This is a great time of year to spend time on your patio enjoying the weather outdoors. Our CTi Dealers can provide your patio with a look that will enhance your enjoyment as well provide you with a surface that will be easier to maintain and increase the value of your home.

CTi’s Carved Acrylistain application can help areas where the cracking in the concrete may be too severe to fix but not severe enough to keep the concrete structurally sound. A beautiful alternative that provides an easier to clean and protected surface and keeps further deterioration from happening.

A shout out to Carlos “JC” Casas, owner of Miami Concrete Designs. JC and his staff have been surpassing their customers expectations in southeast Florida since 2021!

Do you love the look of hardwood but wished it was easier to take care of? Let our Dealers show you our “Woodcrete” application that provides all of the beauty of hardwood but is easier to maintain.

CTi prides itself on having a network of some of the best trained installers of decorative concrete in the country. Our initial training teaches our Dealers not only the proper installation of our decorative coatings but also covers the science of concrete repair and restoration.

The training doesn’t stop there though, CTi Dealers have numerous ways to stay on top of their trade. Dealer rallies held throughout the year in multiple locations provides hands on training for new products and installation techniques. Our Dealer support site and phone app provide information needed for the proper use of our products at your fingertips. Our Facebook Dealer group allows Dealers to discuss specific situations to insure they’re following best practices and our YouTube channel provides installation videos for our Dealers.

All of this provides the homeowner with a well trained, highly efficient installation crew that can surpass their expectations and leave them delighted with the final outcome.

Concrete is one of the most widely used building products on the planet. While concrete can provide a strong, durable surface in and around your home, it does have shortcomings that the CTi Systems can correct. Easier to maintain than concrete, stronger, and more beautiful than plain gray concrete, the CTi System is the perfect finish for concrete areas around the home.

A Shout Out to Wayne Roland, owner of NewCrete Finish. Wayne and his staff have been taking excellent care of the Delaware customers since 2020!

Many times sales is taught as how to repeat the perfect script in order to impress the customer with features and benefits of a product so as to have them want to buy it.

Asking the customer questions about their needs is a much more effective way of starting off a sales conversation. The three areas where the questions should be centered are:

Current Situation: What is the customer experiencing currently that the product can help solve. This is a simple who, what, where, and why type of questioning.

Problems they are facing: A customer in only going to buy a product if they think it’s going to solve an issue they currently have. The better you understand what that issue is, the better you can tailor your sales conversation to detail how the problem and solution fit together.

Implications of not fixing the problem: In many sales situations, the customer likes and maybe even wants the product but they are worried about making that final commitment. Asking the customer to describe the implications of delaying or not solving the problem is a good way of getting them over their inertia. If a customer realizes that a solution is strongly needed, they are more likely to make that final decision.

Effective advertising is centered around the three “M’s”, Message, Market and Media. To maximize the return on your advertising investment, you should always be examining whether these three are working their hardest in your advertising:

Message: This is what you’re advertising is telling your customer about your products and how well it’s resonating with the customer. Your advertising should be bringing up the best selling points about your product in order to get the customer to the point where they want to find out more. Always remember your advertising is simply to get a customer interested enough to engage with your company, too many businesses try to sell their products through their ads and this tends to muddy the message.

Market: Who are your best customers? You can segment this a number of ways, it could be areas of town where your best customers live. You can also segment by types of customers and the products they need. Figuring out which segments provide the best return on your advertising dollar insures you send your message to people who can provide the business.

Media: How will you deliver your message to your market? One of the easiest ways to determine which media is working the hardest for you is to start every conversation with a new customer with the question, “where did you hear about us?” This allows your market to tell you which media is working the hardest for you. Obviously you have to track this information and determine which customers are buying and which ones provide the best return on your advertising investment.

When starting a small business, you should look for three things that will help you in its success:

1) Is the product in demand: This is usually a function of how much value your prospective customers see in the solution offered by the product or service. Look for products or services that match up well with issues that face a sizable number of people. The larger the potential market, accompanied by the amount of value the product or service brings to this market, the better the chances of the business being a success.

2) Does the business have a reachable break even point: In order to achieve profitability, businesses must surpass their break even point. This is the amount of sales needed to cover both the variable and fixed costs associated with the business. The amount of sales beyond this point is what contributes to the business’ profitability. To determine the amount of units needed to reach break even, take the price you’re going to charge for the product or service and subtract the variable cost associated with that unit (an example would be CTi’s Hallmark System’s price is $7.00 per square foot and it’s costs for materials and labor (variable cost) is $2.00. Take this number and divide it by the amount of fixed costs associated with the business; these are the costs that don’t go up or down with the amount of sales you make (an example would be rent). To continue on with our example, if we have a selling price for the Hallmark System of $7.00 per square foot and variable costs associated with it are $2.00 per square foot, and if the fixed costs associated with running the business are $80,000 per year, our break even would be 16,000 square feet (7-2/80,000) = 16,000. This means the amount of square footage installed for the year above the 16,000 now contributes to the business’ profitability.

3) Is the business scalable: Can you adjust how much your business can do easily? This is normally a function of how skilled the labor needed for the business is, how expensive is it to get new customers, and how easy it is to manage the business’ growth? A new business is normally a function within a person’s life. You need to determine how large a business needs to be in order to meet your financial obligations and then look at how much you have to do in order to achieve this size business. Does that amount of work fit into your overall lifestyle comfortably or will you be married to the business in order for it to produce what you need.