Empower your team
A culture of empowerment and trust—what does that actually mean?
Abhi Singh, principal, LMS Strategies, is an advocate of real world concepts that LBM companies can build on.
“Empowering and trusting your people to do the right thing and make the right decisions, rather than tell them what to do, is critical,” he said.
Singh, who will deliver a keynote presentation during the upcoming ProDealer Industry Summit, hosted jointly by the National Lumber and Building Material Association and HBSDealer [learn more here] leans on 25 years of construction supply and LBM distribution experience. He’s learned that while the nature of products provided is broad – from plumbing to HVAC to millwork and beyond—the similarities between the different disciplines is narrow.
It comes down to some core ideas, he said: people, empowerment, execution, availability, and leadership. “Successful distributors laser focus on these inputs to create exceptional outputs and results, rather than simply focus on the bottom line,” he said.
At the ProDealer Industry Summit
Abhi Singh will be a featured speaker at the 2024 ProDealer Industry Summit, coming to Savannah, Georgia, Oct. 8-11.
Singh will present a session titled: “Are Your Salespeople Market Makers or Order Takers?”
Hosted by the National Lumber and Building Material Dealers Association and HBSDealer, the ProDealer Industry Summit is an exclusive, live educational forum designed to promote the growth of lumber & building product dealers, distributors, wholesalers, and the manufacturers who supply them.
Learn more about the event here.
Everyone claims that they have the best people in the industry, but they are rarely treated as such, he said.
“Some don’t share the rewards, some don’t share the praise, and some don’t provide opportunities for growth,” Singh said.
For instance, he asked: “What position do you think touches your customers the most? Hint – it’s not your sales people and it’s not your managers. It’s your drivers.”
On average 80% of all orders in the LBM industry are delivered, he said, and they are delivered by drivers.
“And if your drivers don’t feel taken care of or appreciated,” said Singh, “they won’t go the extra mile for a customer.”
He pointed to the example of the owner of a Midwest two-step distributor who, when visiting a job site on a hot summer day, saw that one of his drivers was working in a cab with a broken air conditioner.
“With this being the last delivery of the day, the owner gave the keys to his new pickup truck to the driver and asked him to drive that home. The owner then got in the cab and drove home,” Singh said.
“Do you think that driver felt taken care of? You betcha,” said Singh.
Such thoughtfulness was in addition to providing good pay, the newest equipment and regular acts of appreciation — such as buying lunch and giving out new shirts.
“People are the most important asset we have,” Singh said. "Make sure you treat them as such.”
Empower to the people
It’s also critical to empower and trust your people to do the right thing and make the right decisions, rather than tell them what to do.
“I was part of a larger, PE owned business that consistently managed from the top down and dictated how to do everyday tasks – think order-pulling, routing, sales calls, purchasing – yet the folks that were giving marching orders have never done any of these,” he said.
Conversely, he then joined a family owned business where the owners knew what they knew; and more importantly, he said, knew what they didn’t know.
That’s why successful distributors trust and empower their people to do their jobs rather than micromanage them.
Why hire great, highly experienced people and then tell them what to do?
Singh said the lesson is: “Hire great people on a great team. Give them a goal; then get out of their way. Be a gentle. Be a guiding hand, not a roadblock.”
Also, he said, do what you say you’re going to do when it comes to execution.
He described himself as amazed that some distributors think that their job end when they get the order, and they fail to deliver what their customer needs.
He stressed a point: “Everyone in a market has the same products, trucks, and vendors, but not everyone has the same ability to deliver the real thing a customer is buying – reliability.”
