St. Georges, Quebec, Canada—After more than 40 years at the helm of Mirage, formerly known as Boa Franc, Pierre Thabet is passing on the leadership of the company to his son, Jean-Pierre. With over 20 years of experience at Mirage, Jean-Pierre is well prepared to build on the company’s legacy and lead it to new heights. According to Pierre Thabet, the transition reaffirms the trust and reliability of a North American, family-owned company and ensures continuity of an “unmatched experience and peace of mind for customers in delivering quality products with great design and service.”
FCNews publisher Steven Feldman recently sat down with father and son to discuss the transition.
Pierre, why now?
Pierre Thabet: Because it was time. Any CEO needs to have a succession plan. I’ve been involved for 42 years but not in the day-to-day for about 12 years. The process started in 2018 and was supposed to happen in 2020, but because of COVID-19 we postponed it two years. One step was in 2023 and the final step this year.
And you felt Jean-Pierre was ready now?
Pierre: Yes. He has been here 21 years and has done many different jobs. He’s qualified.
Jean-Pierre, what have you done over the last few years that has prepared you to lead Mirage?
Jean-Pierre: A bit of everything. I know the operation well. I believe the acquisition of Vintage in 2011 was the best way for me to learn much more about the market, fully understanding how the customer works and what Vintage did better than us.
What have you learned about the customer over the last five or 10 years?
Jean-Pierre: They’re all different and they’re all the same. When you look at that in today’s world, we’re not only here to sell products; we’re here to sell a full business solution. And you need to fully understand their business to be able to better service them. Sometimes we think we’re doing things the best way, but when you listen to them you learn what is causing a particular issue. And if you can fix someone’s issue, you make their lives better.
What are consumers asking of Mirage?
Jean-Pierre: The main reason people do business with Mirage is they’re looking for peace of mind. They know whatever they’re going to buy is not going to be the cheapest, although we’re more competitive than we used to be. They know that once they have a Mirage product, they’re going to get what they’re expecting, when they’re expecting it with no claims.
Pierre, what skills do you see in Jean-Pierre that convinced you he’ll be a successful leader?
Pierre: His dedication and knowledge of the operation. In the history of the company, we had two different burdens. From 1983 to 2007 it was non-stop growth. We were sold out and had to refuse orders. And when Hoboken went bankrupt in 2007, and there was the Great Recession in 2008-09, it was a different world. Then we made the Vintage acquisition in 2011, which was a game changer for us. He became a lot more involved in the day to day. And in 2007, we hired a COO to prepare him for this. That lasted 11 years.
Jean-Pierre, tell me some of the most important things you’ve learned from your dad. And how you think you’re different than him.
Jean-Pierre: The values. The most important thing is respect. We always need to be respecting each other. Second is integrity. Once you respect each other, you need to build confidence. The third is to be engaged and have passion. And the fourth is innovation. We need to be improving the little things every day.
The biggest difference is I spend more time with customers. Pierre has been cut into too many different businesses over the last 10 years and did not have the time. And visiting customers is, for me, the best place to learn. You get more quality time and can learn how you can make things better for them.
Pierre, is there anything that Jean-Pierre does better today than you ever did?
Pierre: He just answered it. He’s more present in the field, but it was different times. The business has evolved with competition from imports and the other floor covering products. Before 2000, you would go to NWFA or Surfaces and there may be Chinese suppliers there, but it would take a year before they come back. We also have the giants like Mohawk and Shaw in wood. But they have learned that making wood is not easy. I can be stubborn, but I am disciplined, I am focused and I was a wood expert. He’s more open-minded than I could be, but that’s because of different times.
Jean-Pierre, what do you see as Mirage strengths, and what do you feel this company does better than your competitors?
Jean-Pierre: Every competitor does at least one thing better than us, but as a whole we offer the best package. That’s our goal. When you look at the strategy, it’s not about one thing; it’s about making sure we have all the little things. We make all of our platforms and can meet pretty much any construction code in North America. We have four finishing lines. We can do all gloss levels. We have great marketing and merchandising. So we may not be the best at anything, but as a whole, we think our package is better than what anyone else offers.
Talk about your vision for Mirage, goals and objectives over the long and short term.
