On this episode of the What the Floor Podcast we headed down a dark scary road that led us straight to Spookytown. It’s all about flooring horror stories told by some of our fabulous flooring industry friends. We talk to Marc Lapsley from Architectural Directions about a linoleum job gone wrong, with our favorite inspector Tony Christopher about his office project of shame, with WTF’s own Toni Collier about a sticky sample situation, with Producer Jose regarding the trailer from hell, with Jeremy Everts from Pacific Mat about the “Summer of Chad”, and we wrap with industry legend John Ferguson for some words of wisdom.
What the Floor is a T&A Supply Company Inc original production. You can find out more about us at tasupply.com or tasflooring.com. This show is produced by Jose Morales with help from Toni Collier and Jessica Riser. Tell us what you think of the show at wtfpodcast@tasupply.com or #whatthefloorpodcast on social media to let us know what you think.
On this episode of the What the Floor Podcast we headed down a dark scary road that led us straight to Spookytown. It’s all about flooring horror stories told by some of our fabulous flooring industry friends. We talk to Marc Lapsley from Architectural Directions about a linoleum job gone wrong, with our favorite inspector Tony Christopher about his office project of shame, with WTF’s own Toni Collier about a sticky sample situation, with Producer Jose regarding the trailer from hell, with Jeremy Everts from Pacific Mat about the “Summer of Chad”, and we wrap with industry legend John Ferguson for some words of wisdom.
What the Floor is a T&A Supply Company Inc original production. You can find out more about us at tasupply.com or tasflooring.com. This show is produced by Jose Morales with help from Toni Collier and Jessica Riser. Tell us what you think of the show at wtfpodcast@tasupply.com or #whatthefloorpodcast on social media to let us know what you think.
This is What the Floor from T&A Supply Company Inc, a podcast for the flooring industry. I'm Holiday Van Erem.
Michael Goria:And I'm Michael Goria. We're going to explore the hot topics of the flooring industry with a little fear and a new set of eyes.
Holiday Van Erem:Creepy eyes, oooh, scary eyes. Hello, Michael,
Michael Goria:How are you Holiday?
Holiday Van Erem:I'm fine.
Michael Goria:Good.
Holiday Van Erem:We've got an interesting episode today.
Michael Goria:I'm excited about it.
Holiday Van Erem:Yeah, so we thought, well, first of all, we're looking at the list of things to talk about our like topic list, and nothing was really...
Michael Goria:Resonating.
Holiday Van Erem:Yes, nothing was resonating. We're hitting a wall here. And we thought, why don't we this is going to be an October episode. So Halloween is just around the corner now. Um, let's do some flooring horror stories.
Michael Goria:Yeah. And it's everybody has one. Yeah, or multiple. But it's just everybody. Their eyes kind of light up. And they're like, Oh, I've got one.
Holiday Van Erem:I've got a story.
Michael Goria:Yeah, so really gives everybody a chance to tell their horror stories.
Holiday Van Erem:And a little less Michael on Holiday this episode. So if you're not, yeah, this might be the episode for you.
Michael Goria:Your favorite episode is upon you.
Holiday Van Erem:I think we've got a good group of folks sharing stories. So I'm excited about them. And let's start off with let's start off with Lapsley's story.
Michael Goria:Yeah, Mark Lapsley. I mean, what I love about having him on the show is you know, he's been in commercial for so long. Yeah. And so he had the perfect kind of commercial story, horror story, to tell us.
Holiday Van Erem:True horror story.
Michael Goria:Yeah, that was awesome.
Holiday Van Erem:Ah, ha. So I think you're gonna like this one.
Michael Goria:Yep. Enjoy.
Marc Lapsley:My name is Mark Lapsley. I've been in the flooring business for 32 years. Current role is director of commercial sales for Architectural Directions. Owned by T&A supply. We're a division of and that pretty much sums that part of it.
Holiday Van Erem:All right. So what is your flooring horror story?
