Families Fight Over Flooring

Families Fight Over Flooring

I had an interesting experience the other day where two families I had been helping from earlier in the week came in approximately the same time to make their final flooring decision. Both of them were debating among themselves, and I was going back and forth between them answering questions and checking stock for them. Then one of them told me they had decided and were ready to purchase the Passport 2 Smoked Almond. I said ok, and then turned to the other couple, letting them know that they would have to wait a few weeks if they also wanted the Smoked Almond, as the other couple was ready to buy! As I wrote up the order for couple #1 he whispered about couple #2 "you snooze, you lose".

What it got me thinking about is that I sell a much higher percentage of my personal favorites than the other colors in a collection - and if my favorites were the same as other simpleFLOORS team members. After taking a brief poll, here are some other employee favorites!

3/4" Hardwood (*3/4" and hand-scraped)
*Any Reclamation Plank (Stephen, Sherin)
*Indian Red Reclamation (Ryan, Kristina)
*Prairie Acacia Reclamation (Charlie)
*Sable Reclamation (Chace, Rick, Tommy, Cece)
Amber Blaze (Len)
Brazilian Cherry (Shannon)
Brazilian Walnut (Debbie, Lesley, Cece, Dave)
English Saddle Acacia (Tommy, Jason)
Smoked Almond Acacia (Julie, Lesley, Lidia, Len, Tammi, Sherin, Reneelyn)
Tigerwood (Charlie, Kristina)

Link to Top Favorite 3/4" solid - Smoked Almond Acacia
http://www.simplefloors.com/products/Exotics-Flooring/Passport-Collection-2/Smoked-Almond/flooring727.aspx
Second mention - any of the Reclamation Plank
http://www.simplefloors.com/products/Hand-Scraped-Flooring/Reclamation-Plank/collection21.aspx

Bamboo
ANY Strand (Lidia, Len, Reneelyn)
Burnt Mocha (Debbie)
Strand Bora (Chace, Rick, Tommy, Tammi)
Strand Carbonized (Julie, Shannon, Lesley, Cece, Jason)
Strand Natural (Dave)
Zebrano Charred (Ryan, Stephen, Charlie, Kristina)

Link to Top Favorite Bamboo - Strand, Strand, Strand
http://www.simplefloors.com/products/Bamboo-Flooring/Nature-Strand-Woven/collection39.aspx

Cork - (sorry I forgot to put this on my poll, so only a few people gave their opinion)
Cobblestone (Debbie)
Durango or Harmony(Cece)

Hand-scraped
Acacia Old World Chisel(Christian)
Any Old World Chisel (Julie, Sherin, Reneelyn)
Brazilian Teak Vintage Couture (Tammi)
Golden Topaz Old World Chisel (Dave)
Hickory Old World Chisel (Lesley)
Lapacho Vintage Couture (Stephen, Lidia)
Machu Pichu Old World Chisel (Jason)
Natural African Hickory Old World Chisel (Lesley, Cece)
Natural African Walnut Old World Chisel (Debbie)
Roasted Almond Old World Chisel (Chace, Ryan, Rick, Mallery)
True Teak Vintage Couture (Shannon)

Link to Top Favorite Hand-scraped - Roasted Almond Old World Chisel
http://www.simplefloors.com/products/Exotics-Flooring/Old-World-Chisel/Roasted-Almond/flooring752.aspx

Laminate
Aged Hickory True Timber (Stephen, Rick, Len, Reneelyn)
ANY Masterpiece (Lidia)
Calladium Block Genva-Loc (Julie)
Cedar Masterpiece (Lesley, Cece)
Cinnamon Genva-Loc (Len)
Fedora Masterpiece (Chace)
Purple Heart True Timber (Ryan, Tommy, Charlie, Kristina, Jason)
Santos Mahogany True Timber (Shannon)
Varnished Walnut Masterpiece (Debbie, Tammi)

Link to Top Favorite Laminate - Purple Heart True Timber
http://www.simplefloors.com/products/Laminate-Flooring/True-Timber-Premium-Laminate/Purple-Heart/flooring809.aspx

In case you are interested - both couple #1 and couple #2 purchased their beautiful new floors from simpleFLOORS that day :)

How to Build Your Personal Brand and Sell More!

How to Build Your Personal Brand and Sell More!

