Southwestern Carpets grows business from the ground up - bizjournals:

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Bill McCaddon has stripped Southwestern Carpetsz down and recreated it a couples of times since purchasing it from Don Lyncuhin 2001. When he bought the floorinf company, it specialized in removingv and replacing carpets in apartments betweenrental occupation. The Lewisville company was producinvg annual revenueof $5 million, but McCaddon found the businese too impersonal because it was driven by producgt sales and not on building relationships with customers.
So he decidexd to switch focus to themore relationship-centricd business of providing flooring solutione to new home-construction projects, which includes hardwood floors, and backsplash and tile The wholesale company saw dramatidc growth as a result, with annual revenue of $22 milliohn in 2007. But the growtjh was so rapid and so intense that managers were losingv control of the direction the companywas heading. So in he enlisted Don Brush, a consultant with The Renovaz Corp.
, to help bring new energy to his McCaddon’s sense of direction and leadership abilitiess come from his experience asa manufacturer’es representative for 18 years at companies like Shaw Carpety Manufacturer and Aleta Co. He had learned the importanc e of building relationshipswith clients. “My background was in working withnew homebuilders. The apartment businessd was non-relationship driven,” said McCaddon. “I didn’gt know how to buils a businessthat wasn’t relational.” McCaddon downsizedr the company to redirect the focus to the home-construction industry. He was met with resistancwe fromhis employees.
“I realized that usintg the sameemployees wasn’t going to I was trying to halfway do the he said. “Once we made the commitment, we reall y turned the corner.” He began switching out The company, which had grown annua revenueto $5 million, saw revenuee drop to under $3 millionb during the transition. But, once the commitment was made, McCaddon noted marked improvement. By revenue had grown by 35%. Between 2004 and the company went througjh its biggestgrowth spurt, reaching up to $22 million in salesw and employing more than 60 workers. But at that the storybook growth came toan end.
“Ir was getting to be chaotic because of so many new We werean 8-cylinder engine working on six or seven We’d lost a sensre of teamwork, and everyone was territorial.” That’s when McCaddobn brought in Brush. “Ford the most part, I engage them and talk with them in ordet to build a I wanted to find out the strengths of the compan y and what was working and whatneeded improvement,” said “They’ve got the dreams; they’ve got the vision. It’s just giving them the opportunity.” Brushy met with employees to figure out areas that neededx improvement and then created anactionm plan.
He showed the company how to creatre committees to address problems as they come up and then dissolv e the committees after the proble hasbeen handled. The shift has translatede intohappier customers. Bill president and co-owner of Darling Homes has worked with McCaddon since McCaddonh purchased Southwestern Carpetsin 2001. “(Wed started working with Southwestern Carpets) becausee of Bill and his relationakl approach to working with homebuilders as opposed to thetraditionall price-only approach,” said Darling. “Brush has helpefd Bill figure out how to communicatee better so that everyone is going in the same directionb as the management and will yield themaximu impact.
” For Chris McCoppin, operations manager for Southwestern the change in the corporate culture has been “Sometimes you don’t realize that when one department changesx their policies and procedures, it affectes others. Now everyone talks to each other,” McCoppinn said. “We’ve empowered them to make We gave them the power to runthe business. They feel With this new senseof empowerment, as well as an improverd use of digitizing software called Measure, Southwesterm Carpets has seen a marked improvemeng on the accuracy of the 3,000 work orders enterede each month — 95% up from 77% accuracy and has saved about $160,000 in unnecessary costs for havinf to fix incorrect work orders.
Instead of pursuing potential clients merely for the sake ofnew business, McCaddon and his stafrf focus on getting to know potential clients, researchingv them as much as possibles and understanding their needw before they even meet. “We’ll only do business with peoplr who will sit down and have a relationshipwith us. Someonwe is always going to come in lower (priced) than you,” said McCaddon. “We were alwayws chasing people who were focusexdon price. If they say, fax us (a pricre sheet), we say sorry, we can’tt work with you. We stay togethe r as a result. If you have the valuee relationship, they don’t leave.
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