Happy New Year everyone!! 2014 definitely flew by and I have quite a bit to update you on. My blog entries have been non-existent the past few months, but don’t worry I’m still around and busier than I’ve ever been!

I’ve recently relocated to Sarasota, FL for my outside sales phase of the MDP program. The past 5 months have primarily involved me transitioning into my sales part of my training. Preparation for outside sales has involved a lot of prospecting, working on customer quotes, identifying new potential accounts, etc. Inside sales has definitely prepared me for dealing with challenges that may arise when servicing customers.

The people here at my new profit center in Sarasota have welcomed me with open arms and my new mentor is an incredible PCM (definitely one of my heroes). Mark Boyer has been a PCM for 25 years and has experienced incredible success and I’ve already started picking his brain. He’s always said the key to his success has been his people; everyone here is extremely customer focused. Mark is definitely one of the PCM’s that believes in engaging his people and interacting with customers on a daily basis. He always says “You can’t run a business from behind a desk!”

In August, I attended my second MDP seminar in Ardmore, PA. This past year we had over 50 trainees in the program and it was incredible! So many new faces and the atmosphere was a lot of fun. We played a ton of icebreakers that Kate, Noe, and Haley came up with which really helped us get to know each other a little bit. My partner, Raj Ram, and I worked very hard on our group presentation and received very positive feedback. Our project was focused on improving our people at the counter through customer service training and reorganizing the counter area. We measured our success by customer surveys/feedback and GP% growth. Our project was definitely a success! Over the course of the 3 days we also had the opportunity to visit our corporate office and interact with the people that provide support to all of the profit centers for our company. We also had the opportunity to attend a Phillies game and watch from a suite with free food and drinks!

In November, I attended the Dale Carnegie Sales Success Training in Fort Lauderdale, FL for a week. This training provided me with some sales tools and solutions that will be useful when I go into outside sales. This past month we had a pool, well, and septic sales meeting. This meeting included a lot of our partnered vendors and salespeople from across the state of Florida. We were introduced to new products for 2015, discussed 2014 performance, and came up with solutions for continued sales growth in 2015. For me personally, this was my first exposure to pool products. I’ve primarily been exposed to plumbing and well/septic products; I have quite a bit to learn on the pool side of the business and I’m very excited. Stay tuned for next quarter’s update!

Hello friends. Let me tell you, the end of 2014 was full of surprises and packed with exciting action! Never did I think that’s how I would describe a job working for a plumbing and HVAC wholesale company, but once you read this post I suspect that you might agree!

Remember in my last post I mentioned that I had so much fun in the summer? Well, the fun continued into the autumn and winter! On the first weekend of September, one of my vendors took me to the Penn State vs. Akron football game. In all the years that I’ve lived in PA, I have never been to a PSU Nittany Lions football game. Boy, have I been missing out! To witness and be a part of a hundred thousand screaming students, alumni, and dedicated fans was an incredible experience. From the tailgating in Happy Valley to defeating Akron 21-3, the entire day is something that I will never forget. I would like to thank my vendor, Energy Transfer Solutions Inc., for treating me to such a wonderful time.

Fast forward two weeks… I’m in New Orleans attending Hajoca’s first Mainline University. In case you’re unfamiliar, Mainline is Hajoca’s very own private label brand. The Mainline U was a company-wide event for managers, mgmt trainees, and key sales/purchasing employees to familiarize ourselves with current offerings from Mainline (and Luxart) as well as upcoming future products. As I am always saying, my favorite aspect of these types of conferences is the opportunity to meet and network with people from our company that I normally do not get to meet. Sometimes it’s just a matter of putting a face to a name. The folks from our Mainline/Luxart division did a fantastic job of putting together a very educational and informative seminar. Of course, the delectable Cajun cuisine and the after-hours shenanigans on Bourbon Street were extremely entertaining too!

Anytime that I wasn’t away on a trip, I was frantically trying to increase my sales and hit my quotas. In hindsight, perhaps I was being too “frantic” about the whole thing. My sales techniques were still immature and crude. I also lacked the patience and composure that some of our top veteran salespeople possess. October ended up being a somewhat “slow” month for me, which caused me to panic, lose focus, and haphazardly try to claw for POs and new accounts. When everything was said and done, I did barely manage to hit my 2nd quarter sales and GP goals. Unfortunately, I only opened one new active account. I had a meeting with my regional manager and my mentors. They made it very clear that I fell short of expectations and that they wanted more out of me going forward.

My 3rd quarter of outside sales began on November 1st. I really took my 2nd quarter shortcomings to heart and took off with a new passion. The bar was raised — my goals were to do over $100,000 in sales and open 3 new active accounts by 01/31/2015. I’d like to toot my own horn and proudly announce that both of these goals have been met as of 12/31/2014. Everything else in January is an extra bonus.

Throughout this entire time, I’ve been continuing my education through attending classes and meetings offered by my vendors. I took a class on troubleshooting Bradford White’s commercial and residential water heaters, and I sat in on a training session for Gastite products. I strongly believe that becoming more knowledgeable in every facet of our industry is going to make me a better manager and an overall asset to our company as well as myself personally and professionally.

We finished up the year with our annual Weinstein Supply “End of the Year Party” which was an enjoyable time as always. So this concludes my journal for 2014: another year for the history books. In the grand scheme of things, I have never been happier with life and 2014 will always occupy a special place in my heart. See you next year!

5 MONTH MEGA UPDATE:

As you have probably noticed, I have not updated his blog in several months (I hope you all didn’t miss me too much!). Don’t worry, I still work for Hajoca and I’m loving it — for real!

