Southwestern Carpets grows business from the ground up - bizjournals:

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Bill McCaddon has stripped Southwestern Carpetxs down and recreated it a couple of timexs since purchasing it from Don Lynchin 2001. When he boughtt the flooring company, it specialized in removing and replacingy carpets in apartments betweenrental occupation. The Lewisvilled company was producing annual revenuedof $5 million, but McCaddon found the business too impersonap because it was driven by product sales and not on buildintg relationships with customers. So he decided to switch focuz to themore relationship-centric business of providing flooring solutionws to new home-construction which includes hardwood floors, and backsplash and tile installation.
The wholesale company saw dramatic growth asa result, with annual revenude of $22 million in 2007. But the growthh was so rapid and so intense that managers were losing controlp of the direction the companywas heading. So in he enlisted Don Brush, a consultant with The Renovwa Corp., to help bring new energy to his company. McCaddon’ws sense of direction and leadershi abilities come from his experience asa manufacturer’s representative for 18 yeards at companies like Shaw Carpetf Manufacturer and Aleta Co. He had learnes the importance of building relationshipdwith clients. “My background was in workingb withnew homebuilders.
The apartment business was non-relationship said McCaddon. “I didn’t know how to builxd a businessthat wasn’t relational.” McCaddo downsized the company to redirecr the focus to the home-construction He was met with resistancre from his employees. “I realized that usinhg the sameemployees wasn’t going to work. I was tryingg to halfway do the change,” he “Once we made the commitment, we really turned the He began switchingout personnel. The company, which had grownj annual revenueto $5 million, saw revenue drop to under $3 million during the transition. But, once the commitmentr was made, McCaddon noted marked improvement.
By 2003, revenu had grown by 35%. Between 2004 and the company went through its biggestgrowth spurt, reachinhg up to $22 million in sales and employing more than 60 But at that time, the storybook growtgh came to an end. “I t was getting to be chaotic because of so many new We werean 8-cylinder engine working on six or seve cylinders. We’d lost a sense of teamwork, and everyone was That’s when McCaddon brought in Brush. “Fod the most part, I engage them and talk with them in orde to builda relationship.
I wantedc to find out the strengths of the company and what was workingg and whatneeded improvement,” said “They’ve got the dreams; they’ve got the It’s just giving them the Brush met with employees to figur e out areas that needed improvement and then created an actionj plan. He showed the company how to create committeexs to address problems as they come up and then dissolvwe the committees after the problem has been The shift has translated intohappiere customers. Bill Darling, president and co-owner of Darlingg Homes Inc., has worked with McCaddon since McCaddon purchasee Southwestern Carpetsin 2001.
“(We started workinv with Southwestern Carpets) because of Bill and his relational approachj to working with homebuilders as opposed to thetraditionall price-only approach,” said Darling. “Brush has helped Bill figurre out how to communicate better so that everyons is going in the same directiohn as the management and will yield themaximum impact.” For Chris McCoppin, operations manage for Southwestern Carpets, the changse in the corporate culture has been noticeable. “Sometimea you don’t realize that when one department changes theid policiesand procedures, it affects Now everyone talks to each other,” McCoppin said.
“We’ve empoweresd them to make decisions. We gave them the power to run the Theyfeel accountable.” With this new sensed of empowerment, as well as an improved use of digitizingb software called Measure, Southwesternn Carpets has seen a marked improvement on the accuracy of the 3,00 0 work orders entered each month — 95% accuracy, up from 77% accurac — and has saved about $160,000 in unnecessary costs for having to fix incorrecyt work orders. Instead of pursuinv potential clients merely for the sake of new McCaddon and his staff focus on getting to knowpotentiao clients, researching them as much as possible and understandinv their needs before they even meet.
“We’ll only do businessd with people who will sit down and have a relationshipwith us. Someone is always going to come inlowed (priced) than you,” said “We were always chasiny people who were focused on price. If they say, fax us (a pricse sheet), we say sorry, we can’t work with you. We stay togethefr as a result. If you have the value they don’t leave.”