← Owned and Operated - A Plumbing, Electrical, and HVAC Business Growth Podcast
Owned and Operated - A Plumbing, Electrical, and HVAC Business Growth Podcast
#243 Home Service Contractors: Stop Overpaying for Parts!
00:37:18
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- [00:00]
A
We know our customers. We've been in the distribution business for 90 plus years. That's interesting that one SKU you need that you can't find somewhere else.
- [00:09]
B
Totally.
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A
We want to, we want to be.
- [00:10]
B
Your source for that. What do you think makes a good.
- [00:12]
A
Contractor Partnership trust is the foundation of any relationship, whether it's personal or professional. And we understand that it's important for contractors to get answers quickly.
- [00:20]
B
How do you feel like contractors can partner with wholesalers and drive margin?
- [00:25]
A
Maybe we should think about.
- [00:33]
B
Welcome back to Owned and Operated. I am your host John Wilson. During the day I run a $30 million home service company in Cleveland, Ohio and for fun I run a podcast showing other people how to do the same thing. Today I'm joined on the show by Jen Laughlin from wesupplytrades.com It's a wide ranging conversation. We cover how to save on materials, how if you're rural you can get stuff fast, how, how to think about partnerships with wholesalers and a bunch more. If you're interested in partnering with We Supply Trades, I highly recommend their Pro account. It's free to sign up and you get a ton of awesome benefits like free shipping over $99 and discounted pricing per product. Make sure you check out wesupplytrades.com owned and use the code own20 to get a special 20% off your first order. We haven't had hardly any like wholesale. We're going to provide, you know, the backbone of the business on the show. So this is going to be, I think, I think this will be a good time.
- [01:28]
A
Yeah. Looking forward to it.
- [01:30]
B
Are you still using a clunky phone system for Your service business? OpenPhone is the modern business phone platform powered by AI that helps you stay responsive, connected and never miss a call. With shared numbers, call summaries plus deep integrations with Slack, HubSpot and more, OpenPhone keeps your team aligned and your customers taken care of no matter what time. Start your 7 day free trial@openphone.com owned and get 20% off your first 6 months just for being a part of the owned and operated crew. Open Phone no missed calls, no missed customers. So I would love it if you just like gave us a little bit of a primer. What is we Supply Trades all about?
- [02:10]
A
Sure. Thanks. Appreciate that. So we Supply Trades is an online supply house. So we supplytrades.com is our website. We have a large variety of products for, you know, your average H Vac plumbing contractor. So we've got H Vac, parts and supplies, plumbing Parts and supplies. We have some light, electrical as well. We have tools, a little bit of lighting. So kind of a mixture of a lot of different things that anybody as a, as a trade professional might be, you know, touching any given day.
- [02:41]
B
Yeah.
- [02:42]
A
We have major manufacturer brands. I could go on and list, you know, a myriad of them, but, you know, imagine a lot of the major manufacturer parts and supply brands for H Vac Plumbing, and we have them in stock ready to ship from our distribution center. We also have our own exclusive brands as well, which are unique to our website and our company, which are again, falling in that same H Vac and plumbing supply category that offer contractors are really quality grouping of products at really competitive prices.
- [03:15]
B
Yeah. What has been the biggest surprise of doing like a direct E commerce product? Like, I don't know what's been the.
- [03:24]
A
Biggest shock here would say from an industry perspective, it's always unique and interesting to us to see where our customers are coming from, you know, what parts physically, physically, geographically, where they are and understanding even just some of the differences and the nuances in the products that different regions of the country use. I think from a business perspective, one of the biggest eye openers for us as we, you know, have been growing, you know, with our, with our business from an E commerce perspective is the amount of fraudulent orders that we have to deal with on the site when it comes to things like tools. You know, we're a Milwaukee distributor. You know, it's amazing how much time and effort goes into just kind of managing the orders that come in and making sure things are. It's real legitimate and whatnot. So yeah, a couple of different takes there, but totally.
- [04:13]
B
Yeah, had. I. I don't remember and I should, but we had a guest on. I want to say it was a year ago, maybe two, five years of doing a podcast, you forget, but. And they ran a wholesale insulation business. So like home insulation, like the big, you know, roll. And someone placed like a $20,000 order and it was fraudulent. Like it was just like a fake order.
- [04:40]
A
Yes.
- [04:41]
B
And it ended up bankrupting them. Like it was. It was wild. I had no idea this was this much of a thing.
- [04:47]
A
Yes, it's. It's pretty eye opening.
- [04:49]
B
Yeah.