What is a brand?
A distinguishing symbol, mark, logo, name, word, sentence, or a combination of these items that companies use to distinguish their product from others in the market. (Dictionary.com)

How do you build your "brand"?
Internet - Website, online reviews, rankings on search engines, SEO, links, social networks such as Twitter & Facebook, and advertising.
Reputation - Being known for something whether it be particular product, quality, customer service, experience.
Word of mouth - Customers telling others about your brand/product/service.
Guerilla marketing - Unconventional marketing intended to get maximum results from minimal resources.
Advertising - Online, print, mailers, coupons, etc.
Quality - Making sure that what you sell is quality, whether it be product, education, customer service, or experience.
Google and other search engine searches - Rankings, reviews, advertising and websites.
Viral marketing - Viral marketing describes any strategy that encourages individuals to pass on a marketing message to others, creating the potential for exponential growth in the message's exposure and influence. Like viruses, such strategies take advantage of rapid multiplication to explode the message to thousands, to millions.

How many times do you need to see something before you recognize a brand?
I have no idea!! But I do know that the more your "brand" is recognized- the more success you will have reaching your potential customers as well. When doing direct mail or email campaigns, you get an increased open rate when they have a positive reaction to your name (hey- it's an email fromTammi at simpleFLOORS!)
Current open rate for direct mail advertising - 2.61% (varies based on industry)
Current open rate for email advertising 14 - 17% (for Retail)

Brands that may not be "the best in their category" but because of their brand awareness are recognizable to a huge population.
Bruce hardwood
Pergo
Band-aid
Kleenex
Coke
Nike
Google
Campbell's soup
Marlboro
Chesterfield - if you don't know what the heck this is, please contact Dave

How do you build your personal "brand"?
Do you what you say you will do
Educate - your customers know what they want even if they don't know they do
Under-promise, over-deliver
Ask for referrals
Be honest
Quality
Get recommendations or reviews posted about you and the product you have sold
Have integrity

Why invest in creating your own personal brand?
Look at this equation...
You get 1 person to recognize your "brand" with quality (product, follow through, personality, customer service, you name it) - and so they buy from you (you personally or your company- depending whose brand they believe in) instead of the competitor.

This one customer tells a couple of friends (you remember the commercial if you are old enough) and 2 of them decide to try you out based on getting that same branding experience (customer service, honest answers and information, fabulous product and price, etc.). This continues to build as your name gets passed on because you have a brand that people trust. This has unlimited potential.
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So my advice is to live up to your potential! If you need help doing that, please reach out- your team here at simpleFLOORS is here to support you!

Interesting links re: brand
Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brand
Social Definition of a brand
http://www.engagingexperience.com/2009/08/a-more-social-definition-of-brand.html
A is for Advertising, B is for Brand - article
http://www.zpd.net/shtimes.htm
Email marketing metrics
http://cdn.mailermailer.com/documents/email-marketing-metrics-2008h2.pdf

EcoMetro approves Simplefloors as local green company!

Simplefloors was reviewed and approve by www.ecometro.com as a local green company!

Eco-Metro helps keep you up to date with monthly green tips, green coupons, and local approved green listed businesses. Simplefloors is proud to be accepted as a green business!

See our listing below!

http://www.ecometro.com/eastbay/organization.aspx?orgID=03f371a0-fa79-47ce-8fb1-7c453fd6197a

Hard Surface Flooring vs. Home Sales

I recently purchased a new home and wanted to share my home shopping experience and what I noticed along the way in terms of hard surface flooring. We all know now is a great time to buy and there is a healthy inventory of homes for sale. That being said shoppers can be a bit pickier than normal in these times and a decision could be made purely on the flooring in certain cases. After viewing over 60 homes I came to the realization that a home with hardwood flooring definitely has a better sense of value and has a noticeably cleaner feel and look. When you walk in the door of a home with carpet you instantly can feel the difference in my eyes, and more often than not you can smell the difference as well. When you walk into a similar home with hardwoods it just feels nicer, and seems like it’s worth more like I mentioned before. When reviewing the homes with carpet and the homes with hardwood I noticed the asking price was higher almost every time with hardwoods. To give my point some justice when I walked into a carpeted home and my realtor dropped his card it was typically placed next to one or two others that were barely recognizable covered in dust. While walking into a home with hardwoods his card was placed on a pile that looked like that jar at your local sandwich shop to win a free lunch had been dumped out. It is obviously apparent these days that most knowledgeable homeowners are ripping out their carpet to replace with a hardwood floor. Bottom line you can list your home for a higher price, and have a better chance of selling it compared to the comparable home with carpet.

simpleFLOORS helps fight Breast Cancer!

simpleFLOORS helps fight Breast Cancer!

