Grit Blueprint Podcast: Ryan Dempsey on the jobs dealers are missing

One phone call turned up three projects a dealer's sales team didn't know existed. Two weeks later, according to SalesJack Founder and CEO Ryan Dempsey, that rep had won an extra $250,000 in sales.

Ryan joined Stefanie Couch on the Grit Blueprint Podcast, recorded live on the show floor at the Do it Best True Value Market in Indianapolis. Stefanie grew up in a lumberyard, and she brought Ryan the complaints she hears about sales software all the time: I already entered that in my ERP, my reps won't use it, and it just creates more work.

Watch the full conversation below. This episode is sponsored by SalesJack.

Three places dealers are leaving sales on the table

Ryan describes SalesJack as a sales platform built only for building suppliers, from hardware stores and lumberyards to window design centers. He sees dealers growing in three ways:

• New builders. Find the active builders in your market you aren't selling to yet.
• Missing jobs. Find the jobs you aren't getting from customers you already sell to.
• Missing categories. On the jobs you do win, sell everything you carry. "Maybe you're getting the lumber, but you're not getting the doors, the windows, the flooring," Ryan said.

Stefanie put it simply. Most people chase brand-new business, but the easiest way to grow is often with existing customers in new categories.

Is permit data a lagging indicator?

It's a fair question, and Ryan has heard it before. The delay depends on the city or county. In some places permits show up about two weeks after filing, so you're likely in time. In others the delay runs six to eight weeks, and that exact address is probably spoken for.

Ryan's point is that the single address matters less than the pattern. "If you know this contractor... has built five new homes in the last six months, well, that's a very active contractor in your market. They've probably got another one going, even if you don't see the permit yet."

Permit data tells you which builders to call and build a relationship with, so you win their next job.

Filtering permits and matching them to your ERP

Many dealers already get permit data. It usually arrives as a spreadsheet or PDF that gets emailed around while reps weed through it. Some leads are new builders. Others are swimming pool installs most dealers don't care about. And some belong to customers another rep already works with, which can lead to two reps calling the same builder.

SalesJack filters the permit leads first. You choose the construction types and regions you care about, and SalesJack matches each permit against your ERP:

• If an existing customer pulls a permit for a job you haven't sold yet, the rep who already works with that customer gets flagged.
• If the builder is new to you, the lead usually goes to a sales manager to assign.

No double entry

"If you have a platform where sales reps need to enter something they've already entered before, they're not going to use that system for very long," Ryan said. SalesJack was built to solve that from the start.

SalesJack connects to the ERP and brings in quotes and orders automatically. When a quote is accepted or invoiced, SalesJack updates it too. Many dealers also build window orders in a manufacturer's own system, such as Andersen or Marvin, and SalesJack can pull those orders in as well.

Then it groups every quote and order by job address. A rep can open a job and see that it's a full home package with the lumber and doors sold but no windows yet. That's a reason to call.

Stefanie pointed out what this does for managers. When you can see category sales across the team, you can pair a rep who sells a lot of windows with one who sells a lot of doors, or send a rep who rarely sells millwork to a workshop.

Radar: ask your sales data a question

Stefanie remembered a manager at a two-step distributor who spent hundreds of hours a year building pivot tables. SalesJack Radar is meant to take that work off the table.

Radar works in two ways:

• Chat. Ask a question in plain English and get an answer from your ERP, order and permit data. Ryan's examples include which customers are down the most over the last three months, which customers buy windows but not doors, and what you should know before a customer meeting. It works on the web and in the mobile app, where reps can type or ask by voice while they drive.
• Agent. SalesJack works with the dealer to set rules around what matters. Say the goal is selling more windows. A rule might flag customers who have bought at least $10,000 of lumber and bought doors but haven't bought windows. When a rep signs in, Radar shows their top three window opportunities right at the top.

"If you can have immediate information, immediate value to sales reps without them having to do any work, that really helps them immediately see value," Ryan said.

