Bob Janet: Play by the Profit Club Rules

It's a numbers game...

Play by the Profit Club Rules and you will Win

It is impossible to sell anyone anything unless they know you sell what they need to solve their problems, needs and wants. So all you have to do is get your business, yourself in front of the prospect. The more they see and hear about you the faster you will make the sale.

Profit Club Rule # 1

Be more aggressive than your competition and differentiate yourself and your business from the competition. Your competition is contacting your prospects too. You must out-market them. Contact the prospect more often, in different ways with more value. You must be noticed and remembered.

Profit Club Rule # 2

You can contact prospects as often as you like as long as you are delivering value that will improve their lives / business. So you cannot just constantly ask them for the sale.

Profit Club Rule # 3

Third party recommendations. Everyone likes to buy where others have been successful buying. Ask your satisfied customers to recommend you to the prospects.

Profit Club Rule # 4

When contacting a prospect always make sure you show them what is in it for them to do business with you.

Profit Club Rule # 5

Market to your Perfect Prospects until they BUY OR UNTIL THEY DIE.Your Perfect Prospect is the customer you can make the most amount of money from with the least amount of cost (time and money cost).

Join Bob Janet's Profit Club

Bob Janet will be speaking at the CSA Summer Management Conference in July. Click here for more information about the Summer Management Conference.

Marvin's announces plans for new Georgia-based store

Marvin’s Building Materials and Home Centers announced plans to open a new store in Summerville, Ga. The store will soon be under construction at a vacant former Wal-Mart site and is expected to open in late July, the company said.

The store will feature a 37,000-sq.-ft. home center with an attached lawn and garden center and drive-through lumberyard. It will offer a complete line of building materials, electrical, plumbing, paint, millwork, hardware, tools, and lawn and garden products. Read more.

Georgia HB 482 Inventory Tax Relief

Gov. Sonny Perdue signed HB 482 into law this week, which gives hope for inventory tax relief in Georgia. Removal of this tax has been one of CSA’s top legislative priorities. The bill calls for a statewide referendum to vote the tax up or down. Unfortunately, the vote only pertains to the state’s portion of the inventory tax, which is 10-15% of the total inventory tax, depending on the county. The lion’s share of this tax is levied by counties.

If the referendum is successful, then our next priority will be to eliminate the county portion of this tax.

From NLBMDA Legislative Affairs Federal

NLBMDA Participates in Congressional Health Care Roundtable

With health care reform the next priority on the new Administration's "to do" list, debate is heating up on Capitol Hill. Half a dozen hearings have been held in the committees of jurisdiction over various aspects of the plan, and NLBMDA Director of Government Affairs Colleen Levine participated in a House Small Business Committee Democratic Roundtable on health care reform last week. Levine and other participants, including representatives from the National Retail Federation, National Association of Realtors, National Roofing Contractors Association and other industry and medical organizations, urged support for market-based reforms that increase competition and lower costs without imposing costly mandates on already struggling business owners. Read more.

Federal Budget Outline Passes Congress without Estate Tax Relief

The final House-Senate compromise on the FY2010 budget resolution passed last week on a largely party-line vote. Unfortunately, the Lincoln-Kyl estate tax relief included in the Senate-passed version was stripped from the final bill. Read more.

Specter Switch Encourages Card Check Supporters

While Sen. Arlen Specter's dramatic move to the Democratic party was coupled with a pledge to continue to oppose the Employee Free Choice Act, the switch gave new life to compromise efforts as labor continues to press for the 60 votes they need in the Senate. Read more.

Mortgage Cramdown Bill Defeated

A scaled-down mortgage "cramdown" amendment by Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL) to a housing finance bill, which would have allowed bankruptcy judges to modify certain mortgages on primary residences issued prior to Jan. 1, 2009, failed in the Senate last week by a vote of 45 to 51. Read more.

NLBMDA ALERT: FTC Grants Three-Month Delay in Enforcement of Red Flags Rule

From NLBMDA

The Federal Trade Commission has announced another delay in its enforcement of the "Red Flags" Rule, which requires creditors to have Identity Theft Prevention Programs. The FTC is now delaying enforcement of the new rule until August 1, 2009, to give creditors additional time in which to develop and implement written identity theft prevention programs. The original deadline was November 1, 2008.

