In the global flooring marketplace, how do your customers tell you apart from the competition? Unless you can stand out in the industry, you can’t attract new customers, and you’ll have trouble keeping your existing customers. Along with this worry, you have other business challenges to overcome, such as: 1. Your sales team spends nearly two-thirds of its time devoted …
1. Amadou T. Agne – Ashlar According to Hubspot research, salespeople spend as little as one third of their time on selling. The other two thirds is spent on writing emails (21%), entering data (17%), scheduling calls (12%), and internal meetings (12%). One of the greatest opportunities during the current, hopefully short-term, slowdown is to optimize business processes through cloud-based software automation, …
How do you end up with too much flooring inventory in your warehouse? Maybe you stocked up on a popular product, and then consumer tastes changed. Now, last year’s colors are no longer in demand for this year’s building projects. Maybe it happened because of a regular cyclical downturn, like how more exterior construction tends to happen during the warmer …
COVID-19 has turned the world upside down for most of us. Who would have guessed at the beginning of 2020 that in just a few months, we’d be in the middle of a worldwide pandemic? One thing is certain, this virus has completely changed the way business operates. Companies are scrambling to make sense of the new business environment and …
As technology evolves and the world around us changes, the way we do business is steadily transforming. And businesses that stay flexible and adapt to these changes can thrive in their new environment. For instance, the flooring industry has changed a lot over the last couple of decades. Instead of just the traditional distribution channel of flooring distributors buying products …
Leadership | 03.25.20 Amadou T. Agne is the founder of Vogueboard Inc (now Ashlar), a Maryland-based technology company offering B2B Sales Management solutions for the flooring industry. Since he earned his Master’s of Engineering degree from Cornell University 18 years ago, Agne has been working in the construction industry, including with commercial flooring subcontractor companies. Dealing first-hand with supply chain management, he …
To be honest, we didn’t think we’d be discussing a global virus outbreak here on the Ashlar blog. But by now, we’re seeing the effects of COVID-19 and the steps we’re all taking to stop the spread of the virus. Everyone is involved, from our customers, to our staff, and our communities. We don’t know how long this will last, …
Up until recently, it was business as usual for flooring manufacturers to use one distribution channel by selling through distributors, who then had their own retail channels. Then came along the Internet, which introduced the opportunity to sell online. While many industries have jumped on the eCommerce bandwagon, others have been reluctant to grow their distribution channels and sell online. …
Of all the challenges faced by flooring retailers today, one of the biggest is trying to compete with industry leaders. There are already several large companies that hold a solid percentage of market share in the industry. On top of that, there are new challenges, the “category killers” like Amazon and Walmart that are now branching into the flooring industry. …
In the flooring industry, with all the different levels of the supply chain, you have many partners. From manufacturers to distributors to retailers, there are a lot of hands involved in most sales. That’s why it makes sense that working with partners is a way to strengthen your business, and theirs. After all, manufacturing is affected by many factors outside …