Articles by Warren Tyler

While reading many books written by top professional salespeople, a common thread appears: All sales conversations begin with any subject except the product they’re selling and continue that way until the customer changes the flow.

If your customers buy two rooms from you, can you provide flooring for the rest of the house free and make a profit?

Consumers buy from people they like.

At a recent convention, Randy Merritt, president of Shaw, told the group the industry’s biggest problem is installation.

Competing with the big boxes is more than finding out how they can offer so-called “freebies” and continue to make their mark.

In the early 1960s, I opened a small flooring store in New York.

Most floor covering retailers have suffered through a lack of cash flow severe enough that it inhibits their ability to successfully carry on their day-to-day business. Whether the cash flow crisis is due to poor economic conditions, embezzlement (more common than you think), an insatiable buying appetite, insufficient capital, loss of credit lines or a dozen other situations, it’s no sin to be in debt.

While visiting the recent CCA Global Convention, I had the opportunity to speak with dozens of flooring retailers. The economy is on everyone’s mind and who can blame them? Remarkably, with all of the concern about the economy, it’s amazing how many retailers had their businesses actually go up in 2008.