Blog: Who you calling ‘grumpy?’
This editor doesn’t like to pick fights with Silicon Valley titans. But when the honor of the innovative and customer-centric leaders of the hardware and building supply industry is at stake, editorials most slant appropriately.
A recent article that appeared in HBSDealer about BuildClub, which describes itself as “like Amazon Prime for Building Materials,” compels me to push back on this Palo Alto, California-based newcomer.
Its founder, Stephen Forte, seems sincerely energetic and enthusiastic about his growing business, which delivers—in a matter of hours—various hardware and building products to homeowners and contractors.
I am compelled to object, however, with some heat, to a couple of his suggestions.
First, here’s how Forte in a promotional video describes the DIY home improvement sector:
“Home improvements have always meant braving that special hell otherwise known as a big box store on Saturday morning before trying to get those materials home.”
(The video cuts away to images of a Home Depot and then to a car awkwardly burdened with building materials.)
Ladies and gentlemen, Home Depot doesn’t need me to defend it against this extreme exaggeration.
But as the editor of the magazine founded as “National Home Center News,” I feel compelled to simply mention that Home Depot, in contrast to the notion that it creates an environment fit for inclusion in Dante’s Inferno, has created an environment that has generated $47 billion in new business in the last three years alone.
Secondly, and more importantly, in a letter to potential contractor customers, Forte describes his business this way: “We are not the building materials supplier from the 1980s with the grumpy guy behind the counter.”
I ask respectfully, sir, where today is this so-called grumpy guy behind the counter?
He’s not at Hancock Lumber, where CEO Kevin Hancock infuses native-American enlightenment while he promotes a shared leadership approach throughout the company. [In a recent article, Hancock told HBSDealer: “Our industry is filled with incredible companies that provide authentic and sustained value to their employees, industry, and community.”]
He’s not at Drexel Building Supply, where the mission is “Supply. Happiness” and the happy employees use titles such as defensive coordinator and quarterback instead of COO and salesman, respectively.
And he’s not at Hilltop Lumber or Kodiak Building Partners, our 2023 prodealers of the year.
Gentle readers, your attention please to our Industry Leaderboard.
You’ll find a lot of innovative and customer-centric businesses on the list. And you won’t find many grumpy old guys behind the counter.
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