December… the end of 2013 has finally arrived. I’m eager to jump ahead and talk about the holidays, but I will backtrack to the beginning of the month. On 12/3 and 12/4 I drove out to Lancaster, PA for a meeting with the Kohler Company. All of the profit center managers from the Northeast and Midwest regions gathered for a two-day conference with our Kohler reps. We discussed everything including sales growth, market share potential, new product development, and policy changes moving into 2014. It was nice to see the folks from Kohler again, but I felt that the main benefit for me was to be able to meet and speak with the other Hajoca managers.

The rest of the month was relatively uneventful. I continued to help out by working at Lansdowne until 12/20. I returned to the Philadelphia office on the 23rd. I was glad to be back in Philly, but I somewhat missed the folks at Lansdowne too. I think I will stop by to visit them again sometime later this winter.

On the 14th of December, we had our annual Weinstein Supply “End of the Year” holiday party at Maggiano’s Little Italy. We had a lot of fun; there was plenty of good food, drinks, and laughter. It was nice to meet my co-workers’ family members and interact with everyone outside of the everyday work environment.

My first day back in Philly was quite a riot too! On Monday, 12/23, we worked until noon and then had our office party. Ed, the big boss, had gag gifts for everybody and gave thorough explanations for the meaning behind each one. Hilarity ensued. After being closed for Christmas Eve and Christmas, we finished out the year strong as we begin 2014 and prepare for our annual forecast meeting on January 7th.

My first two weeks of the month were spent in Texas. I mentioned briefly last month that there was a computer system conversion I was helping with. You’re probably wondering what the heck that is, so please allow me to elaborate. In several of my past blog posts, I referenced the Eclipse computer software. Most modern wholesalers/distributors use what is called Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software. An ERP allows a business to create, track, and maintain sales, purchase orders, inventory, and finances. It is an all-in-one software package to help run your business. The majority of Hajoca owned profit centers are currently using the Eclipse brand. However, we still had numerous Texas-based locations that were using a different ERP system. Therefore, Hajoca decided that now was a good time to integrate everyone onto Eclipse.

To make a long story short, I was asked to be a part of the team that installed, set-up, and trained people on Eclipse. After two long weeks of blood, sweat, and tears, we got everything in place and running. But in all honesty, it was not that bad. We worked 10 to 11 hour days, but everyone put in their due diligence and the Texas employees were doing their best to learn the Eclipse system as quickly as possible. Between the delicious meals and the fact that I got a free trip to San Antonio, there was not much I could complain about. And as I always like to say, it was a fantastic learning opportunity.

After the two weeks in Texas were over, I was all ready to get back in my groove in Philly. However, my regional manager, Paul, had other plans for me. One of our other Weinstein Supply locations in Lansdowne had just lost a couple of employees and were struggling due to a personnel shortage. Paul asked me to go work at the Lansdowne office for a month. I was a bit shocked because this was totally unexpected, but handling the unexpected is part of becoming a top-performing manager.

So far I have spent two weeks in Lansdowne, and I have primarily been helping out with answering phones, order writing, billing/processing checks, and filing transfer delivery papers. I had no issues getting to know the people there; we have already established a good working relationship. The plan is to continue this through mid-December and then return to Philadelphia.

I feel like I say this every month, but October was truly packed with so much action. I spent very little time at my home profit center (Philadelphia) because I had so much going on elsewhere. My first offsite event was a “lunch and learn” with Kohler Company. This was a class designed for showroom salespeople; the topic being color schemes in kitchens and bathrooms. Frankly, it wasn’t particularly in line with the things I was working on at the time (i.e. commerical plumbing quotes), but it was good to gain exposure to other aspects of Hajoca’s business. I also knew I was scheduled to work at a showroom location sometime in the next couple months. Every piece of knowledge is valuable to become a successful manager.

The following week I traveled to Blytheville, AR (just outside of Memphis, TN) to visit NIBCO Inc. The purpose of this visit was very similar to the trip I had to Charlotte Pipe and Foundry back in February. In addition to touring their foundry and other facilities, NIBCO had some excellent training courses for us. I felt that I had a much stronger understanding of their products and built great rapport with some of their key product experts. Not only did we spend time learning specific NIBCO products, but we also spent a significant amount of time discussing general industry topics such as the lead-free compliance requirements which are going into effect in 2014. Of course, I can’t forget to mention the delicious meals (BBQ!) and fun we had during our free time. Again, I am so thankful to have had this training opportunity among many others that Hajoca has provided.

From 10/21 to 10/23 we had our annual Management Trainees’ Seminar. You can read about last year’s seminar in my September 2012 post. I could not believe that I was already attending my second MDP seminar. There were many similarities, but there were also plenty of differences. Our president, Rick Fantham, returned to give us another presentation on leadership. As always, his time and inspiration were much appreciated. Doug Hymas from our accounting department made another appearance to discuss our financial statements. The most obvious difference I noticed was the number of trainees in attendance. We went from having 11 of us last year to over 30 for this year! Looks like Hajoca’s new MDP recruiters have been working hard to find us some new qualified managers and I think they did a pretty fine job.

