Let's Talk Cabling!
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Let's Talk Cabling!
Building Relationships That Save Your Projects
We are back from a short hiatus, between NECA2025 and a trainng week in Ohio I literally ran out of time.
Inside sales representatives are the unsung heroes of the ICT industry who often save contractors from costly mistakes and provide valuable information that improves bid efficiency. Jalen Barnes, who started his career in 2015 and worked his way up to owning his own distribution company, shares insights into how these vital relationships function.
• Inside sales reps juggle constant calls, emails, and texts while serving as mediators between field techs, project managers, and manufacturers
• Different stakeholders have different priorities – field techs focus on getting the job done while project managers care about costs
• Providing detailed information in your requests (especially for products like fiber) speeds up response time and reduces errors
• Great customers look out for their distributors by being considerate of freight minimums and other logistical challenges
• Building relationships with inside sales reps leads to preferential treatment when emergencies arise
• Returns at project end can create challenges – consider keeping excess material for future projects when possible
• The golden rule according to Jalen: "Time is everything" – respect this principle in all communications
• New industry professionals should openly acknowledge their inexperience, as most sales reps will gladly help them learn
Join us every Wednesday night at 6 pm Eastern Standard Time for a live stream where you can ask your favorite RCDD questions about installation, design, certification, credentialing, and career paths.
Knowledge is power! Make sure to stop by the webpage to buy me a cup of coffee or support the show at https://linktr.ee/letstalkcabling . Also if you would like to be a guest on the show or have a topic for discussion send me an email at chuck@letstalkcabling.com
Chuck Bowser RCDD TECH
#CBRCDD #RCDD
Hey Wild Marquis, welcome to another episode of let's Talk Cabling. I'm going along the distribution series and now we're going to talk about the benefits of inside sales reps.
Speaker 2:Welcome to let's Talk Cabling your gateway to the world of ICT.
Speaker 1:Get ready to dive deep into knowledge and power. Welcome to the show where we tackle the tough questions submitted by apprentices, installers, technicians, project managers, estimators, customers, even IT personnel. We are connecting at the human level so that we can connect the world. If you're watching this show on youtube and you like this content, would you hit the bell button and the subscribe button to be notified new content is being produced? If you're listening to us on one of the audio podcast platforms, would you mind giving us a five-star rating? Those simple little steps helps us take on the algorithm so we can educate, encourage and enrich the lives of people in the ICT industry.
Speaker 1:Wednesday nights, 6 pm, eastern Standard Time. What are you doing? You know I do a live stream on TikTok, instagram, youtube, linkedin, facebook, anywhere that I can figure out how to send a live stream to where you get to ask your favorite RCDD. You know that's me your favorite RCDD Questions on installation, design, certification, credentialing. I even do career path questions. But I can hear you. Now I'm driving my truck at Wednesday night at 6 pm. I don't want to get into an accident. Take a deep breath, breathe it out, relax. I record them and you can watch them at your convenience and also, while this show is free and will always remain free, would you click on that QR code right there? You can buy me a cup of coffee. You can even schedule a 15-minute one-on-one call with me after hours, of course. So I'm continuing my distribution series.
Speaker 1:We've talked to a couple of distributors over the last few weeks, but now I want to do an interview on the benefits of being in a good relationship with your inside sales rep. I'm going to tell you right now personal experience. I knew my inside sales rep way better than I knew my outside sales rep, and my inside sales rep on more than one occasion have helped me for making huge mistakes on my bids. On more than one occasion, my inside sales rep gave me some inside information that helped me be more efficient on my bid. So I had to find someone who's a good inside sales rep, who's also good in front of the camera, good at public speaking, and I happened to find one. Imagine this I found it at a TKW event, at TechFest, who knew, just to show you, networking counts. For those of you who don't think going to these networking events are worthwhile, they are absolutely worthwhile. So welcome to the show, jalen Barnes. How are you doing, my friend?
Speaker 3:Doing all right. Chuck, Thanks for having me on.
Speaker 1:My pleasure, my pleasure. So why don't you go ahead and give us the 50,000-foot view of who you are and what is your experience?
Speaker 3:level. Well, you know, I'll give you a 10,000-foot view to get you a little closer. So I started in this industry knowing absolutely zero, in 2015. My father is actually an installer. You know ICT, so he actually was the one that helped me get my job at a local distributor on the East Coast called Norfolk Wire and Electronics, and that's where I started and spent the majority of my career and never would have left until that company got acquired by ADI Global, and so I spent the rest of my time there at ADI until that ended and I had an opportunity to start my own distributor in the same area Norfolk Virginia area and we're rocking and rolling, been doing that for a couple of years now.
Speaker 3:Wow, time flies. So now I'm an owner operator. So I've gone through sales rep, manager, owner operator, went through the whole process and I never stopped being an inside salesperson. To be honest with you, whether it's a manager, whether it's an owner-operator, it doesn't matter. You still always kind of have your hand on that. That never goes away. So I have a lot to say about it and a lot of love for it. So I look forward to this conversation, me too.
Speaker 1:I've been looking forward to this one for a while. A couple of things right off the top of my head. Number one everybody starts this industry with zero experience. Everybody does. Because you said you started off with zero experience, I'm like nobody comes out of the womb knowing how to pull cable.
Speaker 3:I thought distribution was zero experience.
Speaker 1:I didn't come from anywhere else, I got you, I got you, I got you and the reason I point that out is because and you probably know this because you know your dad's a professional cable and stuff and he's worked with Cruz. You know that sometimes we tend to look down on the new guys and we harass them. We often forget that we were once that new guy ourselves, so that's why I want to make sure I point that out. And then the second thing my ADHD just kicked in Squirrel. That's what happens sometimes when you record these things live, but I know what it was. So you get to wear many hats that's what we're talking about being salesmen and managers, and I think that's going to fit right along with the majority of the audience, because you know everybody's a salesperson.
