0005: Everything You Need To Know About How To Properly Select The Right Carpet Or Flooring - But Didn't Know To Ask! with Carpet/Flooring Expert & Best Selling Author Don Lovato

Ea interviews Episode 5 welcome expert authority Nation. I'm here and excited to bring another episode for you and I have none other than Mr. Don Lovato, CEO of Carpet Source USA, best selling author. And he's going to be sharing with you the things to consider before buying any carpet or flooring. So we'll bring them up right after we thank our sponsor. First there was Siri, then you started talking to Alexa. But have you met Crystal because she knows all about you, understand anyone's personality on LinkedIn with this simple Chrome extension you can get from eainterviews.com Crystal Once again, eainterviews.com Crystal all right, Don, we're rocking and rolling. How are you doing, my friend?

I'm doing pretty well. How are you doing over there in Michigan?

I'm doing excellent. It's great to have you.

Thanks for having me.

What inspired you to start your company out of all the stuff you could do in the world? I mean, why didn't you just work for a carpet store? I mean, what inspired you to start your business and say, I want to do this on my own and in a big way?

Actually, it's kind of interesting that you asked that question. I discharged from the Marine Corps back in 1990 and I was looking for something more to do. I didn't necessarily discharge because I wanted to, but my former wife wanted me to discharge because I was deploying all the time. And of course we were trying to raise a family. And so that wasn't conducive to being very helpful on my part. Right. And being a good father and good husband. So I decided to go ahead and discharge. And I started in sales and I was selling door to door, selling encyclopedias, believe it or not, door to door for World Book and for PF Collier. And I was also selling them through the schools all over the San Diego county area. It was great business, pretty lucrative. And then all of a sudden CD ROM came out. Do you remember CD ROM when it first came out? And so it really allowed business to sort of tank, if you will. And so I called my dad and asked him for some advice and he's. And he was in the flooring business and he said, well, not a lot of business here where we live, he lives in a really small town. But your uncle, he said, has been trying to get a hold of you or your brother and try to recruit one of you guys. You guys are so similar. So why don't you give him a call? I said, well, yeah, dad, I'm in San Diego, and he's in Santa Fe, New Mexico. So a long story short, I called up my uncle and he said, yeah, my uncle's very similar to me. He jumps at decisions and jumps on decisions and doesn't really give it too much time to think. You know, what do they call that? Analysis by paralysis? Paralysis by analysis, you should say. So nonetheless, I called him and he talked me into, as any master salesman would, talked me into moving my family, you know, from San Diego all the way over to Santa Fe, New Mexico. And I brought them over after giving it a six week trial to see if I'd like the business. And so I did work for him for a couple of weeks and, and then very quickly he mentioned to me that he wasn't getting along with the new owner and he wanted to start his own business and he wanted me to be a partner, but I had to earn, you know, with sweat equity, I had to earn my way in. So we worked for quite a while together and he gave me some training and we started that business and it took off. I mean, we were at probably 91, I think it was maybe 90, 90, 91. I think it was the summer of 91 when we started. And so we went from zero to half a million a month. And in no time, within three or four months, we were at really high volume. Of course, he had a big clientele and he, he didn't have the energy, but he had the money, I had the energy, and of course, it was his expertise. So together we made a great business. And then I was, I was just really working like crazy again. And I was back in the same situation. I was with the Marine Corps and my family was taking the backseat to the business because I was working seven days a week and practically 16 hours a day. So I decided to sell my share in the business and start my own business about 65 miles away from him here in Albuquerque. And so that's kind of how I got in the business. I hope that answers your question. It's kind of a long, long answer, but, you know, I tried to condense it for you. That's how I got into the business. More out of desperation than it was actually coming up with a business plan or something like that.

You know, that's a perfect answer because it's honest and I want to say thank you for your service. And, and I, I don't think the military gets enough credit for, you know, in the past, present, and hopefully it changes in the future. But sincerely, thank you.

Thank you.

I wanted the honesty because I know people are listening to this, they're watching it and they're going, oh, you know, I'm different. You don't know my story, this and that. And I, this is the whole reason I'm doing it, is to hear the behind the scenes. You know, everyone looks around and sees. You know, if you want to share, you're welcome to. But you, you've told me some behind the scenes. And if you're watching Don right now or listening to him, he has a very, very, very, very successful, not just one business, but multiple businesses. I'll let you do what you want with that. But there's a lot of people that are just, I couldn't do it, I couldn't do it. And I love hearing the stories of. I mean, it's why I start the show off with that. What inspired you? Because they're all so unique. But the end result is everyone just looks at, you know, the end result going, well, how? Wow, I could never get there. And it's like, oh, trust me, you ever absolutely can. Who do you help and how do you help them? Who is your ideal customer for you?

