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Hardwood Blog
Perspectives and insights on the hardwood lumber industry.
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Monday, 14 September 2020 17:05
Encouraging Innovative Thinking and Creativity Within your Team
In terms of creativity, many businesses overlook a significant asset they already have on hand, their employees! It stands to reason that more likely than not, the people who know the most about the company are the people that work there, and can offer creative solutions and ideas in an environment that places an emphasis on that. At American Lumber, we have long been an advocate for employee creativity within our organization. Here are a…
Wednesday, 26 August 2020 13:51
Knowing Customers’ Needs
Especially in times like these knowing your customers is important. Working on current knowledge of your customers is even more crucial. If you aren’t working on updated knowledge of your customers’ wants and needs your offerings may come up short. While the obvious benefit of boosting sales is important, it is even more essential that you understand the problems your customers are up against, and how your products and services can solve their problems. At…
Monday, 27 July 2020 16:38
Building Trust with Prospective Customers
While tending to the needs of your current customers who purchase your company’s products and services is important, so is the need to build relationships with prospective customers. Strong relationships are built on trust, so how can you establish a foundation of trust that allows businesses to feel comfortable enough to respond to your marketing efforts? Typically, one of the best points to start at is by establishing a customer-centric culture in your business. While…
Wednesday, 10 June 2020 14:11
Avoiding Miscommuncation in the Workplace
Clear and concise communication is a big challenge for all of us these days, especially with the increased amount of remote work due to the current situation around the globe. But when miscommunication occurs in the workplace, it can cause damage that could be measured in a variety of ways, sometimes even in your company’s bottom line. This can come about in a variety of ways, like instances of employees not understanding what is expected…
Thursday, 21 May 2020 15:54
Keeping Employees Engaged
Helping employees keep motivation is a year-long objective for pretty much any business. But sometimes in the face of unexpected challenges, this can sometimes prove to be an extra challenge. In these and similar circumstances, workers sometimes can become less productive or otherwise have a sense of decreased motivation at their jobs. At American Lumber, we believe it is important to help employees maintain their motivation no matter what challenges present themselves. With this in…
Wednesday, 06 May 2020 16:09
Updates on Tropical Hardwoods
May is upon us and COVID 19 is still with us. Some states have even discussed soft openings at this point. Only time will tell what happens, there are very different opinions on that subject. Our import yard has been working hard and we shipped out a good amount of lumber to our customers in April and we have seen demand for just-in-time shipments remain steady so far. When we import our tropical hardwoods into…
Wednesday, 15 April 2020 15:57
Developing Your Leadership Team
Leadership is valuable in every organization, but planning, effort, and development into growing the leaders of tomorrow can be of immense benefit to your business. Often, day to day concerns get in the way of this goal. But as we are seeing now with current challenges everyone is facing, and the increased number of people working remotely, times like these show how team leadership is essential as business leaders look to get their teams ready…
Wednesday, 08 April 2020 16:44
Tropical Hardwood Lumber Updates
The current situation in the market coming into 2020, has certainly not been what anyone had anticipated. At our tropical hardwood yard in Cove City, NC, the facility remains open as the forest products industry is considered an essential business. However, we have been very mindful of implementing all necessary safety measures at all of our facilities and our production is reduced as we have implemented extra distance between our employees. While the majority of…
Thursday, 19 March 2020 13:53
Ways You Can Show Gratitude to Your Loyal Customers
To instill loyalty in customers, some businesses believe that providing high-quality products or services is sufficient. In some ways, this is still the case. If you offer low-quality products and services you can’t expect to generate much repeat business. Many organizations are starting to understand that loyalty isn’t something that is created overnight, but something that is cultivated over time after building strong relationships with customers. In addition to the obvious benefits of customers feeling…
Wednesday, 04 March 2020 20:00
The Beauty of Bloodwood
In the past, Bloodwood was a deep, dark gorgeous vibrant red color. It was truly a unique looking hardwood species. While that variant of Bloodwood has been gone for quite a few years, for the most part, today Bloodwood is still a red-colored hardwood. It does show some variance from light red to dark red and the color can also darken over time with exposure to direct sunlight. Bloodwood is very dense and has a…
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Wednesday, 26 February 2020 14:46
Not All Red Oak is the Same
Sought after by many in the production of furniture, cabinets, interior decorative items, flooring, stairs, and even moulding industries, Red Oak is one of the most widely used and abundant hardwoods in the eastern United States. However, the more time you spend in the hardwood lumber industry the more you come to realize that not all Red Oak lumber that is produced in the same product. Red Oak grows plentifully in the eastern portions of…
Monday, 10 February 2020 16:11
Revisiting How You Conduct Employee Performance Evaluations
The way in which businesses evaluate an employee’s performance seems to be evolving, as many business leaders recognize that the current ways of evaluating performance often don’t have the desired outcome. The reasons for this? Sometimes the performance reviews occur too late in the year to alter the employee’s real-time productivity. Beyond this, it can also contribute to an atmosphere that employees are being “graded,” among other negative outcomes. With this in mind, it…
Monday, 27 January 2020 18:12
The African Hardwood, Aniegre
The African Hardwood specie Aniegre has carved out its own niche in the veneer, cabinetry, and high-end millwork industries with its fantastic golden brown color. It can even be seen used in the creation of furniture, boatbuilding, and carpentry uses. Aniegre’s heartwood is usually a light yellow-brown color and sometimes can even carry a pinkish hue. With age, the color darkens to a pleasing golden brown color. This is what makes it such a popular…
Thursday, 16 January 2020 16:17
Industrial Hardwoods & Grade Hardwood Lumber. What’s the Difference?
An undermentioned fact about the hardwood industry is its outstanding ability to get the maximum amount of use and value out of each and every log harvested. During the process of sawing logs into lumber, all by-products created like industrial hardwoods, hardwood chips, sawdust, etc. all are used in one way or another. When a log is sawn, typically, the most valuable parts of the log are sawn into “grade lumber”. Depending on the sawmill,…