Marc Lapsley:I would like to bring a very interesting story that happened to me probably about 15 years ago, we were doing a large major branded grocery store. And one of these new high rise buildings was like multi occupancy where the parking garages were below. The store was street level. And then there was, you know, occupant housing above. So we went in there with natural linoleum, about, I think the store was about 48,000 square feet. It took us a week to put the linoleum in. And then I get a call that all the linoleum is starting to grow. And we went what the heck. So when linoleum grows, it starts to peak, right. And as you know, it's a natural product. It is comprised of comprised of jute backing, cork, linseed oil, flour, and then colorant and then pressed. So we went in there and said, Okay, here's what we could do. We spent another week and we cut all of the seams, every seam in the store, about oh, I'd say close to a quarter of an inch, and re welded it. Two weeks later, they come back, it's still growing. It's all peaked up to where we were now this is going where you know, now we've got store fixtures coming. We've got you know, coolers in a you know, now we have problems compounding, everybody's looking at me, everybody's looking at the floor, what have we done yada, yada. So everybody's going, oh, this could be a lawsuit. You know, we're testing stuff. And finally, one of the contractors came up to me, and we were just kind of talking about, you know, the game Saturday night, one of those conversations. And I said, you know, I just can't figure out what's going on with this floor. And he goes, you know, they sprayed after you guys did the floor covering. They sprayed the fireproofing up on the roof, which is the sub floor of the store. And it's kind of everybody's seen him when you go into a garage is kind of that gray stuff. Okay. Well, the containment in that cellulose material of fireproofing there's a lot of water as a carrier. Well guess where the water went, went from a cold to a hot space and that water was just coming up with the flooring. Yeah. So it was probably close to, I would say three quarters of a million dollars to the contractor to tear out the whole floor. Do water, you know, um through wood abatement and then reapply the whole floor. But that is one of the weirdest flooring stories that I've ever had.
Michael Goria:Yeah, did you get a double sale out of it?
Marc Lapsley:Got a double sale out? I went to Tahiti afterwards, no. But I can honestly tell you it was probably one of the most stressful times in my career because the job was so large. I mean, it was there's a lot of money. And as you well know, in the contractors trade, you know, they're a little gruff, they can be really hard on the other sub trades. Luckily, we had a good partner at the time, which was one of the larger flooring dealers here in Seattle. So they were actually very relieved to find out it wasn't their responsibility after we did all the due diligence and tactical analysis on thank God, the guy told me Oh, yeah, they just spread the stuff downstairs. So never known what had never known. So two things got lucky. And we know at the same time, lost a lot of hair and a lot of night's sleep over that. I mean, it was a good solid month of like, you know, maybe I should go sell dictionaries. A lot easier. So that's my, my major horror stories, as you well know, you know, there's always little stuff. But that was a big major one where, hey, there was a mystery to it. You know, it got solved. And it was not anything that any of us suspected.
Michael Goria:Yeah. That's a great, that's a great story. Yeah.
Marc Lapsley:There was, and I spent many, many nights, you know, on my knees trying to, you know, fix the floor with their crew. And yeah, it was something.
Michael Goria:Oh, that's great. No, thank you for sharing. That's perfect.
Holiday Van Erem:That's fantastic.
Marc Lapsley:There you go.
Holiday Van Erem:All right, Michael. So this next one is from our dear friend, Tony Christopher.
Michael Goria:Yes.
Holiday Van Erem:And it's a personal story of his about his personal installation, horror story.
Michael Goria:Those can be scary.
Holiday Van Erem:Especially when he's got to look at it every single day.
Michael Goria:I can't wait to hear.
Tony Christopher:Okay, so my name is Tony Christopher. I've actually been involved in the flooring industry since I was about seven years old, started installing ceramic tile and 1984. Currently, I'm an independent rep and also an inspector, do concrete moisture testing and finished floor covering inspections as well, pretty much in the Pacific Northwest.
Holiday Van Erem:So I'm gonna ask you now, what is your flooring horror story?
