Among his accomplishments was resurrecting the company’s new but foundering kitchen and bath division. He created systems, a pricing structure, and a team. “And guess what?” Hyman says. “Within six months he totally turned K&B around.”
“We were incredibly different in a lot of ways,” Ferro says of his relationship with Hyman, “but we were both passionate. He was brilliant and forward-thinking, and I was the charismatic sales guy” who also happened to be good with numbers, honest, an outstanding delegator, and action-oriented.
“It was clear he had a business owner’s mentality,” Hyman says, and in the mid-’90s the two men worked out a seven-year plan under which Ferro would transition into the CEO role with a growing ownership stake. (Hyman is now semi-retired; four minority owners include Kuplicki and Hyman’s brother, Bob.)
Getting It
In those seven years, protégé and mentor accomplished much. They worked with Owens Corning to franchise its basement refinishing system, and then developed the sales and installation processes for the system. They pioneered a proprietary software program that has the stunning effect of letting clients visualize their home with hundreds of exterior combinations, all on a 42-inch screen in the Alure showroom. They assembled innovative pricing structures and expanded Alure’s presence into Westchester County and New Jersey.
Other defining moments were Ferro’s alone. In 2001, at a week-long training seminar with Raving Fans author Ken Blanchard, Ferro had an epiphany that guides Alure today. Essentially, everything about the company — sales and marketing, construction, warranty, employees’ behavior on and off the job — would leverage and reinforce the Alure brand as the most trusted home improvement company in its markets.
That same week, Ferro wrote the Alure vision statement: a 70-word ode to a culture of customer service, high ethics, and “superior results.” Today, all Alure employees carry a wallet card printed with the statement and can recite it with a sincerity that suggests they actually believe in the words.
Berenson says they do. “Alure is one of those operations that really gets it,” he says. “If a customer has a problem, they take care of it” rather than squabbling over a few dollars. This attitude inspires incalculable goodwill that is perpetuated through repeat and referral business, a virtually spotless complaint record, and happy and loyal employees.
In fact, certain phrases are part of the culture at Alure. All start with Ferro and find their way into the entire team’s vocabulary and work ethic. “Having skin in the game,” for example, reinforces how even minor efforts can have a positive impact on everyone else, including companywide profit-sharing. “Always be promoting” is a reminder to promote and represent the Alure brand in every interaction possible, even when out of uniform.
And then there’s this: “Be their friend in the business.” The goal, Ferro says, is to make genuinely positive connections: by listening, helping, and being there for people long after their remodeling project is completed. Behavior is key, he says. “We’re always being watched in this industry.” Think of everybody as a future client, he says, and it starts to come naturally.
About the Fred Case Award
Sal Ferro is the second winner of The Fred Case Remodeling Entrepreneur of the Year Award, established and endowed by the founder of Case Design/Remodeling, one of the largest full-service remodeling companies in the U.S. The award comes with a cash prize of $12,500 ($10,000 plus $2,500 for each of the four finalists, including Ferro).
Three judges evaluated nominees based on three principal criteria: their business acumen and their company’s financial strength, their community and industry involvement, and their entrepreneurial spirit.
“Sal represents not only entrepreneurial thinking but entrepreneurial action,” says Mark Richardson, president of Case Design/Remodeling and a judge. Besides Ferro’s generous charitable work, Richardson cites his lead role in developing the Owens Corning basement franchising program, his innovative approach to “packaging” bathroom remodels at different price points, and his use of design-imaging software to differentiate Alure Home Improvements from its competition and distinguish siding and other exterior products as much more than commodities. “Alure is a breeding ground of ideas,” Richardson says.
Fred Case, though not involved in reviewing nominees, is “very impressed with [Ferro’s] professionalism, his work with the basement franchise, and the administrative systems that he’s developed,” Case says. “He runs a sharp operation in a very competitive market,” and Alure’s diversification and name recognition have helped him take intelligent risks and grow at a manageable pace, he adds.
