Best Practices: Atlanta Flooring Design Center's multi-pronged approach to diversification - May 2018

Pre-recession, AFDC was a very different business than it is today. To start, the operation had five retail locations on the north side of Atlanta. “During our first 23 years in business,” explains Phillips, “we did considerably more commercial and retail business than builder. But in 2008, we had a great opportunity to get into the builder market, so we made the move, hired some folks, including Mark Tunick, who today is director of builder sales for Georgia and Alabama. At that time, we also decided to consolidate our retail operations under one roof and built our headquarters in Suwannee. In April 2009, we officially entered the builder market, and that transformed the business. We opened our first out-of-town branch in Charlotte, and by the end of 2012, we became more a builder business than commercial or retail.” Today, AFDC does about 68% of its business in the builder market, 20% is commercial, 5% is cabinets and the balance is retail/outlets/carpet cleaning. The retail business has four components: traditional residential remodel; cash-and-carry outlet operations; a retail cabinet business, which also operates under the builder umbrella; and carpet cleaning.

AFDC surpassed the $100 million mark in 2017, and Phillips is obviously proud of that accomplishment, but growth isn’t his central focus. “I don’t want to wake up each day and try to be a bigger business,” he explains. “I want to strive to be a better business. At the end of the day, the sales are what they are.”

To this end, Phillips, his executive team and all managers across the business are participating in management training through The Center for Leadership Studies. “We undertook a management training initiative last year, a situational leadership course, and we have 40 employees currently going through it. We are learning to be more efficient, to have systems in place, to dial down on the details of each and every job. The executive team can’t be everywhere as the business grows, and we need our managers to carry more of the burden. The course is a lot of money but well-spent-it’s very important to us to have managers who are managing and leading consistently.” Interestingly, Phillips believes that training not only produces a better employee but one who will stick around longer. “Between 2015 and 2017, we found that if we didn’t train employees well,” he explains, “our turnover rate was not good. But it’s getting better now, and we’re on the path to provide the customer service that our customers deserve from each employee.”

AFDC’s installers are all subs, and the company believes it’s important to invest in their education as well. Phillips believes strongly in the work Robert Varden is doing with the Certified Flooring Installers Association (CFI) and notes that, while it’s expensive to send installers to CFI classes, the payout is beneficial. “Not all our installers are certified, but we feel that if we can move the ball each year, it helps the industry,” he notes.

That being said, Phillips reports that consistency on the installation side of the business is the greatest challenge that AFDC faces. “We do a good job, and we know that if we do a good job consistently, that the growth and health of the business will always be there. It’s important for us to train new installers and make sure that the ones we have are trained properly. We want to make them feel that they have a future with us.”