How an Indiana dealer won an extra $250,000

Ryan says reps often believe they know which jobs they have and haven't won for every customer. For their top 10 or 20 customers, they usually do. Past that, the data tends to surprise them.

At one dealer in Indiana, SalesJack helped a rep build a list showing, for each customer, the jobs he'd sold and the active projects he hadn't. He started calling. Within two days, one customer told him about three projects the dealer didn't know existed. The builder had been working with a supplier in a different market, and the rep got the chance to quote.

Two weeks later, according to Ryan, the rep had won an extra $250,000 in sales from that one call.

What setup looks like

According to Ryan, setup takes about four weeks. SalesJack spends that time connecting to the dealer's data systems and asking how the dealer wants to view its data, with different views for different roles. The dealer's main job is giving feedback.

After the four weeks, the SalesJack team comes on site for in-person training, gets everyone logged in, and holds regular check-ins after launch. Learn more about support and training.

Episode chapters

• 00:00 Finding sales you didn't know you were missing
• 01:01 Three ways dealers can grow sales with SalesJack
• 03:18 How dealers use building permit data to find active builders
• 04:55 How SalesJack filters permit leads and matches them to your ERP
• 06:20 How to stop double entry between your ERP and sales software
• 07:35 How to find missing categories on every job
• 08:53 Why traditional CRMs feel like babysitting tools
• 11:20 What SalesJack Radar does with your sales data
• 13:46 How an Indiana dealer won an extra $250,000 in sales
• 15:05 How long it takes to set up SalesJack
• 16:29 How to get started with SalesJack

See what you're missing

Want to see which builders, jobs and categories your team is missing? Book a demo and we'll walk you through the system.

Full transcript

This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain small errors.

Ryan Dempsey (00:00): Within two days he reached out to one, hey, there's actually like three projects we didn't even realize existed. Two weeks later we reached back out to him. He'd won an extra $250,000 in sales just from that.

Stefanie Couch (00:09): Wow. That's amazing.

Ryan Dempsey (00:10): So again, just like one phone call, and I say it's really about trying to help dealers grow in a few simple ways. One is finding new builders in your market that you aren't selling to already. Second piece is for the people you're already selling to. A lot of times, you may be selling some of their jobs, but there might be some jobs you're not getting access to. And then the third is more, I'd say, even the jobs that you are selling, are you getting all the categories you could be selling?

Stefanie Couch (00:30): And it's really fun to think about the fact that most people always think about new leads walking in the door like, hey, we got to get totally new business. But really, the easiest way I think to grow your business is with existing customers in new categories. Or like you said, you're just not getting the whole wallet share. Welcome to the Grit Blueprint Podcast. I'm your host, Stefanie Couch, and today I'm here at the Do it Best True Value Market, and I'm on the floor live with Ryan Dempsey from SalesJack.

Ryan Dempsey (00:59): Thanks for having me. Excited to be here.

Stefanie Couch (01:01): We are super excited to be talking about all the crazy cool stuff y'all got coming out and it's a good time because you just released some new stuff. But I want to talk a little bit about the technology in our industry today, and I hear a lot. So, I grew up in a lumberyard. I have spent a lot of time in the sales and marketing realm, but also we do a lot with distributors and dealers. And I hear, you know, I already know I already entered that information into my ERP. I don't want to have to double enter it. Uh, my sales people definitely won't use this software, you know, all the things. We're paying for something but we don't really use it. Um, it's creating more work. So today we're going to really talk about some of those hard questions that we hear and how you and I know that people can win big with simple tech that works, but isn't more work. So, you are the CEO of SalesJack. I want you to tell me just a little bit more about what is SalesJack and who are you and how did you get started in this industry.

Ryan Dempsey (01:56): Absolutely. As you said, our company is called SalesJack. We think of ourselves as a sales platform. We focused just on this industry, so working with building suppliers, whether that's hardware stores, lumberyards, window design centers. And I say it's really about trying to help dealers grow in a few simple ways. I'd say there's really three ways that we think about it. One is finding new builders in your market that you aren't selling to already.

