This week on The Huddle Paul, Daniel, Jose wrap up their 4-part series by focusing on relationships with your vendors.

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The HUDDLE is where the flooring industry can get together and talk about everything! Lead by Paul Stuart from Go Carerra who is joined by Daniel and Jose Gonzalez from Preferred Flooring.

https://www.preferredflooringmi.com

https://www.stuartandassociates.com

what's up everybody and welcome to the

Huddle we're coming to every Tuesday to discuss maintaining forward progress in your flooring career

with me as always Daniel and Jose have preferred flooring out of Michigan I'm

Paul Stewart with go Carrera and Stuart Associates out of Wichita

we are rounding out our four-part series on relationships as it applies to the

business of flooring so we've discussed homeowners we've discussed

um General Contractors we've discussed installers today is the final piece to that which is suppliers and distributors

vendors uh this one is kind of near and dear to my heart

um from one perspective if you can be pleasant

and build relationships with your vendors you can give yourself a strategic

Advantage because they are just used to being treated like by many a people

they're used to people calling them on the phone and cussing them out and yelling because their stuff's not here

or something like that all you gotta do is just ratchet it down be respectful

and deliver you know that doesn't mean they don't mess up and we don't have uh

you know corrective conversations but at the end of the day

um be kind um just be kind they're people and

everybody makes mistakes uh sometimes it the the mistake is a lot of times not

even the person you're on the phone with who you're treating like crap so

um it's cold as cold as the Dickens out here in Wichita Kansas we've got us ourselves a uh

blizzard moving in so um thus the hat so

gentlemen uh what's your initial take on the the

relationships you guys have with your vendors and suppliers and and people

so um I guess let's just go locally right let's just start on a smaller scale with

our local distributors um weekend it had the luxury of

starting years ago and becoming a familiar face with uh well with some of the local guys uh just as installers

working for other people um and because of that we've watched

individuals grow um in their company and as they watch us

uh grow a little bit as well so it kind of created a bond a relationship because

I've known these guys for 20 plus years now you know a lot of them

and does it give us an advantage on some things maybe yes but

there's there's also a friendship there where I don't try to use that friendship to take advantage of

pricing or to use anything else for that so did you become friends prior to or

were you friends through your business I well it was a majority of it's been through the business yep but I mean like

when you see someone consistently over the course of 20 years you end up talking to them for a while

yeah especially when you're we we would go to um you know local Distributors and

just hang out in there for an hour or so just to talk to everyone see how

everyone's doing and take them some while this one is my son's baseball team but we

you know take them some cups and stuff and they said oh we're not supposed to show favoritism or anything it's like

it's a cup man [Laughter] well

you know the relationships with the vendors you if if you do it right now I

just want to point out you guys are installers at your core I mean it's where you came

in you probably started the relationship there and I got to be honest it seems like

installers are are better at that they they like like you said Daniel they'll

hang out at the distributor drink some coffee have a donut before they get out to their job site that kind of thing

um companies when we talk to um our vendors a lot of times they'll

they'll just tell us thank you for being you know Pleasant um

payment and things like that are are obviously important to to pay pay the

vendor on time that obviously helps with vendor relations but the day-to-day

person you deal with at your vendor uh at any of the vendors those people don't

you know take take the the payments or whatever you know it's the credit department your your job with or my job

is always uh been to form relationships and

um I do expect I mean I I I'm a little different than you um on that uh

particular subject there Dan Jose is I actually do leverage those relationships

I mean we're friends for a reason we became friends through business normally

but we're friends for a reason it's usually because we've done things right by them and they've done things right by

us in business and so then you kind of birds of a feather kind of thing you

know you you enjoy working with people like that so you know I'll leverage

those relationships to try to get better pricing if I can uh obviously you don't

go to the well every single week but you know you you certainly want to I

certainly feel it's it's a good practice to uh leverage those relationships so

other other companies can do it too like you could be nice too but a lot of times

