Luke Canup

Luke Canup is the president of Covered and Clad, a Christian-based company specializing ​in commercial flooring and select wall finishes — striving to provide ​the most collaborative approach to its ​customers.

Based northeast of Atlanta, Covered and Clad has a collection of some of the best talent and ​reputations in the industry, we strive to provide ​the most collaborative approach to our ​customers.

The Challenge

While Covered and Clad is less than a year old, Luke is no stranger to this industry.

“I've been in this business a long time, so I kind of know what's needed and the things that happen behind the scenes,” Luke says. “I know [which business] expenses [to expect] and how much they should or should not [cost].

“We were looking for an economical choice as opposed to hiring somebody full-time as well as trying to find somebody who had already been vetted. That was a big thing for me. 

“I've been in the hiring process before and it is hard to find good people, so I didn't want to spend my time trying to find those people when I was trying to get the business up and going.”

And so we matched Luke with BELAY Virtual Assistant Caroline Bennett and BELAY Bookkeeper Misty Arrington.

The Solution

Luke felt initial relief through the bookkeeping role.

“I have not been involved in the accounting side before, other than from a high level,” Luke explains. “And so I've not been in the weeds with it, and having somebody that already had that expertise was huge.

“[And] I had not had a VA before or much of an assistant of any kind, so I wasn’t sure how that was going to work.”

Some of Caroline’s tasks, in the beginning, included creating letterhead, filling out some vendor documents, setting up vendor processes and automation, and data entry.

“She can now see my email, my calendar, and she has a Covered and Clad email address,” Luke adds. 

“She's emailing customers and emailing vendors from our company, so it doesn't look like she's just some random person emailing. We share files, and so she can see the things we see.”

The Result

With the support of his BELAY contractors, Luke was able to speed up the process in getting his business off the ground.

“We started getting some good-looking [financial] reports [about] six months in,” Luke says. “I didn't expect to be able to have that. 

“I thought all that was going to rely on me, and if it's relying on me, I wouldn't get around to it. And so having that, that quickly has been helpful.