I thought I would share a recent email I sent to my team here at BuildDirect.
I wanted to tell you a story of an experience I had last night with one of the local developers in town because it really highlights the type of organization and people we have at BuildDirect. At the Ideas on Tap event, Peter Kefalas of Ethos Developments and Bellaliving.ca came up to me and asked me what my secret was to hiring such a great team. He shared some of his experiences with Jamie B, Marc, Rona, Kailey, and Rob J.
As Peter kept listing individuals in our company and telling his stories about each of them, I had this incredible sense of pride in what we have created. A company is only as good as its people, and I am lucky to work with some of the best.
Thank you Peter and Ethos. It is an absolute pleasure doing business with you.
And if there is a secret, it would be hire great people that share the same values, and are committed to the same purpose or goal.Set clear outcomes that are aligned with both their professional and personal goals. Then measure your success by how many of your people achieve their goals.
BuildDirect just finished an executive search where we were looking for a senior leader to help build out our supply chain. After determining exactly the type of person we were looking for, it was time to hire a recruiting firm that we felt could best 1) attract the best candidates, 2) communicate our message effectively.
I interviewed 4 different firms to determine who I thought would be the best fit for our needs. I was satisfied with all of them with respect to their databases or types of people that they could access. I ultimately decided on a smaller firm called Dynamo Recruiting out of Seattle, primarily because of the way I felt that two of the principles Julie Baker and Gina Peckman took the time to understand our needs.
Dynamo’s tag line is “Caring is the ultimate competitive advantage” and they proved true to this motto throughout the search. Their goal was only to ensure that we recruited the best candidate to our company. I was blown away with the calibre of candidates that Dynamo brought to our company. During the entire search, they kept raising the bar until we had a short list of candidates that were truly exceptional. Many candidates commented that one of the reasons that they needed to find out more about BuildDirect is that they had never seen recruiters with more passion for a search. Dynamo cared, not about their success fee, but about me and BuildDirect…and it showed.
As we undertake our next search, who do you think we’ll use?
The entire search reinforced an important lesson. A lesson, that I believe applies to all relationships.
The best relationships in business, and in life are the ones where both parties genuinely care about the others success.
Why I believe we are having success using social media?
We do not use social media as a sales channel and we do not use social media as an advertising channel. I believe that our success from social media is a result of amplifying who we are, what we are about and engaging with others. I am sure that social media helps develop our brand and helps our sales but these things are a by-product of being authentic in our messages and attracting the type of people who care about the same things that we care about.
So what do we really care about?
Besides re-inventing the building supply channel to help our customers win, we care about our values. I really care that we build the company the right way. Building strong relationships that can be trusted. A company that doesn’t say one thing and then do another. A company that respects others and continues its promise to get better every day. I care about creating an environment where there is meaning to our work.
What I have found from taking a stand in creating a company this way is that many people care about the same things that we do. That has lead to great relationships with more and more people that have come in contact with BuildDirect. It has led to more business as those people spread the word. It has made hiring and retaining great people easier and it has also led to some great public relations.
We had some more of that type of press again yesterday when the Vancouver Sun ran a great story* to talk about what we are doing differently to ensure that we come out of this recession stronger than ever.
(*In light of everything I have said above though, I did want to point out one point of clarification on the story. Although the company has enjoyed top-line revenue growth in other years, and we intend to do it this year, it was not made clear to the reporter that this is not the case so far this year).
When banks would rather destroy new homes than repair and sell them, you know how bad it is in certain regions of California.
The only good news that I can draw from this is that if you’re a contrarian investor like me, when you see reports like this….the bottom (at least for housing starts) is near.
I received the following letter last week. It made me feel really proud. I thought I would share it because it reinforces much of what we are trying to do at BuildDirect. Our business wins when we provide winning solutions to our customers. I want to thank all of our people who helped create this win!