- [04:49]
A
You know, for us it was definitely a change of pace from what we had, you know, seen in the past. So definitely a difference in, you know, from an E Commerce perspective.
- [04:59]
B
And I'm not trying to give people the guidebook on how to fraud, but like, how do you even flag. How do you find this out?
- [05:06]
A
Our customer service team has gotten very, very good at analyzing the information that's on the back end of our site. So making sure that, you know, if there's multiple attempts to charge a card, you know, that's kind of a flag if somebody's trying to charge the same card different ways. Okay.
- [05:23]
B
Because if somebody stolen credit card or.
- [05:25]
A
Somebody is trying to mess with, you know, the zip code or the security code that's getting put in and, you know, matching the billing address and the shipping address, I mean, that's another really big one too. You know, if. If those two things are different, it's definitely a bit of a red flag.
- [05:39]
B
But it's wild.
- [05:40]
A
Yes, it is wild.
- [05:41]
B
Like, how many times a week is this a thing?
- [05:44]
A
Probably out of all of our orders, I would say maybe 15% of the orders. I would say 10 to 15%.
- [05:51]
B
That is insane.
- [05:52]
A
Yes. It's crazy.
- [05:53]
B
Okay. Yeah, that. That's top of my biggest surprise. That's crazy. That's totally crazy. Okay, so we supply trades. The problem that we're trying to solve is access to parts.
- [06:05]
A
Absolutely. Yeah, that's definitely part of it. Access to parts and supplies for contractors, no matter where they are. And it can be just the. The type of parts and supplies that they need. So we have a lot of the same parts that, you know, a contractor would see at a local supply house or another online supply house. But what really sets us apart and makes us unique is that, you know, we have a lot of history behind us. We have a lot of experience behind us. I feel like we've really cultivated a grouping of. Of products that we know contractors need. Again, not only the branded products, but our exclusive brands as well. So it's really, you know, giving the contractors the opportunity to install quality products and experience some really competitive pricing. So it hopefully is going to offer them some savings. And then, you know, on the branded side of things, we really pride ourselves on the amount of OEM parts and supplies that we have and that we offer. We are constantly adding more SKUs to our website. Within the next couple of weeks, we'll have roughly over 1200 additional SKUs added. A lot of those SKUs that are going to be helpful going into, you know, the fall and winter months with equipment breakdowns. And obviously, you know, contractors right now are probably in the height of furnace clean and checks and, you know, the, the repair and, you know, have that mindset going into the next few months. We would love to be a bookmark for a lot of contractors for either their, you know, their purchasing teams, you know, anybody that, you know, has clicks that, that require, you know, the ability to make purchases. Anybody who has the. The opportunity to purchase for a company, you know, we would love to be that. That bookmark. So if you need a replacement part, you know, you need some parts and supplies, whether it's, you know, stock material or whatnot, we would love to be that resource.
- [07:51]
B
All right, I want to talk about, like, margins, basically, so how. I mean, a lot of what you guys are able to do is with the exclusive brands you're able to like. And it worked for us. Like, we drove. What are the name of the brands?
- [08:07]
A
Stream33 is our plumbing brand. Breeze33 is our H Vac brand. Bright33 is our lighting brand.
- [08:14]
B
Oh, okay. I didn't even know there's a light.
- [08:15]
A
We have a little bit of lighting on our website.
- [08:17]
B
Okay. Yeah. Cool. All right, I'll check that out. But yeah, that's been a really big one. Primarily in H vac, but like, yeah, the whips, the disconnects, the maybe thermostats. But yeah, you guys took over a lot of our, like, you know, we do these kits.
- [08:31]
A
Yes.
- [08:31]
B
For jobs. And I'm sure there's a better version of what I'm about to say, but you guys took over, like, a large portion of the SKUs inside our kits. I want like 60 or something. It was a lot. So how do you, how do you feel like partner or contractors can partner with wholesalers and drive margin like it's 20, 25. Tariffs are crazy. How can we win?
- [08:55]
A
Absolutely. So I think it's about taking a look at what you're using day to day and just understanding what the other options are that are out there. I think a lot of people, probably in the contractor side of things, you know, you get accustomed to using a specific brand. Right.
- [09:09]
B
You get locked in.
- [09:10]
A
Yeah.
- [09:11]
B
Oh, I use X.
- [09:12]
A
Right. You get, you know, locked in. You develop that sense of loyalty because of. It's just what we've. Just what we do. Right. And so many other things that we. We always say, well, that's just how we do it.
- [09:22]
B
Yeah.
