ALLPRO Independent March/April 2019

ALLPRO

INDEPENDENT M A R C H / A P R I L 2 019

Mixing It Up p.12

A look at Florida Paints' products, motto and history

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p.26

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• M I K E ’S MESSAGE • SPOTLIGHT

A REGAL PA S T

The Maryland-based chain shares its story .

RULES AND R E G U L AT I O N S

A boss’s guide to keeping employees informed

AVOID TA X F R A U D

3 cyberscams business owners should look out for

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FROM US TO YOU

ALLPRO’s Next Generation

By Mike Beaudoin, ALLPRO executive vice president

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he 2019 ALLPRO U: Next Gen meeting was a success on every level. To recapture the energy of last year’s meeting, we brought the group together again for meaningful content and fun in New York City. With so many people who now know each other, it was quickly apparent that networking had taken place throughout the year. It was also apparent that word of last year’s summit had spread, as there were many new faces this year, bringing the attendance up to 77 people, our best yet. Everyone who came brought a high level of energy and excitement that helped make this event successful.

Benjamin Moore hosted this year’s meeting, and the team did a great job lending their professionalism and planning to elevate the event.

VP of sales operations Steve O’Neill and VP of professional engagement Rob Sheehan added great content by sharing their company’s strategic direction. The presentation detailed the many initiatives Benjamin Moore is bringing to market that will enhance not only the company’s brand but also the ability of ALLPRO members to compete in a changing market.

The presentation led to a dialogue on how best to leverage these initiatives for growth. In addition, they held a class on proper business planning:

Rob Seiss, director of dealer business management, helped the group explore ways to improve profitability and strategies to become a more successful business.

The Next Gen group also received a powerful presentation by Mike Coffey and Don Duttine from New York–based Colorize on how to compete with national chains. Their presentation took a no-holds-barred look at how national chains go after contractor business and gave strategies for how to best combat their tactics. They pressed our group to be introspective on what they are doing to be truly “in the game” as far as their business approach and pushed them to go after new business, while not giving in to the perception that smaller contractors and retailers cannot compete at all levels and for all jobs. Both Mike and Don have experience working for a national chain and competing with independents. They now own retail stores and use that knowledge to their advantage.

After the Colorize presentation, we had a panel discussion with four members participating. They shared their own experiences and best practices for competing with national chains. The experiences they shared led to an interesting discussion with several attendees who also shared their best practices. This type of

ALLPRO Independent

collaboration is one of the cornerstones of ALLPRO and provides significant value to members.

Mike Weber from Minnesota-based Hirshfield’s shared his knowledge of how to structure a decorating department. He reviewed the many tools and analytics that help direct efforts to produce a profitable department. He went into detail on how understanding your demographics (continued on p. 3)

• Volume 2 • Issue 2

ALLPRO Leadership

About ALLPRO Independent

How to Reach Us

President Glen Morosohk

We are a bimonthly publication dedicated to

Write us at ALLPRO Corporation

Executive Vice President Mike Beaudoin

strengthening the ALLPRO community with

4946 Joanne Kearney Blvd., Tampa, FL 33619

Vice President of Merchandising Scott Morath

relevant stories and news. Your suggestions,

Or contact us at 813-628-4800 or by email at allpro@allprocorp.com.

Marketing Coordinator Susie Fontana

opinions and feedback are encouraged.

All publishing services provided by Stevens Editorial.

March/April 2019 ALLPRO Independent

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Benjamin Moore’s New CEO Partners Up

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n his first year as CEO, Dan Calkins is aiming to implement changes that will help the company grow, including investing in e-commerce, partnering with designers on new color endorsements, and partnering with Material Bank — a large materials resource library for architects and designers — to ensure a more timely delivery of supplies. “We’re doing things on multiple fronts to ensure that we can be a strong brand for the next 135 years,” Calkins told Architectural Digest in January. Calkins added that designers will continue to play a vital role in the Montvale, New Jersey company’s plans. “When we partner with designers, we benefit from their endorsements, and I like to think our brand helps them. I think why we’re so respected as a premium brand is from the support of all of those advocates in the design community.”