Speaker 1:Everybody's a salesperson and those who realize it in the beginning, it actually will help launch your career and make you go even further, because learning people skills benefits you in your daily life, in your career life and for people like you who have a spiritual life, it benefits the air as well too. If you know how to talk to people, start them conversations, it's just going to help big, big time. So let's start off with the easiest thing, because what a lot of people probably don't understand I'm the estimator at the local ABC cable company and I call you up and say, hey, jalen, I need this bill of materials for you. I often think that you're probably just sitting at the computer just waiting for my phone call. So give us the insight. What's the daily life look like of an inside salesperson?
Speaker 3:Well, I'm glad you came into it that way, because I do sometimes feel like on the other end of the phone, that's what's like. You're waiting on me. I know, no, we're not. We're possibly scrambling. The daily life is different every single day. At the very least it's going to be consistent, potentially constant phone calls and emails, that's it.
Speaker 3:So you know work at a desk job, but it doesn't mean we're not working, you know, and so we're constantly or text I left texts out. You too, you got your customers that you're really close to. They're texting you, sending you stuff. You know my day gets started before I get into the office. I'm getting texts while I'm still at home and I very considerate, you know, clients. They're fine if it takes me some time to get back to them and look into it or whatever They'll say when you get to the office. Look at this for me. But anyway, yeah, day to day, it could be one of them days where we're scrambling, where the phones are ringing off the hook. People are coming into the shop, you know, picking stuff up, and so we could be, at any given point, slam and, I would say, make the assumption that we are, and as we get into somebody's questions and get forward in some things. Having that in the back of your mind when you're talking to us can help get us to the answer a little quicker.
Speaker 1:But I thought you were dedicating just to me and I was your only customer. What's up with that? You really wish. It makes things so much more simple. Exactly, exactly. So. You know, in your daily job, you're probably going to be talking to everybody, from the installer to the tech, to the project foreman, to the project supervisor, maybe project manager, maybe even well, definitely, hopefully, the designer and estimator. Maybe even well, definitely, hopefully, the designer and estimator, maybe even manufacturers.
Speaker 3:Oh, 100%. Oh, I was going to bring that up if you did. But yeah, you got to understand. We're in the middle on both sides, and so we're thinking two different trains of thought at the same time and we're going to service two different people at the same time?
Speaker 1:Yeah exactly, exactly. So let me make this. I know this question that you and I already had in advance, but I want to break it into two parts, right, ok, what's the biggest challenge when talking to field people? Yeah, and what's the biggest challenge when you're talking to, like, the project manager or the estimator? Because I know those are two different levels of conversations.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, I think it's all about priorities, right? Well, first I'll say it's terminology. I've got a client that I'm not going to say anybody's name is sticking things in my head, but like they have five different names for the same thing, and so I'm talking to them, I know they're talking about, but when I'm training someone new I'm like, oh yeah, here's a list of what they're actually trying to say. But it's fine. But yeah, so terminology, but also priorities.
Speaker 3:The tech in the field has a very different priority from the project manager who's seeing all the costs.
Speaker 3:And so, since you may be talking to both parties at different points in the process, the tech may call in and say, hey, this part isn't right, I need to bring it back and swap it out. And it's like, ok, but there's a big cost difference between these things you need to swap out. And you know, does a project manager know this? And you as a distributor, I can get in trouble because I switched something out, or I can get them in trouble. And so it's not just covering my own back, you know, and saving my own skin, but also trying to look out for the guy in the field. And it's a lot of navigating these relationships. So I think it's really about priorities. Everybody has a different priority, from the owner of the company to the guy in the field. Everybody wants to get the job done. They do want to take care of their end user, but there are also levels of priorities of how we're going to get there and sometimes those things conflict and sometimes you're the mediator in the middle when you're inside sales.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because you know, to a technician who's picking up cable at the will call, all they know is they're picking up some Cat6 cable. Well, you, the will call, all they know is they're picking up some cat six cable. Well, you and I both know there's cat six riser, cat six plenum. There's there's um minimally compliant cat six, and then there's the, you know the, the enhanced cat six platforms and stuff, and each one of those a different cost price point us made as well, versus offshore, it's a whole lot right, right exactly so you know the.
Speaker 1:but to install, they don't care't care, the cable's cable, right, they just need to install it. But I guarantee you that project manager is going to care about that price. Yep, because that's what they're so comfortable with. And I'm glad you mentioned that our industry has multiple names for the same thing. I say this on a lot of my podcasts. Our industry loves acronyms, yeah, and the only thing it loves more than acronyms is it loves changing acronyms and it's hard to stay current, so I'm gonna put in the description yeah, on this, on this episode, a free, a free bixi resource. Where it's it's, it's the bixi ict terminology handbook. It's got the definitions, it's got acronyms, it's got the old acronyms and the new acronyms. That's what I like about it, right? So if someone calls it an MDF, mdf is in there. Even though it's technically an old acronym, we're not supposed to use it anymore. If they want to say the TR, that's the new acronym, well, that's in there, part of it.
Speaker 2:so it's a great resource, great, great, great resource whether you're pulling your first cable or managing multi-million dollar installs, you're not alone. Welcome to low voltage nation, the largest, most active community of low voltage pros in the game, with over 176 000 members on Facebook and growing. This is where ICT professionals connect, collaborate and level up together. Got a question? You'll get answers from real techs with real experience Facing a job site challenge. Someone here has solved it and will show you how. From fiber to access control, estimating to entrepreneurship, low Voltage Nation is your power network. This isn't just another group, it's a movement. Join the community today at lowvoltagenationcom or jump into the conversation at our Facebook group, because in this industry, the strongest signal comes from those who connect.
Speaker 1:So let me ask you this what's the one thing that you think that contractors misunderstand about distribution, specifically talking about the inside sales reps, or maybe even the branch?