they're just they don't talk to their employees about treating their vendors well so uh you know some some shop May

uh allow their project managers or something to call and and get rude with

the uh customers or with the vendor um and that happens in my company too

but I always pull the employee aside and talk to them about it and say these guys are important to us that's who we do uh

our largest purchasing with and it's important that we maintain good vendor relationship

so so I wanted to add to what you just said so how about uh when you said leverage that's a better way to put it I don't

intentionally leverage it right we might make little smart comments here and there but see Daniel and I work as a

team so when when I go in and I inquire or I talk on the phone and I inquire I

always follow it up with let me talk to Daniel about that and they they go like oh no

let me change this up because I know Daniel's just gonna say well you know I missed uh x and x website uh it's this

much money so you know because of because of the friendship and they understand our personalities we we do

get favorable pricing on almost every I don't think we've paid we get power pricing on a lot of things

for how small we are and um it's because of the the relationship and

the loyalty and and we we do go hang out in there we do go talk to them about

well and I'm I'm assuming that you guys specify some work that takes work we do

you know selling their products I mean if you do it right we're like their salesman or I should say if they do it

right if if the relationship's good then we're like three salesmen to them they

don't have to pay they just got to give us good pricing that's the price for us to be out pushing your products and and

and building your re your brand in the market so I mean that's the payment

you're not getting any compensation like their their sales people do or like

their sales reps do so your compensation is preferred pricing if I'm bringing you

work I I do expect preferred pricing on the on the uh out there in the market

you know maybe one day we'll work up to the the point where we have enough sales to uh just automatically get the the

best possible pricing we can um we're working up to that point though but well in the meantime build the

relationships yeah yeah so our the relationship with some of our vendors is you know definitely stronger than others

and you can tell that with uh who we're always pushing like you said you you build that relationship you

become their salesman for free right but you get better pricing so you know that 25 cents a

square foot adds up quick on big projects yeah and you know

um some of the the salesmen have actually approached us and this was during like covid and then starting to

get out of it and they you know they approach us and they said you know we know you guys are small so if you need

to push out your your payment terms right we can go out to 90 120 he said

you let me know where you need to be in order to make sure you guys you know are gonna stay afloat and you know that that

was awesome that they would do that yeah that that that right there is

outside of pricing that's a a huge benefit is you know them holding a

receivable a little longer for you is a big deal I mean that can help cash flow

um certainly when you start talking about your your main vendors

um that can be a huge thing that can be you know a substantial Improvement to

your cash flow over the course of that you know 90 days or whatever

do you guys um sorry no I was just gonna say uh do you guys

look at it as building these personal relationships with the counter person

and the sales rep and and the owner Maybe

what helped obviously um after 2020 I mean they

already liked us but after Daniel ended up uh winning uh resilient installer of the year in 2020

um they just had a lot of inside jokes and they're like oh we're Superstar this and

it was pretty funny right I mean uh so so we just uh you know we have very thick skin and

we've made fun of ourselves with it uh made fun of the situation but it went further than we thought it would go but

they just um it opened up more doors uh with more of the people internally there

um so with those doors being open we take advantage of that and then create more relationships now we're

not just knowing the couple guys at the front counter and uh the the rep who who's been coming to the office or who's

been calling us and texting us and chit chatting for the past few years now it's uh you know it's higher up than them

it's corporate it's up the ladder um and then well that right there is has

helped our relationship with everybody overall because now even the delivery guys

um they're um they like us too because we've never

belittled a delivery guy like yeah go put the stuff over there or hey you know

the keys are right there yeah this is where I want it why do you unload it here they always tell us to back up man

