Rediscover Your Market

When you’ve owned a business for almost two decades, you might feel like you’ve got it all under control. Like you don’t really need any help with anything, until one day when you do.

“I’ve had Mr. Tom’s Tile for 17 years,” said Tom Hilliard. “During the boom time we were order takers. We had subdivisions going, we were running 20 guys. The work just came. We didn’t even ask for it. We actually turned more work down than we agreed to do. Then flip to the new economy we were out there not having a clue how to go get work. So we started doing some home shows and things like that.”

Through networking at the home shows, Tom was referred to Collaboration.
“We did the sales and marketing class. And then at the end of that I realized I was dumber than I was when I started because now I knew what I had to be doing but I didn’t know how to get it done,” he jokingly explained.

After the sales training ended, Tom was eager to take his business to the next level and signed on for a consulting engagement. “The class was awesome, but we didn’t get the depth that we got in consulting and that’s what I needed. The one-on-one.”

Like many business owners react when they hear “consulting” Tom was hesitant to jump in and make the investment initially. “It was a stretch to commit to the sales classes but then once I saw that that was helping us, I could see that there was the value.”

“We were starting to communicate as far as who our clients were, starting to identify our clients, starting to realize where we needed to go. We were already doing things about 70% right. We definitely weren’t tracking things. We got a lot of leads out of a show, but then they went in a drawer. We’d go to a show, get a bunch of leads, try to convert a few, and that was it. They might show up 2 years later, and that was great. But now we’re chasing them down. We had a lady come in the other day that said, ‘oh ya, I got your email saying that you got new colors of granite in and I’ve been just putting it off for a while, so let’s talk about it.’ And she was somebody that we definitely would’ve dropped and not thought about again before.”

As a result of Tom’s determination to see his business succeed, and him seeking out answers and solutions to his challenges, Mr. Tom’s Tile has changed the way they operate. In the past they relied on people coming to them, saying “this is what I want, this is what I want to pay.” No deposit was necessary, and Tom admits, sometimes they weren’t billing until two weeks after the work was finished. Today he says, “I know exactly who owes me money and I have a good idea of when I’m going to get paid.”

He credits his work with Collaboration in helping him implement these changes. “Strategic partnership is increasing repeat customers. I hear people say ‘oh ya, you ought to talk to so and so.’ And then I’d go off doing other things because I’m busy. The action item list in your book will require you to make action items happen before the next meeting and then all of a sudden you have met with them and you are doing something and that leads to actually doing work.

“We’ve basically doubled what we were doing before. The job I sold Saturday I’m trying to push through in three weeks, where it would’ve been simpler just to say a month. We’re a little over a month booked out. You know, we have to make it happen. But it’s kind of neat to have those problems instead of the problems like when we first started up, somebody would come in and want a kitchen done and we’d say, ‘we’ll be there tomorrow.’ Now there’s no way.”

Tom said they are now setting and achieving sales goals on a regular basis, when in the past they just had a “see what happens” mentality. He laughed and told the story of early in his consulting engagement when he was given his first monthly goal, “I wanted to cry.” Now they are consistently doing nearly 45% more than that original goal.

He’s thrilled about the growth he’s seen in his business, and proud of what he and his team have accomplished. He credits his team with taking on more responsibilities and stepping up to a heavier workload. Without their dedication to the business and each other, the success could not be achieved.