Speaker 3:managers. I think you made a good point of, like, you know, the only customer. I think they know that they're not that they're an only customer, but it's just the, I guess, our priorities too. You know we want to take care of you, the customer, and want to help you take care of your end user, but there's a lot of little pieces that go into that. You say, ok, I need this part, special, order it. But there's a lot of little pieces that go into that. You say, ok, I need this part special, order it. Ok, you just ask for something that we never order and that we don't have anything else we need to order from them. So that manufacturer has a minimum order of $250. Your part's only $100.
Speaker 3:So now I've got to figure out how I'm going to bring that in here, because now I've got to bring in something else. I'm going to sit here, you know, or you've got an oversized part and it's going to be an oversized freight charge and you're not interested in paying that because you know this is just a normal piece to you but not to us. So I think sometimes you know when you bring these things up and say, hey, look, this is a little monkey rich. I was just quoting you in the beginning because this was just shot in the dark. It was. I was just quoting you in the beginning because this was just shot in the dark.
Speaker 3:We is part of a lot of larger project, but then you cut everything else out. I just need this piece now. Now it's like OK, I didn't approach you straight before because it didn't matter when this was a different scope, but now I do and I kind of need you to understand I get upset about that. So I think these are some of the things that they don't consider, and it's fine, because you get your own things to consider and I've got to consider what you're considering as well. So it's not anything to be critical of, but just things you may not take into play, the different priorities we got to consider on our end as well.
Speaker 1:And what a lot of people don't realize. You know I do because I've dealt with numerous inside sales reps, numerous outside sales reps, different companies, different levels, and one of the things that people don't realize is the price isn't just the price. There's a lot more stuff that goes into the price. Right, there's the over-the-counter will call price, where somebody just walks in and there's no established relationship with the distributor. That's going to be one price, probably the most expensive price, and then if you're a company who orders, who orders regularly, you might get a discounted price. And then there's also project pricing, right. So there's like you have. You have different level prices. A lot of people don't understand it. You were just talking a second ago about how you have, like you know, a whole bunch of emails, a whole bunch of calls and stuff. How's an inside sales rep? How do you prioritize? Who to help first?
Speaker 3:Whatever is the biggest project now I'm playing, oh, the truth comes out Exactly right now. It really depends. They're all coming in at once. We actually really do need to sift through that and see Everyone has a different method. I've worked with different people and everyone's got their own method. Hopefully everyone's prioritizing getting the work done and getting it done accurately, but sometimes it's not as simple.
Speaker 3:As I got your email first. You know, like one thing I'll say for myself when I get in the morning uh, it's. You know, it's easy for me to have 20, 30 emails first thing in the morning, you know, and I had zero new emails when I left the office, and it can go anywhere from way more than that. Or it's a slow day, it's less, some of it's junk. But if I see I've got things going on and something came in at 5.01 pm after I left, and then something came in at 7.35 am, I don't necessarily just say, okay, well, let me go to the 5.01 pm one, because what I've learned is, if I want pm one, they knew it was after five, they just want me to get to it when I get to it.
Speaker 3:Sometimes, you know, while the one that's 10 to 5 am, that's. Oh, there's a guy that was going out to the job first thing in the morning and suddenly realized we don't have what we need. That one may be an emergency. So I don't just necessarily go in order, I will check them and see okay, this has a lower end priority, this is higher priority. Let me tackle this first and kind of jump around like that and when it's not clear that they're all the same, they all just kind of came in at once, come back from lunch and everything's just there.
Speaker 3:Then in those cases again you check priority levels, see if anybody's rushing anything. But also what can help or push you further down the queue is if how much detail you do or don't have. If I know I'm going to have to put a lot of extra work into this because you just gave me something very broad and vague. I'm not spending time on the phone with you. I'm gonna have to talk to the manufacturer. Then I may put it to the side a little bit, say it's going to take more work. Let me knock out these things that are just, you know, order taking. Just pull out your history, send you off a quote, that sort of thing, and there's nothing, anything against you, if you, if you did that but it is it's time management.
Speaker 3:This is going to take more time, and I'm not sure how much time it's going to take. Let me knock these other things out first and then tackle this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're a genie. You got to try to figure out. You know what's priority A and what's priority E, and just kind of figure that out. Let me ask you this this wasn't one of the prearranged questions, but I know you can answer it what if I send you an email and I mark it as high importance? How does that affect your?
Speaker 3:opening that email. So I have clients and I don't even know if they are doing this on purpose or it's just the way their system works. I don't know Everything's high importance and I would say I'll probably speak for a lot of inside salespeople where I would say that I don't think we pivoted into that really Like high importance doesn't really do anything to really catch our attention. What we probably do and I know I do this at least is I color code things importance. If I know how to come back to it, I put like a little bar next to it, an outlook that says okay, jalen, because what I tend to do after an hour or so or time going through the day, I scroll through everything from the day and see, oh yes, I forgot about it, it's got a little highlight, so I'll do it myself. But doing it on your end doesn't really.
Speaker 1:If it's something type, already my folks got my number, they're going to call me Exactly right, I was going to say that right as an estimator, you know, because an estimator is usually juggling, you know, one to ten bids at any given time, any different stages of the thing and stuff, and if I'm up against a time crunch and I'm sitting, let's say, let's say you're my inside sales rep and it just happens to be 501. Yeah Right, I'll send the email. I probably won't. I won't, I won't tag it as high importance. I'll probably call you before and say, hey, look, yeah, you got an email coming. Yeah, 501. I don't expect you to work on it tonight, but I email.
Speaker 1:Exactly, it's all about communications. It's all about communications. Even if you happen to leave at like 4.55 and I get your voicemail at 4.59, I'll still leave you that voicemail. I'll say hey, jalen, you got an email coming in a few minutes. I need to sync price in the morning because I have to sync done by noon. Exactly, what are some of your or anybody's? Because you talk to a lot of inside sales reps too, you know a lot. What are the inside pet peeves? What's the fastest way that a customer can get ignored? Yeah, I would say lack of detail.