Tony Christopher:You know, in being an inspector. It's not always fun, right? Not everybody wins when an inspector is called out. But, you know, I myself know, I'm supposed to read all the technical guidelines and installation guidelines. And in my own office, I kind of cut some corners. So I had had a carpeted floor for a long time and just hated it. And at one point, Nora Vivarelli called me and said she had a screaming Just a reminder every day. deal on an engineered cork floor. So I jumped on it, bought it didn't really have my plans on when I was going to install it. But I, you know, kind of had a window of an idea when I wanted to do it. Long story short, I rush rushed the process. I did my patching, I got the sub floor all flat level and smooth, like we're supposed to do. One of the guys that that trained me when I was an apprentice was a German guy. And he always said, you know, when you sweep up a room, wherever you pick that up at which is usually the center of the room, and say Tony, sweep from the center to every corner and directions, pick that up again, then you vacuum the floor, which is kind of 101 stuff. And I thought I had done a good job of cleaning up my floor. So I get everything installed, move all the furniture back on and then I'm walking into my to my desk and I'm very proud of myself, you know, just really excited and I feel right under my foot. Right, right before I get to my desk chair and nice big lump in it. I didn't notice that the first couple of days. That had to be there though. So going back, it's you know, still there. It's still every day I look at it I just know what it's gonna take to open that back up and fix it but you know, if you've talked to guys that have been contractors are notorious for having nothing finished in their own homes. So I'm gonna get there but what I figured I actually kind of figured out what I did I had swept right in the middle of the room, and a piece of patch, maybe like the size of a small oh, I don't know, like a quarter inch piece of aggregate is right there underneath the floor. So every day I come in to write reports on, you know, flooring inspections. And then there's like the worst case scenario right there at my feet. Yeah, it's embarrassing, but that's the only story I have that's really humorous. Commercial job sites aren't usually very humorous or most of the time.
Holiday Van Erem:Alright, so this next one, we've got our own WTF staff coming in and telling us stories here. So this one's Toni, coming in and sharing a little marketing horror story.
Michael Goria:And that's what I love. We're bringing you a different angle here. There's horror stories amongst the whole industry is really what we're trying to reiterate to our listeners here.
Holiday Van Erem:And this one's a little sticky.
Michael Goria:Yes, it is enjoy.
Toni Collier:My name is Toni Collier. I've worked at T&A Supply and PacMat for five years next month. So not I'm not Ferg over here. But it feels like I've been here a long time. So five years in the industry in the sales support and marketing departments.
Holiday Van Erem:All right, what is your flooring horror story.
Toni Collier:So I'm going to tell two, and you guys can decide if you want to keep them both, or just use one. So the first one happened in my first week here, it was a very odd time to come into a new job because the marketing director manager person, what had already given their notice they were on the way out. And so she was talking with some of our sales management here about a launch that was happening. They had conflicting opinions about what the header should look like in the graphics on them. So me not knowing anything about anything. At this point. We're kind of listening to this conversation and like, wow, that's kind of awkward out there. But you know, just even doing whatever I was doing, she left, just, this was like my second or third day here. She walked out the door didn't come back the rest of the day. And so these these managers came in and were like, hey, can you find this file and like, make all these changes to it? And then we're gonna send it over to the printer today. This is how many we want, like, can you make this happen? I was like, I suppose. I yeah, I guess I can make all those changes I did. And we figured it out. But it was just a very, like, awkward thing. And knowing that this manager was leaving and staff so I wasn't super concerned about upsetting them. But, um, yeah, just a strange occurrence. But the launch went, well, that product class had for quite a long time for us. And was it it was not only a new collection for us, but a new display altogether. So I think it was it was a good launch. But yeah, very awkward. My other story is much more recent, we were launching new display new vendor, and it's sheet vinyl. So sheet vinyl historically, it can be hard to have labels stick to this, just you know that material and the flexibility where you know, laminate or LV, the samples are rigid, so you don't have to worry about that. But sheet vinyl, because it is so flexible. And