For me at Carpet Source is someone that lives in the Albuquerque area, someone that's a homeowner or someone that's a property owner that needs some sort of floor covering. Because even though the business is called Carpet Source, we still do a tremendous amount of tile, hardwood tile that looks like hardwood, and even these new luxury vinyl planks that people are using. So that's a big part of our business as far as units is concerned. It's probably 50% of our business. And regarding revenue, it's probably about 35% of our business. So it's a pretty big part of our business as far as the hard surface division is concerned. And then in addition to that, somebody that's looking to prevent any sort of. What's a good way to put it? We do dust free tile removal. And so it's very hazardous to remove tile from your home. And a lot of people don't know that. Your home or your business. And we do both. So the grout and the thinset below have crystalline silica in it and it can create silicosis if you breathe it. And if you look up online on OSHA or anywhere like that, you can see that it could take one exposure and you can develop a serious lung disease, including cancer, and it could take maybe 20. They don't know. Everybody's different. And so we prevent that from happening by removing tile and encapsulating everything we do and using specialty equipment and specialty training, of course, that we license for the entire state of New Mexico. So if anybody has any kind of tile that they need to remove and they want to prevent any sort of health hazards, then we can help them. So that's for that business. For Carpet Source usa, we also have ABQ Skin Care and Acne Clinic. Acne, as in blemishes on the skin. So we have people that we serve all over the Albuquerque and New Mexico area, even parts of Colorado in a physical way, parts of Arizona, parts of Texas, even all over the West Coast. But we also help people long distance. So if people look up ABQ Skincare and Acne Clinic in Albuquerque, ABQ is the acronym for Albuquerque Coaching tab on our website. And so we can actually, with technology like we're using today, we can actually help treat acne from the source, not the symptom, because the acne on the skin is simply a symptom. And so we treat the source, which is primarily inflammation, through diet, lifestyle changes, and skin care and hair care products. We actually manufacture our own skin care and hair care products as well, as well as the acne products.

And I want to say congrats again, because you were telling me how well that's going, and I'm happy for you because I remember before you launched it, and I know you've come a long way with it, so congrats again on that. So for Carpet Source, who is your biggest client? Success story.

Wow. I've been at it now 20, 27 years. And so we have quite a few of them. I don't mean to say that, like I'm trying to break my elbow by patting myself on the back, but that's. That's a good question, I would say. Okay, let me tell you a story about someone that we had here recently. So this, this. It comes to mind because it is so recent. We had a client who needed a shop at home service, which is exactly what we provide. We actually have specially outfitted vans with all of our samples on the inside. And these samples are very. They're. They're really well thought out and well planned out, meaning we take the top categories of product that we sell in this region and the top styles and colors, and we put those samples in the vans. So that's our showroom on wheels. Because a lot of times you'll find that a showroom has. If you run the numbers behind the scenes, you'll find that about 80 to 90% of those products never sell. So we focus it down to the products that sell, and they sell well. And we negotiate pricing on those products to be able to help the end user save a ton of money and eliminate the showroom. And by. We passed the elimination of the showroom savings, that overhead, we pass that on to the end user as well. Okay. That said, we had somebody that had a child who had, who was handicapped, and it was very difficult for them to get him anywhere. He's about 14 years old and he can't help himself in any way. They have to feed him. He's on a. He's on oxygen. He's got a lot of health challenges. Really, really nice boy. But he's just got a lot of health challenges. And so it's very difficult for them to get outside the house. And sometimes when there's weather there is here in New Mexico, up in the high desert where we're at in Albuquerque, it's about 6,500 elevation. You know, we, we get some, some weather here sometimes like we just had this week. And so they needed somebody, especially in times like that, to bring the samples out to the house, help them and measure it and do everything. So this was a tremendous situation because they had tried going to one of the box stores, a couple of them, and it just didn't work out. People were not waiting on them. They would ask Mike and plumbing to help them in flooring and that kind of thing, and they just weren't getting the help they needed. So they looked up reputable floor covering companies in town. And we have about 800 five star reviews. We're really proud of them. We've earned every single one of them, believe me. They said this must be the business that we need to contact and see if they'll bring the samples out. Well, once they clicked on the link and went to the website, they found out that's the only way we do it. We bring the samples out to the house, we measure, we do a free consultation. There isn't any obligation. We use Bluetooth and we use an architectural type drawing program. So we take the entire. The measurements of the interior of the home and we put them into our CAD program. It's basically a CAD program. Put them in there. So we have the measurements for everything for that project that we're working on and any future phases so that way we don't have to come back and measure again. Then we go out to the van, grab the samples that fit the category of the product they're looking for and the budget they're looking for and the durability and Color and that sort of thing. We brought them in and, and help them make those selections. Entire process took maybe 60 minutes. And then the following 30 minutes, we were able to calculate it on the spot and on the spot, print out a quote for them right then and there. We were able to check stock right then, right there, order it from the, from the homeowner's home. With the, with the Internet now we can do all those kinds of things. And we were able to schedule it, pre, schedule it for two weeks out, which is right before the deadline when they needed it for some big, big party they were having. So that was a really big success story for, for them. You know, we were able to help facilitate that. So that really, that really was warm. It was really heartwarming for us because, you know, they had a big challenge. They didn't know that we existed, they didn't know that our service existed. And so it was just good for them. So they saved money, they saved time, saved hassle, didn't have to drag him all over town and didn't have to get treated like a second class citizen. And they got exactly what they want at the time frame they wanted and at the price they wanted. So to me, that was really a success story.