So why the long hiatus? Simply put, it was a combination of the fact that outside sales has required a significantly larger portion of my time and has also completely captured my attention that I found myself concerned about nothing other than reaching my sales goals! Lee Tracy, our Senior Director of Administration and Training, kindly reminded me that I had forgotten about my blog. Oops, I’m back on it now!

Let’s see… April was spent mostly doing preparations for my outside sales phase, which started on May 1st. During this time, I got with my mentors, Tom and Ed, to discuss what accounts I should call on and what my sales goals were. I also spent some time with other managers and outside salespeople in my region and went on a few sales calls with them (special thanks to George, Ed, Jerry, Mike, and Matt). I was able to observe their sales techniques and styles; it was a very active learning experience.

Once May arrived, I started out firing on all cylinders. I also signed up for the Dale Carnegie Sales Success course, which I attended every Monday evening for 8 weeks. My sales goals were set quarterly. My first quarter was from May 1st though August 31st. This three month span went by like a blur. I was constantly on the road visiting my customers, writing up quotes for them, and also still helping out in the office and counter on occasion. Amidst the chaotic schedule, I attended a three day long division-wide vendor roundtable meeting in June and a three day long pricing and purchasing class in July. Additionally, I managed to squeeze in a 5-day vacation to Las Vegas in June!!

Bottom line: How did I do? My sales goals for the quarter was to open 4 new accounts and make at least $70,000 in sales. Unfortunately, I was only able to establish 2 new accounts, but I made over $88k in sales! For the August-October quarter I will definitely do everything possible to hit all of my goals. So far, August has been a little slow, but I have a few more big sales in the works and I am already negotiating two new accounts. Always forward; never quit!

The third week of August was also my third annual Management Development Program Seminar. It was very similar to last year’s, but we are now up to over 50 trainees in the program! Kate, Haley, and Noe added some fun activities like the visit to our corporate headquarters in Ardmore, PA and renting a suite at Citizen’s Bank Park for the Phillies game! Grant and I presented our project and received praise and acclaim for our work. We identified multiple practices which either correlated to positive or negative performance at the profit centers. Based on our findings, we constructed an action plan for the managers to improve their teams (e.g. more delegation, cross training) and had a good participation rate. The next step is to follow up in October and measure the results.

Perhaps most importantly, I made sure I had a lot of fun this summer. I think that the summer of 2014 has been the most memorable time of my life. I took a Vegas vacation for the second year in a row, and I also attended a few other music festivals. I feel blessed to have incredible friends and a promising career. Hajoca promotes and encourages a healthy and fulfilling work-life balance, and for that I am extremely grateful. Here’s a special thank you to Keith, Rick F., Rick K., Chris, Lee, Jock, Paul, Tom, Ed, and Jeff for being the best bosses I could ask for. <3

July was another great month for me here at my new profit center. My mentor and the employees here started a new weekly counter promotional event for our customers. We have it once a week on Wednesdays and we call it “Hughes Hump Day”. Each week it has grown in popularity and I think the word has gotten out to quite a bit of our regular customers. We try to have a vendor or sales rep agency come into the store and conduct product specific hands-on training with us and our customers. This definitely adds a ton of value and makes our customers feel appreciated. Oh, and did I mention we also provide BBQ?

This month we also had a mid-year performance meeting with the entire profit center. My mentor, Joe Davenport, has been with the company for over 40 years and has a ton of leadership experience. I don’t think there’s a single situation or problem he hasn’t been faced with. Our meeting was very relaxed and provided an open forum for employees to discuss any concerns/issues. It was a very productive meeting and we really are a small, close knit team here.

Joe went over how we’re servicing some of our key customer accounts and also asked for feedback on how we can improve and better align with these customers. We also covered our financials for the month and Joe definitely has us on the right track and everyone here is working very hard to make profit sharing again this year!

I also took some vacation time this month and was able to attend the US Youth Soccer National Tournament as a referee. This was a huge honor considering there were only 96 referees in the entire country that were selected to attend. I was able to meet and get Mia Hamm’s autograph, which was life changing! I also had the opportunity to meet FIFA and MLS referees and pick their brains on how they achieved so much success. My referee career has been moving pretty quickly and I’m loving every minute of it. Now, it’s back to real life…

 

June was definitely a huge transition month for me. I just finished my first month here at my new training site in Ocala. The majority of the past few weeks have been spent learning about the operational functions within my new profit center. There’s a huge difference between an RF environment which I came from in Orlando to a traditional, non-RF environment here in Ocala.

This past month I’ve also spent quite a bit of time in the warehouse and the counter. I’ve been doing my best to become familiar with the products we stock and also learn customers’ names and faces. The employees and my new mentor have been very helpful in bringing me up to speed and I love it here already. My primary goal has not only been to learn as much about our customers, but also to work hard and show the people here that I’m a part of the team.

There are some pretty drastic differences between the Orlando and Ocala markets. Our customers here are laid back and a ton of fun. They call Ocala “horse country”! There’s a lot of farmland, BBQ, and it’s definitely the horse capital of the world. Being the southern girl that I am, I can’t wait to do some fishing with my co-workers soon!

On a personal note, the FIFA World Cup has consumed my life for the past month and has been a heck of a tournament. Now that I’ve transitioned from a player to a referee, I’ve been very critical of some of the controversial decisions so far. I’m so sad that it’s coming to an end soon, but I’ve definitely enjoyed watching every match!