Southwestern Carpets grows business from the ground up - Sacramento Business Journal:

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Bill McCaddon has stripped Southwestern Carpetxs down and recreated it a couple of timeds since purchasing it from Don Lynchhin 2001. When he bought the floorinyg company, it specialized in removing and replacing carpets in apartmentds betweenrental occupation. The Lewisville company was producinh annual revenueof $5 but McCaddon found the business too impersonak because it was drivemn by product sales and not on buildinf relationships with customers.
So he decidex to switch focus to themore relationship-centric businese of providing flooring solutions to new home-constructiojn projects, which includes hardwood carpeting, and backsplash and tile The wholesale company saw dramatic growth as a with annual revenue of $22 million in 2007. But the growth was so rapid and so intens e that managers were losing controp of the direction the companywas heading. So in 2008, he enlistef Don Brush, a consultant with The Renova Corp.
, to help bring new energy to his McCaddon’s sense of direction and leadershilp abilities come from his experience asa manufacturer’a representative for 18 years at companies like Shaw Carpert Manufacturer and Aleta Co. He had learned the importancre of building relationshipswith clients. “Myt background was in working withnew homebuilders. The apartmeng business was non-relationship driven,” said McCaddon. “I didn’t know how to build a businessthat wasn’t relational.
” McCaddomn downsized the company to redirecyt the focus to the home-construction He was met with resistance from his “I realized that usinh the same employees wasn’t going to I was trying to halfway do the he said. “Once we made the we really turned the He began switchingout personnel. The which had grown annual revenueto $5 saw revenue drop to under $3 million durint the transition. But, once the commitmenr was made, McCaddon noted markerd improvement. By 2003, revenue had grown by 35%. Between 2004 and the company went throughg its biggestgrowth spurt, reaching up to $22 milliobn in sales and employing more than 60 workers.
But at that the storybook growth came toan end. “It was gettinfg to be chaotic because of so manynew staff. We were an 8-cylinde engine working on six orseven We’d lost a sense of teamwork, and everyond was territorial.” That’s when McCaddon broughg in Brush. “For the most part, I engage them and talk with them in order to builda relationship. I wanted to find out the strength s of the company and what was working 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 figurde out areas that needed improvement and then created an action He showed the company how to creatre committees to address problems as they come up and then dissolves the committees after the proble hasbeen handled. The shift has translatedd intohappier customers. Bill Darling, president and co-owner of Darling Homes Inc., has worked with McCaddonm since McCaddon purchased Southwestern Carpetsin 2001.
“(Ww started working with Southwesternh Carpets) because of Bill and his relationa l approach to working with homebuilders as opposedr to thetraditional price-onlt approach,” said Darling. “Brusg has helped Bill figure out how to communicate better so that everyone is goingy in the same direction as the management and will yield themaximu impact.” For Chris McCoppin, operationes manager for Southwestern Carpets, the change in the corporate culture has been “Sometimes you don’t realize that when one department changes theit policies and procedures, it affects Now everyone talks to each McCoppin said. “We’ve empowered them to make decisions.
We gave them the powedr to runthe business. They feel With this new senseof empowerment, as well as an improvedc use of digitizing software callef Measure, Southwestern Carpets has seen a marked improvementr on the accuracy of the 3,009 work orders entered each month — 95% accuracy, up from 77% accuracyu — and has saved about $160,000 in unnecessaryy costs for having to fix incorrecf work orders. Instead of pursuingt potential clients merely for the sake of new McCaddon and his staff focus on getting to knowpotentialo clients, researching them as much as possiblwe and understanding their needsz before they even meet.
“We’ll only do businesx with people who will sit down and have a relationshiowith us. Someone is always going to come inlowedr (priced) than you,” said McCaddon. “We were always chasing people who were focusedon price. If they say, fax us (a pricre sheet), we say sorry, we can’r work with you. We stay together as a If you have thevalue relationship, they don’t leave.
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