- [09:23]
A
You just have to stop and take a step back and say, well, maybe we should think about what, what else, what other opportunities there are out there instead of just saying, well, this is just how we've always done it. Because I think it's very eye opening when a contractor. It is take a look at the other products, really see, touch, feel them and compare them and see that, you know, not only do they potentially look the same or look very, very similar, but when you, you know, get down to the, the dollars and cents, so to speak, you can see some, you can realize some big savings opportunities. You know, on the H vac side you mentioned some of those products.
- [09:59]
B
Oh, it was crazy. I mean it was like 50, 60%. It was wild. And we're like, why are we, why are we paying for this?
- [10:05]
A
Yeah. And you're going to have, you know, essentially this, the same quality, the same type of warranty, if not even a better potential, potentially a better warranty than what you're getting depending on the product line. Right?
- [10:16]
B
Yeah. Can you give an example?
- [10:17]
A
Yeah. Like let's use PEX as an example.
- [10:20]
B
Yeah.
- [10:20]
A
So our own 33 stream, 33 branded PEX. Whether it's PEX A or PEX B, you know, we're going to warranty our fittings the same no matter whose pipe you install it on and vice versa. Our pipe is going to be warrantied the same regardless of what fittings you use with it. Whereas there's some other, you know, branded manufacturers out there that say you have to use my fittings with our PEX pipe if you want this warranty. So you know, there's, there's definitely some opportunities there to realize savings with some great, great quality products on items that know your contractors are using. A lot of trade professionals are using a high volume of these products. On the plumbing side, it's like pecs.
- [10:59]
B
Or like, or just consumer stuff.
- [11:02]
A
Well, consumable, sure. But you know, PEX pipe. PEX fittings.
- [11:05]
B
Yeah.
- [11:06]
A
Supply lines, stops.
- [11:08]
B
Yeah.
- [11:10]
A
You know, closet flanges, anything like rough plumbing. Anybody that, any contractor that's doing rough plumbing work, you know, we offer just about anything needed in a 33 brand. In our stream 33, same thing with, you know, on the H vac side, you know, anything from condensate pumps to like you said, registers and grills and whips and disconnects.
- [11:31]
B
Are you guys doing consumables too?
- [11:34]
A
Not so much. In the 33 brands we have some. We do have some.
- [11:37]
B
Yeah. We bought this business like four or five years ago and like good sized business. So the savings were real. But when we bought them, I don't even know what we were buying like Sawzall blades is the example here. But they were, we were buying whatever the. Maybe it's Milwaukee. I don't even know like what the normal Sawzall sure blade is, but it's like two to three dollars a blade. It's like kind of a lot. And so we buy this company and they're buying Blades totally differently than us. And they're buying blades for like a penny a blade. Like I'm bulk through ebay or some ridiculous. I don't even know what it was. And it was eye opening because they had saved $100,000 in one year.
- [12:22]
A
It adds up.
- [12:23]
B
Sawzall blades, which like blew my mind.
- [12:26]
A
It absolutely adds up. You know and we do, you know, in addition to offering discounted pricing for members, for pro members. So we do have a pro membership. On supply trades. You can basically takes free shipping 30 seconds to fill out the form to become a pro. It's your company name, your name, contact information. That's literally all you have to fill out to become a pro member. And it gives you about a 10 to 15 discount off the day to day pricing on, on our website it gives you free shipping after 99. Normally our shipping is 14.95 flat rate but anything after 99 as a pro member is free. Yeah. So it gives you day to day better pricing. We also offer bulk pricing discounts too. So there's some of that that you can already see on the site. But again, going back to kind of what sets us apart, our customer support team that's taking those inquiries that come in, they literally do cartwheels and jump up and down and like yell when somebody inquires about hey, what if I ordered 15 or 20 or 50 of these? Yeah, what can you do? So we pride ourselves on, you know, really being able to, you know, differentiate ourselves in that you have an opportunity you want to offer to us as far as giving, you know, allowing us to give you a quote on a bulk purchase of something. We jump at the chance to do that.
- [13:43]
B
Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. Are most people ordering like onesie twosies or people using this as like an inventory replacement?
- [13:49]
A
A little bit of both. A little bit of both. You know, as we've grown, definitely onesie twosie was probably more what we, what we saw, you know, but we're starting to see a lot more repeat customers. Yeah, more of that, you know, stocking up type. Type situation. Especially as we get into that facility management part of the industry. You know, having again like those garbage disposals on hand or those, you know, faucets on hand, you know, Chrome, Chrome kitchen faucets or, or condensate pumps is another one. You know, a lot of contractors.
- [14:20]
B
Yes.
- [14:21]
A
You know.
