1. Informally monitor callbacks on installed sales work by keeping a separate notebook detailing calls and other interactions for each of your customers.

2. Track your performance publicly—post your most-used metrics on boards or monitors that every employee can see at any time.

3. Reduce errors in the ordering process by limiting who in your company is allowed to place orders.

4. Rather than wait to photograph a load until it’s at the jobsite, ask your drivers to snap a picture of it on the truck before it leaves your gate. If a product doesn’t make it to the jobsite, you’ll know it’s at one of the trip’s other drops.

5. Reduce shrinkage by requiring more than one person to sign off on a load before it leaves the yard.

6. Add GPS systems to your trucks to track delivery whereabouts and to keep tabs on your drivers’ productivity.

7. Forget paper tickets. If you haven’t already, consider investing in an automated system to track orders, monitor inventory, and complete take-offs.

8. Just because your LBM likely has deep roots doesn’t mean it can’t learn a thing or two from a startup: offering incentives and discounts for customers who pay early, continually updating your business plan (and sticking to it), reviewing product and customer mix every so often, and finding ways to reach out to new customers.

9. Spice up your operations by reading up on non-LBMs’ successful business strategies for new best practices.

10. Set up a color-coded inventory-alert system. Red: You’ll run out of product in seven days. Yellow: You’ll run out of product in 14 days. Green: No danger of running out of product.