Stefanie Couch (02:18): Yeah.

Ryan Dempsey (02:18): And we can talk through how we do that. Second piece is for the people you're already selling to. A lot of times, you may be selling some of their jobs, but there might be some jobs you're not getting access to. So, helping you identify what are those jobs and getting your team after those. And then the third is more, I'd say, even the jobs that you are selling, are you getting all the categories you could be selling? So maybe you're getting the lumber but you're not getting the doors, the windows, the flooring, whichever categories you're selling. So, helping them with that. And a lot of times even there might be multiple people on the team working on that. So, how do you get everybody working together and selling all the categories you could?

Stefanie Couch (02:49): Yeah, and it's really fun to think about the fact that most people always think about new leads walking in the door like, hey, we got to get totally new business. But really, the easiest way I think to grow your business is with existing customers and new categories. Or like you said, you're just not getting the whole wallet share. So, how is this tool when people come in and they say, hey, how do we use this to actually help us sell more? How would you tell a lumberyard dealer customer that walks in the door looking for this tool, that this is going to help them in their business?

Ryan Dempsey (03:19): Yeah, I mean, there's a few ways. I I'd say one way that we see work for a lot of people is really getting to use the permit data in a in a way that's like more useful for their business in a simple way. So, we're bringing all the building permit data for their local region. We're filtering through that. So, we're saying, well, we'll talk to them, find out what construction types are interesting for you, what zip codes are you active in. And then also comparing that to your ERP. So we okay, we can see here's all the people building in your market. But which ones are you already selling to? And then from there we can get down to that list of, hey, here's the largest builders in your market that fit your sweet spot that you aren't selling to. And then helping you get those to your sales reps with as much information as possible so they can go sell to them.

Stefanie Couch (04:02): I love that. And when people start to think about permit data, a lot of times sometimes I hear that said, hey, that's a lagging indicator. Those permits are already spoken for, estimated, whatever after we get them. So what do you say to people that might say that?

Ryan Dempsey (04:15): It's uh, yeah, we've definitely heard that one before and it's a fair fair feedback. I think you'll see it's a mixed bag. Some it's it really depends on the city or county. Some places it's two weeks delay. You're probably getting in front of it in time. But there are definitely some towns where it is, you know, up to six to eight weeks delayed and you're probably not going to get to that exact address. But where we see the permit data being the most valuable is actually to identifying which builders are the most active in your market. So, you don't necessarily have to win that exact job. But if you know this contractor has worked five, has built five new homes in the last six months, well, that's a very active contractor in your market. They've probably got another one going, even if you don't see the permit yet. So that's right. It's helping you identify which builders to reach out to, build a relationship with, so the next time they have a job, you're winning that one.

Stefanie Couch (04:56): And you at SalesJack are doing some extra stuff to that data before it goes into the sales platform. What work are you doing to kind of scrub that? Because when you get permit data, anybody that's ever seen it, it is a lot of information. And it might be a lot of stuff that you or your business don't really care about. So then you're sifting through so many things.

Ryan Dempsey (05:16): Totally. Yeah. So, I mean, I think like what we see with a lot of dealers, a lot of are actually already getting the permit data. But yeah, as you said, it comes in a spreadsheet or a PDF. You're emailing it out to the team. They're like weeding through it. Some of those leads are interesting. They're for a new builder, some are for like, oh, we're installing a swimming pool, which for most dealers they're not doing that. Right. Beyond that, yeah, you you have a mixed bag. Some of those are probably people you already sell to. And it could be confusing, right? One of the sales reps might not even realize that's someone they that's another sales reps already working with. And they're reaching out and that could create confusion or frustration. So we're really weeding through that first. Yeah, you tell us what construction types are interesting. We'll only show you those types of leads. Uh, we'll we'll look through what regions are interesting. And then we're matching it with your ERP. So by company, if we see a permit come in for an existing company, and you haven't sold to that job site yet, we're going to flag it to the sales rep that already works with that company and say,

Stefanie Couch (06:06): Oh wow.

