Sint Maarten—The National Floorcovering Alliance, the success-minded group of 40 of the top retailers in the industry, elected its board of directors for the next two years at its fall meeting here earlier this month. The incoming board includes president: Scott Browne, Macco’s Floor Covering Center; vice president: Dave Chambers, Nebraska Furniture Mart; treasurer: Susan Hadinger, Hadinger Flooring; secretary: Sam Locher, AJ Rose; board member at large: Penny Carnino, Grigsby’s Carpet Tile and Hardwood; and past president: Ian Newton, Flooring 101. Two more at-large board members will be elected in January. FCNews publisher Steven Feldman sat down with the newly elected board for a 30-minute interview to discuss, among other things, goals and objectives going forward.
Ian, what do you believe to be your greatest accomplishments over the last four years?
Newton: Not screwing it up! But seriously, changing the bylaws where it takes five votes [not one] to block a new member from joining the group was important. But I think the greatest accomplishment was bringing in some strong members. Jordans Flooring, USA Flooring, Thornton Flooring are all great, solid members. I also think we brought some value as a board. I was truly blessed to have such strong board members by my side every step of the way.
Scott, you’ve been on the board for five years. What made you decide to run for president?
Browne: I had a backseat to Jeff Macco as his business partner when he was NFA president. I saw the opportunity to engage and grow. I watched our business grow because of relationships with members and vendors. And I looked at it as an opportunity for me to give back to what this organization and industry has given to me after these last few years on the board, on the resilient committee. These people are the best–the current board, the future board members, our member engagement, our vendor partners, even some of the media are OK!
Dave, what makes you want to be vice president for what will wind up being at least seven years? What’s the drive?
Chambers: It’s such a great group, it’s hard to not want to give. I want to make the industry better than it was when I entered it. So I’m finding ways to make an impact and this is just one way. NFA is about making an impact in the industry for me.
Carnino: Being in this group since 1998 or ’99 has really helped me grow as a leader. I got the first opportunity to serve on the board because it was time to help other people and mentor people in the group. If you look at our elections this year, we had some tremendous people who were up to be elected. It made some decisions very difficult because we had great candidates.
Locher: We’ve gotten so much from the group that we want to be able to give back and further whatever efforts we have. There are so many opportunities that we have both as a group and individually.
You talked about wanting to give back to the group. What has the group given to you as businesses and as individuals?
Carnino: The roll buy and pallet buy are amazing opportunities. Our best practices [sessions] help us learn from other members. The networking. If I have an issue or problem, I know somebody to call. Especially on the vendor side, if have a problem, I always have a connection. Those things have made such a difference for all of us.
Newton: We’ve built lifelong relationships within the group. Not only that, but being able to pick up the phone and call someone and say, “I have this issue.” We were a $10 million dealer when we joined the group; now we’re in the mid-$40s. And when we were $10 million, there were $20, $30, $40 million dollar dealers that had been through the same challenges we were going through. The ability to pick up the phone and ask, “How did you handle this? How did you grow? What did you do in this situation?” is invaluable.
Browne: Everything from marketing in the early years as an NFA member, what we learned, not just in our local market, but what others are doing. For us, a lot of times it was reassurance. You make a phone call and say, “Hey, I’m trying this. I’m working through it. I have this struggle. Did you find a better way to do it?” And they would say, “You’re doing it right. It took me some time to navigate through, but we got it all figured out.” It’s the people who you have an immediate link to that can either give you the reassurance or advice you need.
Hadinger: Everybody here is supportive of each other. Everybody in the group is among the smartest people in the industry.
Newton: I think the transparency of the setup of the group, too. You get reports and can see everybody’s rebates, so you can say, “Hey, this guy’s up with this company. What success does he have?” And you can pick up the phone and say, “Hey, is there a product or something to be doing with this that you’re up for that or down or whatever?” Or a company that you don’t do any business with and somebody is having success with that vendor.
What are your goals and objectives over at least the next two years for this group?
Browne: It sounds cliche, but continue on the path we’re heading down. I think we’ve seen in the last 10 years, especially in the last four, that transparency piece from board to membership and back. I think there’s a huge opportunity to continue to build on that foundation we have with our vendors, to establish the NFA year after year as the premier flooring group in the market. A group that our vendors respect.
We have some ideas on bringing back some of the past leaders and establish a past leadership council. Having the ability to have our individual CFOs get together quarterly or twice a year, maybe virtually on Teams, to have a CFO subcommittee where they can talk about some of the nuances in the flooring business and things they have figured out. I’ve had a few members reach out to me and say, “I would love the guys that run my builder team to be engaged with your builder people.” So I think there’s an opportunity to get more people engaged in an organization than just the principals or decision makers. There are a lot of important people in our businesses. We have the ability to make each other better, make all our businesses better and hopefully make the industry better than what it was when we found it.