- [14:21]
B
Yeah, I'm pretty sure we switched our. Yeah, that was another one. It's just like why are we.
- [14:25]
A
You just keep pallets of them around, right. Because you know, you're going to go through X amount of weeks. So yeah, definitely starting to see more orders like that, you know, more consistency and those types of stock up orders come.
- [14:36]
B
Is that like the dream, like inventory replacement? Basically, yeah. I mean more money, less customers, right?
- [14:41]
A
I mean, yeah. I mean in an ideal state for sure. We love to see those kinds of big orders.
- [14:45]
B
Just give me all the inventories they do.
- [14:47]
A
You know, they're, it's great to see those. We, we get really excited with those. But you know, the other side of it is I think because we've, a lot of us, we've all been in the industry so long, I think we understand the importance of having those OEM parts and supplies and being that like savior for the contractor who's like, hey, I need this replacement part. I can't find it anywhere.
- [15:06]
B
You guys had it.
- [15:07]
A
This homeowner needs this replace. They don't want a total replacement. They don't want a total change out. We just need to fix this. Where can I get this product? I think we might get just as excited about, you know, being somebody's lifeline, so to speak in those situations as we get excited.
- [15:23]
B
Well, you landed a probably a lifetime.
- [15:25]
A
Yeah, right. You're going to be a bookmark. You're going to be a bookmark on their, on their tabs. Right?
- [15:30]
B
They bailed me out that one Saturday. Yeah, 100%.
- [15:34]
A
Absolutely. That's, that's, you know, really exciting for us.
- [15:36]
B
Yeah. Yeah, that's cool. You are great at fixing broken, so why not fix your lead flow? Modernized gives contractors predictable high intent leads without a big marketing gamble. Break out of the feast and famine cycle and expand into new markets with a steady stream of homeowners ready to start jobs. Now Modernize is trusted by founders like myself because it actually delivers with over $4 billion in homeowner projects started in the last 12 months. Visit the link below to get started. How, how often? Like maybe percentage of purchasing. I'm thinking about the products we use from you guys. It's been a really big win for like gross margin for our primarily H Vac. Like I think we're using the disconnects, I think we're using the whip. I think, I don't really know what else we're using, but that was a big part of like our gross margin success over the last year on a percentage of purchasing. How much are you seeing that? Like are people open to the exclusive brands? Like how do you think about that?
- [16:33]
A
Yes, they're very open to the exclusive brands. So from an H VAC perspective, I would say our registers and grills under our Breeze 33 lineup makes sense. We see a lot of adoption, a lot of, a lot of purchasing in that product category. Yeah, they're very quality, very high quality registers and grills pretty much the same lineup of SKUs that any contractor would be, you know, used to ordering.
- [16:57]
B
Yeah.
- [16:58]
A
Same colors, you know, et cetera, et cetera, but at a very, very competitive price. So we've, we've seen a tremendous amount of success with registers and grills as an example. But anything from whips and disconnects to thermostats to you know, mini split accessories, you name it. Lots of those different types of parts and supplies that are just used on a daily basis that, you know, 99.9% of the time nobody really cares what that brand name is. You're just looking for.
- [17:23]
B
I have no idea what brand my grills are or disconnect. But like I'm sure equipment gets a little bit, you know.
- [17:29]
A
Sure.
- [17:29]
B
How does warranty work or whatever. I, I'm trying to imagine what someone would have more questions about. I would have zero questions about a grill and I would have a few more questions about like a mini split or something.
- [17:42]
A
Yeah, we're not really, we're not shipping any mini splits at the moment. You know, as far as, you know, equipment type products. You know, we have P tax through the walls, you know, room air conditioners, things like that that we can ship that are under our exclusive brands and toilets, faucets. So we don't ship toilets right now just because of the sheer difficulty of shipping china products and having them get damaged, but faucets, absolutely.
- [18:10]
B
I am curious how people ship toilets now because that makes total sense.
- [18:13]
A
Yes. I mean LTL honestly is the best way to ship that. Just putting on my other hat less than truckload. It's not shipping a full semi trailer. But you know there's different contract carriers that ship what they call ltl. So it basically is a palletized shipment which, that's how we ship things like ptacs and through the walls and room airs or just really large orders that are heavy, that aren't UPS able to.
- [18:36]
B
But you always run the small or.
- [18:39]
A
UPS is smaller item.
- [18:41]
B
A faucet is.
- [18:42]
A
Yeah, faucets, you know, a box of fittings, box of PVC fittings, boxes, supply lines, things like that.
- [18:47]
B
That makes sense.
