Hello again, friends! I hope everyone is well. Things are going great here in Lithia Springs! The weather is finally getting cold, giving us a little relief from the scorchin’ Georgia heat! Personally, I love the cold weather. I wish we had more of it around these parts, but it is what it is…

Last time I touched base, I was preparing to go to the annual MDP Workshop in Philadelphia. It was awesome! When we first got there, we split into three groups to do some team building activities. We had three different options to choose from – An “escape room”, a city wide scavenger hunt, or an art/wine class. I love solving puzzles and riddles, so naturally I chose the escape room. It was a really cool experience. They basically lock 10 people in a room and give you one hour to find clues so that you may escape. When we first went in, everybody started going their own direction and digging through everything to find clues. After a few minutes, we realized that the only way we were going to get out on time is if we came together as one and started working together. It was really interesting to see the shift that we made going from 10 individuals chaotically scouring the entire room to one single unit methodically searching for the next clue. We ended up escaping with 20 minutes left on the clock! Goal = Accomplished!

The rest of the week was also a blast. We stayed at the Chubb Conference Center and Hotel in Lafayette Hill, PA. It was such a beautiful place. What made it even better was getting to spend time with the other trainees from across the country. It’s nice meeting people who do the same exact thing as you and getting to hear about how their experience has been and what it has meant to them. It was also great getting to learn more about the company and meeting some of the people behind the scenes of the program! I can’t wait to go back next year.

Back in September, I had the opportunity to travel to Baton Rouge, LA to attend a career fair at Louisiana State University. My participation was kind of a last minute thing, so I was a little nervous going into it. I have never done any sort of recruiting before. After talking to a few of the attendees at the fair, I realized that all I was doing was bragging about my job (Which I really love doing – hence my blog posts!). Many of the students that I spoke with were seniors quickly approaching graduation, and had no idea what they wanted to do after. I was one of these students just a short time ago, so I felt like I could relate to them based on that. I enjoyed getting to discuss the program with them and watching their interest spark because they could tell that Hajoca really is something special. I am very passionate about this program, so sharing that with the students at the fair was pretty awesome.

I am now officially in the Profit Center Operations module of my training. In the operations phase, I will learn things such as pricing and purchasing, credit, and much more – basically what keeps the business going. I am super excited to learn this part of the business. I think that this section of the training is one of the most important, so I am gonna try to absorb as much as I possibly can during this phase. My training is going to be a little bit different than the typical program. Rather than moving to a new profit center to complete my second phase (inside and outside sales), I will be staying at Lithia Springs for the remainder of my time. I am beyond excited for this opportunity! I have an awesome Mentor here. He has taught me so much about the business, and I am eager for more! I will be his first Second-Phase Trainee, so we will be in it together! I feel very confident in my team as well, so I am looking forward to growing with them.

Well guys, that’s it for now! We’ve got inventory coming up in January, so I’m gonna be pretttty busy between now and then preparing for that. Be on the look-out for my next post. I’ll fill y’all in on how it goes. Until then, stay safe, and have fun!

It’s been a few months since I moved to Sacramento and time has flown by! Moving from a relatively small area in Washington State (about 32,000 people) to big Sacramento (almost 480,000 people) has been a bit of an adjustment but it’s growing on me. There are tons of things to do in the Sacramento area; many within just an hour or two drive.

At the profit center things are going extremely well. The team here is very cohesive and have all begun to share their knowledge and experience with me. We have a very experienced team, a few of our members have been working in the industry for almost 30 years! Having people around you with that much to share is incredible. In my inside sales phase I get to do a lot. I’ve got one pretty big customer that I am in charge of helping. This customer is working on eight different residential jobs and it’s very exciting for me to assist them with their needs. In addition to that I get to work on the counter a little, purchase a handful of our lines, and field incoming customer calls. Being able to get into a multitude of different things has been a great help for my development.

In the next few months I will be moving into the outside sales role. We have a great outside salesman here who is going to take me out to visit his customers and “show me the ropes.” I think the outside sales time will be a great opportunity to not only learn more about the market but to learn more about products, preferences, and how to best meet customer’s needs. The journey has been great so far and I can’t wait to see where it goes!

Taking the scenic route

At the beginning of July I began my transition into phase two of the MDP Program. My second phase brought me to Sacramento, California to Heieck Supply. Previously I had only spent an hour or two in the area, so moving to a new city and state has been extremely exciting!  We were lucky enough to take the “scenic route” which made the move that much more fun. Along the costal drive we made stops at a few beaches and some of the dunes in Oregon. We even had the chance to go on a tour in a dune buggy!

