Goodman Millwork Phone Nook Franco Goodman knows about change. The millwork firm his family operates “has gone through enough change for three companies. "Our customer base has changed ten times over 50 years,” Goodman says, and the key to its continuing success is “nimbleness – market flexibility.”
He should know. Evidence of market change can be seen throughout Goodman Millwork’s multi-acre site in Salisbury, North Carolina, where a good-sized tract of vacant land that once contained a thriving lumber yard lies baking in the June sun and a steam engine that once powered the place waits patiently inside the millwork plant for a new assignment.
The company was founded in 1907 when brothers Enoch and Linus Goodman got tired of working in other people’s businesses and started one of their own: a portable sawmill. Their competitive advantage was hauling the mill to the trees instead of asking the woodlot owner to haul his trees to the mill.
Ingenuity like that – along with the brothers’ insistence on handshake country quality – earned them a reputation as the kind of folks you could count on, which they put to work building Goodman Lumber Company. In time, they located the business on a site in town after their wives insisted on a more permanent setup not so far out in the country. The slogan (tagline) that served them for the next 70 years or so was Everything for the Builder, From the Foundation to the Roof.
Goodman Lumber Company thrived in serving builders’ needs, especially as other businesses prospered around them and created demand for housing, among them the Food Lion chain of grocery stores, which began life in Salisbury and remains headquartered there. The Goodmans began building homes themselves in the ‘20s, a natural step for an ambitious family that needed more customers for its lumber as the world changed around them.
A change that arose in the 1970s was the advent of big box stores that sold framing and lumber, which began to eat away at Goodman Lumber Company's business. They responded by looking to other lumber- and building-related markets for opportunity, including custom made woodworking for high-end residences, churches, banks, clubs and restaurants. For a while, they even built room settings for furniture manufacturers to display their products at trade shows like the High Point Market. In 1982, the company's name was changed to Goodman Millwork, Inc. to more precisely reflect the value-added nature of their business.
“Now we’ve come to another turning point,” says Franco Goodman. “We’ll continue to look to our present customer base for business, including architects and interior designers, whose clients want only the finest quality millwork, doors and windows for their renovations and new construction. And we're also looking to the Internet as we reach for yet another new market. That’s where at least part of our future lies,” he declares, pointing with pride to pictures of his two sons, now working their way into the family business.
"We can’t see the end from the beginning,” he acknowledges, “but at least we can make a start."
He should know. Evidence of market change can be seen throughout Goodman Millwork’s multi-acre site in Salisbury, North Carolina, where a good-sized tract of vacant land that once contained a thriving lumber yard lies baking in the June sun and a steam engine that once powered the place waits patiently inside the millwork plant for a new assignment.
The company was founded in 1907 when brothers Enoch and Linus Goodman got tired of working in other people’s businesses and started one of their own: a portable sawmill. Their competitive advantage was hauling the mill to the trees instead of asking the woodlot owner to haul his trees to the mill.
Ingenuity like that – along with the brothers’ insistence on handshake country quality – earned them a reputation as the kind of folks you could count on, which they put to work building Goodman Lumber Company. In time, they located the business on a site in town after their wives insisted on a more permanent setup not so far out in the country. The slogan (tagline) that served them for the next 70 years or so was Everything for the Builder, From the Foundation to the Roof.
Goodman Lumber Company thrived in serving builders’ needs, especially as other businesses prospered around them and created demand for housing, among them the Food Lion chain of grocery stores, which began life in Salisbury and remains headquartered there. The Goodmans began building homes themselves in the ‘20s, a natural step for an ambitious family that needed more customers for its lumber as the world changed around them.
A change that arose in the 1970s was the advent of big box stores that sold framing and lumber, which began to eat away at Goodman Lumber Company's business. They responded by looking to other lumber- and building-related markets for opportunity, including custom made woodworking for high-end residences, churches, banks, clubs and restaurants. For a while, they even built room settings for furniture manufacturers to display their products at trade shows like the High Point Market. In 1982, the company's name was changed to Goodman Millwork, Inc. to more precisely reflect the value-added nature of their business.
“Now we’ve come to another turning point,” says Franco Goodman. “We’ll continue to look to our present customer base for business, including architects and interior designers, whose clients want only the finest quality millwork, doors and windows for their renovations and new construction. And we're also looking to the Internet as we reach for yet another new market. That’s where at least part of our future lies,” he declares, pointing with pride to pictures of his two sons, now working their way into the family business.
"We can’t see the end from the beginning,” he acknowledges, “but at least we can make a start."
Nooks And A Necessary Cabinet.
Necessary Cabinet One thing they’ve started is a new line of distinctive wall furniture that extends Goodman Millwork's reach nationwide for the first time by way of the internet. The line includes two styles of phone nooks with designs reminiscent of early- to mid-20th century homes and a wall-mounted nest of bathroom shelves and drawers that Franco Goodman calls a Necessary Cabinet.
“We made one of these for a customer, and it turned out so good we decided to add it to the line of architecturally inspired phone nooks we were developing," he says. "We didn’t quite know what to name it – other than a bathroom storage cabinet (it’s placed above the toilet tank), but then someone suggested we call it a necessary cabinet.
Back in colonial days, he explained, people used to call the place where they took care of certain kinds of personal business the necessary room.
“We made one of these for a customer, and it turned out so good we decided to add it to the line of architecturally inspired phone nooks we were developing," he says. "We didn’t quite know what to name it – other than a bathroom storage cabinet (it’s placed above the toilet tank), but then someone suggested we call it a necessary cabinet.
Back in colonial days, he explained, people used to call the place where they took care of certain kinds of personal business the necessary room.
http://goodmanmillwork.com/featured.html Everybody needs a necessary cabinet – they just don’t know it yet! And a phone nook, if for no other reason than to have somewhere to plug in their phone charger and hang their car keys. And as Goodman Millworks’ new line of heritage-inspired products progress and prosper, you can be sure one of thing: that Franco Goodman (and sons) will soon take note of the next market change coming down the pike and figure a way to wrap it into their business.
TakeAway: Build on today’s change to create tomorrow’s business success.
Tags: Goodman Millwork, Food Lion
Content © Brian E. Faulkner.
TakeAway: Build on today’s change to create tomorrow’s business success.
Tags: Goodman Millwork, Food Lion
Content © Brian E. Faulkner.
About Brian Faulkner:
Brian Faulkner is a content and strategic communication writer. He helps clients come up with words to set their businesses, brands and products apart and attract the customers they want most. His strategic insights, and the words that go with them, have made a significant, often immediate difference for client companies over many years. He thrives on strategic communication problem solving, complex subjects, new ideas, concepts-as-products, challenging marketing situations and demanding deadlines. His "sweet spot" is smaller to moderate sized consumer products, retail, service and manufacturing companies that may have struggled to find just the right words to position their business, brands or products to competitive advantage.
Image © Brian E. Faulkner. Brian also is a five-time Emmy award winning Public Television writer and narrator of UNC-TV’s popular Our State magazine series, on the air since 2003. His distinctive voice has been heard on many hundreds of radio spots and client projects since the 1970s. People say he sounds a bit like Charles Kuralt, which Brian considers a welcome but happy illusion.
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