Jean-Pierre: Our vision is for growth, and we believe that growth will come with fewer customers than more customers. Having a complete offering to meet all their needs is how we can better align ourselves with them and make sure we can better service them instead of having 2,000 retailers who have 25 to 35 wood displays on their floor. We want to have more customers that are focused on us, where maybe 50% of the wood they sell is Mirage. We want to do more with less so our sales reps can focus more on our good customers.
Would you say that offering a solid is a competitive advantage? So many people have gotten away from that.
Jean-Pierre: Solid is important to have a complete offering, but you have to make sure you sell solid to the person who wants to buy solid. You can’t try to convince someone who wants to buy an engineered floor to buy solid anymore.
You said one of your goals is growing this business. How do you grow this business?
Jean-Pierre: You support your retailers in growing their businesses.
And what does that mean?
Jean-Pierre: If you look at the car industry, how many dealerships are there today vs. 10 or 20 years ago? Dealerships need to offer an experience. When people buy wood flooring, they’re probably investing $25,000 to $150,000 in renovating their home. Wood is just a piece of that. And these are things people do every 10 to 15 years. So they’ll travel to make sure they select the right partners, the right products and have the right installers.
So we want to partner with our dealers and help them grow their businesses, and we want to make sure our products save time for the installers, save time for the dealer and make sure that when the homeowner gets into her house, she will love her flooring. To do that, she needs to find a retailer that offers great installations so that person will sell our floors to their neighbors because it’s getting tougher for people to go on the internet and find correct information because we’re flooded with so much information.
Generally speaking, how does Mirage help a retailer make money?
Jean-Pierre: The one thing we realized a long time ago is if you have too many retailers selling the same brand, they become price cutters and can’t hold a reasonable margin. On the other hand, if a retailer wants to work at too high a margin, it’ll probably be out in business at some point because the competition is strong. But we understand our retailers need to make a healthy profit, so having a base of reasonable dealers that are competing at the same level—people who work at similar margins and give similar service—is the base to create this respectful network with our customers.
Once we have established that, we listen to what our retailers need and we make sure our products respond to their needs from solid to engineered. We almost see ourselves as the Volkswagen group as we can offer an entry-level $20,000 car all the way to a $100,000 car because we have all these options and the technology, grade, widths, lengths—everything that meets their customers’ needs.
What do you identify as challenges and opportunities going forward?
Jean-Pierre: The number of brands and products out there is a mess. Everyone realized 10 years ago it was easy to sell flooring. Just come up with a display. But if you don’t install it well and sell it well… The industry needs consolidation so we can better service the different professionals. We believe that by better servicing our customer, we are going to create this consolidation. Some of our strong competitors will also be participating in this consolidation. As for other competitors, people will ask why it makes sense for that company to be in business.
Another challenge is there’s some sort of dumping from our Asian competition. The Chinese are very innovative; they actually pushed us to bring our industry to the next level. Now, does the market need 86 brands of Asian-manufactured look-alike products? Probably not. Will the Asian products disappear from the North American market? I don’t think so because some of those products are much better than what’s being made in North America. And in this globalized world, you better keep your eyes open on what’s happening around the world, otherwise you’re going to get attacked quite quickly from every direction.
And the biggest opportunity?
Jean-Pierre: Consolidation, focusing on our customers and becoming more important to them.
Have tariffs affected the business so far?
Pierre: Not yet. We are exempted so far, but what it has done is create uncertainty, and that’s not good overall. Who knows what will happen, but we will manage accordingly. It will be the same for all the others.
What’s the next big thing coming from this company? What’s on the horizon?
Jean-Pierre: We have the vision that one day we want engineered capacity in the U.S. We’ve been working at Ten Oaks to make lamellas. In the next few years we want to have our product made in the U.S. It will be an expansion of our capacity to provide better service and better costing to the U.S. market. The next thing is innovation. Mirage has never been known as a true innovator. Our competition innovates faster, but we take the ideas and do it better. We did not invent the matchable nosing, but we saw it in the market and realized that accessories are a lot more important to retailers and installers, so we’re going to see where matchable nosing brings us.
Pierre, what are you most proud of over these last 42 years?
Pierre: First, our people. The reason for our success is the quality of our people. Second, our reputation for quality.
