Who do you rely on for information about your market? Do you keep up on local news to help drive your sales? Do you rely on your sales staff, counter staff and customers to keep you informed of what is happening on the street?
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Who do you rely on for information about your market? Do you keep up on local news to help drive your sales? Do you rely on your sales staff, counter staff and customers to keep you informed of what is happening on the street?
What about information from further up the supply chain? An outstanding source of market information is at your fingertips by simply returning a phone call. There are currently 54 unfinished hardwood flooring manufacturers in the United States. How many do you keep in contact with?
In years before e-mail, texting, faxing, Web sites and voice mail, information was traded by returning phone calls and keeping in contact with suppliers and, just as importantly, potential suppliers. When distributors tell me they don’t have time to return phone calls, I wonder if they realize what they might be missing.
Almost two decades have passed since I entered the lumber industry. As a young sales rep sitting in a company meeting, I listened intently to the purchasing manager rattle off pricing trends and shipping information from the previous week. His predictions of what would occur in coming weeks helped guide corporate decisions, shape sales tactics and guide inventory adjustments. Amazed at his knowledge about millions of feet of lumber shipments, I asked what he felt was his most important source of information. He answered, “People.”
He never let a phone call go unreturned and always took advantage of opportunities to mine information about trends, pricing and markets. It’s no surprise that he was at the right hand of the company’s CEO and a major contributor to the success of the operation. Buyers like him were the backbone of an industry built on information.
Has business courtesy gone the way of faceless, non-verbal communication, or has it simply become a thing of the past? Do you return your suppliers’ and potential suppliers’ phone calls simply to fill an immediate need, or do you make a point of building your network and improving your overall market knowledge?
There are a few of us left who return every call, who measure our careers in decades and who understand the value of constantly building relationships while extracting information. We realize the next phone call we return could be the opportunity of a lifetime.
When discussing the lost value of business courtesy with veterans of our industry, it is obvious that their approach is simple: Treat others the way you wish to be treated. As a result, these individuals know what is happening on a national level and find out what the mills are seeing as trends and product movements change. This gives them the edge over those who feel their time is too valuable to spend talking to potential suppliers.
These individuals recognize that although there may not be a fit in their warehouse for that product today, open communication and network enhancement through relationship development keeps opportunities available for future possibilities. With staff cuts and employees stretched to the max, it is important to use every minute you have for maximum information gain.
Are you returning phone calls that may provide you with valuable information about pricing, trends and availability, or do you pass them off as nuisance calls from mills trying to move production? That call you didn’t return may be the call that provides you with valuable information. Use the sources you have to extract information that can benefit you today and in the future.Â
