Don Conner Shares Wisdom After a Lifetime in the Wood Flooring Industry

I grew up in the family floor covering business and was fortunate enough to end up in the wood flooring industry for my whole career. After running my own business for awhile, by the ripe age of 28 I had to get off my knees, so I got a job selling factory-finished floating flooring for Harris-Tarkett. Floating floors were brand new then; I had to find distribution with a company nobody knew with a product they didn't believe in and from somebody they didn't know … but it ended up working out, to say the least. I've traveled all over the world and made a career out of getting paid to do something I loved like a hobby. Over the years I've learned that one of the only constants in our industry is change (although people might say my bad jokes are one thing that never seem to change). I've also learned to choose my words carefully, to the point where I've had people call some of my sayings "Donisms." Here are some words I've heard a lot and given a lot of thought to over the years in this business.

If common sense were common … Back in the early '90s I was up in Alaska doing a series of seminars for a distributor. I said, "Common sense dictates …" and later this big old boy who was about 7 feet tall with a long beard came up to me. He said, "If common sense were common, everybody would have it." So I quit using that terminology, because he was right.

Is this acceptable? One thing homeowners like to do is show you their floor and ask, "Is this acceptable?" Well, if I'm at your house and we're talking, it must not be! Over the decades I've just about seen it all on wood flooring inspections. (I had one inspection where there were these strange dents all over the floor that I had never seen before. As I was bent over looking at the floor, I glanced up and was eye-to-eye with an aardvark coming down the stairs.)

Would you have this in your house? This one is similar to "Is this acceptable?" When you are doing an inspection, homeowners like to show you their "flawed" floor and ask,  "Would you have this in your house?" You can't answer that correctly. No matter what you say, it will be wrong. I tell them that I can't really comment on that.

Is this to grade? A customer will show you their "select and better" prefinished floor that they paid 99 cents a foot for and ask, "Is this to grade?" Whose grade? What you would like to say is, "You got what you paid for." I went on a complaint once where the floor installed was labeled as "cabin grade" and they were upset about the floor. Well, by my definition, "cabin grade" means there is something "wrong" with it.

I paid $19,000 for this floor! When they are upset, homeowners like to throw out a dollar figure at you for how much they paid for their floor. You want to say, "You paid what for this junk?" But instead I say, "What you paid for this is not anything I can control or speak about, because it has no relevance in me looking at this floor."

Wood has no "defects": Wood doesn't have any defects, it has character. The appearance of it is created by wood's natural characteristics from branches and the way it grows. I always tell designers that wood is a biodegradable renewable resource, and if you don't like the look of it, you can call 1-800-GOD. True story: I was talking with a woman in Oklahoma once and trying to explain to her that for wood to have no character in it at all, a tree would need to not have any branches. She told me, (and she wasn't joking, I swear) that they have those all over where she lives-the trees have wires attached to them!

Don't call me an "expert": I am very picky when being introduced when teaching or for a speaking engagement that nobody refers to me as an "expert." To me, saying you're an expert means you stop learning. I have learned so much from teaching, and even after a lifetime in the industry, I'm still learning today.

I've been doing this for 30 years: The worst thing I can hear from an installer is "I've been doing this for 30 years." That's good, but have you progressed for 30 years? The "30 years" statement usually goes along with another one: "No, I didn't use a moisture meter." You have to keep an open mind as the industry changes. I remember sitting at my dad's Sunday dinner table after he retired; I was working for Harris-Tarkett by then and my brother was running the family business. My dad was yakking at him about how he should do this and do that. I said, "Dad, that's really cool, but you're telling him to do things that in today's world are illegal!" Did I mention the only thing constant is change?

There is one important thing that hasn't changed: The best part of my wood flooring career has been the wood flooring people. Thank you all for the lifelong friendships, experiences and opportunities you all have given me. I hope I have given some back to you all.