Sam Allman

While reading John Chapman's book, The Five Love Languages something dawned on me: We should be romancing our customers.

In 1970, Ray Peters and his son Michael wanted to open a Carpetland USA franchise store in Madison, Wis. Ray met Rick Meyer, CEO of Carpetland USA, who recommended they work for Carpetland before opening their own franchise.

What your customers see and how they feel largely determines how much they buy. (You already knew that.) Because YOU largely determine what your customers see and feel, you largely determine how much they buy from you. My question is: Do you accept responsibility for what they see and feel -- and, thus, how much they buy?

In 1958, William Millar founded the first store in Avalon, N.J., that sold only ceramic tile and vinyl (or linoleum). In 1962, he added carpet and opened his second Garden State store in Wildwood. Today, 46 years later, his son John directs the company, which has expanded to 12 stores in 12 cities across three states. Each new store makes its budget for revenues, expenses and profits typically in its first year. I interviewed John Millar, who willingly shares with you the keys to Avalon Carpet & Tile's growth.

If your showroom was always filled with customers, and your employees always busy, would you think it important to measure your customers' satisfaction? If your store had served your community for more than 50 years and owned a strong market share, would you find it important to discover how customers perceived your store and gauge how satisfying their experiences were? If your revenues were growing, would you invest the effort and money to measure your customers' experiences?

Never will I forget the view of O'Krent's Abbey Flooring Center as I stepped from my car and nearly fell on my face that freezing wintry day last January. I was looking at perhaps the most beautiful flooring store I'd ever seen.

In my last column, I sought to convince you that easy formulas for parenting, leadership or managing a business -- as tirelessly as we seek them out -- rarely succeed. Why not? Because the easy formulas usually don’t account for the fact that a given problem is sometimes best resolved by one principle, yet other times it’s better to apply its opposite principle.

The longer I study leadership, the less certainty I find in it and the more confused I get. I’ve found that successful leaders use widely disparate styles and strategies to produce similar successes. Have you noticed that as well?

Long-term thinking determines much of our success, because it empowers discipline. In contrast, a focus on instant gratification weakens discipline. A good working definition for “discipline” is “the ability to do what you ought to do -- whether you feel like it or not.”

At the beginning of my seminars, I always ask class members to introduce themselves and explain why they came. Usually, I can sort the reasons for attending into three categories: those who want to learn and improve their skills; those who just want to get out of the store for a day; and those who have to because the boss made them come.