To learn more about The Fred Case Remodeling Entrepreneur of the Year Award, visit www.casedesign.com and click on “press.”
Web Extra
Additional CEO Best Practices from Sal Ferro
Sal Ferro is the CEO of Alure Home Improvements and the recipient of the 2008 Fred Case Remodeling Entrepreneur of the Year Award. To learn more about Ferro, see the original article as it appeared in the print version of the September issue of REMODELING.
Here are four additional best practices that reflect Ferro’s personality as an unusually hands-on and charismatic CEO:
The final interview. Prior to anyone being hired at Alure (there are more than 100 employees), Ferro always holds the final interview. “We don’t hire any inside staff without me interviewing them,” Ferro says. At this point, the hiring manager has already indicated that he or she wants to hire the candidate; Ferro’s main goal, he says, is to “have them understand our vision as a company and for me to see who they are as an individual.” The conversation is friendly, but Ferro is paying close attention. He has the final interview for two reasons.
One, he says, “Whether I ultimately want them or not, I want them to leave the interview saying, ‘Oh my god, I want to work for that company. These guys are incredible, and I feel like I’m 10 feet tall.’” Many of them have seen Ferro in Alure’s TV commercials and/or on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, “and they can’t believe I’m spending 45 minutes talking to them,” Ferro says.
Two, Ferro is extremely careful about only hiring staff who have the attitude and work ethic to become “raving fans,” a concept derived from the book of the same name.
“People say, ‘Are you a control freak?’” Ferro says. “No. If you understand the ‘raving fans’ concept, you know that there are two kinds of customers. The internal customers are my employees, and we owe it to each other to be sure everyone who comes on board will also be a raving fan.”
Transparency. While not entirely open-book, Ferro frequently shares company financial data and trends with his staff, particularly managers, in regular meetings and extremely detailed budget planning and tracking. Ferro receives daily lead reports and works closely with key staff to tweak practices – staffing, call center hours, marketing approaches, advertising, etc. – as needed.
“Transparency is a very important facet of my job,” Ferro says. So is being inclusive: “I’ve got to make my employees a key part of the solution.”
Staff retreats offer more opportunity to share this kind of information. “He took the entire management team to profitability boot camp, but it had nothing to do with the profitability of the company,” says Lisa DiFilippi, vice president. “It was basically about looking inside yourself and your people and identifying them as assets – their strong points, their personality type, and how to get the best out of them.”
The personal touch. In conversations or even everyday small talk – and there’s a lot of this, as Ferro is extremely friendly with virtually everyone on his staff – he almost always says the first name of the person he is talking to, in just about every sentence. “Thanks, Christina.” “John, I like what you’re doing.” “Nice work, Lisa.”
“People love to hear their names,” Ferro says. “It makes them feel good about themselves – this is Dale Carnegie 101.” So conscientious is he about learning and repeating individuals’ names that when he once “messed up” the name of someone he hadn’t known long, he e-mailed them an apology. Needless to say, the gesture was appreciated.
Visibility in the community. Besides being Alure Home Improvements’ marketing figurehead, appearing in much of its TV and radio advertising that runs in heavy rotation on Long Island, Ferro appears often at community and civic events. These events are usually by invitation, and often (but not always) in conjunction with awards he’s been given.
For instance, Ferro has made many visits to elementary school classrooms to talk about Alure’s community service projects (including volunteering at soup kitchens and spearheading seven Extreme Makeovers for families in need). He gets hand-scrawled and hand-illustrated thank-you cards every week from grade-schoolers – and it’s not uncommon for him to respond personally.
The payoff is both personally and professionally gratifying, and perhaps unquantifiable in the goodwill it brings Alure. “We get tons of e-mails about Sal,” says Seth Selesnow, director of marketing. “About 80% of them are along the lines of, ‘Wow, you’ve restored my faith in humanity.’ About 10% are ‘Will you remodel my house for free?’ Another 10% are: ‘Is Sal married?’” (The answer is yes – Ferro has been married for more than 20 years and has three children.) –Leah Thayer