Networking Tips for the Flooring Retailer and Flooring Vendor

When it comes to flooring, there’s not a one-size-fits-all for each customer. There are various options available to suit each customer’s taste, style, needs, and budget. 

Think outside the box and expand your flooring business by reaching out to new customers (consider different types you may have never thought of such as business owners) to increase sales and create a reliable brand people trust.

There are many ways to reach potential customers. Through online marketing, direct mail, and cold calling — you can grow your flooring business as quickly as you want. 

Networking with those in the construction or design industry can lead to multiple jobs and enhance your reputation for creating quality flooring for residential and business customers.

Think about it, homes, businesses, schools, and pretty much every building, new or old, need flooring. The options for networking are endless! Other traditional, potential networking partners for a flooring company include:

• Interior designers
• Building owners
• Home contractors

Flooring vendors can find several networking opportunities by contacts with various retail stores. Big box stores can be lucrative but don’t forget about local stores and local contracting companies either! 

Whether you are a flooring retailer or flooring vendor, here are some tips to help promote your business and products!

1. Build a website for your flooring business that includes business contact information, description of flooring services and installation procedures, types of flooring, customer testimonials, and before and after pictures of recent jobs. 

2. SEO Search engine optimization is a great way to improve your website’s search engine rankings and drive more traffic to your homepage. However, SEO is not an exact science and it’s definitely not a quick process. Many factors influence these rankings. Try writing original content (blogs, articles, etc.) about your products or craft, and post them on your website. Make sure to include keywords that mention flooring or flooring terms in each post. Think of this as a long-term tactic.

3. Take high-quality photographs of your work. Show potential and current customers precisely what you can do with professional-quality images of each job. Show before and after pictures and pictures of different products showcasing different types of flooring and projects. 

3. Utilize LinkedIn. Use your actual photo, complete all the details of your profile, and of course, link to your company page. 

4. Join flooring, contracting, residential, and commercial building associations. Attend networking events that you know home contractors or related organizations may be present. Don’t expect to get a sale–this is a time to get to know others and introduce yourself!

5. Ask for referrals. Satisfied customers can and will provide you with solid leads. Offer them a discount on future jobs, or thank you gift to encourage referrals. 

By successfully networking, you can lay a solid foundation for your flooring business! And while you’re at it, check out VendorPriceBook.com — the ultimate tool for looking up flooring pricing and inventory from your preferred flooring supplier.

LinkedIn to Grow your B2B Flooring Leads

Growing B2B leads is about making connections with people, one at a time. With the pandemic and many things turning (at least temporarily) to the virtual world, it’s important to learn how to network online.

An easy, free way to find potential leads with Linkedin without bots or automation is to study a business’s website in the flooring industry. Read their overview and then search their list of employees. This will allow you to target people according to a job title. Next, use filters for various job titles as many titles are worded differently. The filter will produce many results, which you can contact with an email.

Another approach is called Outbound Lead Generation. This cost-effective strategy involves optimizing your profile with a professional picture and headline. Then, create a list in LinkedIn’s Sales Navigator titled “Connection Request Sent”. Send this request without a message to people active on LinkedIn’s platform within the past 30 days. This ensures you are reaching out to viable contacts. Save the “Responded” list. After this, under “Follow Up List” use “saved searches” to create a targeted list. At this point, using industry filters such as “Flooring” and then title filters such as “Flooring Retailers” will generate results for you to contact before sending a message of authentic everyday language to all on this list. Sending out 50 connection requests a day can result in 400-600 new connections a month. Keep in mind that Sales Navigator is a paid-for service. You can try it out during a trial period for free to test run the system and see if it’s worth it for you.

Installing Google Chrome extensions from the Google Chrome web store is another way to generate B2B leads on LinkedIn. Linked Helper will generate free leads on LinkedIn, however, overall account activity of any kind is limited to 150 actions per 24 hours so limiting actions to these numbers is wise.

In addition, a free account on LinkedIn will allow you to use Boolean, a logic program used to find specific hyper-targeted leads. Utilizing quotation marks or not using quotation marks and utilizing the words “and” “or” and “not” in particular ways dramatically affects the search results. This system is valuable to producing precise searches for locating high-quality B2B leads on LinkedIn. Once a connection has been established, asking for a Zoom meeting, offering a free e-book, or sending them to a landing page using direct, concise language can help increase business leads. You can share with them your catalog of flooring and related products.

Connect with others in the flooring industry on LinkedIn

Since LinkedIn is the world’s largest database with more than 450 million people listed, engaging with people by commenting on their posts is a great way to establish interest and, ultimately, a business relationship. Commenting is also a way to determine if you want to move forward and connect on Linkedin with a prospective lead or not. If your decision is to build trust, then leaving positive comments and tagging them in relevant posts is a non-stressful, authentic mode of building B2B connections, one valuable person at a time.

Feel free to follow VendorPriceBook on LinkedIn! We are another tool to help you streamline communication between flooring vendor and supplier. Check us out at VendorPriceBook.com.