Alan J.
Fletcher - About Me | AbcCarpets.com
By Alan
Fletcher - Carpet Expert & Consumer Advocate
It makes me feel
good to help others, which is the main reason I created my free
carpet buying information websites.
Even though I don’t sell
carpet anymore, my goal is to help people
select the right carpet and pad that will meet their needs and lifestyle, to
have it installed properly at a fair and square price. I’m just a concerned
citizen who doesn’t like to see anyone get ripped-off.
Growing up I often had the chance to make some
pocket money helping out at
my dad’s carpet showroom. He was a Carpet Mill Rep. for over 35 years. I didn’t know it back
then, but my future was going to be in carpet. In 1977 I took a job as carpet
installer trainee at age 18.
I went through an apprentice program with
friends of my father who had a flooring business. The Company was owned by two
brothers. They were both very kind and respectable gentlemen
and they treated me very well.
A few years later they both retired and I was
out on my own installing carpet, vinyl and hardwood floors
for a number of
smaller retail carpet shops. It didn’t take me long to find out that I
didn’t appreciate the way that most retail flooring shops treated their
carpet installers. Rarely did they show much respect or appreciation for a job
well done.
After a few more years of honing my
flooring installation skills and learning more
about the flooring business I began working for Mike’s Carpet store. It
was then that I began to realize how many storeowners treated
their customers just as poorly as they treated their installers.
Mike would buy carpet
remnants from the manufacturers. These were carpet leftovers, roll ends,
closeouts, discontinued, off-colors, seconds, defectives, and so forth. Many
of these carpets were pure junk. By that I mean it was carpet that was made so
poorly that was not fit for residential homes. Mike would sell these carpets
to homeowners and tell them anything to make the sale. It was obvious that he didn’t care about his customers, he
only cared about making money. He and his wife had expensive sports cars,
wore expensive jewelry and treated me and all the other flooring installers
like dirt. He wouldn't allow us to use his business phone to call the customer
for directions to their home on installation day. He told us to find a phone
booth. This was a few years before cell phones were commonplace.
When
Mike would send me out to install his junk carpet, I felt really bad for his
customers. They didn't know what they had purchased, they trusted what Mike
had told them. And
Even though I knew the truth, I was unable to warn them about the lousy carpet they
had
purchased. Customers often asked my opinion of the carpet I was installing for
them but I couldn’t tell them
the truth or Mike would surely fire me.
When I was finished
installing the carpet I was told to collect the final amount due. Since I had the
original bill of sale I knew how much they had been charged for the materials
and labor. Had they bought from a reputable dealer and done their homework
they could have selected a carpet that would have been a good choice for about
the same amount of money. Mike had scammed them out of their hard-earned money and
I did not like being involved.
I'll
never forget this one particular carpet job Mike sent me out to do. This young family
of 4 had finally saved up enough money to
buy new carpet that they hoped would last 10 to 12 years. Mike had taken them
for all their hard-earned money and sold them a lousy carpet that couldn’t last
for more than two or three years.
That's when I decided
to look for another carpet store to work for and I soon found work at another small carpet retailer about
20 miles farther away.
However,
after a month or so I started seeing a familiar pattern at the new store. Many of the
flooring materials they sold didn’t meet the needs or goals of their
customers. It’s not difficult to figure out that a low-grade carpet won’t
tolerate a busy household with four young boys running around. I wanted to
know why this was happening again and again.
Here
again, I was in the same predicament like when I worked for Mike. Customers were not buying the right
grade of carpet and I couldn’t say anything or I could lose my job. However,
after spending some time in the
showroom listening to some of the salespeople talking with customers I figured out why this was happening.
The
Problem
The salespeople were not asking their customers about their needs,
goals and
lifestyle in order to help them find a suitable carpet. They were only asking
customers how much money they had to spend and then would lead the customer to
a carpet that fit into their price range, whether it was a suitable product or
not. They would ask..."How much money have to spend on your
project?" What they should have been asking was, "how
many people live in your home? any Kids? Pets? Teenagers? and How long do you
want your carpet to last?"
It
became obvious to me that
most salespeople have a fear of losing the sale if
they try to inform the customer to buy a suitable but more expensive
carpet than they had in mind. Instead of educating their customers about the
benefits of a better quality, buying a more durable carpet that could last years
longer, they would just show their customers less expensive grades of carpet and
give the impression that they
were more durable than they actually were. The customer was happy when they
found they could buy a carpet that fell within their budget, but the carpet
they selected was not suitable for their
application. Ultimately these unsuspecting homeowners eventually ended up unhappy with their
purchase because it would not last as long as they had expected.
In the first 15 years of my carpet career I worked for more than a dozen
carpet retailers. It became obvious to me that the majority of retail carpet
salespeople were only concerned about making the sale and not concerned about
the needs and goals of their customers. That's when I began to learn everything I
could about how carpet was made and what made one carpet last longer than
another. My father was a wealth of knowledge and experience for me to draw from.
In
1998, I
realized that I wanted to become more involved as a consumer advocate. I
believe that every consumer deserves to know the truth, even if they don’t
like what they hear. So I made the decision to pursue my passion.
-
In 2002 I wrote a book for landlords called "Landlord Floors-Carpet
and Vinyl management for rentals." and launched my second website
Landlordfloors.com. I began development of The CFM
Solution, a strategic
way for landlords to reduce their flooring replacement costs. The Landlord
Flooring Management Guide was compiled and offered as a resource for
rental property owners and property managers.
Be
careful what you read on the internet... I go online and read
all the other
"so-called" free carpet information
websites on the web. Trust me, they all put a spin on what they are telling you. They
all have a hidden agenda to hide or alter the truth or try to trick you out of your hard earned money. My
website is the absolute best and most helpful to homeowners.
I don't have any agenda other than telling you the truth
about buying carpet, how to save money, how to avoid scams and get the job
done right the first time. You may need to spend more than you had originally
planned. But in the end, you will end up a happy customer.
The revenue from selling my eBook helps me pay for
my websites which costs quite a bit to operate. It's a full time job for
me, not to mention answering the thousands of questions that readers send me
every year. Good Luck!
How
to measure for carpet What grade of carpet should I buy?
See
Alan's List of Preferred Carpet
Dealers