I got this it's like nah man I'm trying to help you out too yeah I mean you have other things to do I mean and they're

like man nobody ever helps us like that like well I don't know why not like I know you

have other stops I know you have other things to do or if it's the end of the day I know you want to go home too so there's no reason for me to watch you

work yeah that's a good point um

I don't know that we have a choice I mean at our office when our after about

10 o'clock our two Warehouse guys are out delivering and all that's left is

our backup which is one of our PMs and then it's Joel who's our CEO and then

it's me I mean you know sometimes you just gotta unload trucks and help people

out you know there's been a relationship thing I mean if you think about it uh working

with your sales reps um if you got a good relationship with them you may get preferred pricing but I

would tell you story after Story of times when we needed something on a

weekend and they'd come in open up their the they're closed and

they'll come in and open it up and give me what I need or give our one of our guys what they need or staying late uh we used to have

one of our guys he doesn't work for us anymore he's still a friend of mine um but he was with me for probably 15 or

16 years and they his name was Ray and they called him late in the day Ray almost

every vendor late in the day Ray and he got that reputation of like you

know calling him and they'd help him out and and uh whether it's a weekend or you

know a little bit late on a Friday night even I mean it's it's building those relationships with the counter people as

well that they're willing to stay you know a little bit longer uh to help

someone else out and you know they wouldn't do that for just anybody if they don't like you or you're a jerk

they'll be like well we closed it for I'm so sorry well it's Unique with us because one of

the Distributors over here you know one of the counter guys that we met 20 plus years ago is now our direct sales person

so it's like you you start that relationship there and now you know he'll come in here and he'll hang out

for a couple hours too just sometimes wait if these guys are watching he doesn't hang out for a

couple hours we just made that up talking about work and stuff yeah all

work but yeah it's it you started you know to treat everyone the same because

you never know where they're gonna end up right well and it's the right thing to do it's just like we don't have you

know you don't have a hierarchy of of human beings just based off of what they do

um that's kind of uh short-sighted and superficial if if

it's like oh this one this person can help me so or may help me so I'll be nice to them I'm just saying be nice

because it's the right thing to do just be pleasant to the other person on the end of the phone that you're you're

asking something please be salesman that you know they they go the extra mile there's been instances where you know we

we order something and they're like uh hey this just came in where you guys at

and it's like uh are you they ask first they ask if we're here at the the office and we're like no we're actually on a

job site you know in Lansing which is like 45 minutes away or Muskegon which is another half hour 45 minutes away and

they're just like you know what I gotta go over here I'll just bring it out to you right now nice yeah

we've been very fortunate to come acros have some really really nice I mean to the point where you know sometimes

they're like uh they have you know different spots and some of the big places are

down over in Detroit and they're like you know we have one of these in Detroit but you're not going to get it till next

week but I gotta drive down there anyway so I'm just gonna grab it for you and bring it right back up and it's yeah so

starting those relationships early on so that way you have that so when an opportunity

like that presents itself it's no question it's like you know I'm gonna do this for really my

friend right it's not even yeah in this relationship at that point it's like I know you guys need this so

this is what I'm gonna do for you yeah yeah and I'm no way like

proposing that you're fake or phony or whatever uh to anybody out there

um I'm just saying even if you don't like somebody you could be you know somewhat Pleasant I have vendors that

there's a a few I won't ever name names uh or or at least not right now

but I have a few that I tell you what man

they have an adversary they got somebody in me that will switch their stuff out

every every time I'm still nice to them though I'm still Pleasant I just don't

appreciate the way they do business so I I do things a little bit different and

um you know I'll switch their products out and we have the power to do it so

that doesn't mean that I have to be sour or or mean to them uh it just means that

is the reality is uh you have your good vendors and you got your bad ones the best thing you could do is is pick the

ones that match your company's uh way of doing business and uh try to align with

them and help them make more money by selling their stuff and then they're going to help you back you bring up a

good point on that and we've run into um you know I know that we're still fairly newly we still got our pacifier

and we're still wearing our diapers in the sales industry right um but

we have found consistency through certain manufacturers where it's not

consistent on others through the sales rep um and because of consistency

that is the product that we choose to push um and it's all falling back because you

