Send us a text It’s been 5 years and 3 months, 283 episodes, and countless guests. All good things must come to an end though. I am honoring the show by taking it back to my very first guests Ken Ballin and Allen Lewis to see how we all have changed over the last 5 years. What’s new, what’s different, and how our goals have changed. Change is a necessary part of life and so is reflection. Enjoy this look back on the show, the industry, and our lives. Special thanks to all of our sponsors. I’ll star with Jason Goldberg who was the first sponsor of the show with Retail Lead Management and Tralam ..read more

Send us a text How important are the words you choose to use on your website, marketing and even in your daily conversations? How does it affect the way you are viewed, your products, or even your business? I have been big on making sure to say client over customer and project over job for a long time and there are others. Kerry Lenz has also shifted the words she uses in her business to better convey what separates Rice’s More Than Floors in their market. Kerry Lenz and her husband Brad own Rice’s More Than Floors which they acquired in 2016 from Brad’s parents. The store has a beautiful his ..read more

Send us a text How did you originally decide to name your company? Have you ever thought of changing your name? What kind of damage will it cause? Will people still recognize you? Will you lose clientele? What does it take to rebrand an entire company? Shane Levinson is a serial entrepreneur and combat veteran. Shane started in the flooring business with his father Jerry Levinson nearly a decade ago, posting an average of 40% annual growth for our first 7 years.  In 2021 Shane bought out his Dads stake in the company and in 2023 rebranded the company from Carpets of Arizona to Vision Flo ..read more

Send us a text Where do you find the time to write a blog, book client appointments, setup marketing campaigns, and get installs done? It’s a lot of hats to wear and we didn’t even get in to all of the other ones you wear. Technology has come a long way though and it’s here to help you in ways you never imagined. Cartoons like “The Jetsons” are soon to be reality with robots in homes and businesses, as well as, computers that complete simple tasks for you. Jason Potts is the owner of RIC Flooring in Cedar Rapids, IA. Starting as an installer and moving into a store owner, Jason found himself ..read more

Send us a text How much does your workman’s comp cost you? What are you classifying your employees as? What are you subs classified as? Did you know that core tasks dictate classification and different classes have different rates? Someone in the field using dangerous power tools will cost you far more than someone in an office sitting at a computer. How do you figure out when you can change a classification and is all this penny pinching really worth it? Brad Lenz and his wife Kerry own Rice’s More Than Floors which they acquired in 2016 from his parents. The store has a beautiful history da ..read more

Send us a text 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 up episode. We discuss the power of networking, how it has built our businesses and helped our lives, as well as, where we see the industry headed because of ..read more

Send us a text A single crew is easy to manage especially if you are on it. Two crews is manageable. More than that and you start having a lot of moving pieces between availability, type of work possible to assign, type of work produced, etc. How can you not only manage a schedule effectively for yourself but with great communication to the clients as well? Marcos Guerequeta is the owner of Local Flooring Group in Saskatchewan, Canada. With a focus on social media marketing, he built up the brand to have a reputation that is held in high regard. Going forward he is looking to improve the oper ..read more

Send us a text 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 anyone and that we are better off just remaining as a one man show or possibly just having a helper that we never plan to fully train. There is a bett ..read more

Send us a text Why does one store have a product priced at X amount of dollars and another at Y? Why does the price change as I move through different regions of the country? What goes in to pricing a product for national distribution? Why is having this conversation with other installers who don’t understand the big picture a pointless exercise? Multi-time guest, fan favorite, and friend of the show, Ron Nash returns to the Floor Academy Podcast to discuss national pricing by looking at raw material costs, manufacturing, logistics, purchasing power, and the ever so important business model ..read more

Send us a text Have you ever wondered how to get the higher end projects? What does it take to accomplish them? Who do you need to know? How do you need to perform? There are plenty of things that need to change and thinking that you do the best work in town isn’t going to cut it. Chris Resti owns Crest Tile and Mosaic near Rochester, NY. With a focus on fabricating mosaics and wall art, his journey didn’t begin there. Retail, food service, education and entertainment were some of the stops along the way before becoming a journeyman tile setter. Now running his own thing, Chris wants to reach ..read more