Watch the full video or read the transcript to dive deeper into Sheri’s insights!
The full interview transcript follows below.
Bill Luallen: Hey, Sheri, how are you?
Sheri Gorman: I’m well. Good morning, Bill, how are you?
BL: I’m well. And thank you so much for doing FloorFacts interview with us, we appreciate it.
SG: Thank you for having me.
BL: Well, we have known each other for a long time. I won’t say how many years, but we both have been in the industry for quite a while. You are very well known, but for the people that don’t know you, Sheri, tell us about you.
SG: Okay. Well, I was born in Brooklyn.
BL: I would’ve never known by that accent that you were, no.
SG: The more I drink, the more it comes up. I graduated Florida State, go Noles, with a degree in interior design, and graduated in a recession, so I got into sales. I worked for several different carpet manufacturers, then I went to work for a flooring dealer that did maintenance as well as install, dabbled with a few more carpet mills. And now I recently relocated from New York to Wilmington, Delaware. And I’m with Facility Services Group, and we are a commercial floor care company.
BL: So you have quite a bit of different touch points in your career, from design to manufacturing representative to service provider, both P&I and maintenance, I believe, right? And then now you’re just focused on maintenance.
SG: Correct.
BL: So you’ve got experiences that really bring value certainly to FSG, but also to the design community. Do you wanna speak a little bit because of your design background? I’m married to a designer for 36 years now, and I always think that it’s undervalued that connective tissue between design, product and installation, and maintenance. Because, at the end of the day, as we always say, a product isn’t designed, engineered, or manufactured to fail, we usually fail the product in some way. And usually it’s on the care of it. So can you talk a little bit about the design community, and how you have, over the years, worked with them to educate them?
SG: Sure. So I always felt that having that degree in interior design definitely helped me get where I am today. And also got me started in the industry. I mean, I could have ended up selling copy machines otherwise, but I felt that having beautiful products, ’cause I do like to sell things that I like.
BL: Sure.
SG: And that are aesthetically pleasing. But it allowed me to still work with interior designers. I still give input, my two cents. Not just showing them something, “Hey, do you wanna buy it? “Hey, do you wanna specify it?” But, “Oh, let’s look at your palette and your other things.” And here are some carpets that’ll work for this. And oh, it’s that type of project. Well, you know, you need to think about what’s gonna hold up better, what’s going to, I hate to, to use the word hide dirt better, but stand up to all the elements of the space that they’re creating. So I always felt that I still got to dabble a little bit in design, and in specifying products because of that.
BL: Well, and you just brought up something that back in the day, again, and I apologize for referring to it always in the past, but we came into the industry when there was fiber reps, and those fiber reps were working on behalf of the carpet manufacturers, and they spoke to the design community and the facility managers and end users about the benefits of carpet, and about, you just mentioned, how carpet and fiber can hide the soil until it’s ready to be removed. Once those fiber reps kind of disappeared, or the industry changed, we also saw movement towards hard surface, didn’t we? Or resilient?
SG: We did, yeah. I think, I don’t wanna say it’s a sad day, a sad time, but the young designers coming in today are really missing out on a lot of education, and for many reasons. Unfortunately, we still have this work from home thing, so designers aren’t really being able to be mentored and taught the same way that they used to, but they’re not really being educated either about not only flooring, but all different products. It’s much different than being in person, and really that hands on touching, feeling, listening. We’ve all been on calls that are virtual, and you’re kind of doing something off to the side. So even if you had, I think, a fiber rep today that was doing something virtual, I don’t think the audience and the attention would be what it was back in the day. So, coming from the maintenance side and really understanding how to care for, whether it’s carpet or whether it’s a form of vinyl or rubber, allows me or any other person, to again, kind of give that input and help with that education process. So, you know, every mill, every mill rep learns their products so they can tell their story, and that’s great, but, again, how do you have somebody kind of help you break that down even further, and which one is better? Because everybody’s is the best.
