The customer or the order?

By James Olsen

THE building materials industry is I- very competitive. We are forced to compete on price, service and quality on every order. In the heat of battle we may lose sight of the most important thing: keeping the customer.

I'm all for competing for business; we must ask for the order more than once. If we are not willing to compete and compete diligently in the building materials industry, we will starve to death. What we don't want to do is put ourselves in a situation with a customer where we are selling them something that won't work for them long-term. This is not a recipe for building long-term customers who will buy from us again and again.

We must be careful that we don't give ourselves an excuse to give up too early on tough calls, but we do want to change our mentality from "I've got to get an order" to "I want to build a base of partners who will buy from me."

The "Customer or Order?" approach is also powerful when dealing with customers. Many times a customer will say something like, "You're just trying to get the order." We don't let these comments pass. We must tell our customers, "No, John, that is not true. I am not interested in selling you something that doesn't work for you. As a matter of fact, one order doesn't change my life at all. What will make my life better is having a partnership relationship with you."

Try this the next time you get in a tense or heated negotiation with a customer. You will see their attitude change.

Customers are dealing with salespeople all day that only want the order. That is what they have come to expect. We will have to show them, over time, that we are dealing with them because we want them as a part- ner. We need to sell partnership along with our products. But just as selling products can be difficult, selling partnership can be difficult also, so don't expect an easy ride. partnership? When we begin to look out for our customer's long-term interest, they will begin to look out for ours.

We will encounter customers that don't believe we really want to be their partner. We will encounter customers that are the flip-side of the "order only" salesperson. Some customers only want a cheap deal, they don't want partnership relationships. Just as it will take time to sell partnership, it will take time for us to recognize who will buy partnership.

The Gas that Drives the Car

Prospecting for new business is the gasoline of the "customer or order" sales approach. If our pipeline is always full, we will be able to be judicious about the orders we take or don't take.

Sellers who will not prospect do not fill their own pipeline. They are desperate for new business because they won't do the hard work of looking for and developing new customers. Because of this lack of professionalism, these sellers put a lot of sales pressure on themselves and their customers. They force themselves into situations where they have to get the order at any cost. This leads to losing customers (because we've over-promised and under-delivered or we've sold our customers something that ultimately doesn't work for them). Now we are forced to prospect anyway.

One of the most powerful things we can say to a customer is, "I'm sorry, John. I can't sell that to you. It just isn't right for your application/situation." If we want to separate ourselves from the masses of salespeople we are competing against, we use this phrase. Our customers will begin to see us in a different light. So many sellers want the order so badly they will find it impossible to walk away from a single order.

The "order or the customer" mentality shows us the way. Is this product/deal right for our customer? Will it really help them? will it build the

Not filling the pipeline also keeps us from being able to negotiate a fair deal for ourselves. When we don't have other business, we become desperate. Negotiating from desperation will produce poor, low margin, highhassle orders for us.

When we only try to "get orders," we make ourselves order takers. When we use the "order or customer" mentality in our sales approach, we give our customers more of what they need and build a partnership sales business for ourselves.

- James Olsen is principal of Reality Sales Training, Portland, Or., specializing in sales training for the lumber industry, and host o/The Sales Doctor Radio Show (www.salesdoctor.biz). He can be reached at james@ real ity-salestraining.com or (s03) 544-3572.

Lumberyard Comes To Utah

Standard Builders Supply, Salt Lake City, Ut., added a 7,200-sq. ft. lumberyard and hardware store June I in Payson, Ut.

The location is the company's second full-service store in the state and first in Utah County. "We have been increasingly servicing this area from Salt Lake and are optimistic about the growth in this end of Utah Valley," said v.p. Jim Ridd.

Since October, the team had been operating out of a rented satellite yard in Spanish Fork, Ut. The new yard currently has five employees, but plans to grow.

The primary concentration is contractors, although the new store also offers retail and wholesale sales.

Employing more than 2OO, Standard Builders Supply also operates a prehung door shop at its recently updated yard in Salt Lake City, a truss plant in South Salt Lake, and a concept center in Park City, Ut.,

Millwork Plant To Liquidate

Rocky Mountain Forest Products has closed its moulding and millwork plant in Laramie, Wy., and its parent company, Tewa Holdings, has filed to liquidate under Chapter 7 bankruptcy.

Sister company Tewa Moulding, which closed its millwork plant in Albuquerque, N.M., Jan. 19, also filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy.

The firm is unrelated to wholesaler Rocky Mountain Forest Products, Colorado Springs, Co., which continues operatlons.

Site Cleanup Nears End

The final phase of the Environmental Protection Agency's $15 million Superfund cleanup of the old Taylor Lumber & Treating facility in Sheridan, Or., will take place this summer.

The cleanup involves approximately I I acres of the 39-acre site, which is now owned and operated by Pacific Wood Preserving of Oregon.

Plant manager Sheldon Stewart expects "very little disruption" of day-to-day operations of the facility. "Both the EPA and the contractor have been very accommodating and helpful with the construction scheduling," he said.

"We will be utilizing every nook and cranny of the site to make room for the contractors," said Stewart, including the use of the employee parking lot for untreated wood storage. To relieve overcrowding, customers will probably be asked to move treated material out of the plant more quickly this summer.

Bakersfield, Ca.-based Pacific Wood Preserving purchased the land and equipment from the bankrupt Taylor estate in 2002. As part of the deal, the EPA, Department of Justice, and Oregon Department of Environmental Quality agreed to permit PWP to treat with certain "low environmental impact" preservatives at the site. This allowed the agencies to draw a virtual "line of demarcation" between the wood treating chemicals used by Taylor and the newer products used by PWP, including borates, ACQ and copper naphthenate.

Previous cleanup at the site inciuded installation of production machinery. storm water management equlpment, and an underground retaining wall to hold contaminated groundwater in place for pumping and cleaning. In addition, an asphalt cap has prevented mobilization of existing soil contamination.

PWP also operates plants in Eloy, Az.; Silver Springs, Nv.: Leggett, Tx., and Bakersfield.

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