know commercial a lot of what we do expect and they might they might not give you um the option for an alternate

however if I got to pull a teeth to get some pricing from you um and or from from whoever and it takes

and they're putting my back against the wall on a deadline and I just spent x amount of hours or days to get this

large proposal together and now because you haven't responded to a phone call text message or email

you know I'm gonna miss my opportunity to submit my my proposal or my bid chances are when somebody asks me what

manufacturer uh to they would recommend that's not going to be it so I I mean it's kind of a

the door swings both ways type deal right like you're a representative of not only yourself but your product

um as a rep and I know that everybody gets busy and I do

understand that but like you know I have a contingency or some kind of email saying hey I'm out of town or hey I'm

doing this or I feel like the ones that do have those emails are still the ones that answer when they are out of town

yeah that's a good point it is the ones who are responsible enough to let you know they're not going to be there that

actually show up anyway right sometimes I'll email the rep and then they'll text

me hey got your email I'll get to it when I can yeah and because because of that

scenario in that issue right there Daniel took our our Shelf our sample shelf and cleaned house said nope not this not

this not this and that's what you were kind of talking about earlier I can we can kind of visually show people exactly

what we want them to see and when you come in here you you can tell by our

Shelf who who answers and who doesn't yeah so any any vendors out there or

sales reps I mean one of the biggest complaints is not answering the phone or

getting back to to people in a timely manner our best that I I almost feel

like that's the Catalyst to a good relationship is when you first start dealing with the rep I have a particular

rep that I'm very fond of and I she just answers the phone I don't care if she's

on vacation she's picking her kids up from school like I've I've talked to her in so many

different scenarios because she just answers her phone when I call her and when I need pricing quickly I text her

hey need a quick price on this follow it up with a formal quote but I need it now

and I get it and I also sell well in excess of a million dollars a

year of her product that's a good relationship man that's uh your performing for her and she's

performing for you that's yeah that's what I'm saying like it

seems like if you're just Pleasant and on top of that the rep is doing a good job and you're gonna find the ones just

like you know you just kind of alluded to you're going to find the ones that that uh serve you the best and that kind

of uh fires off a good relationship so I don't think I've ever been upset or mean

with the rap because I do understand there's a lot of moving Parts um but I also well you just got to look

at how many other flooring companies are around here and are not only you know

bidding a bunch of other projects but are bidding the same project as you so it's like they're sometimes they

probably got you know a few hundred emails probably in a few hours I can

only imagine how much stuff that they have to deal with yeah yeah no reason to

be all right they signed up all I do is I I ask for the pricing and

then you know like a day later hey just trying to be at the top of the inbox so that way you see it first thing in the

morning you know it leads me to a question here Paul and this is this is for you right like um

in in correspondence with a rep when you're inquiring on pricing for a product

um and this is learning for me right like I'm gonna absorb this I'm going to learn [Music] um what is what is your approach uh whether

if it's a new rep or whether it's just your relationship is only via email and maybe a phone call every now and then

when you know what is your approach when uh inquiring or asking about pricing uh

we don't have B2B or national price list so a lot of what we do is very personalized

um and we we keep it we keep it personal the entire time if I have a price list we have plenty of price lists I never go

off Priceless when I bid yeah no we don't either I'm always going to call them uh or email them whatever has

proven to be the best uh mode of getting in touch with them but if I'm emailing

project name who's who the architect is quantity and

product um if I expect it I say here's the architect my spec

or if it's not um if it's if it's um you know specked by

the architect they're gonna know it they've met with the architect and had the conversation so there's no use in trying to say you spec something you

didn't um so I just tell them what the Arctic is and and they typically already have a

price put together if they if they specified it and in those it's kind of a

jump ball right um but with your really good reps you might see a little bit preferred

treatment um but I I always have those four key opponents what what's the project name

who's the architect did I expect it or not and then what is the obviously the product name with the quantity or some