BL: Right.
SG: Everybody makes the best carpet, the prettiest carpet, the most durable carpet, the most sustainable carpet. But having those independent people come in, and kind of educate and really help designers make the right choice.
BL: Yeah. For us, on the maintenance side, we have opportunities such as the IICRC classes, that is, by the way, a promotion of XL Academy and some of our classes, selfishly, but the design community, we, back in the day, again, and I’m referring to, we had the Carpet and Rug Institute’s CEU Program. And I think you even taught that, didn’t you?
SG: I did. I loved doing CEUs. I thought it was the best way to get the audience, to get the designers to come in and listen about things that interested them. We all have sat through many CEUs that we might have snoozed a little bit. Sometimes it’s just the presenter. By kind of making it fun and making it interactive. My favorite was the maintenance one, because I just felt that that was so important, and not enough people were talking about that. So, they also, I used to do one on sustainability, and like a fiber 101 type of thing, fiber and construction. Not everybody knows how carpet is made.
BL: Right.
SG: Not everybody’s been to a carpet mill. So it’s just to really understand the nitty gritty of how carpet is made, why it’s made the way it’s made is also important.
BL: Now, if I’m not mistaken, you actually still continue this work, don’t you, with the specifier program at Starnet, is that right?
SG: Well, I’m not part of the specifier program anymore.
BL: Aw.
SG: I know. That’s okay. But, at the time, myself and another business development person from Texas, we got to talking one day, and we really saw the value in our role within a dealer, and really kind of taking it one step further, and getting the designers involved. They have a lot of say, they have a lot of input. Yeah, there’s plenty of end users that are specifying themselves, or have in-house design departments, but for the most part, think of how many design firms are across the country.
BL: Oh yeah.
SG: And they are the ones, and they need to be educated on really everything that they’re specifying, that they’re selecting. And, Starnet was always so heavily just involved in the education of installation and things like that. And then from that we thought the specifier group really was important to these organizations. And then even after that they started the floor care committees as well. So, it almost just really became a full circle at that point.
BL: Well, hopefully you can get back involved at some point, or at least, you’ve inspired me already as our conversation, I’m gonna reach out to the CRI, I’m involved in a couple different groups within the CRI, and I think it’s really important to maybe bring back that CEU program, because education, as we know, I mean, you just said it, we’re living in a different world now, our work is quite often remote, and those educational opportunities don’t always get drilled down to the person that’s working remote.
SG: So, yeah, I mean, people need to be educated, you need to learn. I told my daughter, you should learn something new every single day. Everybody should. Designers should as well. Unfortunately we don’t have these fiber consultants, so between the mill reps and other educated people in the industry, somebody’s gotta teach people.
BL: Well, and as we were talking about the education part, and the manufacturing of it, you also mentioned sustainability. And I think that that is, in the floor care world, again, and these FloorFacts and FloorFacts interviews, I try to really give a large audience because I think it’s important for, whether it’s a designer, an architect, a facility manager, maybe a P&I, product and installation owner, they need to be exposed to all these things, and get opportunities to hear different viewpoints. But, sustainability and maintenance is often overlooked. But you practice what you preach, don’t you?
SG: We do. Sustainability is very important to myself, to Facility Services Group. I became LEED accredited back in 2009.
BL: Wow.
SG: At that point, I learned things I never thought I would know or need to know. It was a very interesting process, but at the time I really felt that at some point LEED was going to become the way that people just automatically design, and I think that’s what we’re seeing today by manufacturers, designing products that are more sustainable. And when then we’re just seeing designers doing all the right things in sustainability. And as you know, where does carpet go at the end of its life?
BL: Right.
SG: Right. I mean, how many landfills are out there that just have carpet sitting there? So, why is it not lasting on your floors longer if it’s lasting in a landfill forever?
BL: Right.