Ryan Dempsey (06:07): Hey, this builder has a new project. You haven't sold to it yet. It's worth reaching out to them and seeing if there's an opportunity. And then if it's a builder that you haven't worked with so far, then it's usually going to route to a sales manager so they can route that um, to one of the sales reps and see if they can win more business. But,

Stefanie Couch (06:21): I love that. I love that you're linking it to the ERP. So I want to talk a little bit about that. So, I've done a lot of order entry in my day. Um, you know, the quoting in one system and then having to reorder it in another system. That's terrible. But then also going in having to say, okay, does this match? Did this person go into a a list somewhere and then now it's in the ERP and trying to track that. You guys have solved that problem. So tell me a little bit about how you help people get out of that double entry nightmare.

Ryan Dempsey (06:50): Yeah, totally. And we know like if you have a platform where sales reps need to enter something they've already entered before, they're not going to use that system for very long. And so we knew that, like when we started this company, that was something we needed to solve from like day one. So few things that we do. One is mentioned, we'll integrate with the ERPs. We're constantly kind of bringing in those those quotes, orders. So those in our system, first when a quote comes in, it's getting over to us automatically. As that quote moves to being accepted or invoice, we're updating that automatically on our platform. We're also integrating with the other systems. So we see a lot of dealers if you're selling other categories that you're not building the quote in the ERP. So windows is an example. A lot of these dealers that we talk to are using an Andersen Windows or a Marvin Windows, and they're building those orders in their own order management systems. We can pull in orders from those systems as well. Okay. Uh, and what's the one thing we think we think we find is quite valuable is we actually pull all those orders together by address. So,

Stefanie Couch (07:42): Oh, wow.

Ryan Dempsey (07:42): By project, you're getting kind of the full view of everything happening in that project. Okay. What are all the quotes? What categories have we quoted versus not? So, it makes it really easy by job they'd be like, oh, I've sold the lumber, I've sold the doors in this one. But there is no windows. I can see this is a this is a full home package. But we haven't actually gotten the windows yet. So maybe we should go reach out and see if there's an opportunity.

Stefanie Couch (08:00): Yeah, that's such a great opportunity like you said, to find little pieces that you're just missing. I think it's really, really hard for a person to remember all that.

Ryan Dempsey (08:11): Yeah.

Stefanie Couch (08:11): When you have multiple jobs going in multiple territories. And especially for a sales leader, like a manager or a sales leader to be able to look at all of that for their entire team. See who maybe is crushing in one category and share that knowledge of like, hey, Ryan, you're selling so many windows and you're not selling very many doors. Let's partner you with this person who also is really selling a lot of both and let you help them. It's a great way to share knowledge.

Ryan Dempsey (08:35): Absolutely. Or yeah, there's it there's training opportunities. Yeah. Whether if you see, yeah, one of the sales reps, and we see this with some of the dealers we work with, where, oh, one sales rep is not selling a lot of millwork, but you have an expert on that. Or especially in this industry, there's also great workshops. We're at the Do it Best show, there's a ton of great workshops here. So this you can pull in your reps, help them learn new skills and start selling more categories as well.

Stefanie Couch (08:55): Absolutely. So, one negative thing that I hear about uh traditional CRMs is that they are babysitting tools. So, you know, you're you're wanting a rep to spend a lot of time that they probably don't think they have to log things that they don't want to log. So, how are you guys using technology in a way to make it easy for people to utilize this, to put their entries and their data into it about what's happening in the field?