approximation quantity okay and then um

I guess to add to that too do you add is it just a straight direct question for a

direct answer or are you are you cordial with them or do you add a little Personal Touch information uh

ask how their families do I mean you know that's what I'm asking I'm asking uh some of that as well yeah typically I

just try to Silo those two things so if I'm asking for pricing I keep it real short blunt no jokes no nothing here's

what I need please respond by you know and sometimes I'll put that in a subject

line pricing ASAP or respond by you know 12 22

right for kind of give them when I absolutely need the number so that they

know what the if I get it sooner which often I do great but if not they know

and then I can refer back and say listen I I made it clear I needed pricing by

this time on this day where's my pricing you know uh and then

even if that's in a friendship uh or a friendly sales rep

I kind of hold the personal stuff back uh to to just when I'm talking to him or or an email out of the blue saying hey

how's it going man hope family's good you know kind of try to Silo on myself I

don't know if that's right or wrong it's just the way I've I've done it it keeps your inbox a little bit cleaner too so you don't have to go back and say oh I

know we were talking about this yeah yeah well and it keeps them from feeling like they have to respond to something

when you just want pricing at that moment you know and feeling like they got to respond to your friendly portion

as well and Heck if you're just asking for pricing sometimes you can get it like like that if if uh if they're

prepared for it so good good call so this this this this

um podcast is uh gonna be shorter uh because vendor relationships are

pretty I I would say simple and maybe it's last because not because it's the

least important it's just to me it's the most simple because you're paying them money so there's a level of that

um but if you're just Pleasant and you respect other people that's

really what you guys said you're helping people get stuff off trucks you're nice and you care about you know getting to

know your counter people and that kind of stuff so they'll visit us here in town too and they'll be like let's go do

lunch and you know majority of the time they're like they're they're always trying to to put

it on the company card and I know that they also have like expenses that they have to meet but sometimes it's nice for

for you to kind of return that favor and let them know that the the relationship goes both ways it's not just one-sided

it's not gimme gimme gimme it's like we appreciate you guys too for everything that you do for us that's a good point

real good point plus if we don't have it in us to always accept like

I'm not I'm still not used to that right I don't think I'll ever get used to that like yeah if it feels a little odd we we

uh told our reps to if you want to take me

or you know our CEO or somebody like that seemingly the the leadership side

of our company out to out to lunch or something uh just bring lunch into the

office for everybody and come over to the office and and so that's 90 95 of

the time when we're uh eating with uh sales rep it's at my office where

installers can come in and grab some food and you know it like everybody can

participate in the uh especially if our sales rep wants to take you out and show

you appreciation for what you've done I say show everybody uh I'm not the only one selling stuff or you know working

hard to to uh build the relationship with that vendor or or you know push in their product or

whatever like share the wealth with the rest of my office and that's that's kind of how we've done it right and Kevin

asks uh if we're just dealing with distributors or reps from manufacturers or both and I think we're we're kind of

talking about both because we we have to deal with both because you know in order

to get some product you're just going right through the distributor and if you email the sales rep they'll they'll

point you in the direction hey I can sell you this but you have to go over here for this yeah and a lot of the times you know um

when the distributor doesn't have the answer we're always going to the manufacturer

anyways so it's like hey we don't really know but that's where the

the friendships come in from going to the the bigger events to where you know we have Kevin on here we have Danny

Sherman on here and it's like these these kind of people are you know I'll reach out to them

in order to get the answers that I need before sometimes I even reach out to the distributor because I know that it's a

streamlined process if that that's what I'm going to do yeah so

to answers Kevin's question it is both I mean if you're

it kind of breaks down to whether or not a product is uh distributed or if it's sold direct from the manufacturer to the

market which is most of your carpet uh is sold you know

through just sales reps um and then you know a lot of your tile and resilient products are sold through

