-winning work, a few beautifully wrapped vehicles, and two sets of clean and well-maintained, precision-built equipment, and because of that, our margins are too high to be of interest to most builders. Well, this was a conundrum to me early on. Doesn’t everyone want the high-volume, big-quantity customer? Not us, because we aren’t built for success in that environment. Remodeling homeowners are another story. We know their age, gender, home value, specific areas in which they live, and some psychographics as well. We build (and continually enhance) our brand narrative around that person’s unique interests. The opportunity here is that we get to educate them. Because we are a customer-intimate company that provides a solution through an experience unlike any others, our customer appreciates our work product and processes. We carefully manage expectations, put everything in writing, and educate, educate, educate.

the magazine of the national wood flooring association

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