No Hired Guns
Kuiken also helped itself during the downturn with the fact that its dozen seasoned outside sales reps work on a 100% commission basis. As sales dropped, so did payroll. Other dealers attempted to help their OSRs by switching them to at least partial guaranteed salaries, and some reps elsewhere took advantage of lucrative offers from big national dealers to jump ship. But Kuiken didn’t budge, and neither did its reps; they’re not that type. “We don’t want the hired gun out there who thinks he’s the only game in town,” Doug says.
While each OSR is responsible for knowing what’s going on in his territory, about once a month that knowledge is supplemented with a sales blitz in which four to five staffers–including sales vice president Nick Kuiken and the branch managers–go into an area and drive up and down every street, looking for construction clues that could lead to business.
At the same time, all employees are urged to report whenever they see something new, and counter staff is trained to make a special effort to talk up any new customer who walks into the store.
Even crime reports are treated as potential leads. One day, OSR John Hofmann read a newspaper story about a robber who hid in a house that was being knocked down. His first thought was to find out who the builder was and whether he needed supplies.
Sales are a management concern, too, thanks to technology. Kuiken’s home-built customer relationship management (CRM) system includes a box that OSRs can tick in their call reports in which they can note whether a prospect that they contacted is new. Soon after that report’s filing, Nick and three other executives get e-mails listing the new prospects. Employees also are encouraged to use an online form whenever they come across a lead. Nick then assigns the lead to one of the sales reps, triggering an e-mail that goes to the rep’s smart phone. The rep has 48 hours to check out the lead and enter a report into the CRM system telling what he learned, who the builder is and which dealers are competing for that work.
“You can sit and cry about [the downturn], or you can say ‘Let’s get aggressive and find work,'” says Nick, who notes that Kuiken recognized as far back as 2006 that it was going to need to increase its prospecting. Now there’s so much prospecting going on that Kuiken’s CRM system grows by about 40 leads a week. And along with pursuing contractors, it’s strengthening ties with the architectural community by offering classes that earn architects continuing education credits and by upgrading showrooms at Emerson and elsewhere for windows, doors, and trim.
Adds Doug: “When you stop and cold-call, it’s not just about getting that job. We’re doing a ton of missionary work here. The pie is getting smaller, and we need to get more pie. And by doing that missionary work, we hope we will be in a position to get that job when the market turns.”
But only professional missionaries are tolerated. Nick spends a lot of time on training and follow-up, down to such details as how to leave a voice-mail message. And executives have taken to heart consultants’ advice to look more closely at who Kuiken’s competitors are and why the yard lost a job.
First Plan, Then Work
“Most people have initiatives that they start, and after three weeks it’s fallen by the wayside,” says Scott Ericson, co-founder of Wheelhouse 20/20, a sales consultancy specializing in building supplies. Ericson got to know
Nick and Midland Park manager Matt Kuiken through a dealer exchange that Wheelhouse 20/20 led for LMC. Kuiken, he says, “has committed to a sales process as part of its day-to-day operations. They have a plan for it, and they work that plan.”
Kuiken Brothers both plays to and is hampered by the area’s geographic traits. The company’s home base of Bergen County is 44 times more crowded and has median home values that are 2.5 times higher than the national average. Bergen’s household income is more than half again better than the country as a whole, while the unemployment rate is one-fifth below it. Combine those factors and you get a trading zone in which a whole lot of wealthy people occupy expensive houses fairly close by. All of Kuiken’s stores are within 40 miles of Fair Lawn.
Proximity also carries its drawbacks, and not just because the roads are so crowded. New Jersey, the 11th most populous and yet fourth-smallest state in the nation, has 566 municipalities, some as small as 30 acres. It’s crazy about home rule; every square foot of the state has a local overlord, usually a borough, township, or town. That leads to lots of dealings with bureaucrats.
“There’s an old saying that there’s no tyrant more powerful than a small-town official,” NJBMDA’s Alampi says.
Northern New Jersey also loves traditional homes loaded with molding, and employees saw an opportunity to do more in that area, particularly for custom builders and upscale custom remodelers. So in November 2010, Kuiken launched KB Classical Moulding. The private-label brand showcases designs inspired in part through a year’s worth of Kuiken research into the Library of Congress’ Historic American Buildings Collection and advice from architectural historian Brent Hull.
“Building designers and architects were tired of seeing the same old profile,” says Ryan Mulkeen, who may carry the title of marketing director but also was a driving force behind the creation of the molding line.
KB Classical Moulding is made by a private source. It comes in 66 profiles in six architectural styles and is milled from poplar using brand-new knives.
The result, Kuiken employees say, is a better-looking piece of molding that sometimes combines what other companies can provide only by nailing several pieces together.
The company expects significant sales of KB Classical Moulding starting this year. “We’re starting to see more architects’ plans come in with KB Moulding specified,” Mulkeen says.