You talk about maximizing vendor relationships. What does that mean?
Chambers: Finding unique programs that can help elevate and benefit every member. That’s the whole point–we’re trying to partner with them to create opportunities that don’t exist for other dealers out there. It doesn’t have to be exclusive products; it could be anything. It’s maximizing the relationships and continuing to build this. It’s looking at what we are missing from the other categories, broadening the business, how we make our businesses successful by bringing in new categories.
Locher: We always say it’s a relationship business. The relationships matter because it builds trust, and if we mutually trust each other… We want the vendors to make money, we want to make money. When there are issues like a claim, you know who to call and say, “Hey, this is legit. I’m not just looking for a money grab. I need you to take care of this.” And generally you can get that done.
Is increasing member engagement also a priority over the next few years? How do you do that?
Browne: You just have to present the opportunities. We have a lot of great professionals in our organizations that aren’t the principal or operator. You have to give them the opportunity to get engaged, to help build businesses out and take off that hat of “I work for XYZ Floor Covering, so I don’t care what happens in the marketplace,” and to become a part of something a little bigger. Our membership has been transitioning and there are a lot of new faces around that table that were not there 10 years ago. And I think just through that transparency and communication piece, more and more people are getting excited about being involved in either the board or at the committee level. We have a lot of talented people at the helm.
Give me a supplier that’s stepped up for the group this year in a big way.
Newton: Karndean and Stanton. Numbers wise, I know the group has had successes. Stanton’s a relatively new vendor to the group and I think they have figured out how to build those relationships to grow within the group.
Browne: We have a lot of great partners that have been working with the NFA. But to me, Shaw has done a tremendous job with offering deltas on products, holding prices as clean as it possibly can, full transparency on the backside of the business. And then, quite frankly, the pallet buy programs, rebate opportunities and growth have given us the best opportunity to win in our marketplace.
Locher: There’s been a push for Shaw to recapture how they used to be. I think they’re heading back.
Carnino: Cali and Shaw. Our business has grown a lot with Cali as it has for a lot of members. They’ve made personal trips to visit us and develop relationships with my people. That relationship makes all the difference in the world.
Hadinger: Karastan, Shaw and Cali. We have great relationships with all the people at Karastan, but this year they sponsored a designer event at our store. And it went a long way.
In other NFA news coming out of the meeting….
* The NFA celebrated Lisa Browning’s 20th anniversary as executive director. What has Browning done for this group over the last two decades? “She is the group,” Carnino said. “She keeps us all together. She keeps track of everything.” And Chambers added, “I don’t think the group would exist without Lisa.” Specifically, Browning bridges the gap between the members and vendors, then communicates everything to the group. “I don’t think there’s a high-end executive out there where she can’t pick up the phone and have a personal relationship with,” Newton said.
* Two economists from investment bank Piper Sandler–Jake Oubina, managing director and deputy head of economic research, and Peter Keith, managing director and senior research analyst–told members they are starting to see flooring sales normalize and there is definitely light at the end of the tunnel. They believe interest rates should start to come down in the second or third quarter of 2027. While they don’t expect massive rate reductions, they believe 6.5% might be the new 6% that will be the catalyst for increased activity.
“It’s just a matter of affordability,” Chambers said. “Either home prices or interest rates have to come down, or a combination of the two. Right now housing is just not affordable for younger generations. The average first-time home buyer is now 41, which is crazy.”
High interest rates are also negatively impacting renovation, which in the past ticked up when people were not relocating. “The HELOCs are just not great right now,” Chambers said. “That’s the problem. Although people have more equity in their homes now than they’ve ever had before, the interest rates are still not friendly enough for people to want to go get a HELOC.”
* The biggest challenges to NFA members’ businesses right now are how to best utilize AI, the ongoing battle to find good labor, and vendors raising prices on freight “or anything on which they can raise prices.” Members say increases disrupt business because everything has to be repriced or they take a hit on margin.
* One of the best opportunities going forward for the group, members say, is the new Daltile countertop concierge program. “If you don’t already do countertops, it’s a great opportunity,” Carnino said. “They have fabricators lined up. Grigsby’s had previously utilized a fabricator outside of our business. We just sold the slabs, but now with the countertop concierge, we not only make margin on the slabs, we make it on the labor as well.”
* Two potential new NFA members that attended the fall meeting were Atlanta Design Center and Carpet Weavers. Newton described both retailers as “solid fits for the group, not just in their volume but what they can bring as people to the group.” Both retailers have strong, diversified businesses. Browne added, “The bottom line is the people, their willingness to give back and their desire to be engaged.”