Speaker 3:We'll put it like this Okay, if someone's truly getting ignored, you have to have done something. Pretty like personal, I would say. We're not generally just ignoring you. Even sometimes people feel ignored. We're generally not just ignoring you unless you're just like someone walking off the street, have no business buying professionally or something like that. But for you to be delayed I'll put it like that and not be out of priority, you have to consistently be someone who just has a penchant for having very little detail and requiring a lot of back and forth communication just to get something basic.
Speaker 3:We're not talking about this very intense project. The end user is very particular and you really got to baby the project all the way through. It's not what it's about, but it's just even the most simplest things. It's just it's constantly changing and it becomes a habit of okay, this isn't just your end user, because you're doing multiple jobs here, this is just you not planning ahead and so, because we know mentally how much extra work is going to take, you might get delayed down the line because we're just going to take more time with you and that's going to rob it from all the other clients who kind of have their stuff prepared and ready to go. So I would say that's, and it is a universal pet peeve of, like you know. I ask you every time what is this, what is that? Oh, I sent it to you but then, oh, you got to change it. We got to change the back or forth. It just shows a lack of preparation.
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Speaker 1:Visit GoFar on LinkedIn or click on the link in the description below. So what would you say is the percentage of emails that you get in? What percentage would you say have a bill of materials attached with quantities, numbers, descriptions, versus the emails that say I need 20,000 feet of cable, 35 jacks, 15 faceplates, patch panel and patch cords?
Speaker 3:I would say 995% are the first category. We have very great Wow, we really do Like we've got. Category we have very great Wow, we really do Like we've we've got it. We've got some very, very good ones. Very few that don't.
Speaker 3:And I think one thing that you know we're doing a lot of talking toward the the dealer side, ict side, like you know how to how you should handle us. But if I were talking to the inside sales reps on how you should handle your customers and suppliers, there are things that we can do to kind of train our clientele, train our manufacturers and manufacturer reps so work in a way that's conducive to everybody. Because we're in the middle, we kind of know what works for everybody. We know what works for us, for the end user, for the dealer and for the manufacturer. So we can kind of create a language, a through line that makes things smooth not just for us but for everybody If we're doing our job right and customer service is good. So I think we've done a good job of kind of training our clientele to know, hey, this is what's going to get the results. This isn't just about you know, appeasing my preferences. This is about. This is what actually help us, help you faster.
Speaker 1:Well, that's a fantastic point. I mean, the easier I make your job, the faster you're going to get a response to me.
Speaker 3:Yep.
Speaker 1:You know, and I mean, if you're creating an estimate, you've probably got a spreadsheet or some estimating software that you can easily copy and paste the bill of materials and drop it into an email or drop it into a document and email that, and then that way it's super easy for everybody. That's how I always did. I always had spreadsheets and stuff and I've even had inside sales reps before would look at it and say, chuck, this doesn't seem to add up. You've got X amount of patch patch cords, but they're not matching the jack counts, you know. You know, I wouldn't have, I would have like not enough jacks, two more more. Just want to make sure. You know.
Speaker 1:Hey, just answer the eyes, not that you're the designer, you're the one seeing everything, but I just want to make sure this is something I saw and it's. Yeah, that's one of the things I really liked about working with Inside Sales. Yeah, right. So let's talk about equipping the people like me the designers, the estimators, the installers on the field the do's and don'ts. We already started talking about it how to work effectively with you guys, right? So the first one is what makes a great customer versus what makes one that's, let's just say, difficult to work with.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'd say the great customer is really you've got this rapport now and that's probably why they're a great customer, because you guys are working together a lot, where you understand terminology, you understand language and we're both looking out for each other. I'm going to go out of my way to try to accommodate you, but some of my best clients also try to accommodate me, but some of my best clients also try to accommodate me as well. I was just starting one client today and they needed a part that another competitor distributor messed up the order. So they were coming to me saying, hey, look, I want to get this from you, update this quote. And so I did all that and they weren't going to get as much as we initially quoted some months ago and things like that.
Speaker 3:It wasn't a whole lot, but it was just some accessory piece for cabling and the piece was kind of large. So I said, look, just letting you know I'm going to need to combine, find some stuff, get my purchaser find some stuff to combine this with, because it's just an oversized piece and I need something to kind of try to meet freight minimum, meet freight minimum. And the client immediately responded back with would it help if I also get a greater quantity of this other item as well, because they're going to need it down the road to put it in stock. This was a stocking order, and so would that help. I'm like you know what it would. It wasn't enough to like completely solve the issue, but it helped and it was something that you know. Thank you for the thought. I remember that you know.
Speaker 3:So when you do things like that, you know try to help each other and accommodate each other. That makes a difference versus the people that are very self-centered. And I get it right. You know you are the customer. I am here to serve you. You know that, and you know you're trying to take care of your end user, and sometimes your end user is putting pressure on you, so then it just goes up the chain putting the pressure.
Speaker 3:I've been there, I've been in the middle of it, I've had to do that with my suppliers. But also try to still be a human being and remember what's actually happening here and we're on the same side here and so the more frustrating people and again, we don't have many or any of these, I think. I think some of those relationships have just ended, but in times past when I've had these experiences. It's people that seem to forget, like, okay, we both know what's happening here, I'm not the problem and maybe you're not the problem, but let's not play this game of you're trying to strong arm me or bully me into giving you what you want. The numbers remain the same. We don't have to play this game of you try to make it all about you and your bottom line, because we're all in the same boat here, and so I think just that understanding and everybody accommodating one another makes for a great lasting relationship.
Speaker 1:Yeah, as an estimator, you know, every once in a while what happens is you would get a phone call from the customer After you just submitted the price to them. You would get a call from them Can you sharpen your pencils a little bit? That price is just a little too high. You would get a call from can you sharpen your pencils a little bit? That price is just a little too high. I hated them phone calls because I would usually come back and say, well, I can, but maybe we really need to take a look at the design. Maybe there's something in the design we don't need. That would kind of stave off most of those calls. But there's still some that that was their standing operating procedure Every time they put out a bid as soon as you gave them a price. Can you sharpen your pencils, yeah.