Well, I appreciate you for sharing that specific story. And you guys, can you hear Don here? This is why I had him on, because I know he could give 99 other success stories. And most people, probably not on my show, but when you ask most people what's their biggest success story, they're gonna go straight to the profit, straight to this, straight to the revenue. And Don could, but he chose not to. I don't know if you noticed that. And Don, I appreciate you sincerely, like I've always said, because you go, man, which one do I want to choose? And you chose the one. Because you always have had the heart to help people and I'm glad they found you.

Thank you.

You know, because not everyone would do that. They could say, oh, here's someone I can make a buck off of. And I believe capitalism, you should make money for the service and add value and all of that, but you, you can still have a heart to do it as well.

So thank you. And to me, it's not a success unless our supplier wins, our installers win, our entire team wins, and we make a small profit. As long as that happens, to me, that's a success. But the most important thing is, because we're customer centric, is that the customer wins. We don't always make a profit in every Single job because sometimes things go wrong and we estimate it incorrectly. But as long as the client and customer wins, we're okay.

And I've told my clients and audiences for that for years. You know, customer centric, client centric. It's about them, it's about serving them. And I agree with you 100%. If you're always doing the right thing, at the very least you sleep well at night, you can always make the money back. Right?

Right.

Let's jump into your book. How has your book Consumer Awareness Guide, how has that helped you and you grow your business?

It's been very helpful. In fact, you helped me get it to number one on Amazon. So thanks for that. I think I've thanked you 100 times already, but now there's 101. But it's been helpful because people find it an interesting guide. It's a good way to get their information, their contact information and follow up with them. But it's also more importantly the guide for them to help them with color, style, the appropriate product. We call it application applying the right product to the right situation. So it's really helpful for them with that. It gives them, it answers questions that they probably hadn't thought about asking before. And so it positions us as the authority. So that's helpful for us. But in addition to that, it also encourages them to watch, to go to our website and look on our frequently asked question videos as well as our should ask question videos. And again, it answers them there in, in multimedia because sometimes people need to read something, sometimes they need to see it and hear it. Everybody learns in different ways. Personally, I learned through video and a little bit my second modality would be audio. But you know, some of these folks that want to watch the video and, and see what I'm demonstrating on videos, they can do that. And again, it's very helpful for them. It creates bonding, which is nice because you have that rapport. And then by the time we get out there, in most cases, people are just asking, listen, we already know we're going to do business with you. We did what you said. We googled all the company names that we're considering with the right keyword and the word reviews at the very end. We looked at their reviews, we looked at your reviews, and you're clearly the company we're gonna go with. So that said, what's it gonna cost? And that's before we even measure or take out samples. So, you know, it kind of does. It does the selling for you. It's your people are pre Sold, pre sifted, pre sorted, pre selected and predisposed to do business with you if you do it that way. So, and you know, thankfully you were able to help get that book to the, to the up on the, you know, number one on Amazon within the charts like that, because that is also added authority and credibility. So what we've done with the content and what we've done with the reviews is one thing, but without having the authority, it'd be, you know, it'd be, it'd be more diluted, it wouldn't have been as potent as it was. So thank you for that.

