Random Thoughts on the tile industry by Dave Yarborough, President, D&B Tile Distributors
As most of you know, our company has been around for nearly 50 years. We started from very humble beginnings and have never forgotten our origins. During this time, we have grown cautiously and steadily by hiring the right people, training them to realize that customers are the most important people on earth and by only presenting the best flooring products we can find in the world. And, we make a special effort to make certain our tile contractors are made aware of changes and new techniques and products. For the most part, that philosophy has worked to bring us to where we are now with 10 stores from South Florida to Orlando and a reputation for taking care of our customers and our employees. A few years ago, we made the commitment to make our showrooms your showrooms. We have remodeled all of our showrooms to make them more user friendly and encourage you to bring your customers there to see products from around the world. Elsewhere in this newsletter, you will see images of a recent series of seminars conducted by the National Tile Contractors Association (NTCA) at some of our locations. We are happy to make these available to our contractor customers and we appreciate the feedback we receive on these sessions. As part of our ongoing educational efforts, we are now concentrating on certifying our contractor customers so that we can confidently refer our retail customers to a “certified tile contractor.” Eventually, that designation will have to be earned by all contractors who seek referrals from D&B Tile. I am happy to say that we fully embrace the technology in the marketplace and are concentrating our marketing efforts on the internet in addition to our normal networking efforts. It is a steep learning curve for us and we appreciate your feedback. We understand the time constraints we all have and the need for “instant information.” So let us know how we are doing because as we progress and learn and increase our presence in the marketplace, we want to do the same thing for our vendors. Starting this month, you will begin to see “e-mail blasts” from a select group of D&B Tile vendors. These are presented to you in an effort to keep you aware of changes and improvements in all sectors of our industry. Let us know how we are doing and if you want more information. Finally, for this issue, we are continuing our efforts to work with “green” companies whenever possible. You will see more references to the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC). If you want more information on the LEED © building standards, please contact any of our design team members or call any of our stores.