Speaker 3:You just know you're getting that response.
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah, so you know, if the customer does something more than twice the initial price going to them has a markup on it.
Speaker 3:Exactly yeah, you've got to protect that yeah.
Speaker 1:And then that way I'll knock it off and I'll end up where I wanted to end off in the beginning, with exactly right. So let's talk about, let's you talk about educating the customer. Let's talk about what kind of information are you when you get that email for pricing from the project manager or the estimator? What kind of information, um, are you looking for? That's gonna, that's gonna limit the back and forth communications required between you and the customer it varies for every every, you know product.
Speaker 3:Fiber is one of my favorite ones because it's very easy and whenever I deal with someone new at one of my dealers, you know, I kind of help them, say, okay, these are the things you're going to want to have next time, because otherwise, you know, you need to ask this one every single time. This isn't a one-off. And so for fiber, for example, is it single mode or is it multimode? If it's multimode, is it OM1 or OM3? Because those are the two most common right now. And then, okay, did you put the connecters in there? Do you want LC on this or SC? Okay, do you want indoor-outdoor? Do you want outdoor? Do you want loose-tube outdoor? Do you want rotor-resistant armor?
Speaker 3:When someone hits me with fiber, I'm like, yeah, I need 200 feet of fiber. When someone hits me with fiber, like, yeah, I need 200 feet of fiber, if I was with a smile, like okay, and I hit him with like 50 questions, basically like I just gave you, and it's like, oh, let me go back and ask. There you go, you know. So it's just yes, quantity is, the item is, and you know, look, if you have part numbers, great, you know, I'll tell you this If you know you have part numbers somewhere, you know this, please do, because that just makes everything go way faster.
Speaker 3:However, if you don't, I'm not going to try to make you go find it, unless we just both are lost. Then we might have to work together on this. But you know, we as distributors, we're the better chance we're going to know the part numbers are than you. Give me a very good description. If you have it, give me the quantity, obviously, but just it would depend on what you're working on. Working on. There's a lot of things you might have to know, and fiber is always the best example because there's so many variations.
Speaker 1:Details matter, they absolutely matter, because you know, like you said, there's so many types. There's OM1 through 5, os1a, os2, inside plant, outside plant, then there's indoor-outdoor fiber, and then what strand count are you looking for? Are you looking?
Speaker 3:for a 69-12?.
Speaker 1:Because there's a little bit of a price difference and size difference between a 69-12 and a 12-strand fiber, so details matter. I get that 100%. I truly do. Let's take a short break.
Speaker 2:Are you trying to reach the technicians, project managers and decision makers of the ICT industry? Then why aren't you advertising on let's Talk Cabling, With over 150,000 impressions a month across podcasts, YouTube and social media? This isn't just a show. It's the go-to resource for the low-voltage industry. It's the go-to resource for the low voltage industry. We spotlight the tools, training and technology shaping the future of structured cabling, and your brand could be front and center. Don't just get noticed, get trusted email. Chuck at advertising at letstalkcablingcom and let's connect your brand to the right audience today.
Speaker 1:So let's talk about now. Let's talk about how the field techs right. So let's say they call you up and they say what's the best way they can communicate to you? Hey, I need to do a stock check. We got an emergency project somewhere and we're six jacks short of this. Jack you know part number XYZQVR79-84B-LZ2.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, detail, don't, don't. I would say. Don't just call and say hey, no, no, jack, you sold me. We need more. And it's like which ones? You're one of 20 texts that just came in here last week.
Speaker 3:I might've been the one you were dealing with when that happened. That's, three other guys here could have been any one of us. Do you remember who was? No, I don't know. I don't know, I don't know, but it's a rush.
Speaker 3:Well, if it's a rush, then you need to make sure you got the information, because otherwise you're gonna be running back to whoever's having you to call me and all that. But if you're the one dealing with it you know we talked and all that then it's probably a non-issue. We both know what this job is, we both know what we're talking about and I can find it for you. Hopefully I've got it in stock. If I don't, I'm going to have to rush it. If I have to rush it, I'm going to charge you rush freight If it's on you, if it's not on you, but it's also not on me, you're a good client. Then maybe we split the difference on the freight. Try to remain calm. Even though we know it's not a calm situation. Let's try to keep it calm and as much detail as possible so we can try to resolve it.
Speaker 1:I'm glad you mentioned freight because it just reminded me. You know we talk about be detailed, you know the quantity, the part numbers, as much as the description can. But you know, one of the most biggest things I think a lot of newer estimators forget is to tell the inside sales plan to include shipping in the price. Yeah, because if you don't, you'll get that quote and then the you know when you get it in they bill you for the material and then another line item for shipping. As a project manager, that's an unexpected price. So that's why I always told, always as one of the cabinets, every time I submit a price, all, all prices must include shipping.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's safe, that's very safe to do it that way, yeah, and I mean I think on our end we try to mitigate that by just doing that, whether they ask for it or not. And if it turns out that it's not necessary down the road, then okay, we just save you some money. But if we know we got some special items up here and we know it's not meeting a free minimum there, we'll throw that on there. We try to be consistent with that. Sometimes we're not and it gets missed, and that's always the most annoying thing for anybody, whether it's us or you.
Speaker 1:Right and missing out on the freight, you know so what advice would you have for, you know, maybe that junior project manager, who's who's new and they're feeling kind of intimidated. You know, talking to an talking to a seasoned experience inside salesperson like you, you know, and their brand's making new and they're. They haven't, they haven't downloaded that ICT terminology handbook yet and they really don't know what to ask for. What advice would you have for that person?
