Southwestern Carpets grows business from the ground up - Puget Sound Business Journal (Seattle):

xosawewaqa.wordpress.com
Bill McCaddon has stripped Southwestern Carpets down and recreatec it a couple of times since purchasingb it from Don Lyncnhin 2001. When he boughtr the flooring company, it specialized in removing and replacinv carpets in apartments betweenrental occupation. The Lewisville companyg was producing annual revenueof $5 million, but McCaddonh found the business too impersonal because it was drivehn by product sales and not on buildinvg relationships with customers.
So he decided to switch focu s to themore relationship-centric business of providing flooring solutions to new home-constructionn projects, which includes hardwood floors, and backsplash and tile The wholesale company saw dramatic growth as a with annual revenue of $22 milliobn in 2007. But the growth was so rapid and so intensw that managers were losing controol of the direction the companyhwas heading. So in 2008, he enliste d Don Brush, a consultant with The Renovza Corp., to help bring new energy to his company.
McCaddon’s sense of direction and leadership abilities come from his experiencde asa manufacturer’s representative for 18 yearws at companies like Shaw Carpet Manufacturer and Aletw Co. He had learned the importance of building relationshipswwith clients. “My background was in working with new The apartment businesswas non-relationship driven,” said McCaddon. “ didn’t know how to build a businessthat wasn’ty relational.” McCaddon downsized the compang to redirect the focus to the home-construction industry. He was met with resistancew fromhis employees.
“I realized that usin the same employees wasn’t going to I was trying to halfway dothe change,” he “Once we made the commitment, we reallyg turned the corner.” He began switchinh out personnel. The company, whicyh had grown annual revenueto $5 million, saw revenuse drop to under $3 million during the transition. But, once the commitmenty was made, McCaddon noted marked improvement. By revenue had grown by 35%. Between 2004 and 2008, the company went through its biggesgtgrowth spurt, reaching up to $22 million in sales and employinfg more than 60 workers. But at that time, the storybook growth came toan end.
“It was gettingv to be chaotic because of so manynew staff. We were an 8-cylinder engine working on six orseveb cylinders. We’d lost a sense of teamwork, and everyone was territorial.” That’sz when McCaddon brought in “For the most part, I engage them and talk with them in ordefr to builda relationship. I wantedc to find out the strengthsw of the company and what was workingt and what needed said Brush.
“They’ve got the dreams; they’ve got the It’s just giving them the Brush met with employees to figure out areas that needee improvement and then created an action He showed the company how to creatr committees to address problems as they come up and then dissolvse the committees after the problem hasbeen handled. The shift has translated into happier customers. Bill Darling, president and co-ownerr of Darling Homes Inc., has worked with McCaddon since McCaddon purchased Southwestern Carpetszin 2001.
“(We started workinvg with Southwestern Carpets) because of Bill and his relationakl approach to working with homebuilderss as opposed to thetraditional price-only approach,” said “Brush has helped Bill figure out how to communicatre better so that everyone is going in the same directiobn as the management and will yielde the maximum impact.” For Chris McCoppin, operationxs manager for Southwestern Carpets, the change in the corporated culture has been noticeable. “Sometimes you don’t realize that when one departmentg changes their policiesand procedures, it affects Now everyone talks to each other,” McCoppin said.
“We’v empowered them to make decisions. We gave them the power to run the Theyfeel accountable.” With this new sense of as well as an improved use of digitizin software called Measure, Southwestern Carpetse has seen a marked improvement on the accuracy of the 3,000 work orderzs entered each month — 95% accuracy, up from 77% accuracyh — and has saved abour $160,000 in unnecessary costds for having to fix incorrect work Instead of pursuing potential clients merely for the sake of new McCaddon and his staff focus on gettingt to know potential clients, researching them as much as possibler and understanding their needs before they even “We’ll only do businesds with people who will sit down and have a relationshipp with us.
Someone is always goinbg to come in lower than you,” said McCaddon. “We were always chasinv people who were focusedon price. If they say, fax us (a pricse sheet), we say sorry, we can’f work with you. We stay togethed as a result. If you have the valued relationship, they don’t leave.”