How building materials sales reps can plan a contractor sales call from account data

Plan each contractor call around one sales objective you can name before you arrive. Check what the account has bought, which quotes are open, which jobs are active and what you promised last time. Then choose the commitment you will ask for, prepare the questions that show whether the opportunity is real, and record the answer so the next call starts from it.

This guide is for outside and inside reps at building materials dealers, including lumber yards, multi-category dealers, drywall and insulation dealers and hardware stores with pro accounts. It covers the rep's own preparation for a scheduled customer or prospect conversation. A sales manager planning a coaching visit has a different task, covered in our ride-along guide. Manufacturer reps planning dealer visits work from their own sell-in records and a different buying relationship, so their preparation needs its own method.

Book the call with a reason the buyer accepts

A planned call starts before the visit. Rick Davis, writing in LBM Journal, argues that any unexpected visit, phone call or email to a prospect or customer is a cold call, and that a cold call can only have one purpose: to set up a future meeting. He lists what an accepted appointment tends to bring, including a prepared client, a client who is actually present and "a defined purpose and outcome for the meeting."

Davis also says that most LBM dealers consider unannounced route visits from manufacturer reps a nuisance. That is his view of manufacturer visits to dealers. The same reasoning can apply when a dealer rep stops by a contractor's office with nothing specific to discuss.

Account data gives you a reason worth the buyer's time. "I want to talk about the insulation on your Maple Street job before it goes out to bid" is easier to accept than "I'll be in the area." Put the topic in the calendar invitation so the buyer can bring the right person and the right information.

Build a short account brief

Before the call, collect the facts that bear on a possible order. Keep them to one screen or one page. The goal is to spot a buying opportunity quickly.

A useful brief answers five questions:

• What has the account bought from you, by category? Compare recent months with the same period last year. A drop in one category is worth a question. A category the customer has never bought from you is a possible opportunity.
• Which quotes are open? Note the value, age, last contact and who is deciding. A quote that went out three weeks ago with no recorded response is a different conversation from one the customer asked for yesterday.
• Which jobs are active? Permits matched to the account, addresses on recent orders and projects the customer mentioned last time all count. A job with no matching orders may be work you have not won yet, or work that does not need your products.
• What did you or a colleague promise? James Hardie's planned builder sales call, which the manufacturer publishes to help its customers sell to builders, asks a blunt planning question: "Have you actioned the notes from previous call?" (James Hardie). If you owe the customer a revised price, a sample or an answer from the estimator, deliver it or know its status before you raise anything new.
• Who buys what? Note who chose the supplier for each category and whether that person will be in the meeting.

A preparation checklist from Building Products Digest covers similar ground for joint field visits: which products the account uses, whether it buys other products you carry, how much annual business it generates, the purpose of each call, whether decision makers will attend and who will follow up on opportunities from the visit.

Mark what the records establish and what they cannot. Your purchase history shows what the customer bought from you. It does not show what they bought from someone else, why a category dropped or whether a permit job is still open.

SalesJack's Radar is designed for this kind of account preparation. Reps can ask plain-English questions across connected ERP, quote, permit and CRM data, such as "What has this builder purchased across its jobsites?" or "Show my largest open quotes that have not been followed up." Each rep searches only the customers and data they are authorized to access. The SalesJack CRM keeps logged conversations, assignments and reminders with the account, so last call's promises sit next to this call's plan. Confirm which records your own ERP connection supplies.

Choose one objective that moves toward an order

Most planned calls with an existing customer fit one of four sales objectives:

• Get a decision, or a date for one, on an open quote
• Earn the chance to quote a category the customer is not buying from you on a current job
• Learn the address, timing and buyer of the customer's next job
• Confirm whether a drop in purchases reflects finished work, a lost job or a competitor

James Hardie's guide frames the same choice as a question: "What are your sales objective/s for the call? i.e. new product, new category or project opportunity?"

