Profit Center Manager is now my official title!  The last three years of my life have been dedicated to preparing for this role, so I was nervous and excited before starting.  It’s been about a month and half since I first arrived, and I already feel at home in Clarksburg, WV.  The MDP is so thorough that there haven’t been any surprises.  I have been blessed with a great team of three employees with 22 years of experience among them.  I was worried they would be stuck in their routine, but each of them is excited to grow the business in innovative ways.  In the beginning it’s important to show the team that I can work hard, since they were not there for my years of training in the warehouse and helping customers on the counter.  In that sense, it’s starting over for proving myself.  Luckily, I have had all the best training to show them I know the business all around.  I have taken the time to observe and reflect on what the PC is currently doing, and it’s time to act!

My time is spent building relationships with our vendor partners to help me ensure I have the best items in stock and the best price available.  Manufacturer rep agencies are a great way for me to find leads and even get introduced to key customers in my market.  One of the first things I did upon arrival was make the place my own by rearranging furniture and getting rid of things that had been sitting around for a long time (like old price books and even an old nonworking copier). From here on out, my priority is growing sales with our existing customers and finding new contractors in the area.  It’s my job to maximize profit sharing for me and my team!

 

I have now been in my outside sales phase for thirteen months.  I have had lots of time to build the relationships with my best customers.  Many experienced salespeople agree with me that we treat them like business partners, and both offer a lot to the other company.  In wholesale, our best advertising is word of mouth.  If it were not for my customers spreading my name to other customers, I would probably only have half the business I do now.  I have also come to understand exactly how essential a contractor’s salesperson is to their business.  We provide expertise on sourcing material (I have learned how to find just about any hard-to-find item) as well as our large amount of inventory that plumbers could not afford to keep in stock themselves.  Within my quality customer relationships, there is a clear understanding of helping each other out.  Eighteen months does seem like a long time for outside sales training, but it has flown by!  There are still many times that I need help from my mentor and team mates for handling certain customer situations.

As my time in training is coming to a close, my region manager and I have discussed possible locations for me to manage.  There are currently five locations in my region that are in need of management, so that’s why the management training program is taken so seriously at Hajoca.  I have been doing research on the market, competition, and potential of each location; and there are so many things to consider about each one!  I have been able to talk with my mentors at my current training site, Richmond Virginia, and also my previous mentor in Fredericksburg, Virginia.  It’s good to know I have a whole team of experienced people that are able and excited to help me succeed in my new role as Profit Center Manager!

– Emily Cowdrey

(Pictured Above: Fellow Hajoca teammates at our Richmond, VA location!)

 

Hi everyone!

I have been in my outside sales phase for nearly four months now.  I can see why many trainees before me have loved this phase the most!  I am working mostly alone and I have a lot of control over my goals and daily activities.  At the beginning of my transition to outside sales, I met with my profit center manager and region manager to set my numerical goals for the first year.  I have monthly and quarterly sales goals that I am expected to meet.  The process I use to meet these goals is up to me, and I can always ask for help with strategy.  I quickly learned that I needed to get organized; one of the most important activities a salesperson can do is follow up with customers, so I need to be sure nothing slips through the cracks.  As my customers grow and multiply, relying on my memory just won’t work – I take notes on calls every day!

I was warned from the start, outside sales people face a lot of rejection.  I have gotten around feeling down by using the mantra “If they say no, I’ll be in the same position I’m in now”.  I focus on the positive feedback, which gives me confidence to keep trying.  There are some customers that will turn me away more than once, but keeping at it has turned into some of my best orders.  Many salespeople have even estimated that it takes 10 calls to get the first order!  My experience is that this is true for some, but most customers are willing to give a new vendor a shot after just a couple of cold calls.

Back to the positive parts! I enjoy getting out of the office to go visit my customers.  Usually I go to an office, but some customers are on a jobsite so I meet them there.  These customer interactions make up most of my job now.  My struggle has been to get away from spending my time doing inside work, and instead getting in front of the customer.  But, having customers that need help from me is a blessing!  This role is the most fun, the most difficult, and keeping me the busiest I have been!

Now that I have spent six months as an inside salesperson, I am much more proficient in the new types of material and providing top of the line service.  The time I spend quoting items we don’t keep in our warehouse has expanded my relationships with our vendors.  Half of the battle is knowing who to call for what, so I have been keeping a word document with lists of vendors and what lines they represent.  Since Hajoca both buys and sells, I am constantly switching between being a customer and serving our customers.  I also serve as a kind of middle ground between our counter pick up business and outside sales.  I am a backup person for our counter, so I help out when we get busy; it’s a nice break to get up and move around!  I am also able to prospect from my desk by calling to follow up with customers I meet on the
counter.  There are times when I don’t need to leave the PC to find new customers, because they walk up to our counter and tell me what kind of material they use daily.  One great thing about this industry is that we don’t need to convince our customers that they need our material; we just need to convince them that we can act as a partner to them in providing the goods and services they already know they need (and of course there are opportunities for upselling). 

I attended my second Management Development Program workshop during my inside sales phase.  This time I presented a project to a panel of profit center managers, region managers, and other trainees.  I spent almost 8 months automating the pricing structure for my phase one profit center.  Luckily, I saw a significant decrease in manual price over rides, which means I saved a lot of man hours!  It is these kinds of projects that are the reason I find enjoyment at work.  Also at the workshop, all the trainees participated in daily classes that improve our potential for success as a profit center manager.  One of my favorite workshops was on hiring your “dream team”.  A strong team of employees is one of the core elements for success, so the hiring process must be very intentional.  We learned some great techniques for the interviewer to prepare questions that predict the fit of any candidate.  Another session I really enjoyed was “The Science of Selling” which went into detail on the psychology behind different sales techniques that leave customer and supplier happy.

Outsides sales is just around the corner for me now.  This will be the time when I “hit the road” to find new customers.  I am both excited and nervous to step outside my comfort zone and sell others on the greatness of Hajoca’s products and service.  Look out for my next blog for successes and lessons learned throughout my outside sales phase!

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!