Joel Seibert and Mountain View Building Materials

Michael McLarney, Hardlines President and podcast host, interviews Joel Siebert, the Owner of Mountain View Building Materials on building team members individually.

 

Key Takeaways:

 

[:31] Michael introduces Joel Siebert and the topic of the episode.

 

[:47] Mountain View Building Materials has been in business for 17 years, headquartered in Calgary with a second store in Kelowna. The Calgary store sells everything to do with the outside of the home, The Kelowna store is smaller and sells outdoor living products.

 

[1:48] Kelowna is around seven hours from Calgary and a lot of people from Calgary have summer homes on the lakes there. For a few years, Calgary customers were having Mountain View ship items from Calgary that they couldn’t find in Kelowna. So Mountain View opened a store in Kelowna.

 

[3:03] At the Western Retail Lumber Association show in Winnipeg early this year, Joel hosted a seminar on motivating your sales force to be passionate about selling. Joel praises his brother Brad and Sheia Carr for their expertise. Joel hires salespeople with a solid history of customer service. Joel relates why food service workers make such good sales candidates.

 

[6:41] A salesperson doesn’t need to know everything about building materials to do the job effectively. You’re not selling building materials, you’re selling a project. When you’re meeting with a customer, you know what a deck is. You’re selling a deck. The 2ʺx4ʺs, the framing, and the composite decking are the by-products of your selling this project to the customer.

 

[7:22] Once the salespeople focused on selling projects, and the emotional connection to the projects they were selling, the training on the sales team ramped up because they were able to talk about something they were familiar with quickly, rather than focusing on the details of the materials that go into the project.

 

[7:59] Every team member has different priorities. If you give a blanket reward to the team, you don’t get to show that you care about their priorities and that you’re listening to them and understanding what their concerns are. Managers have regular meetings with the sales team and weekly one-on-ones. Joel does not have an office and interacts with the salespeople often.

 

[9:21] Joel quotes a ski coach he used to work for, “Your kids are never going to care what you know until they know how much you care.” Joel is always going to listen to what everybody has to say and will do his best to help them as much as humanly possible. He doesn’t expect them to put their work ahead of their home life.

 

[11:42] Joel observes that the younger generations heavily value lifestyle over work. When they value lifestyle over work, their progression at work doesn’t happen as fast as their lifestyle expectations. Sometimes Joel will reward them with extra holidays or personal time off. If you have the right people, they are willing to push while they are at work.

 

[14:02] Joel sees that with the older generations, time off is what they like as they ease into retirement. Joel has had success with pairing up the older and younger generations. The older generation has industry knowledge and life experience. The managers put the senior employees in a sales leadership role. It builds morale and validates their careers.

 

[16:05] Joel tells how he helps team members make a career in building materials. The industry was built on family businesses but families are getting smaller. When Joel sees someone is committed to a career path with Mountain View, he wants to build rungs for them so they know they’re progressing. And as they progress, others need to take their places on the rungs below.

 

[16:55] Joel has attended Hardlines conferences and WRLA, where succession planning has been discussed. Most of the conversation has been about what happens when the owners want to leave the business. Mountain View’s succession planning is about maintaining the business and filling spots when team members move up to be management and executives.

 

[18:15] Joel values transparency about money with the sales team. It’s their job to create paychecks for everybody within the organization. Every other department spends cash. Accountability is key. If salespeople don’t perform, everybody feels it. Joel shows the sales team how the dollars are being spent and where they have to be to break even and do better.

 

[20:25] Transparency leads to a higher level of trust. The ownership and management are building a plan so that the sales team can achieve the success they want. It’s accountability and extreme ownership across the board. The company is only as good as each team member is going to allow it to be. They want everybody to be the best that they can be.

 

[21:55] A monthly pizza party just doesn’t cut it anymore. Pizza is appreciated but there is more the managers can do that doesn’t have to cost a lot but that shows their team they are listening and they care about what’s going on in their lives. It’s not a one-way street.

 

[23:05] Make everybody feel unique and validated! That’s what everybody wants.

 

[23:12] Michael thanks Joel for sharing his insights today on how to work with a team and treat them as people and not just as a collective team.

 

About Us:

What’s in Store is a podcast series of the Hardlines Information Network, brought to you by RDTS: Innovative strategies to maximize your ROI.

Resources:

Hardlines.ca

Michael McLarney

Sponsor: Jeld-Wen

Joel Siebert

Mountain View Building Materials

Sheila Carr

Brad Pettafor

WRLA Building & Hardware Showcase

Hardlines Conference

 

Quotes:

“One of the things that we hone in on with our sales team and our training to build confidence is … ‘You’re not selling building materials, you’re selling a project. … So when you’re meeting with your customer and you’re servicing them, you know what a deck is, so you’re selling them this deck.’” — Joel

 

“The training on the sales team ramped up because they were able to talk to something that they were familiar with really quickly, rather than having to focus in on all of the technical details of what goes into the project.” — Joel

 

“I don’t have an office anymore. … so I can have more of an interaction with [the sales team]. … As much as everybody appreciates staff parties, it’s our job as managers to understand what’s going on in our people’s lives and reward and incentivize accordingly.” — Joel

 

“Make everybody feel unique and validated! That’s what everybody wants.” — Joel