In today’s competitive world of servicing residential and commercial contractors, we constantly stress the importance of being efficient, responsive, and invaluable. But can you take it “too far?”

Back when I was SVP of sales for a large regional independent dealer, we had 45 residential and 3 commercial outside salespeople. Our sales management team worked tirelessly with them on one key goal: make our company so essential to our customers’ businesses that they wouldn’t dream of going anywhere else. We believed that if we consistently delivered exceptional value—far beyond just price—our customers would view us as true partners. 

We hammered on the fundamentals, such as… Always be accessible, respond promptly, have strong product knowledge, help customers stay on schedule, be honest, address issues quickly, offer solutions, keep them updated on pricing and market trends, provide accurate take-offs, and communicate lead times on special orders—the list goes on.

Of course, with a sales team that size, not everyone embraced the philosophy equally. But the majority did—and it paid off with strong sales and loyal customers.

One rep in particular, Theo, fully embraced the “be invaluable” mindset. In fact, you could say he embraced it “too much”… And one day, it backfired.

Theo was a very good salesperson. His customers liked him, his business was clean, and he was low on our internal “PITA factor.” But one late afternoon while Theo was off, I got a call from Henry, owner of Titan Homes, which was one of our largest customers and Theo’s biggest account.

“Hey, Henry—how’s it going?” I answered, seeing the caller ID.

“Sorry to bother you, but Theo’s off today, and I’ve got a simple question… What the heck is wrong with Theo?!?!”

That caught me a bit off guard, but since Henry and I were on friendly terms, I replied with a chuckle, “A lot of things are wrong with Theo—you’ll have to be more specific.”

Henry explained, “This morning my guys showed up at Lot 37 in Meadow Oaks to frame out a new basement rec room the homeowners added last minute. They were going to use leftover framing material from the house. But when they got there…nothing. They thought it was stolen—until the electrician said, one of your trucks came by yesterday and picked everything up.”

I replied, “Well, someone must’ve authorized it. We do try to be efficient about picking up extra material.”

Clearly frustrated, Henry said, “Nobody called me. Nobody called my foreman. Nobody called my office. Theo just decided to take it all away! What was he thinking?!”

I honestly had no idea.

I quickly got a list of what they needed and promised to have it back on-site first thing in the morning. I alerted our ops team to prep the load. They asked if we should make an emergency run that evening. I told them, “No, I have someone in mind.”

That evening, I emailed Theo, outlining what happened, and told him to be in the yard by 6:30 a.m. to personally pick up the load and deliver it to Titan Homes by 7:00. I also texted him, “Check your email before bed.”

The next morning, a slightly grumpy Theo did exactly that. He also apologized to Henry.

Later, Theo explained his thinking: “I figured I was helping them out by cleaning up the site. I was trying to be invaluable.” His intentions were good, but he missed one critical step…communication.

All Theo had to do was ask, “Hey Henry, do you want us to pick up this extra material?” That one call would’ve prevented the whole mess.

I complimented Theo for embracing the spirit of being invaluable. But I reminded him: communication is the root of every strong customer relationship.

Mike McDole has 40+ years’ experience in the LBM industry, including being SVP of a large regional dealer. He started Firing Line LBM Advisors in 2021. Mike helps dealers of all sizes with sales strategies, management strategies, salespeople, gross margin improvement, profit improvement, and more. He can be reached at 774-372-1367 or Mike@FiringLineLBM.com.