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After reading my rants of the past months detailing some of my more...uhh...challenging customers, you may be thinking that all of my customers are like that. Ain't so.
So for today's special "they're not all like that" Customer of the Day post, indulge me for a bit while I talk about customers I want more of in the next year.
* We're trained to "sell the whole project"--if you buy shingles, you'll also need nails, felt, ridge ventilation, a case of water (roofing is thirsty work), a ladder, a hammer and so on, and nothing's so irritating as finding out you forgot something important when you're standing on your roof with half of it ripped off. Sometimes "the whole project" is a bit more than you expected. A couple came in to purchase roofing material. "Is there anything else you need?" Yes, they needed the rest of the house--they were building a new one, had gone to four other lumberyards to evaluate them, and we were the first ones to ask them if they needed anything else. By the time they were done, they'd spent well over $100,000. It took us a week to deliver it all.
* I sold a skid of shingles to someone. We always load skids of shingles into people's trucks with a forklift. This customer said he had a "really big truck that won't fit under the portico" so he was going to leave his truck alongside the building. Translation: I need two forklifts. We use a urethane-tired machine to get the shingles down. If we drive that machine on asphalt it tears the tires off, and they're expensive. I dropped the skid on the concrete then told the customer I needed to find a rubber-tired forklift to get the load to his vehicle. "Don't worry about it. I brought my own forklift." He really DID bring his own forklift.
* We have a sign on the door "no food, drinks, smoking or pets." We enforce the smoking ban but ignore the other three--especially the no-pets restriction, as it gets very hot in our parking lot and it's not safe to leave dogs in the car. (Also, a lot of people shop at Home Depot and Petsmart in the same trip, and Petsmart welcomes pets on the premises.) You wouldn't believe some of the animals people bring in. We have customers who bring in snakes. One guy brings his cockatoo. The president of the local Hells Angels chapter bought a sheet of plywood once then came back a few days later to show me what he'd made from it. He wanted a carrier for his motorcycle so he could bring his breeding pair of teacup chihuahuas on motorcycle rides, and since no one makes one, he had to fend for himself.
* Hells Angels are some of my favorite customers. They are extremely knowledgeable about what they want, they don't argue price and they always want the best stuff. The local chapter built a deck on its clubhouse so they could have Sunday afternoon barbecues. (The local chapter of the Hells Angels doesn't have that old "lock up your daughters" attitude, in part because a lot of them have daughters.) "How much load are you expecting?" 400 pounds per square foot down the middle of it. Turns out they had a small deck, someone parked a motorcycle on it and the bike fell through. Instead of repairing the deck that was too small when they bought the house, they tore it off and built a new one...that was strong enough to hold up a Harley. They've done quite a bit of work to this place...apparently the neighbors thought "there goes the neighborhood" when they bought the house, but the parties are civilized, the house is neat, and no one's gonna fuck with someone's house in a neighborhood that houses the president of the Hells Angels. Talk about a neighborhood watch!
* Several of the local contractors have written down all of the stock numbers (SKUs) for the things they buy, and when they walk in to place an order, they'll hand you their Commercial Account Card and a list that contains nothing but SKUs and quantities. Just type them in and set a delivery date.
* Beware of women bearing sugar cookies and clipboards. I see this woman every Monday. She holds a contractor's license, runs a construction company, knows the store as well as any of us, and walks in at 7am with two clipboards and a can of homemade sugar cookies. I meet her there and we start our walk all over the store. (We walk the store because there are things she wants to see before she buys, mainly tile and lighting fixtures.) At noon, when she's got everything she'll need for the week ahead, the can is empty and she's spent at least $35,000. Feeding the help is good.
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