While this might not appear to be an efficient way to run a yard, Mac and C.E. say the approach drives more walk-in business that, in turn, reduces delivery costs. “From our roundtables we typically hear that 10 percent to 20 percent of materials are picked up at the yard,” says Mac Lawton. “We average 45 percent. And contractors who come into our yard never have to go looking for somebody to wait on them,” he adds.
The personal touch of having one inside salesperson service a contractor from start to finish is a customer service approach that directly reflects the Lawton’s philosophy of taking care of people better than they expect to be treated so that it filters all the way down to the end of the line. “If employees are happy with their jobs and the way they are being treated, then they are going to do a better job with the customers, and the customers are the ones that pay the bills for all of us,” Mac Lawton says.
Today, Dixie’s pro customers currently account for 90 percent of the dealer’s business, with smaller custom and spec builders making up 75 percent of that base. An additional 9 percent of pro sales is from commercial and industrial accounts, while the remaining 6 percent comes from the remodeling market. Conspicuously missing from the mix is production builders, business that Dixie selectively chooses to avoid because profit margins typically are low. “We’ve never done any business with production builders,” Lawton notes.
In the Fold This discriminating approach to business also comes into play when it’s time to add members to Dixie Lumber’s employee team. Professing a basic business philosophy that reflects their Christian faith, Mac and C.E. actively seek out candidates who maintain similar values, and most of the time these people are identified through referrals from existing employees and customers.
The hiring process includes an initial interview, testing (third-party screening, psychological profiling, and aptitude testing), and secondary interviews with both brothers. “There are no trick questions,” says Mac Lawton, “other than when we generally ask, ‘Can you ever conceive of a situation when you would lie to a customer?’ The answer to that has to be ‘No.’ … That’s not an option for us.”
For those already in the employee fold, the benefits of working at Dixie Lumber include a bonus and profit sharing program that distributes a percentage of each month’s profits among a monthly cash bonus, year-end bonus, and retirement fund. Using an open-book credo, Mac and C.E. conduct a company-wide monthly meeting during which they sit down and go over the previous month’s financials, present the monthly bonus checks to everyone, and recognize employees who made contributions that helped overall profitability. The brothers also donate 10 percent of the company’s profits (calculated after the bonuses are paid) to charities, including the Miracle Hill Ministries, a Greenville-based Christian outreach organization.
The bonus program has been in place for three years, and it keeps everyone on the same page. “With the bonus program, when we have a good month we really know what we have to look forward to,” says Joyce Bradford, Dixie Lumber’s secretary and bookkeeper. Now the company’s most tenured employee, she has been on staff for more than 27 years.
“In today’s world, the frequent changing of jobs seems to be the rule rather than the exception,” says Mac Lawton, “and we feel that we want to offer something considerably different to stop that [job] changing when someone comes to work here.”
Another way that Mac and C.E. strive to build a strong work community is by holding weekly meetings on Thursdays after the close of business. In addition to the one week per month dedicated to the bonus and profit-sharing discussion, two sessions are dedicated to sales training and product demonstrations by manufacturer reps, and one Thursday meeting is focused on the Character First! program, a character development series offered by the Character Training Institute, a non-profit organization based in Oklahoma City, Okla. The curriculum focuses on developing specific traits, such as justice, dependability, and deference. Monthly bulletins and introductory video supplied by the institute describe parallels to animals, and present historical references that exemplify the qualities that people should strive to embody.
“At the meetings, we will assign groups of three employees per page to read and discuss the materials and to tell the group how a portion of the characteristic applies to Dixie Lumber,” says Mac Lawton. “We got this idea from a roundtable, and it has been surprisingly well-received. The employees also take the booklets home to use with their families.” The average employee tenure at Dixie Lumber is now 8.1 years, and as the company looks to expand its ranks—there is potential to hit 25 people in the next two years—the focus will be on maintaining a true mutually beneficial partnership that supports growth.
“We want long-term employees that are going to be productive and make money for both themselves and the company,” says Lawton. “The people in the lumber business are the best people, and they provide a service to the United States to help fulfill everyone’s dream of owning a home.”
