Portland, OR, July 15--Betty and Lionel Walklate ran a perfectly fine flooring company for 21 years. But it wasn't enough for their daughter, Judith Huck.
Classique Floors had an unblemished credit history and a solid reputation, along with enough steady business to keep the couple and their three employees working 10 hours a day, five days a week.
It was still a mom-and-pop store, though, predominantly operated by the owners. Evidence? Business slowed each time the Walklates took a rare vacation.
Huck bought the company from her parents in 1998 at an undisclosed price with dreams of turning Classique Floors into a growing business that could function without an owner's day-to-day care. She also wanted it to be consistently profitable.
"I just wanted more," Huck said. "I don't think it's greed. It's having passion about the business and wanting to do more than just come to a job every day."
The transformation -- a mini-branding campaign to build the profile not only of the business but also of Huck -- is still under way. But Huck thinks she's on the right track.
Classique Floors, which had $650,000 in sales in 1998, sold $1.5 million worth of flooring in 2003. The total employee count, including ownership, is at 11, up from five during the parents' stewardship. And Huck is poised to move the store from a hard-to-find location off a parking lot along Southeast Stark Street, with a 1,500-square-foot showroom, to a building directly on Stark, with a 4,000-square-foot showroom.
"We're so proud of her for what she is doing," said Lionel Walklate, 71. "When someone has been in the business as long as me, you don't look ahead. She does."
Huck is attempting a difficult transition, business experts agree.
"She's starting to focus on running a business rather than just selling a product," said Jackie Babicky-Peterson, an instructor with Portland Community College's Small Business Development Center. "There's an entire philosophical difference between being self-employed and having a business. Huck has chosen to have a business."
Huck first took highly visible steps to get the Classique Floors' name out in the Gresham/East Portland community. She developed lawn signs to be placed outside during each residential flooring job. She ordered shirts with the company name for employees to wear. And she had "Classique Floors" painted on the company's two trucks.
The next steps were more elaborate: producing a company Web site, launching an annual "ugliest floor" contest with a $1,000 prize, debuting a series of seminars and teaching employees to promote the company.
"It's been a big learning curve because I didn't have management skills," Huck said. She has compiled a small library of books on running and promoting small businesses, taken classes at the Small Business Development Center and retained a personal business coach.
Huck thinks the biggest payoff came from her effort to become personally known and respected in her community. She joined both the Gresham and East Portland chambers of commerce, attends virtually all of the organizations' networking functions and hosts some in her Stark Street store.
"This kind of business is all about relationships," she said. "You can't just join organizations and get your name in the directory. You have to get to know people."