just the coatings and things that are on it, it can be really hard to get the labels to stay adhere to those. So paired with that we were kind of in a time crunch, wanting to get the samples out into field as quickly as possible. So with our previous sheet vinyl collections, there was an Avery label that would stick it didn't look the best. But as a quick solution, that's what we decided to go with. And in the immediate, it seemed like they were gonna stick okay, in the strap set. But very quickly, they were all falling off. So we had to figure out a way to get different labels as quickly as possible. That did not go as quickly as possible. We found we went to a new vendor because our previous vendor for labels for sheet vinyl went under so that vendor wasn't available anymore. And we had to figure out like, what material is actually gonna stick there was, you know, some back and forth about what material we were even going to use for these labels. And so we figured it out. They went to production, the printer had this problem. So it was like a little bit delayed. They received the labels from their production facility like our customer service person received them and she's like, I'm just gonna test these out before I bring them over to T&A Supply. She stuck them to the sample that I had given her and they didn't stick. So whatever like you know, all of these problems are happening in the world right now with you can get various types of materials and adhesives and so that's not specific to flooring. That's right, any industry and so they had a hard time getting the label that we had tested, but this other material was supposed to be basically the same well it wasn't the same in our scenario. So she's horribly apologetic, felt terrible, they had to reprint all over again. So that was another like two week delay, because we had all these labels, it was a big job for them. So we finally got them in there sticking labels or going out to the field. Well, a couple weeks after they started launching, we discovered that whatever the adhesive, I think it was a rubber based adhesive was chemically reacting to the samples. And so that adhesive was like seeping out the side of the labels, which sucked, like, it makes the whole thing a big, sticky gooey mess. Like if you've ever taken off a label off of like a water bottle or something that's like around the label was this like mess. What was worse though, is these samples sheet vinyl display or straps that they're stacked. So not only do we have this goopy mess, um on the top of the sample where the stickers applied, but it's now also on the back of the adjacent sample. So here we are back to the drawing board with finding a different material for these darn labels. So more samples sent to us making sure they'd stick. We weren't sure at the time, if it was a chemical reaction, or we had like a lot of heat. Maybe it was the weight of them being stacked. So we had to try all these different things with different new sample labels. Arrived at another material now we're we've hit our stride. What a nightmare. It's been trying to get these darn labels for sheet vinyl, and this. So this is just a label issue. But this launch in general, has had other challenges and getting samples and building our display to be our stocking program and various graphic issues. And it's just launches always present unique challenges, but this one really has gotten the gamut of them. So but I have been most closely in touch with this label issue. So it's been a nightmare.
Holiday Van Erem:It sounds like a nightmare. I only knew part of the story.
Toni Collier:Yeah. Yeah.
Michael Goria:So the full dish.
Toni Collier:Yeah, exactly. And then of course, you know, we have these labels, but people want to update where the bad labels were in the past. So to figure out, how do we identify who got the first round of labels who got sticky labels, ya know, trying to send out kits for all these various accounts. So it's, you know,
Holiday Van Erem:Salespersons worst nightmare to have to re label their samples in the field.
Toni Collier:Exactly. So that's my story.
Michael Goria:No, thank you for sharing. It's perfect.
Holiday Van Erem:Thank you, Toni. All right, now we've got another WTF staff member sharing his story from a different angle from the warehouse side.
Michael Goria:Yeah, I was impressed. This is this is a horror story on a whole new level of actual commitment.
Holiday Van Erem:Yes
Michael Goria:To his word.
Holiday Van Erem:Uh huh. Yes. So here's our own Jose Morales sharing his flooring horror story.
Jose Morales:My name is Jose Morales. I've been in the flooring industry for six years now. I started off working in the sample department at T&A Supply Company. And now I'm a Sales Support Coordinator. Almost almost a year.
Michael Goria:Wow.
Holiday Van Erem:Nice. He's a he's a diamond in the rough from the warehouse. I found this one, he's good.
Jose Morales:Certainly feels like that.
Michael Goria:A unicorn of sorts.
Holiday Van Erem:Yes. A unicorn. All right, tell us your flooring horror story.