- [18:48]
A
But heavier materials, things that really aren't. UPS will have to ship ltl which is basically a palletized order that shrink wrapped and, and whatnot. Yeah, but you really don't have a whole lot of control once it leaves your facility. You know, it can get cross docked early who knows how many times. And, you know, you kind of fingers crossed, hope that, you know, a toilet shows up and it's not, you know, a powder, A pile of powder.
- [19:12]
B
We, we. You know, my anecdote for this is, I think 10 years ago or 12 years ago, I still have the sink. It was like a $5,000 sink. And it came. I don't know who shipped it, you know, whatever, but we accepted it. We didn't open the box immediately.
- [19:29]
A
Yeah.
- [19:29]
B
A big show.
- [19:31]
A
I can imagine.
- [19:32]
B
You can imagine. And, yeah, for some, I don't know why we still have it, but, like, it's still back there. Yeah, yeah. Because, like, the legs, you know, I don't even know. It was a very expensive, like, kitchen sink that had legs and.
- [19:44]
A
Yes. Yeah, We. We love plumbing products. We, you know, want to, at some point be able to have answers for shipping China.
- [19:52]
B
Yeah.
- [19:52]
A
Right now for sinks, it's stainless steel sinks. You know, we can ship those pretty easily because you don't have to worry about those breaking.
- [19:58]
B
Right.
- [19:59]
A
And on the plumbing side, you know, we're growing those SKUs, obviously, you know, day. Day to day, too. But right now, we are really, really strong in the parts and supplies.
- [20:06]
B
Yeah.
- [20:07]
A
Free, rough or service plumbing. We've got a full line of pecs, so pex A and pex B pipe and fittings. Really, really competitive pricing on that. Thousands and thousands of units in stock. So we, you know, love the opportunity to, you know, start relationships with plumbers that are looking for, again, really quality products.
- [20:28]
B
Yeah.
- [20:28]
A
From our exclusive brands, we can offer wonderful stock position, shipping, you know, same day, and, you know, really quality products.
- [20:36]
B
Yeah.
- [20:36]
A
Great price.
- [20:37]
B
Amazing. I would love to dive a little bit into, you know, your industry's been under some consolidation.
- [20:44]
A
Yes, right. Both of ours.
- [20:47]
B
Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of wild. I feel like the. The service contractor thing started in the late teens, and distributors seem to start, like, two years ago.
- [20:57]
A
Yes, roughly, I would say. You know, we've. We've seen consolidation in wholesale distribution for a number of years, but definitely ramped up within the last few.
- [21:05]
B
Yeah, ramped. So as you guys are thinking about this, like, we're coming into the space. We're here to solve problems. We want to partner with contractors. Like, what does a good relationship. Like, what do you guys think you bring? And, like, what's a good partner to you guys?
- [21:17]
A
Sure. So we know our customers. You know, we've been in the distribution business for 90 plus years. Our team, our customer support team, who are the ones that are seeing the orders come in, they're the ones checking those orders like we were talking about earlier in the discussion. They're the ones that are seeing it through from start to finish. Answering questions that come in day to day from either our text to chat or our phone calls or just inquiries for our website. They, they see things through. Like I said, start to finish. They've been with our company for a number of years. They come with experience. I feel that we supply trades is unique to the industry in at least the facet that we're in and that we bring that experience to our day to day interactions. We understand that it's important for contractors to get answers quickly and for us to deliver product quickly and damage free. Yeah, you know, I think as you look at, you know, the industry and seeing how it's, it's consolidated so much, you know, companies become so big that I think a lot of times, you know, the customer, the end user, that contractor. Right. It's kind of the one who takes the hit. You know, they become more of a number than an actual person. You know, I can confidently say that our customer service associates who are handling these orders day to day, you know, they, when they have a conversation with somebody on the phone and they see them place an order, we're sending an email saying, oh my gosh, thank you so much for placing that order. You know, thanks for taking the time on the phone with me today. You know, you're not going to see those kinds of human interactions. Yeah, they're not bot interactions. Yeah, yeah, they're human interactions. We celebrate every order that we receive. We celebrate the relationships that we establish. We're adding products to the site based on the conversations that we have with customers. We're making a changes and adjustments to how we do business based on those kinds of human interactions. So, you know, apart from, you know, the product that we offer and you know, just, I guess the, the fundamentals of, of the business that we have, it's really how we treat our customers. I think, yeah, that, that really sets us apart from, you know, our other.
