ProSales Installed Sales Guide: Magnificent Seven

3-Be a One-Stop Shop

As you decide to expand your offerings, it becomes important to actively market that you’re now a one-stop shop for your customers. Builders no longer have to go to a lumberyard for one product, a distributor for other products, and worry about locating the labor to install everything. Now, all the builder has to do is work with one dealer to purchase materials and have them installed. Builders, regardless of size, can therefore concentrate on selling the home and meeting the closing date. Commercial customers no longer have to shop around multiple vendors for materials and labor.

Photo: Courtesy Wilson Lumber One-stop dealers save customers money by purchasing materials in volume from one vendor. This greatly reduces the time and paperwork that comes with sourcing materials from multiple organizations. Many dealers now offer installed sales because of a customer request. Take your customer’s advice and be a solution for most, if not all, of its materials and services needs.

4-Think of Your Entire Staff as Your Sales Staff

Selling lumber takes someone who can seal a deal and then move on to the next customer. Selling installed sales requires a more long-term, intimate relationship with all parts of the team. The entire team must work closely together to guarantee the installation is done to the customer’s satisfaction. Should there be an issue with coordinating materials or scheduling resources, a dealer’s installed sales efforts may be in jeopardy if the team doesn’t handle it well.

Start with your salesperson. A good one not only makes the sale but also facilitates the pre-planning and coordination needed to organize an installation job, which tends to have more due dates and longer lead times than one finds simply delivering a load of sticks. That salesperson typically passes the project along to an internal coordinator, who ensures that products are inventoried and delivered per the contract details, and that all labor is scheduled. Working with the coordinator, the project manager typically reviews job plans and work orders confirming that all materials are on spec, and labor has been scheduled.

5-Take Supplier Relations to a New Level

Obviously, installing products requires you have something to install. It’s imperative to have close, highly communicative ties to the companies that provide the goods. Not only do they supply you the materials, but they can also provide you sales leads for customers that may inquire about a product and need installation services.

Some dealers make their own products. Big C Lumber in Granger, Ind., has three manufacturing facilities for doors and windows, trusses and panels, and custom millwork for cabinetry. Others, like businesses that install insulation, get their goods from an outsider.

In either case, it’s vital for installed sales operations to work on processes with their vendors that ensure materials are delivered undamaged and on a timely basis. Vendors that can’t do this are certain to disappoint your customers.

6-Share Leads Across the Organization

There are a number of ways to handle leads, depending upon the size of the dealer, its locations, and the number of sales reps it has on staff. One way to handle leads is to have one person manage all installed sales. As leads come in, the installed sales manager can pass the information along to a sales rep who is responsible for selling a particular line. If the sales lead is strictly for hard goods or lumber, the sales manager can easily pass the information to his or her counterpart in building materials.

Doug Allen, installed insulation sales manager for BMC West, Hurst, Texas, works closely with the lumber side of the business to ensure that any leads deemed appropriate for lumber are passed to his counterpart in that division. Dealers that have numerous retail locations may decide to let their store managers handle how installed sales and product sales are managed.

NO PLACE LIKE HOME: Wilson Lumber in Huntsville, Ala., displays its installed sales wares in a small house built inside its showroom, giving customers a real-world view of its products. Photo: Courtesy Wilson Lumber 84 Lumber of Eighty-Four, Pa., allows leads to be managed at the store level. For 84 Lumber’s large national customers, leads are managed within the corporate office. It uses a system to manage leads at an account level to determine products purchased, volumes, pricing, and to give sales reps visibility into what a customer is purchasing corporatewide and by location.

7-Showcase Your High-End Offerings

Create marketing materials, such as high-end glossy brochures or a Web site filled with pleasing images of kitchens, baths, and decks. Dealers that provide services not visible to the end customer, such as insulation, can create marketing pieces to help showcase its knowledge in energy efficiency and product quality.

Dealers that provide high-end kitchen and bath services could build a showroom to show potential customers their capabilities and products they represent. Those that market products such as faucets and appliances may very well secure some marketing dollars from the manufacturers to help build such a showroom.

Ohio’s Mentor Lumber decided to take its efforts one step further by offering its customers 24-hour access to its showroom floor for kitchens and baths. Wilson Lumber, Huntsville, Ala., built a small house that it displayed in its showroom. Dealers should show prospects what they are capable of, especially as they add more products and services to their sales efforts.

Installed sales can be an exciting adventure with great rewards–if it’s done well. Research what the market will bear, what your customers are willing to pay for, make changes along the way to ensure your installed sales program is effective and, more important, successful.

–Mary Anne Schweers is a freelance writer in Dallas. E-mail her at maryanne.schweers@sbcglobal.net