SG: So it comes back down to that proper maintenance. And these mills give carpet, these warranties, seven years, 10 years, 15 years. Well, your carpet should last that long.
BL: Absolutely.
SG: At least, if not longer. And we’ve actually had many customers that have said “We’re gonna end up replacing our carpet “in a year or two years,” well, you know what, We have one that’s in the process right now of renovating, they got an extra seven years once they started their maintenance program.
BL: Wow.
SG: So those are the stories, those are the reasons that we believe in what we’re doing. And then our processes that we’re using, whether it’s just really reducing water, using no water, really our carbon footprint is really, really small. So it’s just all these things together that are helping the environment.
BL: Well, and if you fire up any website of a flooring manufacturer, the first thing you see on their front page is their sustainability. They’re talking about, like you said, their carbon footprint, or their lowering of usage of water. And also the CARE Act, the carpet recycling, they all feature that. So it is important. I think that in floor care we probably don’t promote that sustainability aspect like we should be.
SG: Mm-hmm.
BL: It costs a lot less to maintain something than it does to replace something.
SG: Exactly. I mean, so many things you buy at home, if you take care of them they last longer, so it’s a no brainer. So why wouldn’t your carpet be any different?
BL: We wash our clothes, we wash our car.
SG: Yep.
BL: We’re talking about carpet, but really, in the commercial world, and in the residential world as well, flooring has changed. We used to be in that high 50s, low 60s as far as flooring goes back in the day, now we’re, commercially, we’re basically 50% carpet, 50% others, or the hard surfaces.
SG: Yep.
BL: And how has that affected how you guys approach for care?
SG: So, yeah, we’re not stripping and waxing as much, but LVT, luxury vinyl tile, luxury vinyl plank, it’s come a long way, and I think that’s also helped in the popularity of it. It’s so textured today. I’ve seen stuff where I’ve really had to get down is it really vinyl? Is it wood? What is it kind of thing? And it got, I don’t wanna say a bad rap, that’s not the right word, but it almost got promoted when it first came out, instead of a low maintenance product, a no maintenance product.
BL: Right, right.
SG: There’s nothing that’s no maintenance. It’s not self cleaning. That would be nice if you could snap a finger, and things would just clean automatically. But people would say “Oh no, it’s not no, it’s low maintenance.” We clean a lot of LVT .
BL: I bet you do.
SG: We clean a lot of LVT. Yep. It’s a huge area for us. Rubber also-
BL: Rubber’s really taken on a whole new life.
SG: Yep.
BL: It used to be just in stairwells, and we have it in classrooms, we have it in corridors.
SG: And people don’t know how to keep that clean either. We’ve gotten some interesting calls every now and then, “There’s something wrong with it, “it won’t stay clean.” There’s nothing wrong with it, you’re not cleaning it properly. So it’s funny how things kind of get these stories associated with ’em.
BL: Yeah.
SG: Because then you hear people say “Oh no, we can’t specify rubber, it’s always dirty.” But that’s really not true. It’s not always dirty.
BL: Right.
SG: If you don’t clean it, it’s always dirty.
BL: There you go.
SG: Yeah, okay.
BL: It is interesting how these, you mentioned strip and finish VCT, and VCT won’t go away. It’s kind of, I think, plateaued now. I think some of the manufacturers that were overwhelmed, and had focused a lot on their LVT lines, they’re all back to where they’re able to meet the demands of the VCT, but the design community has latched onto the LVT world. And, like you said, is it marble or is it LVT? Is it travertine, or…? The sky’s the limit on these-
SG: Sometimes it’s really hard to tell, and especially now with them being so textural also. And those crevices of texture, those are dirt collectors as well.
BL: Yeah. It is a unique world, but, again, it kind of falls back to education.
SG: Yep.
BL: So as long as you can continue to stay in front of, or be a fast follower, you can stay ahead of that curve. And, unfortunately not enough people look at training, and training the technician, training the sales staff, training the operations side of things as important. But you guys do a lot of training just in-house, right?
