Ken Weisbacher, president and owner of KW Flooring is no stranger to adversity and overcoming obstacles in his business. The company owns and operates seven different flooring brands such as Carpetland Carpet One, Big Bob’s Flooring Outlet and Buddy’s Flooring America. The 150-employee, $42 million company finds ways to take advantage of its niche markets in carpet, hardwood, tile and concrete flooring.
“The keys to our success generally have been our ability to market to different niches of floor coverings,” Weisbacher says. “We have many different models that we operate that makes us unique. We don’t just have one company that sells to everybody.”
It’s that attitude and constant industry awareness that has allowed KW Flooring to push past tough times and continue to offer various specialty flooring brands.
Smart Business spoke to Weisbacher about how he overcomes obstacles and creates niche markets.
What have been some of your toughest challenges lately?
The biggest challenge recently has been the decline in demand for flooring both residentially as well as commercially. With 22 locations selling flooring, when things are good, we have 22 locations that do very well. When things are bad and you’ve got 22 locations, it becomes a big challenge. We’ve had to downsize. Because there is not as much demand we’ve had to right-size to the market. We’ve had to figure out avenues that we’re involved in that will be successful going forward and which are best to get away from. Over the last three years those have been the types of decisions that have been most difficult.
Most business owners open up a store or get into a type of business and that becomes like a child to you. You want to see it grow and succeed and prosper so it’s very difficult to pull the plug and say, ‘Get out of this or I get in deeper.’ You have to be willing to close your failures and promote your successes. Too many people waste their assets and their energy on trying to turn around their failures and their time and money would be better spent promoting their successes.
How do you grow your successful businesses?
We created half a dozen different companies that specialize in a particular area of flooring. We focus on that and are able to provide a level of service for people that they’re not likely to find in a store that has a more general outlook.
You have to identify a niche that is ignored by other people or underserved by other people or that is really fast growing. The first step is to identify the niche and then determine what you can do to differentiate yourself from others who are trying to serve that niche. You’ve got to do it better than anybody who’s out there doing it now.
What have been some challenges of growth in your company?
The progress has been three steps forward and one step back. It has not been a continual improvement, but things are getting better and I am optimistic about the future. One challenge has been ignoring the impulse to be too quick to hire back a number of employees. Personally I believe you should hire back more slowly because you’ll be more profitable as business ramps back up.
You have to hold back the impulse to bring more people in as you see business pick up. You have to make sure that the people you have can manage the growth by doing a little bit more business than they’re currently doing now. If people are paid on commission and are money motivated, they will appreciate that and it works out well for both sides.
What are the keys to finding a new area of business?
A new area for us is concrete grinding and polishing. There again we saw a niche that was underserved. A lot of retail space is now polished concrete and finished floor as opposed to carpet or tile. So we decided that rather than try to compete against that we would learn how to do it ourselves and get into that market. It is an opportunity that traditional flooring has lost to polished concrete. As we saw more and more of that, we realized we were missing out on it.
You have to be open-minded and flexible enough to say what I did for the last 20 years may not be what I need to do for the next 20. It’s not easy to do because everybody gets into a comfort zone. We all want to keep doing what we’ve been successful at, but there comes a time when you have to say it’s not the same as it used to be, therefore my actions and activities have to change.
HOW TO REACH: KW Flooring, (513) 771-2345 or www.carpetlandcincinnati.com