Speaker 3:Let us know you're new. I mean, that's what I had to do as I started out as a distributor. Let folks, because what happens is when you do that, typically what's going to happen is, as long as you're not talking to an absolute jerk, then they're going to put on their teacher hat and they're going to help you along, because they were there at some point before. But so just let folks know. Hey, I'm new, I could be getting this wrong, you know. Hell, yeah, I did all the time, whether it was with the dealer or the uh, that's a great tip, that's absolutely great because I switch modes and be like, okay, I, I'm going to take some time with you, right?
Speaker 3:I mean, maybe I have a lot going on, but it's the fact that if I want to help myself in the future because you're going to work at this company, it behooves me to help you come along and learn, because it's going to help me move things along faster the next time, right exactly.
Speaker 1:It's kind of common sense. Yeah, exactly. So what you're doing is you're helping First off, you're nourishing the customer relationships, and now that customer is more likely going to call you back because he's going to say, hey, this guy's really good about helping. He caught me with some mistakes in my stuff. That thing might come back to you even more often and on the flip side of that, you know that saves the whole. Oh well, we didn't really want the Cat6 Ejax.
Speaker 3:We wanted the Cat6 ejax. We wanted the cat six ajax.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, saves those exactly exactly, yeah, what are some of the red flags that, uh, that you see that might indicate that, um, this bid or this project is going off the rails all the changes, you know it stops like this is bill materials, okay, send it back.
Speaker 3:Well, no, they change their mind. They just want to do this, they don't want to do that. And it's like we realize we put a lot of work into this but this is probably going nowhere. You know, we put in a lot of time, we're not going to get the investment back on the time, and so, you know, at that point we just got to be smart about how much effort we put into the details, because we can see, okay, you're not winning this job or this, and he doesn't know what they want to do. This is exploratory. At this point, this is not a real thing. So, yeah, just a lot of that. Back and forth changes. I send you something, then change it again, change it again. It's like, okay, yeah, this isn't, this isn't real.
Speaker 1:It's the red flag right here, right? So we talked about how to I've hinted on it a couple of times building that relationship with the inside salesperson, right? So how can the listener, the senior tech, the technician, the project manager build relations with their inside salesperson? But it's more than just transactional-based, right? So what are some of the long-term benefits If I sit there, I invest time with you and build a relationship with you? What are some of the long-term benefits if, if I sit there on this time with you and build a relationship with you? What's some? What are some of the long-term benefits that that I'm going to get as a as a customer?
Speaker 3:yeah, we're gonna. We'll go to bat for you, you know, because sometimes somewhere down the road something's going to go wrong. Or you're going to need a favor, you're going to need some help, you're going to need me to do a little bit extra to sometimes to help you win a job or whatever you know. And or I'll be more likely to call you when a manufacturer comes to me with an opportunity in my area and say, hey, who is the dealer partner you want to work with on that? I'm more likely to point them to you. You know, even if you're not certified in their material, I'll say, hey, look, certify these guys. They're great. You know, I'm going to give back to you.
Speaker 3:So those are the things you don't initially think about up front, when you're just thinking transactionally. There's a lot of ways that can pay off down the road, a lot of ways it can save your bacon down the road if you run into a problem. And there are clients who it wasn't my fault, but I ate the freight on a rush ship for them because of just who they were and how good they were. And I saw they were in a bind and I know what I would want someone to do for me if I was in that same bind, you know. So that does make a difference, it just does. It matters.
Speaker 1:So I can't get that preferred customer status just by buying more, and more and more from you.
Speaker 3:No, no, I don't think it's ever. I don't think I've ever seen it really work that way. To be honest with you, I think people that buy more and more it's because the relationship has grown that way. You know, the ones who buy a lot from us are the ones we have great relationships with, but it wasn't because they were buying more. It progressed to that because it was beneficial for both parties to work together that way.
Speaker 1:Right. So you know one of the things I learned one of the companies I worked for when I was an estimator and a senior estimator and a division estimator certain bids of a certain dollar value. They had to go out to multiple distributors for pricing. And that always opens up a can of worms. Because I would let I'm just going to use the three that I did at the time. It was Graybar Anix. Let you know, I'm just gonna use the three that I did at the time. Right, it was, it was. It was Graybar, anixter and Wesco.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I would send out, I would send out emails to all three of my inside salespeople and I would let them know hey, this is a, this is a bid. I need three prices. Blah, the company that I'm going to choose will be the one who has the lowest overall dollar value. I'm not going to nitpick, I'm not going to pull Cable from Annex or Jack from Wesco, because I know that in order a lot of times to get some of the pricing you get, you're making some assumptions on getting the whole entire lot of the job. When you start splitting it out, that's going to cause problems. So I would always say I'm going to select whoever has the lowest overall price, and that seemed to work fabulously for me, right, yeah, it did. But I always wondered and maybe you can tell me this, because the vast majority of the estimating I did was that type of bids Should a contractor stick with just one distributor, versus splitting, doing the multiple bids like I did?
Speaker 3:I would love to say just pick one. But no, you should always keep your options open. You should. You got to catch someone sleeping at the. I mean, look, that's how I got a lot of clients when my competitors was caught sleeping at the wheel. They got too comfortable. They just kind of took it for granted, took the business for granted, you know, and so you got to keep your options open. I do think that there are certain maybe product lines or or categories, like I.
Speaker 3:I use this distributor for my cable. We've developed rapport there. I'm not going to keep shopping them on that. They do good, for it's not just about the price. They help me load up, they'll deliver it to me. There's different things like that. It's like, okay, you're going to get my cable until you just do something to mess it up, but you're over here, I'm going to deal with you for fiber, that kind of thing, and you've got to do what's best. You can't put all your eggs in one basket. I understand. When it comes to credit too. Sometimes you've got to bounce those things around and all that with your credit line. So I do get all that and I'd say, yeah, you know, you should have one or two, maybe three that you know you have a good rapport with. But I would say, reward those that you have a good rapport with. Reward the guy that keeps coming through and that you know fixes the issue, that sort of thing, that's where that relationship comes into play Exactly and let them earn a little bit more.