Jose Morales:Yeah, so this one's not necessarily flooring, but you know, working out in the warehouse. I've been a part of a lot of launches in the past. And the one that comes to mind immediately was back when we started, we got like brand new displays, we're moving away from like the particleboard ones. And I remember when we got our very first shipment of them, it happened to be quite possibly the worst time for me to receive that trailer because I had just become lead of the warehouse. And my boss became Supervisor of samples. But it so happened that he had like some operation that he had to do and vacation stacked on top at the same time. So like you know, I'm a week into being a lead and then my boss is gone for a long time. So I'm sitting here learning how to manage like all the shipping of the samples, pulling it all managing the whole crew of like six people, like I happen to be we had like 10 different launches going on at the same time. So trying to keep a cool, calm, collected head. And then I hear that we have a trailer for displays coming in. And I'm like, okay, well, that's fine. I've unloaded a million trucks before like this. This ain't nothing to me. I can do this real quick. And I thought it was going to take me like maybe 30 minutes about an hour maybe so I got all my other stuff done. It's like the last hour of the day and I'm about to unload this trailer and I open it and floor to ceiling, no pallet, full of display and law I just pieces, like pieces and headers. And there was like these crazy like hockey stick looking pieces. I didn't know what was going on. And I had promised the management team that I would unload that trailer by like the next day. Because I'm telling them that I'm gonna have it in the system ready to ship out to customers, because, you know, they're anticipating these brand new displays. So I'm like, well, I go to the team, and I'm like, so anybody want to work some overtime today. And I'm sitting there, like, are not sitting but like I'm working, trying to unload this thing by myself, because I'm trying to have the other guys make progress on all the hundreds of other projects that we got going on. And I checked the time and it's 7:30. And I'm like, oh, well its whatever I can keep working. And it took, um, Owen and himself to come down at like, 9:30 at night to tell me to go home. I finally stopped because I'm freaking out trying to get this stuff out out the door. But yeah, that's one that I probably always remember. I still have nightmares about it every once in a while.
Michael Goria:More loaded containers are about the worst thing.
Jose Morales:Oh, yeah. Yeah, it was awful. That's a great Yes, that's my story.
Holiday Van Erem:Thank you so much, Jose.
Jose Morales:Yeah, of course.
Michael Goria:Alright, Holiday now we have Jeremy Evert's horror story. I would call it a horror story. But there's some great humor in this one.
Holiday Van Erem:Oh, think we were laughing quite a bit when he told us this story.
Michael Goria:Which is usually the case with Jeremy
Holiday Van Erem:Things were on fire.
Michael Goria:Things were on fire. There's family involved. Yeah, but let the fun began.
Jeremy Everts:My name is Jeremy Everts. I was actually born into floorcovering. My grandfather was in World War Two. And one of the guys he was serving with in Europe was from Southern California. My grandfather was from Connecticut, and became friends with this guy and this guy's grand ideas after they got out of the war, they would start a diaper cleaning business. So they started a diaper cleaning business, which became a rug cleaning business, which ultimately became a carpet company. So my dad took over the family business when my grandfather was done. And I was born and raised every summer working at the flooring store. spring breaks, holidays, it was cheaper than babysitting, they would just send me to the store.
Holiday Van Erem:All right. Who do you work for?
Jeremy Everts:I work for Pacific Mat and commercial flooring. We are the premier provider of floor covering in the Pacific Northwest.
Holiday Van Erem:What's your position?
Jeremy Everts:Yeah, you know actually who I've my kids asked me this question all the time. Because as they got older, and they would see me kind of what they couldn't figure out what I did for a living. What I tell my children is my job is to give people bad news and to help them feel good about it.
Holiday Van Erem:Okay
Jeremy Everts:So they know that if you're good at that you can have some kind of living in the floorcovering industry.
Michael Goria:So you can live on a lake.
Jeremy Everts:Yeah, but now that they're teenagers, they don't like that. I'm good at giving them bad news. So
Holiday Van Erem:They can't have it both ways. All right. So what is your flooring horror story?