- [23:28]
B
Competitors in most of our wholesale relationships over the past, over the past two years. And I think it's because of consolidation. A lot of wholesalers are, are trying to figure out how does differentiation look like if, if contract, you know, we don't want to be seen as numbers to you, but you don't want to be seen as numbers to us. Right. So there's a, there's a give and take. So now where everyone basically knows what everything costs. Like, it's not hard to find a price on something and it's also not hard to mass bid, like, very quickly. Like, what do you think makes a good contractor partnership? Like, what are you guys looking for?
- [24:06]
A
I think open communication is probably a big one. You know, trust is the foundation of any relationship, right. Whether it's personal or professional. As a wholesale distributor, as a E commerce distributor, we certainly want to develop that type of trust with our customers and we hope they feel the same from us. So open communication, I think is probably the foundation of that, you know, understanding what the needs are and what the expectations are. So, you know, both sides, you know, we can make sure we're meeting expectations on both sides of things. Our contractors giving us open, honest feedback is, is very much valued.
- [24:43]
B
Can you give me an example? I'm trying to think of, like, hey, it shipped too slow. Like, is that the feedback?
- [24:47]
A
Yes, absolutely. Please tell us, you know, if you need to, if you need us to provide it faster, let us know. If the price looks extremely out of whack, you know, please let us know that if, if we are carrying a SKU that, you know, is slightly different than the one you prefer, you know, let's say it's with stops and you need one without stops. You know, whatever that little, you know, adjustment is that that needs to be made. We want to know that, you know, we want to be able to carry all the products and all this in all the, you know, all the varieties that are needed. We don't want you to have to go to, you know, another supply house down the street because we just didn't carry that specific version. Yeah, yeah, that's really important feedback for us too, for sure.
- [25:27]
B
Like, what is the most complicated part of like bringing we supply trades to market? Like, is it number of SKUs? Is it number of contractors? Like, what is the hard part?
- [25:42]
A
Definitely number of SKUs is a big, is a big part of it. You know, we obviously, when we decided to, you know, launch our E commerce business here with WE supply trades, you have to start somewhere, right? You have to start with a certain grouping of SKUs. And you know, you can't have everything all at once. Or we, we at least acknowledge we can't have everything we want all at once. We have to, you know, grow in phases. So that probably has been the most difficult part, you know, and obviously, you know, as we grow, we're hungry, we're hungry to add business we're hungry to grow relationships with customers, and we. We want to be everything for everybody, but, you know, you can't always be everything for everybody. So it's, again, it's getting that honest feedback, understanding what's really important. So as we have this roadmap that we, you know, we. We walk down as we grow, you know, how do we prioritize? You know, what do we do next to try to help be a better partner for our contractor customers? You know, is it offering tax exempt. Is it adding XYZ products to the site? Is it, you know, improving some, you know, shipping options? You know, all those different aspects of, you know, distribution is. Is really kind of the, you know, the framework for how we decide, you know, what we do next and what we put more focus on going forward. Yeah, SKUs is huge, though. You know, the more SKUs we have, the more opportunity we have for somebody to visit the site and say, oh, great, they have what we need.
- [27:02]
B
So lead gen is probably like two different. Like, one, how do people hear about us?
- [27:06]
A
Yes.
- [27:07]
B
In the first place.
- [27:07]
A
Yes.
- [27:08]
B
Then two, I'm gonna look up this obscure faucet repair thing, and you guys will have it.
- [27:16]
A
Correct.
- [27:17]
B
Okay.
- [27:17]
A
Yeah, we are, you know, trying a lot of different things right now.
- [27:21]
B
Sure.
- [27:21]
A
As far as how to, you know, get. Get more customers. I mean, I think everybody that's in business is asking themselves how to get more customers. Right. So, of course, you know, partnerships such as this, you know, industry organizations, podcasts, you know, influencers, industry organizations, trade shows.
- [27:42]
B
Yeah.
- [27:43]
A
But then, you know, we're also going down the route of, you know, you know, buying lists, you know, trying to call contractors in a. Lots. Lots of different areas of the country. Yeah, we focus primarily on some areas that, you know, we think there's, you know, the most opportunity outside of, you know, major metropolitan areas, areas that we know we can. We can.
- [28:02]
B
It's a food drought but for.
- [28:04]
A
But for parts, Right?
- [28:06]
B
I have a parts drought.
- [28:07]
A
Absolutely.
- [28:08]
B
Yeah. I'm. I'm always amazed. Like, I'm super spoiled. Where we. We were founded in Akron, and we ran out of that location for like, 63 years or something. And then we've been here for three. And it has, you know, I'm 10 minutes from a supply anywhere I look, I'm 10 minutes from a supply house, like, my whole life. So it's always wild to talk to people and they're like, oh, yeah, we have to. We have to carry X amount of inventory because our close supply house is an hour.
