Looking Forward to the Next Step

It seems as if in the flurry of carpet, rugs, Quickbooks, search engine optimization, web design, forming a corporation, developing a payroll, and hiring installers, I have lost track of writing. My last post was on May 6th, and in the meanwhile major moves have transpired in stabilizing my father's business. A one man installation company is now The Carpet Workroom & Reclamation Center, INC. We have 4 full time employees, 2 sub-contractors, and a new store that is home to brand new concept of carpet and rug buying. The speed of this process has been mind blowing, but the skills I have learned will stay with me for as long as I am chasing down a dollar, which will probably be a very long while.

The biggest challenge came to me recently in the form of a sales squall. It dawned on me while I was trying to schedule a week of recent wall-to-wall installations; we were completely overwhelmed with work and entirely understaffed. One of the major reasons  I cut my Costa Rican trip short to work alongside my father in his profession was to help him transition from installer into the less strenuous but more lucrative role of workroom manager. However, as I was scheduling these jobs, it occurred to me I was exploiting his talents the same way an agent would exploit an actor or athlete. This was not the reason I was hired. This situation forced me to take a step back and realize we had plateaued, it was time to hire someone to take over the role of installer. Here, I met two challanges. The first is something every business deals with at one point or another; finding employees who share your enthusiasm and whom you can trust as an extension of your business is extremely difficult. The second has to do with habit. My father has installed carpet for the last 32 years of his life, the vast majority of his existence on this planet. Of course in his mind, and every one else's for that matter, he is the best at what he does. In order to shift roles in his business, he would need to break the 32-year-old habits he had developed, and allow someone else to take over his coveted craft. This is the point we are at now. The transition has not been entirely smoothed out, but it has begun. I firmly believe that once we complete this evolution, we will able to make the next step toward our growth.

The most ironic part of this experience is the path in which I took to get to this point. I spent more than 2 semesters in Fordham's College of Business Administration. I transferred back into its liberal arts program becasuse of an accounting class that gave me more anxiety than what it was worth. I felt then that there would never be a time in my life where the skill of accounting would be needed. I was terribly wrong. I have spent the last month receiving lessons on Quickbooks, a basic accounting software that everyone seems to need help with. In keeping track of credits and debits and following our financial situation, I can finally see the value in such a skill. I only minored in business at Fordham, but the 8 months since starting at the Carpet Workroom, I feel as if I completed what I had started in 2004. I don't know if I can say I belive in fate, but I can certainly laugh at the irony present in the events that got me to where I am now.

Now that we took a moment to lubricate the gears and adjust the machine we have developed, it is time to look at the future. Our website, http://www.thecarpetworkroom.net/ has been launched, and now it is time to optimize its exposure on the Internet. We have barely paid for advertising, opting instead to capitalize on the free press we received from Channel 5, The Boston Globe Magazine, and most recently the Canton Citizen. I think our best bet is to first build our online presence. From there we need to continue building the infrastructure to allow our machine to continue running smoothly; another vehicle, a more pronounced recycling system, and more accounts to add to our inventory and potential order selection are at the top of the list. One thing is for certain, we are on the cusp of something big, and a new set of opportunities is sure to present itself if we continue on this path.