Jeremy Everts:Well, you know, I'm gonna go back back to 1995. That was the summer after my freshman year in college. And what's different when you're in high school, your summers only like two months long. But when you're in college, your summers are like five months long. I hated the floorcovering industry. I paid my way through college by working in it. And every day when I would wake up, I would say I'm doing this today, so I won't have to do this tomorrow. Like this was not. I had three brothers that were like, really good installers accomplished. I have one brother that still installs to this day. But I was not interested. It was not my jam whatsoever. So this was after my freshman year in college. And this was the summer of Chad and I called some of Chad, because I was working with my cousin Chad. So if I were nine, if I was 19 years old Chad was I think like 22 years old, was on a different life path. Now Chad still owns a flooring contracting business has tremendous success. It does fantastic. But we were both young at this age. And you have to imagine no matter how annoying I might seem today, I was significantly more so when I was 19 years old, especially because I didn't want to do floorcovering. So mostly what Chad and I did is we would do small repairs, and we did a lot of carpet cleaning. And so every time we would get to a job site, I would be talking to the customer and explain to them oh, this is my summer. I'm away from college. And I would be talking all about the things I'm going to do when I'm not having to do floorcovering because on some level, I was maybe a little embarrassed that I was doing floor covering, meanwhile, my cousin Chad was 22 years old and this was his full time job and what he was doing so he probably he actually even called me on it at some point in the summer like you got to stop. But the worst part about the summer is there was a dentist office. That was about 20 minutes away from our store and where we all kind of the area that we lived at. And what had happened, there was a fire next door to the dental office, there was no fire damage in the dental office, but there was smoke damage. And all of the flooring had been installed the year before. So everything is pristine, but they have to replace everything because of smoke damage. So my dad every
day, if we got done around 2:0 or three o'clock, we would want to go to the beach, go golfing, hanging out with friends, but my dad would say no, no, I need you to drive out to Camarillo, and I need you to work on tearing out more of the carpet. So every day like we would basically try drag it out. Because if we got to the
store like back at like 4:30, we'd be in the clear, but probably three days out of the week, we were up Camarillo and we'd be there like five o'clock, and then you'd have all the traffic coming back, you just be in a bad mood the whole time. So that was kind of the summer. And what happened is we had this hot water extraction of Puma carpet cleaning machine. And this thing had been around providence. So this is like 1995 this machine was from like the early 80s. It had been around forever. And it was constantly breaking down. Like we'd be at job sites doing carpet cleaning, the machine would like constantly die, we'd have to have someone come out or we'd have to load up all the hoses go back and then someone you know with a mechanic back at the showroom would fix it. It's constantly problems. So we're out of the job one afternoon. We're about 10 minutes into cleaning this whole house of carpet. And just the machine just stops. You just hear it die. So we go back out and Chad somehow figures out that it's just the unit isn't getting enough power. So he has this Chevy Silverado and this is again, mid 90s, Southern California. So this thing has been lowered. It has the whole limo tint. This thing is completely tricked out. This is like his baby, and he's having to drag around this trailer with the carpet cleaning unit on it. So he takes pulls his truck around, we put the jumper cables on, we get the battery going and we get started. As soon as we take off the jumper cables, it dies again. So we try this like four or five times we let it run for like 10 minutes, we take the cables out, it just keeps dying. It won't work. So Chad is basically like, screw this. I want to get this job done. I'm sick and tired. Like he is just burnt out. This is probably maybe like early August, I'm getting ready to go back to school. His life is going to continue and as bad as is with me. It's probably worse when I'm not there. So he is like we're gonna get this done. So he just puts the jumper cables on he fires it up, and he leaves his truck running. And he leaves the jumper cables connected. So we get back into the house and like the next hour, we're just we're busting it out. We're down to the final room and it dies again. And he is just like, gosh, darn it. He is pissed. He goes. He's just like, like throws and then I'm like well let me go see if I can go start it up again. I walk out and I'm like Chad, I yell. His engine is on fire. The jumper cables had lit and the whole thing is on fire. I run out and I'm like grabbing like to we have some towels. Frankly, I'm putting towels. I'm trying to put the fire out. I'm looking around Chad. Chad is walking. He's literally walking down the street. Dude, he didn't just give up. He disappeared for three months. I'm not kidding. He snapped his so his parents were divorced. Okay, he ended up what he walked somewhere and got picked up somewhere. And then went and just moved in with his mom for three months. And no one never called has never literally left his truck there. I had to like someone had to come out clean, cleaned everything up. We finished the job and then we got the truck back. And we didn't see or hear from Chad for like over three months. And it was like, is he alive? We don't know. And it was like that just you see, even at that age I earlier what floorcovering could do to a person. And so in the back of my mind, I always I always just tell myself it could be worse. No matter how bad it is. If as long as I don't snap like that. I think I'm doing all right. But you know the family the the wounds have healed Here I am, you know, whatever. 27 years later, still selling flooring. So something from that summer must have stuck, so.
