Norcross, Georgia-based Floor Coverings International is coming off its best year with 96 franchise agreements signed covering 160 territories in 2023. That represents a 50 percent year-over-year increase in the number of units added
Floor Coverings International CEO Tom Wood proudly touts the company’s revenue and unit growth, just like he’s done for the 19 years he’s led the brand. He’ll continue to do so, but is emphasizing the sales figures for the company’s franchisees.
The top 50 percent of Floor Coverings operators generated $1.8 million in average revenue in 2023 with the top 10 percent operators grossing $3.3 million in average unit volume. Both figures represent all-time highs for the mobile home services franchise, said Wood.
Tom Wood is the CEO of Floor Coverings International
“Not only that, but the productivity of first-year operators improved 22 percent last year,” Wood said. “To me, that is really reflective of our overall momentum.”
Floor Coverings jumped 20 spots to No. 262 on the Franchise Times Top 400 last year. The Norcross, Georgia-based company and subsidiary of FirstService Brands is coming off its best year with 96 franchise agreements signed covering 160 territories in 2023. That represents a 50 percent year-over-year increase in the number of units added, said Wood.
So far this year, sales aren’t slowing down for the 38-year-old legacy brand. After posting record-breaking growth in the first quarter of 2024 with 19 new franchisees signed into the system, a strong Q2 has Floor Coverings International on track to reach its goal of signing 100 new franchisees and reaching 300 units this year.
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This follows a record-breaking development year in 2023 when Floor Coverings signed 96 franchise agreements covering 160 territories.
“We’ve got 267 open and operating units and we’re a well over $200 million company right now. There are no other franchises that come close and compete with us. Our long-term goal is to be a $1 billion company and compete against the biggest flooring businesses,” Wood said.
Wood joined Floor Coverings in 2005 after serving three years as a vice president for FirstService Brands where he oversaw the strategy and operational direction of several brands in the company’s franchising portfolio. He previously worked in a few of Floor Coverings’ sister companies, including College Pro Painters as a franchisee and executive, CertaPro Painters as part of the founding team and president, and as part of the executive teams at California Closets and Paul Davis Restoration.
Wood touted the company’s “best-in-class mobile platform,” which allows operators to keep track of inventory and keep customers and corporate updated in real time on job progress. He pointed out the relatively low entry cost for the company’s mobile business operators—the initial investment range is $154,400 to $341,000, according to the company’s franchise disclosure document—along with the success of getting new franchised businesses up and running in record time.
“We are getting new businesses fully operational and moving towards profitability within 90 days,” said Wood, “and that includes the extensive training we provide each of our new franchisees here at our headquarters.”
Unlike a lot of other brands that are focused on big multi-unit agreements, Wood said Floor Coverings prefers to sign up small business owners looking to open just 1-3 zip code territories.
“A lot of our new franchisees worked in top-tier management positions at organizations,” Wood said. “We get a lot of engineers and people coming from the finance industry. That would make up 50 to 60 percent of them. But we get a pretty diverse demographics of middle-stage career people too who want to work for themselves and just really like the mobile business model we offer.”