Dear Jeff
I’m writing to tell you about my amazing customer experience I had with BuildDirect. I was thoroughly impressed by the quality of your product and the expertise and professionalism of your employees. As you know, there are thousands of choices and alternatives for products and services out there. BuildDirect has done exceptionally well at distinguishing itself as a superior business partner…
Do you really think you have to trick someone to get their business? Hmmm. What happened to building trust, credibility, likability, relevance? - Thomas Mangum, via Twitter (@thomasmangum).
I found the sentence above in a Twitter post that I think nailed it. I think his short post goes to the heart of creating long term relationships with your customers.
Customers today have almost infinite choices. Don’t believe this is true? One of our product lines is flooring. Type “flooring” into a Google search box and you will find over 42 million pages on this topic alone.
The Internet and speed of communication has changed the way people look for products and services. They are being bombarded by messages all the time, and companies are desperate to get a piece of their attention. All too often this results in a company trying to trick a potential customer in hopes of making a quick sale.
What is the result? For me, I know the answer - I tune out. Even in the unlikely event that I bought a product or service where I was tricked, would I come back? The answer is obviously no.
This, in my opinion, is no way to build a thriving business.
The beauty in trust, credibility, likability and relevance is that because so few companies really practice it. Companies that do rise above the noise and get noticed. They create engaged fans of the business and those fans help the business grow faster by telling other people.
In the past a customer might have told 10 people about a good or bad relationship with a company. Today, with all the available technologies like Facebook, Twitter and through user reviews, that same customer might tell 10,000 people about their relationship with a company.
This is either: Powerful? or Frightening?
Powerful - For companies that embrace the world today, who are transparent, trustworthy, and committed to being the absolute best in the eyes of their customers.
“On the face of it, shareholder value is the dumbest idea in the world. Shareholder value is a result, not a strategy…your main constituencies are your employees, your customers and your products.”
This is a key point. Shareholder value happens when the other things are done right.
A business wins as a result of creating truly engaged customers. Customers who are raving fans of the business because it helps the customer achieve their objective. In the end, it is all about the customer.
The easiest way to create engaged customers is to have:
1) The right people - “A” players in the right seats that have clarity and accountability in the outcome.
2) The right strategy - Inspiration and the right future direction. A greater purpose. A better way.
3) Great execution - Setting priorities and processes that are repeatable.
4) Cash - Oxygen of a business. Cash expands options and acts as fuel for growth.
Think about this for a moment. If long term shareholder value is the result of having truly engaged customers, Can it be acheived without these?
When companies don’t invest in their people, don’t inspire to greater purpose, pass on poor quality products, don’t invest in their processes, or do it all at a rate that does not generate cash, they ultimately fail the customer and therefore fail to provide long term shareholder value.
I had the pleasure yesterday of meeting Stephen Williamson. He is the principle owner of a company called houseplans.com which like BuildDirect, is focused on using technology to reduce costs and deliver a better customer experience.
Prior to BuildDirect, I co-owned a development company that built single family homes. I remember how much time I spent looking at plans and changing them to not only ensure the finished product looked great, but also was well designed. Spending the upfront time on the plan always made the building process more seamless and ensured a higher quality home when finished.
Houseplans.com is the largest online resource with over 28,000 plans available, but more interesting was the fact that much of their business was from working with customers to customize plans. This resonated with me because they are using technology to make a complex and expensive process, more efficient. By doing this they are ultimately lowering the price and delivering more value to their customers.
This is another part of the industry that is being changed with technology and some good old common sense. I would love your thoughts on whether you would use a service like this and why or why not?
In this second video on the Toyota value stream process, Guy Parsons takes us through the BuildDirect current state and future state to show how we can increase our value to customers by reducing the waste in the system.
We work on our value proposition constantly to ensure we deliver exceptional results to our customers, so I have to admit that it is a little hard to post this video. The reason….Even though we do many things well, the current state of this video shows some real problem areas that need work.
I hope by demonstrating the effectiveness on our process, it can help you deliver better results through operational excellence.
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