Retail Q&A: ‘I Had a Vision Where I Wanted to Host Events’

WFB's Andrew Averill spoke with Marcus Aven, president at Green Life Construction in San Diego, Calif.

Describe your operations.

We are primarily a wood flooring retail and installation contractor. We sell prefinished and unfinished wood flooring. I have one line of carpet because I don't believe any customer should walk out of my showroom ready to spend money with somebody else. I have four crews of between two to six subcontractors.

Marcus Aven, President

What's your role?

I am at most times responsible for acquiring business—that means building relationships with the architects, designers and GCs we work with on different projects. I don't handle a lot of the logistics. I don't manage the bills or schedule our crews, but I manage the creative side. I test out different finishes and compounds and reactive stains on different species of wood to create custom samples for our customers.

Who is your clientele?

We have the run-of-the-mill flooring customer who is ready to go—they know what they want, have the money to pay for it, and they want it done fast. That's quick cash flow for us. Then there's the custom customer—creative homeowners or interior design firms. They don't have time to be involved, but they have money for you to be involved. My ideal customer is creative and wants to go with the things I've created. The rear half of our facility is where I test different finishes and cut inlays. The front half of our facility is the showroom, and we're continuously modifying it to represent us.

What do you mean by modifying it to represent "us?"

It was never my vision to have a showroom that is display rack after display rack, but I started to fall into that type of showroom anyway. I recently had a vision where I wanted to host events inside the showroom, and I realized we couldn't have racks taking over our square footage. People wouldn't want to spend two hours with drinks and tapas in a place like that. I want something clean, clear-cut, a place where you can come and enjoy yourself, rather than a place that's like a maze. So right now we're eliminating several lines because they're not moving at a consistency we would like to see. I've brought furniture into my showroom, and we're staging a couple of room scenes. It will be a place where people can come in for events, sit down and talk.

Why are you pushing to host events?

I spoke with an East Coast flooring contractor who had held an event at his location with credit opportunities for architects and designers. I thought I should be doing something similar because I'm looking for the same clientele base. The hardest thing in a retail location is getting people in the door. Being able to have events that get our target market in the door will help develop our business. I want to turn my customers into raving fans.

What type of events will you have?

We're planning on events that draw in the architect and design community or the Realtor community. We would have open networking events, like cooking instruction or wine and education nights. I haven't met very many designers who don't like a night out to drink wine. We're in the planning stages right now. We'll be shooting to host our first event in the third quarter of 2017. I've attended other events from Houzz, the online design platform, or the American Institute of Architects to see what works and what I like, and it's driven inspiration. I also picked up how they promote their events. Basically we'll do a phone and email campaign two weeks ahead of the event, another one a week out and one the day of.

What made you start your own company?

I've been in the industry for 15 years and only started doing retail two-and-a-half years ago. I got tired of working for other companies and their ideal clientele base. I couldn't filter out the clients who weren't necessarily a good fit for me, and I dealt with clients I knew I wouldn't be happy dealing with. If I had met them first, I may never have taken them on as a client. Now I can filter. I can understand my customers' expectations and personality types. I can send leads to other companies if they aren't a good fit.