After meeting the reps from the suppliers and hearing that I should watch my so called partners from Floor United because they had money issues in the pass.
First order of business was to inventory everything in the store and to clean.
There was no organization in the store, it was dirty with out of date samples, I had cleaned up, threw out half the samples in the store.
The sale of the store to me was for the samples in the store so to throw away half didn't feel right knowing I was told all the samples were current.
I took over the location and was sub leasing the unit from them along with power and phone.
I was also told they would help me with sales, web site and gaining name recognition for my company.
They would handle material receiving, warehousing the materials and installation.
But with my background as a installation manager I had better installers and I had the experience with installation where they didn't, so I told them I would use my installers, but next thing I knew they were trying to use my installers because their installers had been burned by them in the past and they couldn't count on their own installers, which didn't sit well with me or my installers once they got burned by them.
This is how they told me to do business: for every sale that I made I was to mark up the sale 45 to 50 % at which point I would pay them 20% of the sale and the rest was to pay overhead and I was promised that I would be paid at lease one to two hundred from the sale to help me pay my bills.
I was told to have the checks from my customers made to Flooring United, cutting Imperial out of all monies till Flooring United paid me and it would leave me holding the barrel if something went wrong between Imperial and the customer, I had a friend that owned a transmission business and I ask him for his accountants information which I contacted and ask her how should I handle the arrangement.
She told me to have the checks made to me and I write a check to Flooring United showing I was in the mix so to speak.
Flooring United didn't like it but I told them it was for my records. If anything were to happen I was the company doing business with my customers and not them.
After twenty or so sales and six months later I hadn't seen so much as a dime from Flooring United.
I started believing the reps were right about these guys being crooks. When I ask about the money I was always told it was going towards the overhead on the store I was operating.
Tomorrow I will continue on the story of small business smarts.
Have a Great Thursday.
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