Reuben Potter, owner of Floors By Southern Boys in Manchester, Tennessee, is grabbing consumer attention through traditional marketing methods: billboards, vehicle signage, and sponsoring local groups and events. 

He is also a mentor on the Ballin Knows Best (BKB) website that offers the BKB chat feature powered by AI that is capable of answering installation-related questions about products, standards, and installation techniques. To supplement the AI-powered chatbot is a page devoted to professional flooring installers who specialize in various flooring categories and who are willing to respond to installation questions that require more of a human touch. 

Potter sat down with Floor Trends & Installation to discuss why self-promotion—and professionalism—are important for the independent flooring installer. He also touches on his BKB mentor role and how he feels he is contributing. 

The following are excerpts of our conversation, which you can listen to in its entirety below.

Floor Trends & Installation: I've heard rumors about all the advertising that you've been putting out there. You even went so far as to get a billboard. Tell me about that.

Reuben Potter: I've actually got three of them. I've always subbed for a carpet store. You know how the economy is. Everything's costing a whole lot of money. So, I'm trying to phase out of that and start selling my own jobs. I pretty much get the price I want from installation where I'm at but just having that extra on the materials, I believe will help out quite a bit. [I’m] letting people know that I am available.

I've got my vans wrapped and everything like that this summer. I've got three billboards up now and vinyl banners up in different gas stations and the soccer fields. My logo’s on some local baseball team shirts where I've sponsored them, and it's on their field. They give me shout outs and stuff like that on their live streams whenever they're streaming baseball. 

We're going to have a parade here in town and I have sponsored that. Now I've got my logo on all of the shirts; they've printing 100 shirts for the Old-Timers Day Parade. I'm trying to get noticed as much as possible right now. It's a small town. 

It was real good before I moved to Tucson because I was here for a long time and everybody knew that I did floor covering, but I left for almost ten years and I've not pushed anything since I've been back. I'm kind of unheard of, so I'm trying to let everybody know that I am here, and they can get quality work if they're tired of the traditional mess that everybody else gives.

Floor Trends & Installation: What kind of return on investment are you seeing from that?

Potter: It's hard to tell right now. I've just started out with the billboards and stuff like that. Just last week, I got three of my own jobs scheduled, so it's a little slow taking off. I expected it to be. I figured about six months and I would start having a pretty good turnover from all this stuff. I didn't expect it to happen overnight, but I'm definitely getting phone calls. So, it's working out well.

Floor Trends & Installation: Are you asking people how they heard about you?

Potter: I haven't. I should probably think about that. Some people see me on YouTube. I've actually had a couple, not these that I've just scheduled, but previous jobs here where they would look up [and realize] Oh, he's in my area. 

I just did a job in Franklin, Tennessee, which is about an hour away, a couple weeks ago, where the guy found me on YouTube, called me up there to do a re-stretch, and it was outrageous. It was $600 just for 2 hours' worth of work. But he wanted it done, and he [had] seen the work on YouTube, so he was fine with it.

Floor Trends & Installation: How many YouTube followers do you have now? The last time I checked, it was quite a few. So where are you now?

Potter: I am right about 44,000. I've really backed off from that. Not intentionally. I don't want to be popular. I don't want everybody looking up to me. I started my YouTube channel to help people out. That's what I want to do. I don't want people holding me up to a standard and, oh, you need to do this, and you need to do this. You have a huge following. You should do this. Or don't say that. I don't want any of that. I just want to help people, and that's it. So I'm pulling away just a little bit to kind of get out of that. The people that are coming for help will get the help, but I don't want to be put up on a pedestal. 

Floor Trends & Installation: So, you don’t want to be an influencer. Do you see YouTube as more of a tool or a resource? 

Potter: That's exactly it. I started this to help, and that's what I want it to be. I've even stopped accepting review videos and stuff like that. I don't want to be held to anything. 

Floor Trends & Installation: One other thing, though, that has been brought to my attention is that you're making these little custom rugs for your clients now. Where did you get that idea?

Potter: I'm not actually making them. I've went on a website that does commercial rugs. I have some I'll put at the door whenever I walk in. When they answer the door, I want them seeing me roll out my rug before I even walk in their house. It's just a sign of respect. 

I've got hand towels that have my logos on them. You use the client's bathroom, and you kind of halfway wash your hands when you're working because you're rushing. You wipe your hands, and then at the end of the day, their hand towels are dirty. I don't like that. So, I purposely leave my hand towels on the sink with my logo showing. When they walk by and look in the bathroom, they see it. And again, that's just a sign that I'm giving them respect and taking care of their stuff. 

Professionalism—that's what I'm trying to push out there. If you just care about somebody, that's all it takes to be professional. Just care about them. It's that simple.

Floor Trends & Installation: Because at the end of the day, you're really in the people business, right?

Potter: That's exactly right. Not that I do a crappy job, but you can do a crappy job and be buddies with that person at the end of the day, and they're never going to give you a bad name or anything. So, it’s probably the most important aspect about it is being good with people and being respectful.

Floor Trends & Installation: Have any of your clients picked up on those little things and made comments to you about them?

Potter: Oh, yeah, several times. As soon as we're rolling out the road, they open up the door and it's the first thing out of their mouth. They're like, oh, that's real professional. So, it's definitely noticed for sure.

Floor Trends & Installation: Let's talk about Ballin Knows Best. You're a mentor on that site. What's involved in being a mentor?

Potter: He uses my videos to send people to as a reference on what to do in different situations. All I've done is open up my YouTube channel to him to have full access to do whatever he wants with it. As far as following those best or valid those best, brother.

Floor Trends & Installation: So, it's just another avenue for your training videos?

Potter: Yeah, it's just exactly like you said, another avenue to help people.

Floor Trends & Installation: Why is it important for installers to promote themselves? 

Potter: You got to get noticed. Word of mouth does great, and I believe word of mouth is where you get your best clients. But if you want to get more clients, you need to let people know that you're available and that you're even out there—the more, the better. 

If every time somebody turns their head or drives through town, if they see your signs, your billboards, you're going to be on the top of their mind. And if they say, “I need flooring? Oh, I've been seeing a sign, Floors By Southern Boys. Let's try them out.” Just being on the top of their mind at all the time is the main goal. Making myself as visually accessible as possible is what I'm doing.

Floor Trends & Installation: Do you think you'll branch into radio ads?

Potter: Yeah, I don't know about that. I don't know how successful that would be. I've thought about Facebook ads and stuff like that. I don't know how much people listen to the radio anymore, so I don't know.

Now that I think about it, I've been seeing a nutritionist for probably about eight months, and I got in the car one day, my wife had the radio on where she was driving my car, and that's how I found that guy. I never thought about that. I might have to look into that and just see how much it costs.

Transcribed by Edisource International Newsdesk with AI Smart Assist.