Less than a decade ago, Jerel Verner hired Matt Carter, a sales executive with Empire Today, to help run his flooring business, Premier Flooring and Design in Tucker, Ga. As the young business was struggling, Carter had a unique notion to grow the company.
Premier Flooring was entrenched in the difficult, and highly competitive, brick-and-mortar flooring sector where Verner’s business was floundering at the height of the recession. Instead, Carter suggested creating a virtual flooring store in which brick-and-mortar elements like physical samples and face-to-face shopping are brought to customers’ homes where they are most comfortable. He wanted to one-up any possible competition by giving clients something else they might not be used to: service on their schedule with complete installation in a single day.