Write the objective as something the buyer can agree to. "Agree a date to review the revised window quote with the homeowner" is an objective. "Check in on the quote" is not. When you know the commitment you want, you know what to ask and how to tell whether the call worked.

A first call with a prospect usually has a narrower objective. James Olsen, writing in Building Products Digest, says the purpose of a first call is to qualify the account: "Do they buy what we sell, do they buy it the way we sell it and do they buy enough?" A reasonable first-call objective is a specific next step, such as a quote request for one package or a meeting with the person who buys it.

Hold the objective loosely enough to listen. Davis tells the story, also in LBM Journal, of a dealer rep whose question about the buyer's lumber supplier hit a wall. When the rep showed the full line card, the production builder's president said his company was not getting the support it needed from its current window supplier. Leading with lumber nearly ended the conversation. Showing the whole line let the buyer point to the real opportunity.

Prepare the questions that test the opportunity

Write down three or four questions tied to your objective. They should help you learn whether an order is possible, who decides and when.

For an open quote, ask what the customer still needs before deciding, who else reviews the price and when they expect to choose. For a missing category, ask who buys that product on this job and whether the supplier has already been chosen. For a purchase drop, ask about current and upcoming work before assuming a competitor has taken the business.

Prepare one more answer for prospect calls. Olsen calls it the "Why Should I Buy From You?" moment and says buyers rarely ask it directly. It sounds like "I'm happy with my current supplier." His warning to sellers is pointed: "You're smart enough to wing it and your customers are smart enough to know you are winging it!" Decide in advance which facts about your yard, service or product range matter to this kind of buyer.

Two illustrative examples

These examples show how a brief becomes an objective. They are not SalesJack customer results.

A drywall and insulation dealer's rep sees that a commercial interiors contractor buys board steadily but has no recorded insulation or metal framing purchases. A permit matched to the account shows a tenant improvement job in the rep's territory. Permit data is a prospecting signal, not a guarantee of an order, as our drywall and insulation sales page explains. The objective is to learn who is buying insulation for that job and whether the decision is still open. If it is, the rep asks for the drawings and a quote deadline.

A hardware store's outside rep sees that a remodeling contractor's fastener and sundries purchases have fallen for three months. There is also a door hardware quote that is three weeks old with no logged response. The rep makes the quote the call's objective, because the customer can decide on it. The purchase drop becomes a question about current work rather than an accusation.

Ask for the commitment and record it the same day

Near the end of the call, ask for the commitment you planned. If the buyer agrees, confirm what happens next, by when and who is responsible. James Hardie's guide closes its call plan with the same three checks: clarify the tasks, provide a timeframe and clarify who will be responsible for what.

Record the outcome while it is fresh. Note what you learned, what the customer agreed to and the next step with its owner and date. If the call showed there is no opportunity, record that too. An honest "no current work" saves the next rep from repeating the same visit.

Update the quote or opportunity record itself so the next step stays attached to it. If an estimator or product specialist owns the next step, assign it to them with the date the customer expects an answer. In SalesJack, the assignment and reminder stay attached to the account and opportunity, so the dealer sales team can see what was agreed.

After a few weeks, look back at the objectives you set. Count how many calls produced the commitment you planned and which kinds of objectives most often led to quotes and orders. That review shows whether your preparation is pointing you at real opportunities.

If you want to see how connected account data could support this preparation for your team, you can book a demo.

Sources

• Rick Davis, The power of appointments, LBM Journal, August 29, 2023. Expert opinion on cold calls, appointments and unannounced visits.
• Rick Davis, From product peddler to sales concierge Part II, LBM Journal, July 11, 2018. One observed sales call, cited as an example.
• James Olsen, The important first sales call, Building Products Digest, April 2023. Trainer guidance on qualifying prospects, written for lumber sellers.
• Building Products Digest, Prep for a successful field visit, August 2021. Checklist written for manufacturer and distributor joint visits, applied here only to call preparation.
• James Hardie Australia, Hardie Builder Planned Sales Call. A manufacturer's planned builder call, published to support builder sales teams; its product claims are not used here.