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Peer Groups

FAQs

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Frequently Asked Questions About Solomon Coyle Peer Groups

What is a Solomon Coyle peer group?

A Solomon Coyle dealer peer group is an alliance of select aligned office furniture dealers with the same primary manufacturer affiliation and a high commitment to achieving operational excellence. Each peer group is composed of dealer principals from non-competing markets who are willing to share information, learn from one another and challenge each other to higher performance.

Why should I join a Solomon Coyle peer group?

To become more profitable! Members share new ideas, strategies and successes that help them individually and collectively grow their businesses.

When do peer groups meet?

Members meet twice a year to share best practices, successes, failures and ideas to improve operations. Between meetings, they continue the exchanges through webinars, benchmarking surveys, participation in special projects, and principal-to-principal dialogue.

Principals are expected to extend the benefits of peer group membership by involving their management team. Solomon Coyle facilitates regularly scheduled online forums dedicated to issues and best practices in Sales, Marketing, Design, Financial Management, Human Resource Management, and Operations Management.

To reinforce and facilitate this knowledge culture, Solomon Coyle provides every peer group with a private intranet where the members can access the group’s library of reference materials and shared documents, exchange ideas and information, stay abreast of upcoming events and activities, and participate in Quick Polls and other research being conducted within the group.

What is Solomon Coyle’s role?

Solomon Coyle knows the office furniture industry inside and out. That’s why we’ve become the leading provider of research, consulting and education services for the office furniture distribution channel.

We understand what it takes to successfully manage and grow a peer group by virtue of extensive resident experience in managing trade and professional associations as well as operating the Solomon Coyle peer groups.

We apply our industry knowledge, facilitation expertise and association management best practices to create tailored peer group programs that offer positive learning experiences while improving the members’ performance and profitability.

What about confidentiality?

Member compatibility is a prime consideration for all concerned. It’s our first consideration in talking with a prospective new member of a Solomon Coyle peer group. We begin addressing compatibility by ensuring that the prospective member is not competing in the geographic markets of any other member.

Mutual trust and confidentiality are assumed in every conversation and every exchange of information. Each member is required to sign a confidentiality and non-disclosure agreement, which basically holds that, with one exception, all information you share stays within your specific group and is not shared with other groups or other Solomon Coyle clients. That one exception consists of anonymous survey data that is aggregated as part of an industry-wide benchmarking project.

We have never experienced a problem with trust in our peer groups.