When asked about the next big things to hit the industry, Calkins singled out consolidation and technology. “I think we’re going to continue to see the consolidation of manufacturers. From when I started to today, it’s significantly different.”

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March/April 2019 ALLPRO Independent

Building a Canadian Dream House An Ontario man enlisted an ALLPRO supplier to revamp a beloved childhood locale.

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awyer and entrepreneur Holden Rhodes had fond memories of childhood vacations on Killarney, a small village on Georgian Bay in Ontario.

While his grandmother worked at Killarney Mountain Lodge with his mother and other relatives, he never imagined that he’d be in a position to own it. Until 2015, when he purchased it with his wife, Carey. When Rhodes decided to expand on his dream project and build Canada House, a 34,000-square-foot convention center located in Killarney’s picturesque La Cloche Mountains, he settled on ALLPRO supplier Sansin to provide the exterior finish. The projects that the Canadian company and others helped complete also gave the local economy a shot in the arm: Timber for the house was sourced from Wikwemikong on Manitoulin Island, and Rhodes hired a team of architects, designers and builders from near his hometown of Ontario to work on the project, including Romano and Claudio Tome from Tome and Associates, Inc.

(continued from p. 1) and positioning your products accordingly can help with picking suppliers and positioning products.

He also reviewed how technology can be used to organize a department that utilizes several vendors, while consolidating the information for associates to easily access.

On the final day of the event, we had a great presentation from Rochelle Carrington, president and CEO of Sandler Training. She discussed ways the next generation can build their personal brand in the shadow of their predecessors and establish themselves as business leaders in their own right. This part of the event also facilitated a discussion of shared experiences from many of the participants.

Rochelle provided exercises that helped the group determine their core values and what drives them as individuals. This introspective approach helped attendees figure out how to make their own mark in their respective businesses.

The Next Gen group is extremely motivated and reflects exceptional talent, and we’re confident these traits will drive ALLPRO to new heights in the years to come. We’ve already started planning for the 2020 ALLPRO U, which will focus on bringing together a broader range of members.

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March/April 2019 ALLPRO Independent

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Please welcome new member White’s Lumber & Building Supplies to the ALLPRO family of independent retailers.

Based in Watertown, New York, White’s is a family-owned business and has been part of the North Country since 1892.

• Harrison Paint Co. of Baton Rouge opened their 6th store, located in Youngsville, Louisiana.

• John Boyle Decorating Centers opened their 9th store, located in Cromwell, Connecticut.

• South Bay Paints will soon open their 3rd store, located in San Jose, California.

Join us in congratulating our current members who are

• Tommy’s Paint Pot opened their 3rd store, located in Corvallis, Oregon.

opening new locations and

• Colorworks opened a new location in Lowell, Massachusetts.

a new member who has joined the group.

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March/April 2019 ALLPRO Independent

• Helm Paint will open a new store in Fort Worth, Texas.

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HOUSING

The Good, the Bad and the Blurry

In some ways, the latest economic numbers are a mixed bag for ALLPRO members. In others, the future’s so bright you gotta wear shades.

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here’s a lot to like in the latest housing numbers from ALLPRO financial research partner Baird, but there are also a few yellow flags...or at least they look like yellow flags. Reading statistical tea leaves is tricky business.

The most worrisome signal for retailers might be the two-year drop in home sales. “Housing turnover plateaued at about 4 percent of total units [in 2016] and has started to decline,” Baird said in its February report, citing research from the National Association of Realtors and the U.S. Department of Commerce.

But it isn’t only that fewer people have been buying homes: Fewer are looking. An index called “The Traffic of Prospective Homebuyers” fell from last year’s levels, and Baird blames the slowdown on three characteristics of today’s housing market: rising home prices, climbing interest rates and a tight supply of existing homes.

While the idea of fewer homeowners isn’t going to thrill a lot of independent retailers, there is an upside to rising prices. As Baird observed, today’s homeowners have watched the equity in their homes rise along with their tax assessments, so they should have plenty of resources available for remodels and repairs in the form of home equity loans and lines of credit.