- [28:38]
A
Right.
- [28:39]
B
And I can't even imagine. I mean. Well, I guess I can, it would be like certainly easier with like a we supply trades, but that's complicated.
- [28:50]
A
Yeah. And it's, it's, it's crazy too when you think about even just, you know, geography of big cities. So you know, we're talking about areas where, you know, it's a hike to get to a local supply house. But then there's also the contractors that are in let's say a suburb of Atlanta.
- [29:04]
B
Oh yeah.
- [29:04]
A
And it, it might be, it's a 10 mile drive, but it could take them like two and a half hours.
- [29:10]
B
Yeah. You know, Chicago has to be the same. LA has to be the same.
- [29:13]
A
Atlanta, Chicago, even Nashville's, you know, crazy with, with traffic. DC Metro.
- [29:18]
B
Yeah.
- [29:18]
A
New York Metro. So for sure we see a lot of, you know, interesting trends when we look at that. Yeah, we're targeting a lot of different facets of the industry from the trade professional side. You know, facility management's another aspect too, you know, for us to take a look at, you know, people that are managing properties.
- [29:40]
B
Yeah.
- [29:41]
A
You know, doing a change outs and things like that. Apartment buildings and facilities, hospitality.
- [29:47]
B
What does that look like? Like they need inventory on hand for that.
- [29:50]
A
You know, they need to replace a faucet, they need to replace a garbage disposal. Right. You know, you've got somebody who complained their garbage dispos broken in unit 3B. Right. I have to go change Mrs. Jones's garbage disposal out. Do you have them on hand? You know, do you buy them a pallet at a time? Do you just run to the local supply house and get them? You know, take a look at we supply trades. We've got great, great products. Again, our exclusive brands. The lineup we have in our exclusive brands matches up really nicely with a lot of those same types of products that are used day to day and those kinds of services.
- [30:22]
B
I've never thought about that. That makes total sense. All right, so for these role guys, like what we're aiming to do is hey, we can basically keep your inventory burden low. Like I was talking to someone, I think they're 45 minutes south of us or an hour south of us or something. So like not that crazy. But they're also 45 minutes or an hour away from any supply house and they had to keep four or five times our inventory, which is insane to me.
- [30:46]
A
That's a lot of overhead.
- [30:48]
B
Oh yeah, yeah. So, so the whole idea here is like you're going to be able to ship fast and like cover that essentially 100%.
- [30:55]
A
We ship same day. If we get the order by about 3:00pm, 3:00pm or so Eastern time, we'll ship it same day. UPS in Ohio, for example, you know, it's basically one day shipping. We have a map on our website that shows the typical UPS shipping chart of the United States. So anybody that has questions on how long UPS ground would take from us, they can take a look at our website and see that map. The majority of the Midwest to the east coast pretty much down to almost like that Carolina, Georgia line, it's like one to two days ground shipping. Anything farther south is probably two to three as you get farther Midwest, out west, even down into Texas and it gets to be, you know, three to four depending on how far it's going. But we do offer faster shipping options too.
- [31:40]
B
Yep.
- [31:40]
A
So we can do expedited shipping if, if that's something that's required. But yeah, ship same day. And you know, in the Ohio area it's really, really quick.
- [31:49]
B
Are you still missing calls after hours and losing leads while your team sleeps? Well, that's why we work with Avoca. AI owned and operated exclusive call center partner. They answer 24, 7, sound like a real human and plug straight into your CRM to book jobs, send quotes and even revive old leads. There are plenty of AI call centers out there, but we trust Avoca because we've seen the results firsthand. More books, jobs, less wasted spend and no more missed revenue. See in action at the link below and start winning more jobs today with Avoca. What's your one piece of advice for contractors looking to take more control of.
- [32:21]
A
Their supply chain Would say diversify, you know, take a look at, at us of course, I mean that's of course why, why I'm here.
- [32:29]
B
And once you land on us today, don't diversify any.
- [32:32]
A
Yeah, right, right. Obviously seeing what's going on in the industry and understanding where there's opportunities to maybe change out some of those products and, and realize some savings like we talked about with our exclusive brands. That'd probably be one of my big takeaways or one of my big suggestions would be to start giving some opportunities to switch to those types of exclusive brands that again are going to give you a very quality product at a more competitive price point, you know, allowing you to, you know, obviously be more competitive, you know, overall and hopefully see some savings.
- [33:06]
B
Yeah, the exclusive brand thing was really eye opening for us. We, I want to say we were always just the like whatever the, the main brand was.
