About nine months ago during the presidential race, I pulled up at a stop light behind a car that had this saying printed on the back of its trunk: “Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should.”

As a student of flooring since the early 1980s, I’ve seen a long history of changes in the products, selling techniques, and buying trends of our floor covering customers.

A big part of what I believe about “selling clean” with honesty and ethics is finding a way to use stories about yourself in the community that you live in.

When I’m doing training for retail flooring chains or talks at floor covering association dinners, I always include a section on “what needs to be said” to prospective buyers.