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women in the United States, aside from skin cancer. According to the American Cancer Society (ACS), an estimated 192,370 new cases of invasive breast cancer are expected to be diagnosed among women in the United States this year. An estimated 40,170 women are expected to die from the disease in 2009 alone. Today, there are about 2.5 million breast cancer survivors living in the United States.

simpleFLOORS was a proud Title sponsor this year of the Pink Ribbon Classic Golf Tournament at the River Club Golf Course in Suwanee, GA - where one of our partners resides, golfs, and is an active member within the community.

Some great websites to learn more-
Pink Ribbon Classic
http://www.pinkribbonclassic.org/index.htm
National Breast Cancer Awareness Month
http://www.nbcam.org/about_nbcam.cfm
Susan G Komen for the Cure
http://ww5.komen.org/
The Breast Cancer Site (click for free to help give free mammograms to women in need)
http://www.thebreastcancersite.com/clickToGive/home.faces?siteId=2
Athena Bottled water
http://www.athenapartners.org/

Blogging and Natural Search - flooring websites

Blogging and Natural Search

I feel blogs are interesting... a neat way to learn about what is important to specific companies, or groups of people that contribute to their particular blog.

That being said, I have been recently enlightened and dismayed by the current trend to post totally non-sensical and fake articles in company blogs purely to get better search optimization on search engines.

Although I agree that getting the most out of your company blog... education for your employees and potential customers should be priority, extra clicks should just be frosting on the cake- not the entree. Reading some of the fake articles out there by others in the flooring business makes me sad (and angry when the "advice" is clearly wrong and just worded for more clicks) as I think it is our job to inform potential customers through our company blogs, not just get some free advertising.

Ok, I am jumping off my soapbox now.

Information re: Natural or Organic Search - Wikipedia
The Google, Yahoo!, and Bing search engines combine advertising and search results on their search results pages. In each case, the adverts are designed to look like the search results, except for minor visual distinctions such as their background color and/or placement on the page. Further, the appearance of the adverts on all major search engines is so similar to the genuine search results that a large majority of search engine users cannot effectively distinguish between them.
Because so few ordinary users (38% according to Pew) realized that many of the highest placed 'results' on search engine results pages were actually adverts, it became important within the search engine optimization industry to distinguish between the two types of content. As the perspective among general users was that all the results were in fact 'results', the qualifier 'organic' was invented to distinguish the real search results from the adverts. Because the distinction is important (and the word 'organic' has many useful metaphorical uses) the term is now in widespread use within the search engine optimization and web marketing industry. It is, as of July 2009, now in common currency outside the specialist web marketing industry, being used frequently by Google (throughout the Google Analytics site for instance).
Google claims that their users click (organic) search results more often than adverts, which has led them to rebut the research cited above.
The same report (and others going back to 1997) by Pew shows that users avoid clicking 'results' that they know to be adverts.

Seattle simpleFLOORS gives back to the community aka "Teddy Bears in Tukwila"

In the Tukwila/Seattle store location we have the luxury of having a good sized showroom for our flooring displays and a warehouse in the back. One of the partners here has allowed his mom to keep a few boxes of personal items in the back, on a temporary basis. Last week she came in and sorted through some boxes, and found a box of stuffed animals. They were primarily teddy bears, most being beanie babies with their tags still on. She generously offered to give them to me to bring home to my 3 year old daughter, Riley. I thought there are other children who could use these teddy bears more than Riley (believe me, she is not lacking for toys). I called the local police station and asked if they were in need of any new teddy bears for their Operation Teddy Bear program. The nice officer who answered the phone immediately said "yes, we can definitely use them to give to children in need". In about an hour local Tukwila police officer came by and picked up the box full of teddy bears for the kids. The team at the Tukwila simpleFLOORS store feels good about being able to help 15-20 kids in trauma feel a little better with a new teddy bear to snuggle with. Just so no one feels bad for Riley... there were a few stuffed animals that were not teddy bears, so I brought those home to her.

Operation Teddy Bear Info (this is available in most cities!)
The program centers around helping young children who have been exposed to or involved in a traumatic incident involving police intervention. Ex: Domestic disputes, accidents involving injury. Children are given a teddy bear to keep, to help the officer form a bond with the child and also console the child. Teddy bears are donated by a private citizen.