The move from Wenatchee to Sacramento was a big one, almost 800 miles! In just a few days at Heieck Supply, it’s obvious to me that the Profit Center has a lot to offer. While there are some products here similar to those in Wenatchee, the offerings and customers here are much different than the ones I have dealt with in the past. One example would be no hub cast iron, a material that we did not sell in Wenatchee. One my second day here, I had to prepare a sales quote for this material! The team members here have a lot of combined experience and they will all have a lot to offer me over the course of the next two years. As time goes by and I continue to get more comfortable in my new market, I’ll continue to be more and more excited for my outside sales phase. For now I’m looking forward to learning the new products, getting to know our customers, learning about the nuances of the market, getting to know the team, and exploring my new home!

Hello again, everyone! Greetings from Apex in Lithia Springs, Georgia. It has been a while since I’ve last checked in, so without further ado, let’s talk about life at Hajoca!

I am now roughly five months in to my training, and I couldn’t be happier about how things are going. I am currently in the counter sales module, so I have been focusing on learning as much as I can about the products that we carry so I can effectively serve our customers. This is one of my favorite parts of the job – learning about the products and what they are used for. My PC carries both plumbing and HVAC. When starting on the counter, I was pretty comfortable with HVAC since I had some experience in the field, but plumbing was a little more challenging. I am the type of person who is motivated by challenges, so I have made it a point to seek as much information about plumbing as I possibly can. Thankfully, I am surrounded by a great team who are always willing to help me out when I am unsure of something. I am equally thankful for our helpful customers who take the time to teach me about something I don’t know. It makes me happy when I learn something new. I am fairly comfortable with plumbing now, but I still have a lot to learn.

In this business, having a “that’s not my job” attitude and being selfish won’t get you very far. A major key to having a successful profit center is having a team that is bought in to the cause and will stop at nothing to accomplish goals, even if that means working a little harder or longer to catch up. At our PC, we are always doing as much as we can to help each other out. I love this aspect of the job – the camaraderie – because it makes me feel like I am part of something important. Heck, I don’t just feel that way, it is that way. This camaraderie isn’t just limited to my PC, it is companywide. Sure, Hajoca does have a unique business model in that it is mostly decentralized, but that doesn’t mean we are disconnected. We are all focused on helping one another, and in doing so, we seek to provide the best service in the industry.

I am getting ready to go to the annual MDP Workshop in Philadelphia in August. This will be my first one, so I am not quite sure yet what to expect. I am really excited to meet more of my fellow trainees from other regions and see how their experience with the MDP has been. I will fill you guys in on how the workshop goes, so be on the lookout for my next post! Thanks for reading, everyone! Until next time, be safe, and have fun!

-Morgan

Charlotte Pipe sure knows how to throw a party!  A group of about 35 trainees traveled to North Carolina to learn more about Charlotte Pipe products.  For three days we attended classes about how the products they offer fit into a plumbing system.  The instruction included plumbing basics as well as sales techniques.  Charlotte wants us to sell more, so we can buy more (win-win).  But it wasn’t just sitting in a classroom the whole day; the instructors set up hands-on activities to let us plumb a house ourselves.  The real stunner was the foundry tour: we geared up and walked through the place where they make cast iron pipe.  The tour included the whole process, from scrap metal to pretty, painted pipe and fittings.  I felt so small next to a vat filled with 80 tons of molten iron!  The plastics plant was neat as well because it has more automation with machinery.  After class each day, we ate dinner as a group and played corn hole until the sun went down.  Hajoca managers and purchasing agents interact with our vendors electronically so it’s great to see some faces behind the phones and emails.  And as always, it’s wonderful to meet other trainees and hear what their experience is like because no two profit centers are the same.

Phase two is here!  My first year with Hajoca flew by and I learned so much about the wholesale industry.  I moved about an hour south to train with a new manager at a new location. During the first week at my new profit center, I met a team of almost 40 people and spent some time getting to know everyone’s roles.  Each profit center is different, so it takes a little time to learn the habits of a different team.  My main responsibility now is to learn inside sales for six months.  I work with an outside salesperson to quote material and large jobs.  The outside salesperson is in charge of finding and keeping customer’s business.  He will go to commercial plumbing job sites to ensure the customer is getting great service from Hajoca.  The inside sales team mostly stays in the office to take customer phone calls, quote plumbing material (often for a whole building), and order material that is not in stock.  Put simply, quoting involves looking at drawings and material lists and then typing it into a ticket to show the customer prices.  In addition to working with new people, I am also working with a new kind of material.  My phase one location carried mostly residential and commercial plumbing fixtures; my new location carries more pipe, valves, and fittings.  While the concepts are the same, there a many new details to learn.

Coming in with a year’s experience has made me more confident about taking on leadership projects.  There is always something more to be done and I’m free to explore making improvements in the warehouse, on the counter, or in operations.  I am motivated by the fact that I can find little inefficiencies and create new solutions to save time and money.  I am interested in the pricing of commodity items so I am learning to maintain the way our salespeople stay on the front end of the market.  Hajoca offers many training programs and it’s up to me get involved and find the information I need.  Phase two will be a new set of challenges that I will meet with determination.  I’m looking forward to getting settled and starting new relationships with customers!