That’s lucky, since their homes are getting rather long in the tooth. The median age of owner-occupied homes in the U.S. has gone from 31 years old in 2005 to 37 years old in 2015, and more than 50 percent of U.S. homes were built more than 40 years ago, Baird said.

With so many aging buildings, it’s easy to see why Baird expects demand for repairs and remodels to continue.

The firm points to an indicator for home maintenance and repair spending done by the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University that says such spending has risen steadily since 2010 and will continue through 2019.

Nevertheless, some cultural developments are big enough to alter

projections. For instance, the magnitude of millennials who will soon enter their prime home-buying years could supercharge the American housing market, Baird reported, making current estimates seem conservative. The firm used census data to estimate that 12.5 million millennials are expected to form households from 2016 to 2025. That’s nearly double the 6.7 million formed in the previous decade and “should represent a powerful tailwind for housing in the years to come,” Baird said.

However, the effects of so many potential customers coming of age might be muted by other economic and social conditions. Most young adults may be eager to form new households, but that doesn’t mean they’ll be financially able do it anytime soon. Some theorize that new economic realities have forced a cultural reset, and more young people may live with relatives for much longer than the previous norm. (Insert pained groan from parents here.)

Fortunately, the emerging millennial market isn’t the only broad trend that points to a stronger long-term business climate for independents. Compared with historical averages, housing’s current share of the overall economy is quite low.

“Housing’s share of the economy—as measured by private residential investment—has recovered to 3.9 percent of GDP,” Baird said. But that still lags behind the average since 1950 of 4.6 percent. Excluding the Great Recession year

of 2010, the lowest rate other than the current one was 3.2 percent in 1982.

In other words, the housing market has plenty of room to flourish. Baird said that growth in the home-improvement sector could be as high as 9 percent over the next three years. If that turns out to be true, retailers can thank the surveys and statistics for hinting at their good fortunes, and fallout from the last housing crisis might finally disappear from their balance sheets for good. ~ Steve Stevens

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MEMBER PROFILE

Florida Paints

This business got started after the owner’s pre-teen daughter asked him about his life’s purpose. Did he know what it was?

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n 1960, brothers Don and Charlie Strube started making and selling paint in a 600-square-foot building in Orlando, Florida. “My dad made it in the back, and my uncle Charlie sold it in the front,” said Don’s son, Don Strube Jr. The Strube brothers were originally from St. Louis, but Don picked Orlando for his business headquarters because it had a climate similar to Morocco, where he was stationed during the Korean War. Four decades later, their company, Color Wheel Paint Manufacturing Inc., had annual sales in excess of $100 million. In 2006, they sold the company to the U.S. subsidiary of Mexican paint maker Consorcio Comex SA de CV, which

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Florida Paints' newest location in Oviedo, located just east of Orlando.

In addition to specialty color, the Oviedo store also offers a full selection of painting accessories.

was later acquired by Sherwin-Williams.

Whether one wants to describe it as serendipity or divine intervention, the Strubes sold the company just before the recession hit. “Nobody had any idea what was going to happen,” said Strube Jr. “It was a blessing. You can’t strategize and make that happen.”

Strube Jr. said his family sold the company because it was on the verge of getting so large that he was worried it wouldn’t be fun anymore. “We’re paint guys at heart,” he said. “It seems like most of the national brands are marketing companies whose product is paint. We just love the chemistry side of it, we love the manufacturing and we love the face-to-face interaction with the contractor.”

Strube Jr. tried other business ventures after his family sold the business, but he missed paint too much.

Even his kids noticed he wasn’t happy.

“My one daughter said, ‘What’s your purpose? When you had your business, you had a purpose. Now you don’t have a purpose.’ She was in sixth grade at the time. That was kind of a gut punch.”

Strube Jr. went to Fred Stewart, who had been the vice president of manufacturing for his old company, and told Stewart that he and his brother Rick were thinking of making paint again. “He said, ‘I think you guys are nuts.’” Don’s

wife was skeptical as well. “She said, ‘This is a big commitment. Are you sure you want to do this?’”

In spite of any misgivings, Don and Rick Strube, Stewart and Stewart’s 80-year-old father built a little lab and spent a year devising paint formulas.

