Floor Academy - Helping flooring, tile and stone contractors own an asset

What’s the difference between being a painter, welder, plumber, framer, flooring installer, tile setter, or stone mason? What’s the difference between the country you live in compared to others around the world? Do you really think that your individual location, clientele opportunities, education opportunities and other conditions have that big of an effect on what you can accomplish?

Tom Cockerill is the co-owner of Cock...

How do you deal with pushy clients? How do you handle them controlling the project, materials, schedule, etc? Are you not the professional? What happens when trust is lost or not established? Sometimes you just have to fire your client and there is nothing wrong with that. Contracts have natural breaking points in them for a reason and it is ok to use them.

Sarah Thelen came up as a finish carpenter before moving into doin...

I can’t trust anyone to do it as well as me. No one does it how I train them to do it. If I’m not there, they take shortcuts. No one will ever take as much pride in the company as I do. These are all complaints I see consistently from contractors who are struggling to grow their business and find a way to not only add additional crews but not be stuck in the field consistently.

Matt Garcia is the owner of Craftsman Hardwoo...

As a leader it can be hard to relate to your team at times. Whether it be because of interests, age gaps, maturity levels, or personality, it is something we need to learn to overcome. A team is only as good as their leader and if the leader is unable to find a way to connect, motivate, encourage, and build up their team, there isn’t going to much of a team for very long.

Alison Mullins is the author of “The Art of Selling...

Do you have competition locally or do you have trusted partners? What about nationally? Internationally? Are you utilizing your relationship building skills to get to know your product reps? Distributor employees? How are you growing your network to better empower your business?

Join Daniel and Jose Gonzalez of Preferred Flooring and Paul Stuart of Go Careera and myself as The Huddle and Floor Academy collide in this team ...

With over 3 billion dollars of failures annually in the flooring industry alone, the flooring tile and stone industry could stand a face lift. From the image of contractors and the level of respect they get, to the technical skills they display, and how their companies are run. The bar is easily stepped over these days by just showing up on time and doing what you say you will do, when you say you will do it. This doesn’t even yet ...

Taking yourself to the next level on social media is no easy task. There are any number of ways to grow your audience from paying for followers to interacting with those around you, or even just putting your posts up and letting it grow organically. The views really come when people that want to see your content interact with it more often.

Shawna Bouchard is a Sr. Marketing Specialist for GoBoard at JohnsManville, we will...

I can’t find reliable help. How do I write a job description to attract people? How are you all finding employees? Everyone keeps quitting on me. What kind of SOPs do you all have in place? These questions and statements are some that I consistently see week after week in online flooring groups. One of the biggest issues small companies face are exactly these. Attracting and retaining good team members is a constant struggle even f...

It's one of the largest hurdles in small business. How do you build past yourself? How do you get that second crew up and running and trust them when you can't be there? Where do you find them? What needs to be in place to hold them accountable?

Kara Allen is part owner of Spiegel's Flooring in Sandy Lake, PA since 2020, alongside her husband, Jason, who is the lead installer.  While Kara runs the showroom, is the des...

The internet will have you believe that if you hustle hard enough that you can accomplish anything. You can build a great business, you can have multiple successful side hustles, and plenty of time for your family as well. This attitude is super toxic and leads to a mindset that stops you from actually growing. If you work 16 hours a day or even 20 hours a day, then you can get 80 to 100 hours in a five day week. I'll even giv...

Going from owner operator to employer is a tough transition. It’s not easy to learn how to lead a team or to be able to communicate well with them. Most of us came from a system where we were not trained very well by our “leaders” and thus did not get the experience to manage a team properly. This leads to micromanagement and trust issues when you delegate out tasks. Even worse it leads us to believe that it’s not worth it to hire ...

A common excuse to not having a bookkeeper for a business is that there is worry about their access to your accounts. There is for sure a legitimate concern here but they can be mitigated by how you set the employee or outside contractor up. What are the ways you can control access? How do you need to monitor what they are doing? What do you need to understand about bookkeeping to hold them accountable?

Erin Albrecht of J...

401K’s. Medical benefits. Paid time off. Sometimes the corporate world seems better than this self employed life. All of these things are accessible as small business owners though. You can do an IRA, get benefits and build in paid time off to your rates. There are other things we can do as well to build generational wealth and set ourselves for retirement. Whether it be growing our business to have systems to run without us, inves...

You’re probably like me and got fed up with working for someone else and decided to take your skillset and start selling your own projects. It’s a whole new ball game compared to just doing the work and one that takes a lot of effort to figure out successfully. From what to charge, how to negotiate, what to look for in clients, and more, learning sales is a completely different animal from the technical side of installation. Many o...

I heard a curious thing. Apparently is is a western civilization thing answer the question of "who are you" by listing out your job or something else that you do. Much of the world would start that off by saying I am the son or daughter of so and so. This led me to think about personal identity and especially as a business owner how it can affect us. From wanting to control everything, to advertising everywhere you go, an...

It’s very often that trades people live paycheck to paycheck or believe they have more money than they do and make purchases they really shouldn’t. Those boats, big trucks, and other toys always look so tempting and receiving that deposit check sure can bolster your bank account. That’s not where you should be making decisions from though. Actually knowing your expenses, how much money you really have in an account and holding back...

Many of us work for years to build amazing brand recognition in our market. It goes a long way in getting referrals and keeping that word of mouth of marketing a big component of lead generation. What happens when you look to start leveraging your brand though? How can you use your brand to strike up deals with brands from your industry? How can you use your audience to bring attention to other people’s brands while having the othe...

How do you even know if your marketing company is taking care of you properly? What questions should you be asking them? What data are they showing you that means absolutely nothing? How can you know that your dollars spent are getting you a return?

Brittany Murphy is the marketing director at One Thing Marketing. They believe in transparency, education, and honesty, which is something not all companies hold as values. Wi...