You're welcome. But it was all you, brother. It was all you. All I did is help you showcase it. And you know, like I said, that's one of the things when you're legit like you, and you have a heart and you have a very successful business, it's just a matter of how you showcase it. But the reality is, even with your story, the people you were, you were saying you have 800 plus reviews and us teasing you, saying, is that it? But when people come out to find you, you are the best. As far as I'm concerned, you are the best. But if someone else is showcased different, are you going to appear that way, even though you are? So that's why I love doing what I do, because it's real easy to keep the other people where they should be, but, you know, only work with the best of the best. So.

And you know, you mentioned the 800 reviews and I didn't mention the other half of that. You know, when you go on Amazon and you see something that has 1200, 8000, sorry, 1200 2000, 8000 reviews online, that's one thing, right? But that's Amazon, that's different. And that's like a product that you can box. These are like mini remodel jobs that we have to do, number one. So it's much harder to earn that because you're going in and interrupting people's spaces, their own personal spaces, number one. Two, we don't do as many transactions as somebody that sells a widget on Amazon. Okay, Then in addition to that, our nearest competitor maybe has 85 to 90 reviews online and that's the nearest. So we're 10x in the number of quantity of reviews and quality reviews that they have. And the people that are in third position maybe have 30 reviews here in Albuquerque in the same type of industry. So it's, it's a lot of work to get to do what we do. But we enjoy it. I'm one of those people that unless I'm going to enjoy it, I'm not going to do it. So thankfully I enjoy it. And thankfully they like our service so we're able to earn those reviews.

Same as me. Absolutely love what I do and I thought I had a lot with 100 plus on video, but I'm going to have to follow your lead and just keep at it here. So we're going to go to the sponsor real quick, come back and we'll do the Imperfect Action round. We're going to rapid fire 60 second answers how you can grow your business today. So Siri can help you sound the siren and Alexa automatically accepts answers. But when it comes to business, you need to be clear Crystal the Chrome extension that's going to change your life, make you more productive, increase your profits and give you the peace of mind you deserve so you can focus on what's most important. The relationship. LinkedIn is no joke. You know it's where you need to be. But doesn't it feel overwhelming at times? Downright daunting? Finally, you find the perfect prospect and it's time for round three, the wonderful world of wordsmithing. Like Shakespeare in his prime. So you step out to make your first impression and for once get ahead. This time, Crystal to the rescue. Personality assessments, predictions and coaching tools to understand anyone's personality for hiring, team building and my favorite, sales. All from a simple chrome extension for LinkedIn. To learn more on how you can increase your productivity, profits and peace of mind today, go to eainterviews.com crystal Once again, that's eainterviews.com crystal all right, imperfect action round like I said. So 60 second responses and we got three rapid fire questions. And this is like I teach my clients and audiences take imperfect action daily. First one what's the fastest path to the cash? If someone's looking to start their own carpet business, what's the fastest path to the cash for them?

You would say, well, that's an interesting question because there are only so many accounts that the manufacturers, the reputable manufacturers want opened. So if you this sounds very self serving and it's not. The fast path to success in cash would be to probably get ahold of me. I'll put you in touch with the people that can give you a catapult to the right people to open an account very quickly, whether you have a store or you don't have a store because the requirement is that you have physical overhead and a physical warehouse and that sort of thing things. So give me a call. Or actually, better yet, just email me. I'm sure Mario in the notes will provide my email address or at least my website. And then I'll put you in touch with the right people that can get you started very quickly and with really, really good pricing. I don't get anything out of it other than the satisfaction that you've positioned yourself for success pretty quickly.

Very good. So always have a coach or a mentor that can show you the inside.

There you go. Thanks for summarizing that.

So the next one, rapid fire, 60 second. What's the biggest problem you see in your audience? So when someone is starting a carpet store, what's the biggest problem you see? Repeatedly?

One of the big ones, I would say would be that they are not customer centric. Would be a big one, not customer centric, and all about the profit. So I think you need to have passion and you want, have to want to make a profit, but you also have to be passionate about making sure the customer wins. Like I mentioned mentioned earlier, making sure you do a good job. Because in almost any town or any neighborhood that you're in, even if you're in a big city, let's say that you're in in New York. Well, people do business within their neighborhood when it comes to floor coverings. They don't really call somebody three neighborhoods away to come in, you know, and drive an hour through heavy traffic, hour and a half through heavy traffic and bring their flooring out and install it in your home. So what that means is word spreads very quickly. So unfortunately, with what we do, you're only as good as your last complaint or your last poor review. So be customer centric.

Yeah, make sure that you.

Make sure that you care about the customer, you know, because the biggest problem they have is that they just don't care about the customer. They're all about the money and all about the prestige. And flooring isn't sexy, but at the end of the day, you can make a great living and.