On November 9, 2007, the FTC published the final Identity Theft Red Flags regulations and guidelines. The rule, promulgated pursuant to the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act of 2003 (FACTA), requires creditors to develop and implement written "identity theft prevention programs." The programs must provide for the identification, detection, and response to patterns, practices, or specific activities - known as "red flags" - that could indicate identity theft.

The FTC apparently agrees with NLBMDA and several other trade groups that voiced concerns with the FTC regarding ambiguities in the new rule and the lack of specific guidance from the FTC for businesses that may extend types of credit to its business customers.

"Given the ongoing debate about whether Congress wrote this provision too broadly, delaying enforcement of the Red Flags Rule will allow industries and associations to share guidance with their members, provide low-risk entities an opportunity to use the template in developing their programs, and give Congress time to consider the issue further," FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz said.

NLBMDA has prepared a sample Red Flags Compliance Program for LBM dealers, which can be downloaded here. Additional information on the rule can be found on the NLBMDA website, www.dealer.org, in the "Government Affairs" section. See the full text of the FTC release announcing the delay in enforcement at: http://www2.ftc.gov/opa/2009/04/redflagsrule.shtm. They have also now established a compliance site for businesses at http://www.ftc.gov/redflagsrule.

LBM's Best-Kept Secret

CSA’s mission is to build strong independent dealers. Probably the best way we do that is through our dealer roundtables. We have about 50 dealers participating now, and all of them can attest to how their business has benefitted. We have several seats open in our roundtables and are actively seeking more participants. Following is an article written by Chris Rader, an industry consultant and good friend of CSA. In the article, Chris explains why joining a roundtable is a good idea. If you want more information on CSA’s roundtables, contact lisagolden@gocsa.com

Investing a bit of money and time in a roundtable will give you one of the best returns you can make in today's market.

Source: PROSALES Information ServicePublication date: March 24, 2009
By Chris Rader

In the past, I've looked in-depth at such issues as reducing expenses or boosting profitability, but I haven't looked at investments. In particular, how should we invest our money and time?

One of the best investments for a dealer in today's uncertain economy is to build relationships with other dealers that are fighting the fight. I feel that the best investment for a dealer today is to join an industry roundtable; the best-kept secret in the industry.

On a recent consulting trip, I spent time with "Bob," an LBM dealer. Bob was not a large dealer by any means; his sales totaled just over $4 million annually. But he ran his operation like a powerhouse dealer doing well over $100 million.

I could not believe how well Bob did all parts of his business; sales, accounting, and operations. He was efficiently measuring deliveries, and knew what it cost him to make a delivery. His showroom was crisp (Are your showrooms crisp?) and he had a very knowledgable, highly motivated talented staff. I reviewed his financials for holes and opportunities and found ratios and ROI that would be the envy of many larger dealers. In this economic climate, Bob was putting dollars on the bottom line beyond 10%.

What did Bob know that others in industry do not know? So I asked him. Read the rest.

Position Available: Crack Heads and Felons Please Apply

Jim Moody
CSA President

One of the many enjoyable aspects of my job is serving as the head of our self-insured worker’s compensation fund. But this week, my enthusiasm has been sapped by a settlement mediation for a claim that should never have happened.

Back when things were blowing and going, one of our member companies hired a fellow without really putting too much thought into it. No interview with senior leadership. No background check. Just needed a warm body to do manual labor, and that’s exactly what they got.

Unfortunately, the new employee had some baggage. He was a three-time convicted felon. He had been a crack user for four years. He had two previous back injuries resulting in worker’s comp settlements. He failed two grades in school and never went beyond 9th grade. By his own admission, he was illiterate. Not long after he was hired (surprise, surprise), he injured his back.

The amount we’ve paid for that claim is significant, as is the settlement, but the amount is not the important issue here. What’s important is that this claim was set in stone the moment this fellow was hired. The negligence wasn’t on his part for getting injured; it was on the dealer for hiring him in the first place. How useful could this fellow have been as an employee? Did the owner really get a full day’s work for a full day’s pay? How did he affect morale on the yard? What kind of danger did he pose to other workers or the facility itself?

