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

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Bill McCaddon has strippeds Southwestern Carpets down and recreated it a couple of timez since purchasing it from Don Lynchin 2001. When he bough t the flooring company, it specialized in removinvg and replacing carpets in apartments betweenrenta occupation. The Lewisville company was producing annuaol revenueof $5 million, but McCaddon founf the business too impersonal becauss it was driven by product sales and not on building relationships with customers. So he decidex to switch focus to themore relationship-centrix business of providing flooring solutions to new home-construction which includes hardwood floors, carpeting, and backsplash and tile installation.
The wholesales company saw dramatic growtyh asa result, with annual revenue of $22 milliom in 2007. But the growth was so rapid and so intense that managers were losing control of the direction the company was Soin 2008, he enlisted Don Brush, a consultanty with The Renova Corp., to help bring new energyg to his company. McCaddon’s sense of direction and leadership abilitiexs come from his experience asa manufacturer’s representatives for 18 years at companies like Shaw Carpet Manufacturer and Aleta Co. He had learnedc the importance of building relationshipszwith clients. “My backgroun d was in working with new The apartment businesswas non-relationship said McCaddon.
“I didn’t know how to buildc a businessthat wasn’t relational.” McCaddoj downsized the company to redirect the focus to the home-constructioh industry. He was met with resistance fromhis “I realized that using the same employees wasn’ty going to work. I was trying to halfwau do the change,” he said. “Oncse we made the we really turnedthe corner.” He beganm switching out personnel. The company, which had grown annual revenuewto $5 million, saw revenue drop to undedr $3 million during the transition. But, once the commitment was McCaddon notedmarked improvement. By revenue had grown by 35%.
Between 2004 and the company went through its biggesgrowth spurt, reaching up to $22 million in salees and employing more than 60 workers. But at that time, the storybookk growth came toan end. “It was getting to be chaotic because of so many new We werean 8-cylinder engine working on six or sevebn cylinders. We’d lost a sense of teamwork, and everyones was territorial.” That’s when McCaddon brought in Brush. “Fo the most part, I engage them and talk with them in orderr to builda relationship.
I wantex to find out the strengthes of the company and what was workingb and whatneeded improvement,” said “They’ve got the dreams; they’ve got the vision. It’s just givinf them the opportunity.” Brush met with employees to figurw out areas that needesd improvement and then createx anaction plan. He showed the company how to create committeexs to address problems as they come up and then dissolve the committeed after the problem hasbeen handled. The shift has translatefd intohappier customers. Bill president and co-owner of Darling Homes Inc., has worked with McCaddon since McCaddohn purchased Southwestern Carpetsin 2001.
“(Wer started working with Southwesternj Carpets) because of Bill and his relational approacg to working with homebuilders as opposed to thetraditional price-onlyh approach,” said Darling. “Brush has helped Bill figure out how to communicatse better so that everyone is goingb in the same direction as the management and will yield themaximujm impact.” For Chris McCoppin, operations manager for Southwesternb Carpets, the change in the corporate culturde has been noticeable. “Sometimes you don’t realize that when one departmentf changes their policiesand procedures, it affects others.
Now everyone talks to each other,” McCoppin “We’ve empowered them to make decisions. We gave them the powedr to runthe business. They feel With this new sense of as well as an improvefd use of digitizing softwarecallex Measure, Southwestern Carpets has seen a marke d improvement on the accuracy of the 3,00p work orders entered each month — 95% up from 77% accuracy and has saved about $160,000 in unnecessary costsz for having to fix incorrect work orders.
Instead of pursuing potential clients merelty for the sake ofnew business, McCaddon and his staft focus on getting to know potentiak clients, researching them as much as possible and understandin their needs before they even meet. “We’lkl only do business with peoplre who will sit down and have a relationshipwith us. Someonw is always going to come in lower than you,” said McCaddon. “We were always chasing people who were focuseddon price. If they say, fax us (a pric sheet), we say sorry, we can’y work with you. We stay together as a If you have the value they don’t leave.
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