Holiday Van Erem:Holy cow.
Michael Goria:Yeah, that's a good one.
Jeremy Everts:Yeah, that's a horror story. Unfortunately, he's alive. So it's a real horror story.
Michael Goria:That's perfect. That's just what we're looking for.
Holiday Van Erem:Thank you, Jeremy.
Jeremy Everts:Anytime you want to hear like shady family flooring stories. If those resonate with your audience, I have like three more than I can get right now.
Michael Goria:Fair enough.
Jeremy Everts:Thank you.
Holiday Van Erem:Holy cow.
Michael Goria:No, thanks for coming. That's perfect. All right are final. No, or story is brought to us by the longest industry vet that we that I think probably in the industry.
Holiday Van Erem:I don't know anyone who's been in the industry longer than he has.
Michael Goria:He's gonna give you a little tidbit. But he started in the 50s.
Holiday Van Erem:That's a long time ago.
Michael Goria:That's incredible.
Holiday Van Erem:Yes. And he's not retired, he know. So working every day.
Michael Goria:He's got so much wisdom. He's got so many stories. This is the tip of the iceberg. We may someday have to do a John Ferguson episode.
Holiday Van Erem:We might. There's a lot. There's a lot there. And this, this is definitely less horror story and more words of wisdom, which is why I liked having this one at the end of the show.
Michael Goria:Great way to end it.
Holiday Van Erem:Yes.
John Ferguson:I am John Ferguson. And I've been with the company since 1957. Starting out with the Seattle hardware company as an Armstrong distributor, and join the Pacmat organization in 02 and have been here for 20 some years and in the flooring industry.
Holiday Van Erem:Wonderful. Can you tell us your flooring horror story?
John Ferguson:Well, what I'd like to talk about today is a count in Olympia, Washington in 1962, that the best mechanic in town decided to go into business and I thought this is going to be a trouble because the account he worked for, it would be kind of upset of me sending his best mechanic into business. But we did it in a proper fashion. He had a store and we'll call it Capital Floorcovering, which is there today. The name of the gentleman was George Arizonic. And he was the best mechanic in town. Well, anyway, speeding this along. We did a lot of business. And back then a large account on the books was $500. And that was his limit. Well, he and I worked on a grocery store. Job was 580 cartons. And that was a big order. And next day after I placed the order, the credit manager said, hey, listen, we got a problem here. This guy is way over his limit, I can't let that order go. Well, that didn't set very well, because he wanted me to get out and get some money from George. I didn't want to do that. So what he did, I said, I'm gonna write you a check post dated to the date that this invoice is due. And then you run that through if he hasn't paid that invoice. Okay, we agreed on that. So I go on my merry way sing a song. And the next day, I got a call from the credit department and want to go down see Mr. Pierce. So I said, oh, good. He probably wants to give me my check back. So I get on there. And I said, how are we doing? He said, well, listen, you got a bad news here. Your check bounced. And I said, well, wait a minute, you forgot the deal we made. And Mr. Black, who was the president and the owner of the company heard the deal came out and looked at over and I went right back in and wrote up a nice letter that I have right here. Dated, you know that, do you want to get into the credit department? And I said no, I did rather not be in the credit department. Well, anyway, shifting gears, what I wanted to get across to our sales force is that you must get involved with the credit. And you should know who the credit manager is in each one of your accounts, and become a good friend of his and say hello to him all times because he can do a lot of good or a lot of harm. And by being a partner with him, and convince him that we can take care of his problems, because there's not one dealer that hasn't had some hurdles in the way of credit. So we have a way to get through that and help them with that in various ways. And so very important for you to be in communication with our credit department. Be a liason. It's very, very