Transitions

We've been operating Gilford's Floor Covering the same way for fifteen years, ever since the folks started giving us more and more of the responsibility as they eased out toward retirement and finally left in the '90s. I have been on the "inside" and brother Derek has been "outside." Derek has been in the field installing and communicating with our other crew about installing and communicating with our subs about installing. In more recent years he has had more communication with builders and relayed scheduling concerns to me since I run the calendar. I have done 99% of the estimating. Joy and I work with customers in the showroom. I order the majority of materials and manage their arrival time for jobs, pay bills, bill our customers, do payroll and taxes, make deposits, layout the showroom, keep track of all the samples, keep price books up to date, pick up materials from our distributors or arrange their delivery, and run a vacuum around. It consumes every ounce of extra energy I have. I can plan on putting in 51.5 hours Monday through Friday and four hours many Saturdays, and those are just our regular store hours. There are all those hours of doing estimates at home and taking care of behind the scenes stuff like repricing carpets when an increase comes our way from the mills. But I'm not complaining. I would like some time off now and then and I will steal moments away to go for a walk to the bank with a deposit and maybe hit the library on the way back. The last two years have been phenomenally profitable for us. Derek was finishing up his house and we we're in the midst of ours. The business affords us a great lifestyle and we work our asses off for it. But we've started realizing that for me to keep what's left of my mental health and for Derek to keep what's left of his knees, he needs to move "inside" to take on some of the duties. The repercussions will be felt immediately. I predict we won't be as profitable. We're both OK with not taking home as much as we've been used to to make this work. He wouldn't be getting into the financials of the business as much as the estimating, ordering, scheduling and relations with all our customers, employees and subs. I have feared sharing specific duties because we're both headstrong and little wars could erupt. Part of the success of the old way has been our division of responsibilities. Change can be very painful but necessary. I'm hoping to look back at this time and wonder why we didn't do it sooner.