Business View Magazine | Volume 8, Issue 10

67 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE VOLUME 8, ISSUE 10 FLOOR COVER INGS INTERNAT IONAL owners to get back out, running and growing, and we haven’t looked back since. We will finish up roughly 50% year over year. Last year, even through COVID, we grew as an organization. These are good growth times for our franchise system, we are really healthy. We are now just looking to head into 2022 at the same head of steam.” COVID did have its challenges for the organization, who quickly introduced a taskforce to help them get back to business, working out safety protocols and procedures to keep franchise owners and their teams safe as they got back out into the field. Schloerke recounts, “We are still mobile, we found our customers just didn’t want to go to a store, they wanted us to come to the home. We contemplated and tested a virtual style appointment, and customers still wanted us to safely come to them. It is the way to buy flooring. Safety protocols were tightly enforced and our communication with customers changed, particularly around safety and how we’ll come to the home.” With 180 franchises in operation, there are several more that have recently joined the Floor Coverings International team and are going through the initial training phases. Training for new franchisees is a long process. According to Schloerke, “There is a lot to learn about our business, about our industry, about how to operate our business, so it’s very thorough. We don’t leave anything left untaught.” Training begins as a remote learning process, known as “boot camp.” Franchise owners then travel to Atlanta for hands-on practice of the skills acquired through the remote component. Following that, new franchisees receive 12 weeks of training specific to new owners. At that point, there is ongoing franchise systems training, which includes conventions, regional meetings, and topic-specific system-wide calls.