Distributors so you kind of deal with both of them and they're it's a it's a

little unique because when you're dealing with a sales rep um like if I'm at a if I'm dealing with

a distributor and I'm not getting an answer from my sales rep I can call the manager or the distributor and be like

hey look I know you don't normally give pricing but you're gonna do that today because I need your help you know uh if

you could be so kind to help me out um but

when you're dealing with carpet meals uh you got to go to the RVP you know to

their boss if they're not answering to get the pricing um so it's a little more I'd call it a

little more delicate when you're dealing with the sales rep that your only your only

um recourse is really to go above them as opposed to at a distributorship you

can call the distributor and a lot of times they they can get pricing from you from the local manager or whatever

so all right guys well um as I said this this one's gonna be a

little shorter do you guys got any uh any nuggets of wisdom uh in closing here

[Music] just if you're just getting

you might not have intentions of owning your own or moving up but just in case that happens man just uh like Paul said

earlier just treat treat everyone with the same respect that you would treat uh the salesman that you would treat your

client because you don't know what chair anyone is going to be sitting in in 10

years so yeah rolling says on here just be kind oh yeah yeah just be kind I like

it and one of the kindest guys I know right there and the other thing that you already know everything right because

things change on a a constant basis in our industry or the science behind

things changes and you know I'll reach out to some of our prep manufacturers and be like hey this is what we got

going on uh what would you do and then they they typically come back with well

what were you thinking then I tell them and they're like well what do you even like you already know the system why are

you even asking it's like because I need to make sure that's nothing's changed on on anything before I proceed and you

know are given numbers and it's just that just opens it up for more dialogue

to get more personal with them as well Eduardo said we just got to read the labels

Daniel just uh just to add to that too is um whether it's a distributor rep or a

manufacturer rep don't forget about the tech reps that relationship also important and it could coincide with the

sales reps relationship as well because one feeds the other um

don't be afraid to call that 1-800 number that's listed on there if you have questions um because yeah you'll get to know some

of those Tech Guys yeah yeah I I called uh one of them one time we're doing some

I forget what we were doing a rubber stairwell or something and I they something just changed in the specs

I called to ask a question and I get on the phone and they're like yeah this is this person I'm like oh I know you

yeah well um I want to thank you guys again for

joining and uh contributing and always being a good partner in this deal and a staple I I

really appreciate you guys Merry Christmas to you guys uh not sure if Althea Merry Christmas to everybody all

the audience uh anybody watching on on YouTube later uh Merry Christmas to

everybody um I wanted to announce that the uh Ford

progress scholarship the Sim last week we ended with 16 applicants and I was

told that's really good so I want to thank everybody um that's that's awesome I don't I

didn't know what to expect uh next week's huddle uh or the following week

hold on I'm being told my uh supervisors telling me something

new here hold on simply January is that our next total is

January 10th then yeah

are we a non yeah but we're we're announcing January 10th okay okay correction

January 10th we're gonna do a live drawing of the um applicants so we're

basically going to crumble them up into the little paper balls and make it like a lottery and we're just gonna pick the

pick the winner live and um a lot of times these things have

criteria we're not posting any criteria it's just whoever gets picked out of the

out of the till so the bingo card style yeah yeah

[Music] it's definitely worth it yeah so this is gonna

get some great knowledge yeah we're very excited about that we're gonna uh look

at offering this Ford scholarship uh or forward progress scholarship at least once a year uh we may do it more often

if we get really good um you know if we if we got 16 this time

the next time I I want to see 20 or 25 uh so if we see those numbers going up

we're going to continue to sponsor that um and uh you know try to do our best in

giving back and and increasing the knowledge and um again I want to thank

everybody who who uh applied and I wish you the best Merry Christmas and we will

talk to you guys next week and uh we'll be pulling on the on the 10th to see who

our winner is awesome all right guys well again Merry

Christmas and have a happy New Year as well and we will chat with you guys next Tuesday until next time

bye guys