Running a retail flooring business is hard, which is why many would-be entrepreneurs ultimately fail. In Jeff Jones’ Yulee, Fla., market near Jacksonville, for example, roughly a dozen flooring dealers have gone under in the last few years.
But that reality didn’t stop Marquis Wright from working his way up the entrepreneurial ladder to fulfill his ambition to become a store owner. This evolution didn’t happen by chance, and it didn’t take place overnight.
An installer by trade, Wright worked closely with Jones, owner of American Flooring, to learn the ropes before venturing out on his own after roughly a year of mentorship. “I’ve always known I would own a store one day,” Wright told FCNews. “Ever since I started installing floors, I envisioned myself working with every type of flooring, inventing tools, opening multiple stores and even exploring manufacturing. I realized I didn’t need to reinvent the wheel; instead, I could learn from the greats in the industry and emulate their successes as I worked my way up. However, I’ve also come to understand that progress doesn’t always happen as quickly as we wish.”
For the past year, Wright became familiar with the inner workings of American Flooring, which he called “My University.” In the beginning Jones asked Wright to learn how the back room works in terms of scheduling, ordering, handling claims and going to jobsites if there is a problem. Then he worked the sales floor interacting with homeowners, putting together invoices, learning about the different flooring materials. From there Wright went into the field to do estimating and meeting with customers in their homes.
There seemed to be no end to the work. “He was like, ‘I can do this but my gosh there’s so much that goes into this,” Jones recalled.
Wright made his share of mistakes, which is to be expected of any young entrepreneur. “Jeff taught me several key lessons like, ‘Treat your people right; if you take care of them, they’ll take care of you.’ He also emphasized the importance of having a system that checks the system—what I like to call ‘Everybody needs a Windy.’ And perhaps most importantly, he taught me to focus on selling off margin.”
Jones was a calming influence throughout the mentorship; he even saw value in Wright’s errors. As he explained, “Everybody makes mistakes; it’s whether you learn from them or not that matters. I’ve been doing this 21 years and have made tons of mistakes.”
Along the way Wright learned there was a right way and a wrong way to do things, and proved to be a quick study. “He seemed to learn stuff fairly quickly,” Jones said. “Measure Square, for example, was an estimating program Marquis had never worked with before. But once he got it down, he moved along pretty well with it.”
Jones saw in Wright someone who had the mental makeup to flourish. “Marquis has the three things you need to be successful: He’s smart enough, ambitious enough and not afraid to ask questions. Of the three, the ability to ask questions when you are not sure about something might be the most important. I believe he will do very well.”
Marquis is now the owner of Mr. Wright Flooring in Jacksonville. He runs the retail flooring business while also still managing his installation crews, which includes many family members. He’s still grappling with the fact that flooring retail is a challenging business with many moving parts. “I’m still fairly new to ownership, and I’ve already made my share of mistakes in the store,” Wright said.
Being able to acknowledge your mistakes while knowing how to correct them should serve Wright well in the future. “While it may take a couple of years to perfect a successful system, my main goals are to stay visible in my area, sell a lot of floors and teach installation classes,” he said. “I aim to learn as much as possible in a short amount of time while remaining grateful for every step of the journey.”
