A Shameless Industry

A Shameless Industry - by Terry Weinheimer

Most rational adults recognize the exaggerated marketing techniques used by the magazine sweepstakes industry. Almost monthly you receive mailers announcing that your name has been selected to win a large amount of money. Of course, when you read the small print you will usually understand the difference between being selected to win and actually winning. In reality it should come as no surprise that you are just being baited to purchase magazine subscriptions. Yes, you might win something; you probably have a one in a million chance of winning the 50-cent prize and a one in a billion chance of winning that grand prize.

While I hate to admit it, I often see advertising in the floor covering industry that is reminisce of the sweepstakes industry. It is shameless that our own industry day-after-day advertises floors as if they were indestructible and self-cleaning when we know this not to be true. Just like the suckers that bite on the magazine deals, gullible individuals that fail to read the small print in our own ads are taking the bait. Some of the most misleading manufacturers and retailers produce and sell some fine floor covering products. In their quest for a larger market share these otherwise respectable companies allow the advertising departments to push the limits.

Consumers are purchasing flooring products based on the way they perceive the advertising. When they find that their new floor actually requires care and is not indestructible they feel violated or believe that the product is truly defective. Within months of installation the complaints start to pour in but the practice of misleading advertising seems to continue.

In addition to the exaggerated advertising claims our industry has many sales people who stretch the limits even further to make a sale! Week-after-week and day-after-day, as a floor-covering inspector/consultant this author investigates claims where flooring products have been sold as indestructible. At many of these installations the consumer has done everything possible to prove that these indestructible floors can be damaged. Scratch resistant floors have been sold as scratch proof and they often look as if someone has used a garden rake on them. Some floors are swollen and popping off the substrate from leaking dishwashers, broken pipes or pure abuse and the consumer insist they have been told that no amount of water would damage the floor.

For nearly 20 years I have been out of the sales business. I owned floor covering stores for many years. I must admit that there were times that I was tempted to oversell, and in truth there were times that I gave in to those temptations. As a young entrepreneur I had a struggling retail store. I had high goals but was not producing enough volume. The first high-volume salesperson that I ever hired turned out to be an individual that exaggerated the value and ability of products. With dollar signs in my eyes I found myself impressed by his sales production and the profit margin at which he produced. Within days of hiring this man the complaints started to come in from consumers that were misled and overcharged. My own greed had allowed me to believe that the increased sales that he had brought to our struggling store were needed.  In a very short period of time I had allowed my own greed to pull me into his gutter.

It took a couple of weeks before I started to realize that dishonest techniques were not needed to make sales and if they were I was in the wrong business. I recognized that I was giving up my self-respect, and I had been raised to respect it highly. Within the month I had let this sales person go but it took many months to overcome the damage I had allowed him to create during his short stay. From that time on, when I caught employees using blatantly misleading statements, they were immediately reminded that if they could not sell honestly they would be shown the door.

Most companies understand that our industry has no room for salespeople that are going to run your business into the ground. Some of us had to learn this the hard way!