Speaker 3:Don't let them make it feel like because they're a salesperson and as a salesperson you're being required, you're being asked by your management, by whoever, to grow the client. So let them feel like there's an opportunity that this can grow if I'm, if I'm doing a good job. So that's where I stand on that.
Speaker 1:Here's a pro tip for anybody who's working in distribution from from an estimator's point of view. Right, Because we would see the outside sales rep once a month, something like that. Maybe, depending on the, on the relationship, maybe maybe once every two weeks. How about bringing the inside sales rep with them every once in a while? Because that's who I talk to? Yeah, you know, that's the person I want to talk to, because I'm on the phone with them at least four or five, seven, 10 times a week, you know. Or an email, just bring them in, sit in, say hey. So that's what you look like. There you go. So let's talk about project wrap-up, project closure, Probably one of the areas that most project managers suck at.
Speaker 2:Let's be honest with you.
Speaker 1:Let's put all the cards on the table right. What are some of the things?
Speaker 3:that you wish project managers or estimators would do better after the project wraps up. I feel like it happens more, like when phases happen so and it gets really weird uh like, maybe you got a bunch of material and you got material for other phases of it. Like we're doing the build out or the rough in and we're not going to hang the access control panels until after capability. So it's like six months down the road you finally open the box and it's like oh no, this is a problem, this is broken or this you know, and it's like we could have resolved it. It's a lot easier to do these If there's some warranty. That's fine, all that.
Speaker 3:But sometimes it's just the headache of you know, if we had known this up ahead of time. And I perfectly get why that doesn't happen. But that's more of a phase thing than the entire project. I get it. It's just like, oh man. But when a project is truly done this may not be what you were expecting to hear, but I kind of wish folks wouldn't return stuff that they already priced into the job. So what I mean is you have more than what you needed, but you still build for it. It was built into the job and everything like that. Why don't you just keep it? You know, let it roll over. You know I made the sales for that month but then I got to take an RMA at the beginning of the month for something and put us kind of in a hole and it's like you know could you hold on to it.
Speaker 1:You know, and I use it on another project yes, where it's it's already been paid for. There's just more, more, more, uh, more profit in that second project. I understand why they're doing it and I just had this conversation with another stripper not too long ago because what a lot of, what a lot of companies but a lot of technicians don't realize that warehouse that's got the shelf, all the cable sitting there from all the leftovers, from all the projects. That's a bank, that's money sitting on the shelves, yeah, and that's. And that's why some of them are taking, are trying to get returned back with you is because they're trying to get some of that money back. And I get that. But why not be a little bit more accurate in your estimating? Why not be a little more accurate in tracking the materials and stuff?
Speaker 3:Especially when you know that what I've people who do the most obviously are the ones who, I think, overestimate material on purpose to be safe. You know, in case something happens, I'm like okay, if you know you're doing that, there's really no reason to be bringing it back like that. You know, just try to get some more again. I get it, and if I were in your boat maybe I would do the same thing. I don't know, but if you're looking for helpful help us out here, just use it in your next job. And then something that you're never going to use a special order. And you legitimately thought you needed 100, but you only needed 75. I get it and we got to work that out.
Speaker 1:And a lot of the two real problems, a lot of two probably really depends on the size of the company, right, if you're talking a small pop, mom and pop, you know office where they got two technicians and they're only bringing in you know a hundred, two hundred thousand dollars a year. That, that, that, every penny that makes a big difference.
Speaker 3:That makes a big difference.
Speaker 1:But to a company like a, like a, like a black box, or hinkles, mccoy, that's, you know that does 10, 10, 10 billion a year or not. 10 billion, 10, 10 million? No, they do more than 10 million. The last year I worked with hinkles, the network solutions division did 55 million. Wow, and that was 15 years ago, wow. So, so, so know. So a couple extra boxes of cable in that scenario, okay.
Speaker 1:But I tell you, I want to tell you a story, I want your thoughts on this. So we had a project manager one time and this is back before we had tight controls in our PO processes and what happened was we got awarded to do some projects for some schools and there's a whole bunch of metal wire mold in the project, a whole bunch of metal wire mold. And evidently at that point in time, wire mold was having some kind of manufacturing incentive that if you bought a certain a dollar amount of wire wire mold qualifying products, you could get a free vacation for a week in Las Vegas. Like I said, we didn't have tight PO controls. The project finished, we had three skids of wire mold left in the warehouse because the project manager just wanted to hit that dollar value to get that free trip and it was a nightmare.
Speaker 1:Luckily I wasn't part of the whole negotiating thing. It was it was the area manager talking to the branch manager of gray bar, you know, and uh, and they they did have taken it back, but they took it back. We took a huge hit on, I think we. I think we got like 50 cents on the dollar for it or something like that. But what's your thoughts on somebody who's trying to stack the deck like that as an inside salesperson? Would you question that person or how?
Speaker 3:would you deal?
Speaker 1:with that.
Speaker 3:Descentives like that kind of can be dicey. You know what I'm saying, and sometimes I prefer not having to bother with some little thing. I mean, look, even on the inside sales spot sometimes there's spiffs from the manufacturer to us to sell a lot of a particular manufacturer for a while. I mean, those things are cool, you know, but in the day it's like I kind of just prefer to keep things even and just say, okay, this is the best product, this is what my customer prefers. You know, let's just, let's just keep it simple. So we're going to run into those situations, cause, yeah, that that gets weird. And you know, if I'm the inside salesperson in that scenario and I thought that this was legitimately how much you need it, and then I get and I'm, you know, celebrating this sale, going by, managing me like look what we did. And then it's like, okay, well, no, this process that and figure out how we're going to fix this, because then it hurts everybody. So, yeah, please don't do that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Dad always used to tell me honesty isn't always the easiest way, but it's always the best way, Yep. Every single time, so let me ask you this what's the one golden rule that you wish that every one of your customers, whether it's field or project manager, what's the one golden rule that you wish they would know when?