Admittedly, this is an extreme example (though it is no exaggeration). But I really worry about how this industry is going to hire people when the good times return. Many of you (perhaps all of you!) have spent the past year or so paring down your payroll. It’s my impression that you used the opportunity to jettison those who were slackers, unsafe workers, and generally poor employees. You’ve also lost many good folks, but the bad ones are long gone. We might say most of you have a clean slate.

I’ve had some people tell me that there are masses waiting in the wings to come back into the building supply business. I wonder if that’s really the case. The longer we go without a housing recovery (and let’s be honest, while the economy is probably going to start recovering in 2009, we aren’t going to see appreciable increases in new home starts until 2010), the more our best experienced workers get assimilated into other sectors of the economy. I fear that all the good ones have jobs and only the bad ones are ready to come back when you have jobs for them.

As a leader in your business, now is the time to think about how you will hire when new positions are available again. Just as important as the hiring is the orientation, where you have the opportunity to educate the employee about his job and the industry, give him his first taste of corporate culture, and indoctrinate him on safety.

Most of us spend far too little time thinking about these things because we are too busy. Yet, few things are more important in setting us up for success or failure.

I recently attended a seminar with Jim Collins, author of “Good to Great” and “Built to Last.” I’ve written about him before and urge you to read his books. Next week, I’ll discuss some of the things I heard Collins say as it relates to hiring.

News You Can Use

Consumer Confidence Index Surges in April
The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index™, which had posted a slight increase in March, improved considerably in April. The Index now stands at 39.2, up from 26.9 in March. The Present Situation Index increased to 23.7 from 21.9 last month. The Expectations Index rose to 49.5 from 30.2 in March.


New Single Family Home Sales Edge Down in March, But So Do Inventories
Sales of new one-family houses in March 2009 were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 356,000, according to estimates released last Friday by the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. This is 0.6 percent below the revised February rate of 358,000 and is 30.6 percent below the March 2008 estimate of 513,000.


2009 Annual Rankings of Housing's Giants Now Available
Professional Builder has released its annual list of the largest homebuilders. This year's list contains the top 350 companies.

Check it out now at housingzone.com


Activant Announces Next Generation LBM Business Management Solution
Activant Solutions Inc., a leading provider of lumber and building materials business management solutions, has introduced Activant Catalyst™ technologies, business management solutions that provide larger Lumber and Building Materials (LBM) dealers quick and easy access to the tools and information they need to effectively run their businesses. These new solutions combine Activant's functionally rich LBM business applications with Microsoft's easy-to-use .NET framework. The Activant Catalyst solution offers LBM dealers an intuitive user interface and advanced workflow in a tightly integrated package.


Is It Time to Load Up on Homebuilder Stocks?
Kiplinger's Personal Finance Magazine recently ran an article that discusses whether the timing (and pricing) is right to buy homebuilder stocks. The story urges caution, but lists the builders with the brightest prospects.
Read the story here

OSHA To Write New Rules on Combustible Dust

Action follows recent deadly explosions; facilities working with wood likely to be affected

Source: PROSALES Information ServicePublication date: April 30, 2009
By Craig Webb

The Labor Department's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) announced today it is beginning work on new rules affecting companies--including facilities working with wood--that produce large quantities of potentially combustible dust. Read the full article .

Share Your Best Practices on Credit and Collections

CSA is creating an online resource focusing on credit and collections best practices and we need your input.

Please submit samples of your credit and collections best practices including your company's credit philosophy, your procedures for processing credit applications, collections and denial of credit, samples of your credit applications, form letters and other materials you use to provide credit to your customers and to collect the money owed to your company.

All materials will have their identifying information removed before they are added to the resource guide so if you submit materials, your company's name will be removed before it is added to the resources available for download.

Please submit any best practies (procedures, forms, ideas, materials) to the CSA office. You can submit those items electronically to lisagolden@gocsa.com, fax to 770-752-9726 (attn: Lisa Golden) or mail to CSA, 1850 Lake Park Drive, Suite 200, Smyrna, GA 30080.

We hope to hear from you very soon. Your input is very important and it will help us to build the best online credit and collections resource available to the building materials industry.

For more information, please call 678.213.2164.