Many of you may not have heard of Neocon, especially if you concentrate your focus on the residential retail floor covering business. You may also not understand or appreciate the significance of this market on your business. Neocon is the premier commercial furnishings market held inChicagoevery year. Relative to our industry, floor covering, it showcases the latest and greatest products from carpet to, increasingly, hard surface materials. The significance to you is that the products introduced and shown at Neocon are, what I consider, the cutting edge in styling and technological advances. They are the upper class products that many of you don’t see but that have a significant impact on your business and on the floor covering market in general.
Neocon is where style and fashion drive the business. It is a market attended by the design community and upscale furnishings procurers of corporateAmerica. What you see at Neocon is the highest style and fashion the industry has to offer. For example, the latest fibers that shimmer with brilliance adding a special design element to a pattern are showcased at this market. And, speaking of pattern, you’ll see more of it at this venue than any other market in the industry. This is the primary significance to you of the Neocon influence on your business.
Patterns have become a bigger style, design and fashion element of commercial flooring products being sold. Designers in corporateAmericalove unique and different styles that allow them to customize their clients’ spaces. The floor covering industry has obliged by delivering products that simply put, wow their audience. Every manufacturer has something different and extraordinary to show. The most gorgeous and colorful products you’ll see are displayed here. Every manufacturer competes to offer the best in style and fashion; it’s amazing to see.
These high styled, well constructed products influence the products that you’ll see in your stores in the future. Why is that so? Because as corporateAmericagoes so goes the style and fashion in the residential market place, this will influence your customer. Why? Every one of us is exposed to these products in office buildings, retail department stores and design and fashion magazines, creating a want and desire. If you’re not aware of this, you should be. In order to grow your business and cater to the wants and desires of your customers you have to be aware of what’s going on in the market place relevant to your business. Floor covering is an increasingly style and fashion oriented business. People want to impress with their homes and businesses. I’ll use our business as an example. Almost every visitor to our offices comments on how fashionable the place looks. This is certainly intentional, as it should be for any business, including yours, because it makes a statement about the business. It sets the tone for what people expect of us as a service business based on the image we project. Our clients and anyone who visits here have to be impressed that we’re professional – they have to feel good and confident about doing business with us; it has to show. This is the way it should be with your business. The products you sell, which are more and more stylish, being influenced by the commercial sector exhibited at Neocon, have to make your customers feel the same way I explained, about their homes.
Since we all seem to spend more time working and less time enjoying people want something to show for their efforts. They want to show off their home and the products at Neocon and their influence on the residential side of the business do just that. You better start thinking more about fashion and learning more about it and hiring more for it because your customers are going to be demanding it. They are not going to get this type of stuff from any big box company or a retailer that doesn’t adjust their business to the times. All of the manufacturers of floor covering are tapped into this trend, and it gets bigger and better every year. If you want to stay on the front side of the curve and be more successful you have to be aware of what the commercial side of the industry is doing.
Another reason I like Neocon is that it is a “dress up” market. This is a personal issue. We’ve become too casual, to the extent that we’re sloppy. Because Neocon caters to the design and architectural community and higher end users, who know style, fashion and dress up, it is the classiest venue in the industry. This is an image and if you want to be a style and fashion operation you have to look the part. You can’t sell at a high price or at the high end of the market if you, your staff or your store doesn’t fit the profile.
Take the opportunity to attend Neocon sometime. It will give you a totally different perspective of the industry, of where style, design and fashion are going in the commercial market and how it will and should influence and affect you and your business.
Remember, if you have a question, problem or need information of any kind on flooring products, call us, we can help. We’ve recently gotten bigger and better. If we can’t get you an answer, nobody can.
Author: Lewis G. Migliore
LGM and Associates – The Floorcovering Experts