Speaker 3:dealing with an inside salesperson Time is everything. I'll say that Time is everything. It's not always the dollar value of the sale, it's just time, and it's very easy to chew up time unnecessarily. So yeah, that's what I say Time is everything. I think that they would understand that because, like we all know that Everything matters when you're billing hourly things like that. That's why you need me to not drag my feet. You know, if you've got tech in the field, we've got to solve the problem. So let's just remember that all across the board that time is everything. So let's create a system of communication that respects everyone's time and also makes the most use of it, so that we can keep some of that time for the next thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's why you know when I would send out my stuff for pricing, you know I always would put in there hey, I need this pricing by close of business, whatever day, and that might be the next day or it might be a week or 10 days down. That way, you know, I know that. You know that I would get the information back in time, enough time for me to process it, put it in my bid. But I also realize again, it's all about that relationship right Knowing that I'm not your only customer and there might be other people out there who might have to need your services, and just complete, complete communications. It's kind of funny. We work in the communications industry yeah, exactly funny funny one there, right.
Speaker 1:Yes, sir, yes, sir hey uh, one of the things I do know about you is uh, you're a fellow podcaster I am and fellow youtuber.
Speaker 1:See, a lot of people don't realize they they know the let's talk cabling brand, but I also have another youtube channel as well, too. Okay, I haven't. We haven't posted anything there in two years, because once let's talk, they know the let's Talk Cabling brand. But I also have another YouTube channel as well, too. Okay, we haven't posted anything there in two years, because once let's Talk Cabling started taking off, I started focusing all my attention on this podcast. So tell us about your media adventures.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, so yeah, earlier this year I just launched the Best Practices Show, which is a podcast I've got it on YouTube and Spotify that's designed to sort of connect the integrator, the ICT, to the manufacturer. So all my time in the past 10 years of being in distribution, I always found that the most important relationship that was sometimes overlooked or just not mined out properly was between the manufacturer reps and the integrators. And my job is to kind of facilitate that relationship, whether through sales calls, bringing the reps in, coming into their office, or to do counter days, trainings, all that kind of thing. And so the manufacturer reps are always on me wanting to get in front of the dealers and the dealers, while if even they were interested, you're just too busy a lot of the time and so we'd miss a lot that. And then I would go months trying to get two people to connect, and then, once they connect, oh, great things happen, great business comes up, and it's like it's amazing. We try to do this for six months, you know. So how can we mitigate some of that?
Speaker 3:So this podcast is something I've been doing for years as a way to get the integrator and the manufacturer talking to each other a lot faster. And so I realized a lot of these techs you know, they're in their cars, we've got project managers in the office doing estimating, even a business owner doing invoicing at the end of the day, and while you're doing these things you can be listening. If you're sitting at a desk you can be watching. And so I made this podcast as a way to get the communication from the manufacturers and the service providers directly to the integrators by sitting down and having these interviews. So, for example, I did my first episode with Alarmcom. I had a gentleman on for that and we just sat down and talked about some of the new technology things and it was great the communication, the integrators that you reach out to, alarmcom. It was just, it was awesome. So that was the whole point. So it covers the entire industry many verticals, datacom, fire, av, security, intrusion, access control, all of that. So it covers all those different verticals. But that was the whole point. To kind of be that middleman that I already am on the sales side on the communication, so that people can find out about the technology, the changing trends and find out what they need to know to do better with their business.
Speaker 3:How often does that come out, so that one has no schedule right now, because it's just as I go. But I got a new episode coming out. Depending on when this comes out, the second episode may already be out. The first episode released already a month or two ago and then I'm working on the second episode and then I'll have to schedule time to do the third. So it's kind of as I have time to do it. So it's kind of as I have time to do it. It came out right around the same time I did my own showcase with a security data supply, and so it's kind of revolved around that. So we're working on it, trying to get some consistency here, but for now it's just as we get time to get in front of some quality manufacturers that many great ones want to listen to. So I'll you know I believe you're going to leave links for me, chuck, but I'll leave a link to our newsletter so that you can sign up to that and know whenever a new episode comes out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. Send me the links to that, and also the other one too, because you and your wife do it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so me and my wife for years have been doing marriage ministry on YouTube, so that's actually something that has exploded across all of our platforms Instagram, tiktok, youtube. We're close to 20,000 followers across everything. So, yeah, we've been doing that for years. It's been a passion of ours marriage ministry so we're actually launching a couple of new things there as well. So, yeah, by the time this comes out, that'll probably already have launched. We do a couple of virtual live events, things like that Weekly video releases, all that good stuff, and daily video releases of shorts on all of our platforms. So definitely I'll leave a link for that as well.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, because in today's environment, I'm telling you, there's a lot of evil in today's world. I've been around this earth for 60 years and I've seen it progressively get worse and I've seen the attack on marriages, because that's the foundation of everything is the marriage, and if they can attack that, make that crumble everything else is easy, 100%.
Speaker 3:That's what we believe, and we believe we're called to change the divorce rate, and you'd be surprised how many of my clients have actually, just on their travel, social media, come across it Like, hey, is this you? I'm like, yeah, that's me. It's actually even held business in some way. So we're excited to do it, we're happy to do it, we're called to do it. So, hopefully, if that's what you're looking for, check that out and it'll be a good impact to you. Leave a comment, let us know.
Speaker 1:Jalen, I'm thoroughly impressed. For such a young man, you got so much stuff going on.
Speaker 3:I know that this industry is in good hands.
Speaker 2:I appreciate you coming on today me. Have me again sometime. Love to talk Absolutely. Thank you for joining us on let's Talk Cable and stay tuned for more episodes filled with innovation. Keep connecting, keep keep achieving until next time.