With the help of a team of experts they had worked with back in the old days, the Strubes launched Florida Paints in 2012.

In 2016, Florida Paints acquired a company with similar goals and Florida roots: Scott Paint. Both companies share a manufacturing philosophy that was followed at the Strube’s first company: They design paint for the exclusive use of Florida-based contractors and homeowners.

“Florida: There’s nowhere else like it in the continental U.S.,” Strube Jr. said.

“There are parts of Louisiana and the Gulf Coast states that have similar climates. It’s hot more than it’s cold. It’s humid more than it’s dry. And the sun is relentless here.

Paint takes a real beating.”

National-brand paints are excellent, Strube Jr. said, but they are made to work everywhere. “Our paint is not going to work very well in Minnesota or in Oregon,” he said. “But Florida is a big place. We have all the opportunity we need here in Florida.” Strube Jr. spends so much time touting the protective qualities of his coatings that he tends

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to forget to tout their decorative ones, which are also top-notch. “Our new tagline is ‘Paint a brighter day,’’’ he said.

Florida Paints currently has 28 stores in the state and is producing 2.5 million gallons a year. Strube Jr. expects they’ll eventually be producing 6 million to 7 million gallons a year in a former Winter Park citrus-packing plant they recently acquired.

Given the unique nature of the Florida Paints operation, the competition looks a little different from Strube Jr.’s vantage point than it might from the perspective of the average independent dealer.

Much of their business comes from contractors who have heard other contractors praise Florida Paints’ products.

Also, a Florida Paints’ counter person addressing a customer complaint can actually get a chemist on the phone. In the rare instance when a coating fails, the people who made the paint take a forensic approach to figuring out what happened.

The company has 180 employees, but everybody seems to know each other pretty well. “We’re just a big family,” Strube Jr. said.

“We love what we do. Things couldn’t be going better for us. We feel fortunate.”

Strube Jr. has a lot of ambitious plans, but none of them involve retirement. “Somebody asked me one time, ‘What’s your exit strategy?’ I said, ‘Death.’ My dad still comes in. He’s 89 years old. If you quit doing something you love, you’re going to get old real quick,” he said. “It’s like what my daughter said when she was in sixth grade: Everybody needs a purpose. Plus, I really suck at golf.”

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MEMBER PROFILE

Regal Paint Centers This family business serves Washington DC, Virginia and Maryland with eight locations and a restaurant.

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egal Paint Centers of Maryland grew out of a contracting business called Palmer Brothers. For much of its existence, Palmer Brothers has involved fewer than two actual Palmer brothers. Its longest-lasting business partners were Jim Palmer and Brian Smith. “Jim Palmer founded the business with his brother Pete back in 1963,” said Smith’s son, Patrick. “Jim’s brother did not stay in the business for very long, but the name survived.”

When the Silver Spring store where Palmer and Smith purchased much of their paint came up for sale in 1985, they decided to buy it. “They looked at it as an opportunity to subsidize their own contracting business,” Patrick Smith said. “It was just a quarter of a mile, or a third of a mile, from their office. It was very convenient.” They renamed it Regal.

“They wanted a name that conveyed both a quality product and service experience.”

Since 2017, the main store and contracting business have been located in the same building. And the name Palmer Brothers endures, although no one named Palmer is currently involved; Jim Palmer retired in 2015. Brian Smith runs the contracting business, while Patrick oversees the Regal Paint Centers chain, which now consists of eight stores. The elder Smith decided he had enough on his plate with the contracting business.

Smith noted how well he and his dad work together.

“Management-wise, he really does not like to micromanage. He puts a lot of faith in his employees to make the right decisions.

We have a very good working relationship. He is, I think, starting to try to work toward retirement.”

Some of the stores cater slightly more to the contractor than the do-it-yourselfer (and vice versa), but overall the stores are not markedly different in their approach. Smith added that the stores sell some wallpaper, but they’re mostly paint focused.

The chain had 10 stores at its peak, and then the recession hit. “We were making money year over year and imagined, like most, that we could do no wrong,” Smith said. “Riding that

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March/Apri 2019 ALLPRO Independent

Above: Regal employee Jose Granados helps an employee select Benjamin Moore paints at the Silver Springs location.