Do good, provide a good service for people.

All right, excellent. And last question. How would you say is the best way to increase the customer lifetime value?

Oh, well, that goes back to the same thing. Provide great service and keep following up. We call people all the time and what we say is we cause trouble. And what I mean by that is there isn't another company here in town that I know of or anyone in the country that I know of in my industry that will actually call the client and say, hey, listen, your carpet, for example, if they bought carpet needs to be, because we tell them all this up front, but they just don't remember who can. There's a lot of information, and who reads all the brochures and the warranty paperwork with all that fine print. So we call them right about the time they need to have it cleaned. And we either make a recommendation or tell them to call whomever they want. But make sure to get it maintained properly, because if not, they could void their warranty. And here's the part where I'm talking about cause trouble is we say, are you having any problems with your carpet? Does it need stretching? Does it need any repairs? Do you need anything? There's no cost at this point, so if there is any problems, let us know. We'll come out and take care of them right away before the installation warranty is up. And so often when I mention that to my friendly competitors, they say, man, you're a troublemaker. You're causing trouble for yourself. You shouldn't do that, blah, blah, blah. But for us, that's how we create.

Clients for life. And it increases the client value exponentially compared to what it would be if we just wanted to hide under a rock and cross our fingers. And hopefully they don't call, you know, or they call after the warranty's over or something like that. And from time to time, we get people that call after the warranty for installation's over, but we still go out and take care of it, you know, and sometimes it's very clear. I had one recently where they. We told them on the hardwood floor, they did a hardwood floor throughout the whole house. It was very, very high end house. And I told them to use one of those rolling chair mats underneath their office desk, where they have their office desk. And they didn't. And it was very obvious they didn't. And it wore the floor out. I mean, it wore. It splintered it. And she said, oh, yeah, it's been that way since the day you guys installed it. But I didn't. I didn't call. I haven't had time. And it was like five years later, ripped out maybe 20 square feet because she had some wood left over. And we went ahead and put it in at no cost to her. And of course, she referred us to her mom, who turned around and spent $50,000 on hardwood for us. So it cost me a couple hundred to go do the repair. And it, you know, bruised my ego a little bit because of what she said. And I just kind of, you know, I just rolled with it, but again, 50,000, 49 or $50,000 later, it was, it was fine. You know, we did a good job for her mom and, and everybody was happy.

So you got me thinking because I used to have the floor mat, then the floor mat were cracked and the chair wouldn't roll on it. And I cannot confirm or deny if the carpet under this chair is in great condition or not. But I never thought about the flooring under it.

Yeah, could ruin it.

Appreciate that. So this was beneficial to me. All right, last thing. Where can they find you?

Carpetsourceusa.com that's our website. So check us out there. Check out our products. The products that are available to us are available to anybody nationwide. So if you want to come out and check out our website, you can. And then you can actually, because we can't ship it to you. It's not cost effective to ship these giant heavy things that we have and we can't come out and install it if you're in Michigan or New York or, you know, Florida or something like that. So we only work in our local area. But. But you can use our website as a valuable resource for sure.

Excellent. Thank you very much, Don. It's been a pleasure having you.

Likewise. Thanks so much. We'll talk to you later.

All right, take care. God bless everyone. We'll see you on the next episode. You're already successful. You've worked hard to get where you are. We both know it wasn't overnight and hasn't always been easy. No doubt you're the expert on your subject matter, but do your prospects in your marketplace think of you first as their go to trusted advisor all the time. ExpertAuthorityChecklist.com is 100% free and reveals the 21 steps to determine if your prospects view you as the expert and authority of your marketplace or if it's just all in your mind. Important required steps like do you have a process in place for prospects to self identify if they qualify for your time and expertise or not? Does your current offer have the seven components of an irresistible offer required to make it a no brainer for your prospects? Do you have a real life paperback book showcasing you as the subject matter expert you can actually hand someone get your free Checklist now@expertauthoritychecklist.com Once again, expert authority checklist. To make sure you have the 21 steps covered. It better not be more. But don't leave those one or two things you may have missing go any longer. Visit expertauthoritychecklist.com and make sure you're being seen as the expert and authority today. Once again, that's expert. Authoritychecklist.com get your copy now. So long, Siri. Adios, Alexa. There's a new girl in town. Crystal Personality assessments, predictions, and coaching tools to understand anyone's personality for hiring, team building, and my favorite, sales. All from a simple chrome extension for LinkedIn. To learn more on how you can increase your productivity, profits, and peace of mind today, go to eainterviews.com Crystal Once again, that's eainterviews.com Crystal.