I gave my business presentation on Tracking and Eliminating Lost Sales Caused by Stock Outages. I received very positive feedback on it, and I am discussing with my regional manager the possibility of applying this method to the day to day operations of our profit centers. By and large, my improved understanding of our company culture and increased knowledge of our industry allowed to me to benefit far more from listening to my peers’ business project presentations than I did last year. I should have one more seminar before I graduate from the program, so I am already thinking about my next business project.

The following weekend, I took a much needed vacation to visit some of my friends in Houston, TX. We attended a Halloween themed music festival and celebrated my birthday, which was on the 28th. I had a really great time. Despite my rigorous schedule, Hajoca still allows me to take vacation days and maintain a social life. The only caveat is that I have to be very proactive about this just like I am with everything else. I feel like this is true with anything in life, so it’s a good lesson.

After I got back home on the 29th, I went straight to the Weinstein Supply West Chester location to work in the showroom as part of my showroom training. Philadelphia does not have a showroom, so spending a week at a showroom location was beneficial to my development as a manager. During that week I learned about the sales process to homeowners and designers as well as the products that we carry in our showrooms.

I wish I could say that this was the end of my busy schedule and I had some relaxation planned… nope. I am scheduled to fly out tomorrow (11/1) to San Antonio, TX to help with our computer system conversion for two weeks!

During the month of September, I spent my time working the counter and warehouse at my new assigned branch. Spending a whole month doing this was very valuable, as it gave me a good feel for the differences in type of products and business between Lansdale and Philadelphia. I have also gotten to know many of our regular customers pretty well too.

I feel as though I put in a lot of hard work and have successfully earned the respect of the employees here. The work environment is pretty laid back and we frequently crack jokes and make fun of each other. At the same time, everyone here gets their work done here. It’s not a surprise that the Weinstein Philadelphia profit center has been very successful and continues to do well.

Having moved into Philadelphia, I am also switching gears for my personal and social life. I joined a new gym here (if you read my March post, you know it’s a big part of my life), made some new friends from the city, and also have a handful of old contacts here that I met while attending school at Penn.

Speaking of socializing, I was invited to the Eagles-Chargers football game and tailgate on the 15th, courtesy of one of our top vendors. Unfortunately, the Eagles lost 30-33, but I had a great time regardless and networked with many people in the industry (vendors, customer, co-workers and their families, etc).

Anyhow, I am officially phasing over to inside sales tomorrow. I also have a trip to Tennessee and Arkansas in a week to attend a training school hosted by a vendor. I have several other travel arrangements set for October, so it looks as if it’s going to be an exciting month!

The first two days of August were my last two days at Hajoca Lansdale. Friday was bittersweet; I was excited to be moving on to the second phase of my training, but I knew I would miss the people at Lansdale. We spent a year together and I learned so much from them, but the year went by so fast that it felt like it was only a couple of months ago that I started with Hajoca. Jeff ordered some pizza and got me a cake for my farewell. I exchanged goodbyes with everyone and prepared to make my transition to Philly.

On August 5th, I reported in for my first day at Weinstein Supply in Philadelphia. Paul (the regional manager) joined the Philly managers and I to discuss my initial activities here. We agreed that it would be in everyone’s best interest for me to spend a few weeks doing some warehouse and counter work in order to familiarize myself with Philly’s customers as well as the inventory here (which has significant differences from Lansdale’s).

Last month, I mentioned doing work with the internal audit department to prepare for an operations review which was scheduled this month. After finishing my first week at Weinstein Philly, I flew down to North Carolina for a week to do two operations reviews. While I cannot get into too much detail because of the confidential nature of internal audits, I can say that I gained a lot of insight on what to do and what not to do when managing a Hajoca owned profit center. It was also quite intriguing to see how a PC from a different region ran their business. There were many similarities, of course, but also some noticeable contrast in terms of the types of customers they served and products that they stocked. For instance, they had many agricultural customers in NC. There are very few (if any) customers of this category in Southeastern PA.

Anyhow, after spending a week in North Carolina, I finished out the month working in the warehouse and the counter. It was a bit of a struggle trying to relearn where everything was located. I became so accustomed to the warehouse in Lansdale to the point where I just knew where everything was. I felt like a beginner again at Philly. However, this time around I am learning everything much faster thanks to the fact that I am familiar with most of the product descriptions already.

I don’t have any trips scheduled in September, so I should have plenty of time to get a lot of work done at the branch and make my full transition into inside sales, which I will be doing for approximately 6 months before moving into outside sales. I have also finally finished moving into my new apartment in Philly, so it will be nice having a short commute and being able to enjoy the city life!