Below: An outdoor shot of Regal Paint's storefront in Wheaton.

housing bubble was great.”

During the downturn, they were forced to close three “small-market stores” and cut employee salaries and hours.

Smith used the experience as a learning tool. “We tried to manage our expenses a lot better. We didn’t take that much care in the earlier stages to monitor our expenses because

Below: The color selection at Regal's Germantown location.

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The opportunity to meet fellow dealers (THROUGH ALLPRO) and be able to share business best practices and good ideas with people who are in my exact same situation is great.

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everything was on the up-and-up every year. While you’re winning, it’s easy to overlook those things. Losing forces you to sit up and take notice.” The recession reduced the Regal chain to seven stores. The Smiths have since opened an eighth store, and Brian Smith also co-owns a restaurant in Silver Spring called the 4 Corners Pub.

Regal differentiates itself from its competitors through the relationships it builds with its customers. “Painters come to rely very much on the people they interact with on a day-to-day basis,” Smith said. One local competitor has a lot of “churn” in its stores, Smith said, and high turnover means a perpetual stream of new faces. By doing its best to retain valuable

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employees, Regal is better able to build long-standing relationships with customers.

With 38 people on staff, “we’ve built a nice core of employees,” Smith said of the Regal team. “A lot of them have been with us for 10 to 20 years. We have some guys who started with us right out of high school. They’re in their

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early 20s now, so they’re still young. But they’re very experienced. We have a nice core to expand upon.”

In addition to valuing the people who work for him, Smith knows the importance of staying close to key people outside of his stores. In particular, he appreciates the role ALLPRO has played in getting him get up to speed on running a multi-store paint business. “The opportunity to meet fellow dealers and be able to share business best practices and good ideas with people who are in my exact same situation but are a thousand miles away where we never compete with each other is great.”

Turning Regal into the “preeminent dealer in the midAtlantic area” is Smith’s dream: “The greater D.C. area, the D.C./Baltimore/Richmond corridor. That’s my pie in the sky.”

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HUMAN RESOURCES

The

BOSS BURDEN

Managing employees in the 21st century means being aware of a vast patchwork of federal, state and local rules. How are small business owners supposed to keep up?

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ndependent retailers are no strangers to hard work, but everyone needs help now and then. A burned-out owner can kill a business as much as a burnedout building, so employees might be an owner’s most important assets. Often, they keep a store running so the owner can rest and recharge.

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Karen Seibert, CEO and founder of ALLPRO supplier partner Pear HR Solutions.

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This is no surprise to Karen Seibert, the CEO and founder of ALLPRO supplier partner Pear HR Solutions. Before Seibert started Pear in 2004, she was a corporate human resources vice president. All told, she has logged more than 25 years in the business of helping employers manage employees. The job of finding and keeping workers, she said, has become more complicated in recent years.

She also explained that the biggest challenge for many independent retailers these days is one they might not even be aware of: legal compliance. A lot of ALLPRO members may not have an official HR presence, but those companies still should figure out how to stay abreast of new rules and regulations. “Otherwise they could be in violation without even knowing that they’re in violation,” she said. “Because they’re just not aware of it.”

Another legal obstacle for today’s retailers involves how they deal with earned sick time. “So many states are now coming out with laws regarding earned sick time, where

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Because every one of these laws require some type of notification to employees. Or they require a poster going up. They all require something.

people are entitled to be paid when they’re out sick,” Seibert said. “The rules change so frequently from year to year. And the method by which you have to administer [the sick-time program] can change even within your state from year to year.”

Laws on sick pay are also being written and enacted on the local level. Sometimes a municipality may have a law that a state does not. For example, Seibert explained, New York City has a sick-time law, but New York state does not.

Maryland’s Montgomery County has a sick-time law, but the state of Maryland does not.

Pay equity is another hot-button topic that has made its way into federal, state and local rulebooks in recent years.

The first major legislation seeking to even out disparities between men’s and women’s paychecks was the Equal Pay Act of 1963, but now numerous additional state rules say

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that if a female employee and a male employee are doing the same job, their employer must pay them the same salary.

