/24-7PressRelease/ - NORTH WILKESBORO, NC, July 24, 2008 - In August of 2005, Jim Roland's Window World
(www.windowworld.com) franchise in New Orleans,
Louisiana, was the second-largest in the U.S.
While his franchise covered all the territory between
New Orleans and Baton Rouge west into Houston,
Texas, 85% of his business was in New Orleans.
In the weeks ahead, Jim's New Orleans operation
would be hit hard - not by the storm, but by the fact
that many of the city's property owners couldn't
return to start rebuilding.
"For about a month we had no business
whatsoever," Jim says. Most of the area's
residents had evacuated and couldn't return until
officials declared it safe. Most highways along
the Gulf were impassable in places; minor roads
near the shore were still underwater or covered
in debris. Drinking water was scarce, there was
no electric power, and no one knew when either
might be restored. Doing business was all but
impossible.
"Our cash evaporated," Jim says. "All our
customers [had] left town, and we had
no idea what would happen to the business. It
was a pretty scary time."
"We got a lot of support from our
vendors. And it was nice being part of
the Window World family. They helped us out
a lot."
"Our business went from installing 1,000 to
2,000 windows a month to 7,000 to 10,000
a month," he says. "We instantly became by
far the largest single window outlet in the
country. No one, to this day, is doing
anywhere near that amount of work."
Going from no business at all to five or
more times his pre-disaster volume was
no easy task. Everything - computerized
systems, warehouse space, salespeople,
installers, transportation and more
- had to be supported or purchased or
recruited or doubled or tripled and put into
operation immediately - simultaneously.
"It required a lot more in terms of new
levels of management. It's okay when
you've got a few salespeople and 3-5
crews out installing, but when you've
got 50 crews, you have to have a level
of middle management to handle that
kind of volume.
"All this was happening at one time.
We had to know which windows were
coming in at what time and where they
were going, so we had to have a larger
customer service group. We had three
or four inside and five or six outside.
We had to buy more trucks to get the
windows out there and installed. And we
needed another level of management in
the production department to supervise
the crews out there."
But finding workers to supervise the
crews wasn't half as tough as finding
enough installers.
"What's critical is that we were doing this
in the midst of overwhelming pressure on
the available pool of skilled construction
labor. We were competing for available
labor with the right skills sets in the
tightest labor market in the country."
With all these challenges - not to mention
the added costs that come with them -
Jim had to make one decision that would
impact the entire process: how much
would he charge the Katrina survivors
for their replacement windows?
Regardless of what some vendors saw
as an opportunity to charge whatever
the market would bear, Jim Roland's
Window World didn't charge a penny
more than the regular price. Some
people were willing to pay two to three
times more than the regular price, he
says, just to get their windows installed as soon
as possible.
Of course, keeping his prices the same
meant that Jim had to keep his costs the
same, too.
"The labor market was very tight, so we
recruited window installation crews in the
Midwest - Wisconsin, Ohio, Minnesota,
Indiana," Jim says.
Today, Jim says his business is still
going like Mardi Gras revelers. His
crews installed 80,000 windows in
2006, 75,000 in 2007, and they're
still contracting to install 6,000 to
7,000 a month. "We believe we'll
continue to do that for the foreseeable
future." And, in light of the fact that 50%
of his business comes from referrals,
Jim Roland will probably be able to do that
without tooting his own horn.
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