Retailers weigh in: What’s your winning ‘Edge?’

(The retail community is counting down the days until Mohawk’s Edge Summit takes place this winter. As such, we’ve tapped several retailers, large and small, to explain what they’re looking forward to most.)

Reason to attend: Education seminars

Aaron Johnson
president/owner
Johnson & Sons Flooring, Knoxville, Tenn.

For me, being at Edge Summit isn’t a question, for not only am I attending, but we’re also bringing all the key people in our business to experience the magic of what happens there. 

First and foremost, the educational classes are top notch. They challenge how you see and think about things. As an example of this, several years back, in one of the classes by Andrew Oxley, we were challenged to double our business by the next year and shown strategies to accomplish it. At first, that didn’t seem like a reasonable goal. But if you start to look at it as an attainable goal—and reverse engineer the process—suddenly you see how it could be possible.

The bottom line: we did it. That year we doubled our business and were named Mohawk Retailer of the Year for the Southeast Region. We took that momentum and turned it into a multimillion–dollar–a-year business. Since then, we opened three locations and have won Retailer of the Year five more times since.

We’ve never missed an Edge Summit since and keep building on the success. It gets easier the more you go. It’s like pushing a car from a stop; initially it’s very difficult. It barely moves and you must put all your effort into getting any movement. But once you get it going, momentum carries you forward. You gain speed and can push it with a single finger. It’s hard to stop it, in fact. That’s what attending these classes are like. The education has helped our business and we’re continuing to push our business forward with our partnership with Mohawk, even in challenging economies. You can bet you’ll see us there in December.

Main takeaway: The educational classes hit on all the hot topics and have made a huge impact on our business through the years. 

To register for Mohawk’s Edge Summit, visit here.