Further complicating things for small employers, state law usually overrides federal law, and the rules often address more than salary levels. For example, a lot of state laws that mandate pay equity, Seibert said, prevent an employer from asking about salary history.

While sick time and pay equity are two of the most prominent current issues for retailers, there are certainly others. New concerns crop up with new technologies. In Illinois, for example, there is a Biometrics Information Privacy Act that regulates how employers can collect biometric information about its employees. Written consent is required if a company wants its employees’ fingerprints or scans of their faces or retinas. (Indeed, the corporate owner of the state’s Six Flags theme park was the target of a class-

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action suit in 2017 for fingerprinting park-goers without their consent.)

And more than 50 employers have been sued in Illinois for using biometric time clocks in a way that did not comply with the state’s law.

Basically, in Illinois, use biometric timekeeping systems very carefully, Seibert said. “Because you’re gathering personal data, you have to make sure that if you’re using biometrics, whether it’s from a finger or an eye, that it’s not gathering any personal information that can be used for something else.”

If biometrics sounds more like a problem for James Bond’s Q than a paint store owner, that’s because it is. Or it used to be. But even as new technologies mean new headaches, the old problems haven’t gone anywhere. Hiring the right people is getting tougher, since a low unemployment rate translates to stiff competition among business owners to hire the best people. So potential employees are factoring in the quality of a potential boss’s benefits package.

“Benefits become an important aspect for people,”

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Seibert said. “They ask themselves, ‘Am I able to get medical coverage?

What is that medical coverage going to cost me?’ When [business owners] are looking at their recruiting, we try to look at it from ‘What does the market bear in your area, and how much do you have to pay for the talent you’re looking for?’”

In Seibert’s view, knowing what your competitors are offering is a key part of creating a high-quality benefits package. “What do the benefits packages look like in your area? Whether it’s medical, whether it’s vacation time, whether it’s any type of expenses that would be paid, there are different aspects to it,” she said. “In the recruiting end, that’s something ALLPRO members and other retailers have to be very aware of.”

All this might sound like too much for the average retailer to handle, and it can seem like that to Seibert too.

She sometimes feels as if she is buried in piles of legalese.

“There are days I feel like all I do is read case law, read notifications that are coming out on new laws, the effective

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What do the benefit packages look like in your area? There are different aspects to it. So I think in the recruiting end, that’s something ALLPRO members and other retailers have to be very aware of.

date of when they’re coming in, understanding what that means and who it’s going to affect,” she said. “Michigan is just coming out with sick time. Washington, D.C., is coming out with paid family leave. In some states it’s paid family leave, and in other states it’s paid family and medical leave.

And how is that being administered? Are you advising your employees? Because every one of these laws requires some type of notification to employees or a poster going up. They all require something.”

Part of the solution to this tidal wave of very new business issues is a very old business tool: the employee handbook. Seibert says most small employers don’t have one, but creating a handbook (and having employees sign off on it) is an easy way to verify the awareness of important policies. “You can make sure that all those notifications you’re supposed to be giving someone are inserted into the

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handbook, so you’re only giving them one document,” Seibert said. Information on sick time, paid family leave, background checks and sexual harassment should all be included.

Unfortunately, Seibert doesn’t see the regulatory environment getting any simpler for small business owners.

With each year’s new crop of rules and court rulings, issues like paid sick time and paid family leave seem to be affecting more and smaller businesses. The increasingly complex regulatory environment is the main reason the discussions Seibert leads at ALLPRO shows and meetings often seem to be among the event’s best attended. Even so, Seibert knows that HR issues just aren’t a priority for a lot of small businesses. “HR is not a profit center,” she said.

“It’s a cost center. But when you look at the cost to keep in compliance versus the likelihood of being sued, it’s better to be proactive than reactive.”

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Thank you for supporting your ALLPRO Distribution Centers!

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SPOTLIGHT

R E TA I L E R

R E TA I L E R

White’s Lumber & Building Supplies

Shenandoah Paint & Decorating Center

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Harrisonburg, Virginia President: Grant French shenandoahpaint.com

Watertown, New York President: Bradford White whiteslumber.com

ith four locations, this family-ownedand-operated business has served communities in upstate New York since 1892. Combined, the seasoned and dedicated staff of 90 employees has hundreds of years of experience, and professional and aspiring home renovators alike will benefit from their extensive product and industry knowledge.

