Hardwood Floors December 2025/January 2026

By Doug Howard

What will you accomplish in 2026? Will you drive your company to the success you deserve? As we wrap up 2025, we are reflecting on our successes, setting our goals for the coming year, and thinking about our sales strategy, our marketing strategy, pricing, production, and the customer experience. It is a great time to focus the owner of a company, the leadership team, and the company as a whole on ways to drive profitability through our people and our processes. Here are some strategies to do just that. WHY DRIVING PROFITABILITY MATTERS TO YOUR COMPANY Profitability is one of the most important goals for any business and a measure of the success of the business owner. A company that consistently is profitable provides for the owner, creates opportunities for all on the team, can invest in training and technology to ensure a great customer experience, and can sustain itself through challenging times. It should be the goal of every business, after paying the owner an appropriate wage, to still yield a 10 to 15 percent net profit. So, the first step is creating a budget for the coming year that will achieve that objective. What are the Drivers? For a successful wood flooring company, there are several critical areas that drive that profit performance: • Marketing • Sales (Including samples and estimating) • Project Preparation (Including design, ordering and scheduling) • Production (Installation or Sanding/Finishing) • Accounting (Both on company profitability and job profitability) Leading the Team to Better Performance When I get the opportunity to work with companies at their locations, I like to engage the entire team with particular focus on these questions. • What is a win? • Why does it matter to each of you that we win? • What gets in the way when we don’t win? • What can each team member do to make a win more likely?

When the team aligns on the answers to these questions, we can foster a culture focused on being a winning company, not just in terms of finances, but also in terms of reputation, customer satisfaction, opportunities for employees to grow, and the ability to create beautiful work. Some of the most important tools for accomplishing this are clearly defined roles and responsibilities, key performance measures for each position, and a culture of accountability. Companies that do these things well give their team members the best chance of understanding their role, developing their skills, supporting other team members, and measuring their own performance. They know how their performance impacts the company’s ability to “win” and are able to adjust when their performance needs to improve.

L6

Fast, Accurate Moisture Test for Concrete Floors

• Simplest F2170 Test • Most Trusted • Lowest Cost/Test

RAPIDRH.COM