- [33:17]
A
Sure.
- [33:17]
B
On equipment and parts we got, I'm Sure. State's not going to like me saying this, but State's an off brand, so. But, but yeah, we started using State as a water heater and that was our first, like, okay, this might actually work more. And that was only like two or three years ago. And then from then on we've really started to go full hog. And it has been astonishing.
- [33:44]
A
Yes.
- [33:44]
B
Like, yeah, genuinely astonishing. So, yeah, I, I totally agree. Like, looking for what's out there. And like, my quick take for the. I guess the contractor out there is we. What I see and just what I've experienced personally is there. You know, you Talked about the SKUs being the main game. Contractors have no idea what their SKUs are. Like, how would they. Right, right. We're just getting a handle on it and we're like in the top 4% of our industry. So I don't, you know, it's just too much. Yeah, like, we buy like a hundred thousand SKUs a year. Like, that's insane. So how are you supposed to keep track of that? So something that we did a few years ago that I found really helpful, which I'm sure, like, this is how you thought about initial SKUs. But we just got, hey, here's our 500 most purchased items. And then over the years we've just been going through that list of like, okay, what, what's our alternative for this line of products? What's our alternative for like black malleable?
- [34:45]
A
Right.
- [34:45]
B
Or like, does it have to be whatever the prominent brand is or can it be something different and just like going through it by line or by like series of product? And yeah, we found that pretty helpful. But yeah, I think it is funny, like, people have no idea. Like, we barely have any idea. And I'd say we're like more sophisticated than most.
- [35:03]
A
No, you're spot on. We see it with contractors all over the country. Yeah, yeah, it's. It's a tremendous amount of SKUs. Obviously.
- [35:10]
B
Too much. I mean, you talk to another industry and it's like, yeah, we have like 10 SKUs and I'm like, oh my God, I have like 3,000 per trade.
- [35:17]
A
Right. Especially on the service side, you know, it's. It's a whole different world than, you know, the new construction kind of cookie cutter templates. Yeah, you know, exactly.
- [35:25]
B
That's going. That's locked in. You probably have like 400 total SKUs for everything.
- [35:30]
A
They're literally templates. Right. You know exactly what's going to go into those houses, maybe give or take some elbows or teaser things on the plumbing side. And the same for H Vac, Right. When you're running ductwork. But everything else, you're pretty much able to quantify that not in the service business. So that's where, you know, again, those. Those skus come in for us. Because at the end of the day, that one skew you need that you can't find somewhere else.
- [35:51]
B
Totally.
- [35:52]
A
We want to. We want to be your source for that. Yeah, we want to own that.
- [35:55]
B
That's amazing. Okay, so if people want to get a hold of you guys, how can they do it?
- [36:00]
A
We supply trades. Dot com.
- [36:02]
B
That is a killer URL.
- [36:04]
A
We love it. It's like, very biased, but we love it.
- [36:07]
B
Yeah, it's very direct. It's awesome. And then who's like, target customer? Sounds like property managers, plumbing contractors, H Vac contractors. Any geographic, any size. That's like perfect.
- [36:17]
A
H Vac contractors, plumbing contractors, facility maintenance associates. Light. Like I said, light. Light. Electrical. We have very, you know, a little bit of electrical, some lighting. Tradespeople in general, general contractors, you name it. Anybody who touches tools, Anybody who has anything to do with the trades. We likely have products on our site that will cater to them.
- [36:39]
B
Amazing.
- [36:40]
A
Geographically, anywhere and everywhere. Except for California. We aren't shipping to California at this moment, but we ship to every other state of the.
- [36:48]
B
Will you eventually or just, like, not?
- [36:49]
A
We will eventually.
- [36:50]
B
Okay.
- [36:50]
A
We will eventually. We're just not there yet.
- [36:52]
B
Okay. Yeah, cool. Like Alaska, Hawaii.
- [36:55]
A
Yes.
- [36:55]
B
We've actually taken some so literally everywhere but California. Okay. Yeah. All right, sweet.
- [37:00]
A
Yeah, we are, you know, we. We will be in California. It's just going to take us a little bit of time to get there, but it's on the roadmap.
- [37:06]
B
Awesome. Well, thanks so much for coming on today. This was a ton of fun to get to dive into. We supply trades.
- [37:10]
A
Oh, thank you so much for the opportunity. I really appreciate. Appreciated it. And we look forward to hopefully meeting some customers here soon.
- [37:16]
B
Awesome. Heck, yeah.
- [37:17]
A
Thank you so much.