SG: We do. We have a great group of guys, our technicians, and they love new challenges. They love learning new things. So they’re always thrilled when someone can, like I said, either teach them something new, or give them something new to do. It’s amazing sometimes how things evolve where you think, “Oh, okay, well, “we’re gonna start a business “and we’re just gonna clean carpet.” Okay, well that’s not really what happens, because then, like you said, there’s LVT, there’s VCT, so now they’re cleaning those products, and now they’re polishing terrazzo, and polishing marble, and always kind of learning something new and expanding, expanding the business.
BL: Yeah.
SG: It’s just what you have to do.
BL: Well, and, again, we’re 2024, labor market is different than it was. You know, the labor market is aging, and certainly we are all looking for staff, team members. Do you see, because of the changes in flooring types, the labor shortage that you’re being looked upon to provide more services, more help to a lot of people or organizations that did work on their own?
SG: Yes. I’d say probably an education that happens where companies or facilities are doing a lot of things in-house, but then there’s the specialty items. So just a couple weeks ago we refinished a gym floor.
BL: Wow, that’s awesome.
SG: Yeah, that was awesome, and it was something new that our guys, I don’t wanna say learned along the way, but learned along the way, and did it. But it’s amazing. And we were actually doing a walkthrough, and there was a woman from the school giving a tour, and the woman who worked at the school walked in the gym, and she’s like, “Oh my gosh, this looks amazing.” And she didn’t know we were standing there.
BL: Oh, love it.
SG: So we’re seeing sometimes these specialty areas. Or a couple months ago we were brought into a senior living, and they were doing everything in-house, and they just said “We can’t do it anymore, “we need that extra help.” So we’re now there on a monthly basis doing different areas. They’re doing it the regular daily, weekly, but we’re there once a month. And I think that is just because of the labor shortage, and the talent that’s out there.
BL: Yeah, talent. And exactly. We focus on floor care. And there’s a lot, there’s a big discipline, frankly, ’cause it’s not just carpet, and stripping and finishing VCT and cleaning LVT, but you guys are doing upholstery and marble, and all kinds of things, aren’t you?
SG: Yes, we are. We’ve done some incredible upholstery cleans lately. And that seems to be kind of just growing for us. Not sure why or how, but, again, it could just be people extending the life of their furniture. We’ve gotten into post-construction cleans as well.
BL: Ooh, wow.
SG: Yeah. So just broadening the horizon. Oh, and it just went in one ear and out the other, or one thought and out the other of something else that I was like “Oh, we’ve been doing a lot of.”
BL: Well, you’re now into coatings of wood, but you probably also coat resilient as well.
SG: Yes, yes. We do some coatings. We don’t do a ton, we’d rather just keep cleaning, but that’s just our philosophy. But we will do coatings. We do tile and grout cleaning, that’s always been a huge one for us as well, the restrooms. And that’s something even I talk to designers about because sometimes, especially now with budgets being cut, and not enough money to spend, I’ll tell a designer “Your client takes a space in a building, “and that bathroom down the hall, they inherit, “and there is no money to gut and put new tile down, “what do you do?” Let us come in, let us clean it. Let us at least make it look new if it can’t be new.
BL: Right.
SG: So, there’s just a lot of different things that we can do.
BL: Well, and, you talked about restrooms, and the other day I did a LinkedIn post, and I pulled up some photographs of just some photos that either customers have shared with me or that I’ve taken. And the post was “Clean carpet won’t “make a customer any money, a business. “A clean carpet will not make anybody money, “having clean carpet, “but soiled, dirty, smelly flooring “can really turn off people, “and it can lose you money.” I think you had a scenario, didn’t you?
SG: I have a funny story about that. So, a new restaurant opened near our home about a year ago, we ate there probably a month after it opened, and I was just sitting there, and the whole time my eyes were just drawn to the floor. Which we know, we all walk in-
BL: We do.
