Bryan Park, Founder and CEO of Footprints Floors
Right after graduating from the U.S. Air Power Academy and serving a stint in the U.S. Air Pressure, Bryan Park was laid off from his occupation at a flooring company in 2008. He not only turned lemons into lemonade, he turned that layoff into champagne, founding his very own flooring corporation, Footprints Floors, a few several years later on.

“I loved flooring. I understood how to do it, and I understood the business would reward from a extra advanced strategy and a better stage of consumer service,” he claims. In founding Footprints Floors, the Colorado indigenous tapped into an underserved market place and has created a productive enterprise that proceeds to grow these days.

The brand has been franchising for nearly a decade now and has built a network of nearly 80 owner-operators in 164 territories. The flooring sector is beneficial and should really carry on to develop, suggests Park. People in america spent $420 billion in 2020 on transforming their houses, and flooring by itself is a $24 billion market.

“Customer assistance is the differentiator. We connect with people today back again. We demonstrate up on time. We’re responsive. We will not wrap a venture right until it’s actually done—and done suitable,” claims the 40-year-previous. “Those points aren’t frequent in the sector.”

Park’s determination to support and top quality is just as essential when it arrives to his management team and the franchisees. “I firmly believe that that superior leaders surround by themselves with a proficient and capable team and invite them to present valuable perception and opinions,” he states.

The long run appears to be vivid for Footprints Floors. “If a enterprise is actively providing a fantastic resolution to a actual problem and treating clients very well, advancement will appear in a natural way,” he claims.

What follows are excerpts from an intensive Q&A with him. For the total interview, see the digital version of our Q4 problem of Franchise Update magazine (web site 10).

Leadership

What is your purpose as founder and CEO? I give strategic path and vision and function with all intrigued get-togethers to guarantee that we function in accordance to our mission and main values.

How has Covid-19 impacted the way you have led your manufacturer? Covid-19 did not have any adverse outcomes on our brand name. In fact, we knowledgeable incredible development in 2020 when quite a few businesses ended up slicing back or shutting down fully. Amidst the continuous stream of conflicting information and facts, I inspired my staff to remain calm. With regard to interactions that we or our contractors had with shoppers, we ongoing to do what we have often performed: place a top quality on respecting their properties, their needs, and of program their wellbeing as a primary problem. We place a high price on currently being clear and supplying the ideal company we can, even all through the difficult times we skilled over the past 3 years. We also took as quite a few safety measures as possible to guard the wellbeing of our staff and our valued associates and subcontractors. Staying correctly organized before and for the duration of a venture assisted guarantee the basic safety and well-remaining of not just our employees, but the homeowners as well.

What is your largest management challenge? Men and women are constantly the most underestimated component of running a enterprise. People today are your most important asset and your largest problem. Absolutely everyone has their have dreams and trials in their personalized life, and that’s inevitably heading to impact your business. Which is okay. From time to time individuals need to stop, or they just just cannot do what you require them to do. Life are messy, and enterprise doesn’t like messy, so you will need to find out to anticipate and accommodate that messiness in your business enterprise product.

Assistance to CEO wannabes: I consider progress in business comes when consumers are treated well—often and continually for a long time. When companies are unsuccessful to take care of their prospects effectively, they get rid of them, and without having consumers organizations die. When operating a organization, a plethora of points can distract, draw consideration, and consider time absent from the things that truly subject. It is critical to often return to the basics and try to remember why your business enterprise exists and who your business enterprise is for.

Administration

What does your management group appear like? Our government team is composed of 7 customers who come from diverse backgrounds but share the widespread intention of supporting all workers and franchisees in the development and deployment of their God-specified abilities and abilities.

How does your management team assist you guide? I’m surrounded by a team of persons I completely rely on to make choices that are not just in the greatest desire of the firm, but that characterize the values and convictions of a bigger calling. I respect my group not only for the reason that they are powerful and superb industry experts who direct their respective teams effectively, but mainly because they are not “yes adult males.” They present thoughts, feedback, and even pushback when warranted.

What makes you say, “Yes, now that is why I do what I do!”? I adore to see the good results of some others.

Operations

What are you expecting from your market place in the future 12 months? We really do not have any of the fees linked with storefronts, so we are positioned properly to regulate to a modifying financial state. We have skilled tremendous advancement over the past 3 years and really do not foresee any variety of slowdown. In a recession, persons end wanting outward toward new buys and in its place concentration on maintaining and strengthening what they already have. In accordance to a joint report posted by the National Affiliation of Realtors and the Countrywide Association of the Remodeling Marketplace, the two projects verified to make improvements to a home’s value over and above the value are hardwood flooring refinishing (ROI 147{ec3984a59f336e74413ebe8cd0979a3fa414de3884cb1e2a06779d998b58dc95}) and hardwood floor installation (ROI 118{ec3984a59f336e74413ebe8cd0979a3fa414de3884cb1e2a06779d998b58dc95}).

Are your franchisees bullish or bearish about development and including units? Bullish a thirty day period in the past, but turning bearish.

Base LINE

How do you evaluate results? We exhibit up on time, we simply call folks back again, and we do what we say we are going to do. And that has been plenty of to make us a leader in our phase. There truly is no magic to it. I have finished possibly 12,000 estimates, and I have to have been requested 9,000 situations why the future customer ought to pick us. My reply is always that we are fantastic at what we do, but, more importantly, we do precisely what we say we are heading to do. No surprises. And if anything goes wrong, we make it ideal. That is our not-so-key sauce.

What can we hope from your business in the future 12 to 18 months? Points are heading particularly well for us these days. All the grit and tricky do the job that acquired us by way of people early days resulted in a rock-solid basis for our enterprise. We are lean, suggest, and quite lucrative. You can be expecting us to continue on our franchise enlargement nationwide. And as I stated, we are also launching a fund wherever we are donating 25{ec3984a59f336e74413ebe8cd0979a3fa414de3884cb1e2a06779d998b58dc95} of our income to nonprofit organizations in our community and all around the entire world. We’re hoping to seriously have a huge influence and influence on the nonprofit local community, and we’ll have far more information and facts on this quickly.

What are your long-term aims for the enterprise? To continue to develop alternatives to other people who are pushed to be thriving whilst retaining a do the job/existence balance. In addition to expansion, I want to proceed to bolster the assist infrastructure we give to our existing employees and franchisees so they have all the needed resources at their disposal to help make them thriving. Another goal—and one particular that is deeply crucial to me—is the expansion of the Footprints Floors’ Initially Fruits Fund. We’re in the early stages of organizational enhancement, but our final purpose is to donate 25{ec3984a59f336e74413ebe8cd0979a3fa414de3884cb1e2a06779d998b58dc95} of our income to other like-minded, nonprofit organizations—namely, ones that deliver adoptive treatment for orphans.