Contractors will appreciate the on-site lumber yard, while home decorators will walk away with tips and advice they didn’t realize they needed.

ocated in the picturesque Shenandoah Valley, Shenandoah Paint & Decorating Center was founded in 1892 and is a full-service Benjamin Moore paint dealer, specializing in residential, commercial and industrial coatings for interior and exterior projects. The highly trained staff is well equipped to assist customers with a wide range of home-improvement needs. In addition to an impressive paint selection, the shop also stocks wallpaper and Hunter Douglas window treatments, such as blinds, shades and shutters.

R E TA I L E R

Marketplace Paints

Paint Fair Ltd.

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Aiken, South Carolina Owners: Tom and Anne Uskup marketplacepaints.com

his independent retailer replaced former Benjamin Moore retailer Park Avenue Paints in the Aiken area—a huge relief to local residents, since the next closest Benjamin Moore dealer is 25 miles away, near Augusta, Georgia. The store offers color matching and custom color mixing of traditional and spray paints, and co-owner Anne Uskup has a degree in interior design, making her an ideal resource for customers working on a wide range of projects. In addition to Benjamin Moore, Marketplace also stocks other reputable brands, such as Romabio—a toxinfree mineral paint imported from Italy—as well as adhesive, peel-and-stick and fabric wallpaper.

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R E TA I L E R

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Freeport, Grand Bahama Founder: Joan and Colin Davies facebook.com/paintfair his Bahamas-based retailer opened its doors in 1980 and has been supplying Bahamians with a wide selection of Glidden, PPG, Ralph Lauren and Devoe coatings ever since. And even though competition for residential, commercial and industrial paint customers on the island can be fierce, Paint Fair stands out, thanks to the quality of advice from its employees, the specialized attention they give customers and the relationship they have with their supplier partners.

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INDUSTRY NEWS

Businesses Bought and Sold Reach Record Levels

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ScamProof Yourself A

s we approach tax season, cybercriminals need only make minor tweaks to their tried-and-tested fraud techniques to make untrained small business owners fall for them. Three types to look out for:

1) Business-related W2 scams: In these common scams, hackers lure payroll and human resources professionals to send sensitive tax information to a bogus email address. A similar scam encourages new small business owners to sign up for an Employer Identification Number (EIN), which criminals can then steal.

• How to know if you’ve been targeted: Your return isn’t approved because you already have an EIN on file; you receive an unexpected transcript receipt or notice not linked to your return, or you don’t receive any communication because the fraudsters changed the address.

2) Scams targeting tax preparers: In 2018, the IRS received five to seven reports each week about tax data theft.

• To protect yourself: Confirm your tax company’s credibility by asking for a Preparer Tax Identification Number, and always ask them to verify their CPA status.

3) In-the-dark scams: Cybercriminals often target companies unlikely to be familiar with their latest cons, so stay as informed as possible and keep your employees in the loop.

• To be prepared: Create a system of checks and balances within your own team by having an executive team member proof your work, and train junior employees to recognize phishing scams. Finally, familiarize yourself with the IRS’s Dirty Dozen, an active list of running scams that consumers and business should be aware of.

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ccording to an industry report by BizBuySell, 2018 was a record year for buying and selling businesses, with 10,312 reported sold for the year, a 4 percent increase from 2017. While this is great news for any new entrepreneur, it’s also good for those looking to sell. Businesses were able to demand more for their properties after the median asking price jumped to $275,000, which improved the sale price 9.3 percent to $249,000. Also encouraging: Close to half (49 percent) of owners reported improved business performance in 2018, with 22 percent of respondents indicating that customer confidence played a key role in that increase.

March/April 2019 ALLPRO Independent

This Small Business Empowers the Disabled. Can Yours?