SG: And that’s the first thing we do look at. But, and I kept looking, and I’m thinking I could see the line along the edge of what the carpet was supposed to look like, and what it looked like. So the food was fine. At the end of the meal we get up, and I said “Can I speak to the manager, please?” So the manager comes out, and I said “Everything was fine, “but you guys have only been open a month.” I said “The floor, the carpet is just really dirty.” I said “What are you doing to take care of it?” He said, “Oh, we have someone, they come in.” And I said, “They’re really not doing a good job.”
BL: Take a look for yourself.
SG: “Here’s my card, should anything change, “please reach out to me.” About a month after that the designer reaches out to me.
BL: Really?
SG: And says, “Sheri, can you do me a favor? “Can you call this restaurant,” I don’t wanna say.
BL: Sure.
SG: “We just finished it. “It was a brand new ground up building. “They’re having a problem keeping the carpet clean.” And I said, “Oh my gosh, that’s so funny, “I was there last month, I told them that.” So anyway, I reach out, I call, I leave a message, no one calls me back. I send an email saying I was told to call, blah, blah, blah. So he calls me back at that point, and he says, “Well thank you very much. “I just think it might be a hard carpet to keep clean, “maybe it wasn’t the right color.” And I’m like, “Well, even if it was a different color, “it’s still gonna get dirty. “It doesn’t matter what color it is.”
BL: Right.
SG: So I said “All right, well, again, “should anything change, feel free to reach out to me.” Last Sunday we decided to go there. We hadn’t been back in a whole year.
BL: Wow.
SG: We decided we were just gonna go sit outside. So we walk in, first of all, it might be too early, but you know that smell of dirty mop bucket?
BL: Yes.
SG: The whole restaurant smelled, it just smelled like that. So we went, we sat outside. At the end of the meal, when we were leaving, and I looked back at the restaurant, you could see around one of the round tables what the carpet was supposed to look like underneath, and it was just a black, just black. So I kind of said to myself “You know what, I have nothing to lose.”
BL: Right you don’t.
SG: I sent the owner, and he was like seven restaurants, this is one of ’em. So I sent him a note. I found the old email, and sent it off to him again. And I said, “Finally went back to your restaurant, “I ate there last night, your carpet is disgusting.” I just said the word, disgusting. I said “Please reach out if you’d like to talk about “making it look better.” And sure enough, he responded and said “Could I get a proposal?” “Something needs to be done.” I don’t know, I will definitely send you the before and afters, Bill.
BL: Please, please share. Again, perception often equals reality. And if the front end of a restaurant looks like that, what’s the backend?
SG: Right, right.
BL: And what’s the food prep?
SG: Then I had another, not quite the same, but similar story with a country club. And two years old carpet, again, a light color. And they of course said, “Oh, there’s something wrong with the carpet.” And the mill rep went in, and said “There’s nothing wrong with the carpet.” They brought an independent inspector, the independent inspector’s like, “There’s nothing wrong with the carpet.” And the mill rep called me, and said “They don’t know how to clean their carpet.” Surprise, surprise. We went, we looked at it, and, again, I am amazed that this is two years that they’ve let this look that bad. The befores and after, I think I sent you the befores already.
BL: You’ve sent me the befores, I’m waiting for that after so we can do a case study.
SG: We got the approval for the one time clean. And then he’s like “Well, do we really need a monthly?” I’m like, “Yes, you need a monthly, “because if you wait another year… “And it’s not cost effective. “It’s less expensive to maintain than to restore.” And that’s something I think people don’t understand either.
BL: Yeah, it really is.
SG: But having the mills at least support us on the maintenance side, that’s huge. It’s appreciated. It helps the whole scenario.
BL: It does because it makes their product look so much better.
SG: Exactly.
BL: They have a better feeling about it.