important. It'll pay dividends for you because when they put the no buy on, you might be the one that they might say, well, you know, we'll give you a little leeway. And you might come up with a bingo. So that's, that's very important. And credit is very important. And I want to shift one more real quick story and that is that Rocky Bleier, who was a Vietnam vet and got blown all the pieces in Vietnam shouldn't even be able to walk. He has now have a blocking back for Franco Harris from the Pittsburgh Steelers, and he's taken the 300 pound monsters on and that is a big, that's a big assignment. So anyway, he is a motivator speaker. Armstrong used to have guest speakers and this was the best that I've ever heard anybody and Rocky Bleier summed up his total talk with four very important things that everybody should remember. The important part of everyday life is your family, your job, your faith, and your attitude. attitude is the one I want to end this with as being the most, it's most important that you have a positive attitude. There is no dealer that wants a sales rep coming in with a negative attitude. And with a with a bad bad vibes, and maybe thinking that he's gonna get some sympathy and get an order, it doesn't work that way. So be sure that you think about your attitude, if you got a bad day, which everybody does. We call them hurdles, hurdles are low, medium, and high. And we have just been over the highest hurdle in the COVID. And we also have just been over the Armstrong hurdle. And I see us moving very smartly forward with the products that they're going to be offering that will be in our warehouse very shortly, and hope that we all have a real happy moving forward. And I think that's pretty well what I have to say, and I hope I've hit a button there or two, that that'll pay dividends. One one finale, though, is, be sure that when you make your calls, that you take something with you in your hand, not your not your blue book, or your computer or any of that stuff, take something that you think that you might be able to sell this, this account, always have something with you. Because they'll all look at that and wonder what it is. And that leads into situations that turn into opportunities. And so always be good. It could be a once and done I can't I want some done or just anything. But always carry something with you have a pencil and have ready to write an order. But I think that pretty well sums up my 10 minutes.
Holiday Van Erem:Yeah, that's so some good words of wisdom right there. I love that.
Michael Goria:Advice from the best.
Holiday Van Erem:Uh ha, thank you so much.
John Ferguson:You're certainly welcome. And listen, I'm out there all over the place. Now again, so if I can help anybody, make sure that you give me a holler. And I'd be glad to go into take, take you in with one of your toughest accounts and see how you turn the guy around into a into a positive. And one more thing quick for yesterday, I made a call. I'm not going to mention the account. But he's doing a favor for us. He's doing a carpet job for for us. And I said to him, I said, have you ever had a sales person, talk to you about credit? This is the owner of the store. And he said, no, I never have. I said do you think that'd be important? He says well, yeah, because he admitted he's had some hurdles. As I said, they're low, medium and high and we take them as they come and we get over him and move forward smartly. So with that, I'm gonna say this also, he didn't even know the name of his rep. And boy, that's a bad one. When you're in your store, you make sure you know everybody in that account from the truck driver to the warehouseman, to the owner to the credit, especially the credit department, and also of course, all the salespeople. Thank you very much.
Holiday Van Erem:Thank you Ferg, its great. I love it. What the floor is a T&A Supply Company Inc. original production. You can find out more about us at tasupply.com or TASflooring.com.
Michael Goria:This show was produced by Jose Morales with help from Toni Collier and Jessica riser hosted by Holiday Van Erem and Michael Goria.
Holiday Van Erem:Tell us what you think of the show by emailing us at WTFpodcast at tasupply.com or on social media hashtag what the floor podcast.