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ounded in 2016, John’s Crazy Socks sells an incredible 1,900 varieties of socks. But selection isn’t the only reason for the company’s success: It’s equal parts business and social enterprise. The company was launched by the father-son team of Mark and John Cronin; John has Down’s syndrome and is the face of the brand. Five percent of the earnings are donated to the Special Olympics, and the company makes a habit of hiring workers with special needs, which is good for business and philanthropy. Many of the socks that can be purchased benefit charity partners benefiting breast cancer and autism. Shoppers are welcome to customize their own: The company will work with you to create a custom design.

Fighting the Amazon Effect

A HOW TO Encourage Online Reviews

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ighty-six percent of customers report reading online reviews for small businesses. If your company doesn’t have many (yet!), check out five ways to change that: 1) Create an email campaign. Emailing a subscriber base is one of the easiest ways to get responses. Add a pop-up to your website to encourage new visitors to join your email list.

2) Ask people to write a review. You don’t have to mention it in conversation, but include requests via Yelp stickers, in-store signage, receipt messaging and business cards.

3) Reply to online comments. Once you start getting reviews, thank customers for their feedback...and don’t ignore negative words. A study from Harvard Business Review found that users who read a company’s responses to negative reviews online were inclined to leave a slightly rating higher after doing so.

4) Share glowing feedback. If someone had a great experience at your store, don’t keep it to yourself. Sharing great reviews on social media will provide positive reinforcement so others will do the same.

5) Shine through customer service. Customized thank-you notes, personalized replies and discounts to acknowledge subpar service are all great ways to indicate your dedication to improving loyalty.

ccording to a BigCommerce survey, 83 percent of U.S. customers made a purchase via the internet’s favorite superstore in the past six months, and 49 percent of all online U.S. spending takes place on the site. Since there’s no competing with the shopping behemoth, independent stores are encouraged to use data from customers’ online shopping behaviors on Amazon to stay relevant. Some examples: Promote better prices. Though 28 percent of survey respondents said convenience was why they shopped Amazon frequently, they didn’t always say they found great pricing. And even though online shopping is quick, it’s not free. Eighteen percent of customers objected to shipping prices.

Coax customers into your store. Offer the option of buying online and picking up in person. Customers will save on shipping and receive their products faster.

Hire Amazon as your partner. Instead of thinking of Amazon as a retailer that’s stealing your sales, consider them a very powerful ally.

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Percentage of younger managers more likely than Baby Boomers to use remote workers. ~ Source: Upwork, The Future Workforce Report 2019

Signs You’re Not Ready To Grow Your Business

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ven if you’re bored with the status quo, it doesn’t make sense to expand your business if you’re not ready.

Can’t tell if you fall into that category? Four telltale signs: 1) You’re not profitable (yet). Growing your business means taking on more financial risk. If your business is doing well financially and you can shoulder more, great. But if not, you risk putting yourself into a deeper hole

financially, a situation that’s often difficult for new owners to climb out of.

2) You don’t want additional regulation. Expanding your business means having a team you can count on, but adding to headcount means more financial compliance and management.

Think about if you’re equipped to manage a larger workforce.

3) You’re tired—already. Your mental and physical health are more important than rapidly expanding. Think of how much pressure you’re equipped to deal with before pushing yourself over the edge, then wait until you’re ready to push forward to new and exciting levels.

4) Your team is too small. You’ll want at least one or two partners to share the challenge of running your new business.

Make sure you recruit team members who can help you expand and grow a reliable team.

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March/April 2019 ALLPRO Independent

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Educating ALLPRO Members

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ne of the benefits of being an ALLPRO member is access to events with supplier partners. For 2019’s ALLPRO U Next Gen meeting, members had the opportunity to learn from the Benjamin Moore team about a variety of topics, such as how to compete with national chains, the best way to build decor programs and how to design retail stores of the future. While the three-day event of workshops, training and educational sessions was held at Benjamin Moore’s headquarters in Montvale, New Jersey, from January 27 to 29, attendees were treated to dinner and more networking at STK Downtown in NYC’s Meatpacking District on Monday, January 28. The session concluded on Tuesday with a presentation

by Rochelle Carrington, president and CEO of Sandler Training by Second Wind Advisory Group, Inc., about brand building for small businesses.

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March/April 2019 ALLPRO Independent

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