SG: And had that started on day one, they would never be in the situation that they’re in. Because also what happens is it doesn’t benefit the mill rep, because finally at some point they’re gonna say “I don’t wanna use that carpet again.”
BL: Right.
SG: “It didn’t last, it didn’t wear well.” And it’s really not anyone’s fault except their own. So the mill rep ultimately loses out. And to have that partnership, I’m fortunate, I do have several mill rep friends that we work together on that scenario. So maintenance from day one is so important, so important.
BL: When you drive a car off of a car lot, it’s got oil, it’s got all its fluids, and if you don’t maintain them it’s gonna stop running. And carpet is the same. Everything is the same way.
SG: Everything is the same, exactly.
BL: And I’m really looking forward to those after, ’cause we will do a case study. We will certainly highlight that because those before pictures, I’m not gonna spoil anything, but those before pictures are terrible.
SG: I’ve been in the business a long time, that’s some of the worst carpet I’ve seen.
BL: Yep, yep. But it was the carpet’s fault, right? It wasn’t.
SG: Yeah, yeah, no.
BL: I’ve taken up so much of your time. I would be remiss if I didn’t ask you, and I think everybody when they do interviews ask a similar type of question, but if you had the magic wand, and I know your mindset, my mindset, we’d probably be sitting on a beach with an umbrella in our drink somewhere, enjoying a day in the sun and fun, but in flooring and floor care, if you had the magic wand, if you said, this is gonna make the industry better, what could it be?
SG: I think it would really be for the mill reps and the manufacturers to see the value in their installation partners, and their maintenance partners. And not just as, I don’t know if it’s service provider, but as true partners. Everything always works better when it comes full circle, and works as opposed to it all being disconnected, and everybody kind of really thinking about themselves. And I’ve seen lately several scenarios where that has happened. And even down to designers, designers turning over packages saying you just installed this product, this product, this product, this is how you maintain it, this way, this way, this way, here are the recommendations. So I think that’s something I would definitely love to see, wish could happen, is just those partnerships really strengthening, and everybody seeing the value. And I think everybody would be a lot more successful.
BL: Well, yeah, and you’re absolutely right. When everybody in that chain is linked together, it’s a strong chain, and the product is gonna last for a long time.
SG: Yep. And then we could go have drinks.
BL: And then we could go have the drinks on the beach, by gosh. Well, it’s still summer, getting close to fall, but Labor Day hasn’t happened.
SG: It’s Labor Day weekend.
BL: Oh, yeah. Well, Sheri, I can’t thank you enough for sharing your experiences, and your thoughts and ideas, because I think it is important that we all communicate to make this industry a little bit better.
SG: Well, thank you, Bill. This was awesome. Thanks for letting me talk, and my two cents. Love you. We love XL. We’re big fans of XL North-
BL: Thank you.
SG: And your products. And we’re happy to work with you. And I know we have a partner in you.
BL: Yeah, absolutely. It flows both ways. And to be able to hopefully give our experiences to this next generation that’s coming through, because I don’t plan on working forever, and somebody’s gonna have to take the information outta my head and get it into theirs.
SG: Yeah.
BL: To continue. So, likewise. Sheri, thank you so much, I appreciate your time today.
SG: Thank you, Bill.
BL: Have a great one.
About Facility Services Group, Inc.
If your flooring will last in a landfill for thousands of years, why can’t it last in your facility with proper maintenance?
Founded in 2012 by Chip Grimes, Facility Services Group, Inc. is a multi-faceted maintenance solutions company specializing in the maintenance and disinfection of all commercial flooring and surfaces. Carpet and resilient flooring includes VCT, vinyl, wood flooring, and concrete floors.
We listen to our customer’s needs so that we understand their expectations. We deliver a plan for execution that clearly identifies the goals as well as the potential obstacles of a project so that the end result meets their expectations exactly, and we deliver consistent results.
Learn more about Facility Services Group today!