Ryan Dempsey (09:17): Absolutely. So, I mean, like we're talking about with the double entry and kind of on the order side. We're trying to make it so anything that you're entering anywhere else, we're pulling out automatically. So whether that's integrating with the ERP, making sure all that information is already in there, existing quotes already in, um all the lead data we're pulling through. So, we're really trying to limit what a sales rep really has to do in the system. For the most part, one without them having to do anything, they should be able to come to the system and just get useful information. Yeah. So, that's one thing we really work on is that when they come into the system day one, uh, we have an AI chat now where it's like, all your data is already in here. You have a quick question on a customer, you want to ask, hey, um, you know, I'm which of my customers are down the most in the last three months? I'm trying to sell more windows. Which of my customers are not buying that yet? You can ask that to our chat. It's already got all your data. You can get quick answers on things. So, we find that really helps. If you can get immediate information, immediate value to sales reps without them having to do any work, that really helps them immediately see value. And then from there, the next step is really, hey, now we have a bunch of leads in here. Can I now go after those, reach out to those? And again, they're already in the system. There's not much they have to do to update the system. It's more about taking those leads and going to generate revenue from it.

Stefanie Couch (10:25): And I wanted to just key in on the fact that it's not you going in and looking through a lot of data and figuring out what you want to ask. It is just talking to it like you would talk to a human. Like I would say, hey, Ryan, can you get me this figure or this number or what do you think about this idea? That's how people can talk to this tool.

Ryan Dempsey (10:43): Yeah, absolutely. And it's both on our our web platform. We also have a mobile app because we know like a lot of reps, they're out in the field, visiting customers on the road. So yeah, you can just pull up the app, it's right there, yeah. As you said, just like type out the quick question, uh or even use the the voice if you're driving, and you can get quick answers on that.

Stefanie Couch (11:00): Yeah, one thing that I really like about that is you've thought about how the sales person or the manager actually is working and using this in real life. I do think a lot of times platforms make the mistake of trying to get people to do it the way they want to or that's easiest for them to do it and not the way they're already working. And it's just never going to happen.

Ryan Dempsey (11:16): Absolutely.

Stefanie Couch (11:16): You can teach an old dog new tricks, but not that many new tricks probably.

Ryan Dempsey (11:20): Absolutely.

Stefanie Couch (11:20): You have a lot of data in the industry, and I know that everyone has a lot of data. Data has never really been the problem of having it or not having it. For a long time, there were two words that kind of reigned supreme in the data world of how do you actually get these reports. And that was pivot tables. I know when I was back at my two-step distribution job, I had a manager that used to spend hundreds of hours a year just making spreadsheets and figuring out and he was brilliant, and he could do all of that stuff. But a lot of people didn't know how to do that. You've taken that work out with something called Radar AI, which is your new AI tool. And tell me a little bit about Radar, what does it do?

Ryan Dempsey (11:59): Yeah, a couple of pieces on that. So, one, yeah, it's pulling all the data we have in that system. So yeah, you've got the ERP, uh, the order data we're pulling in, the permit data, and making it super easy to ask quick questions. Whatever, yeah, whether that question is show me the biggest leads out there in my local city, um, which customers are buying windows but not doors? Um, hey, I'm I have a meeting coming up with this customer, what should I know? Even just a general question like that, it's going to give you quick answers on that. So, that's one thing we have a chat. Uh, we also have more of like a, um, we call it an agent. And agent can sound like a scary word, but really all it's doing is it's you kind of we will work with a customer and ask them, hey, what are the things that are important for you? So, if you say, you know what, actually, we're trying to sell a lot more, uh, let's use windows as an example.

Stefanie Couch (12:46): Sure.

Ryan Dempsey (12:46): Help us identify where the like where there are new window opportunities. We'll kind of start building out rules that say, okay, what are the situations where there might be more of an opportunity where you can see this customer has bought at least $10,000 worth of lumber. They've bought doors. All the indicators show that this customer should buy windows, but we just haven't got it yet. And then now it's like when your sales rep signs on, without needing to go anywhere, just right at the top. It's like, hey, here's your top three window opportunities.

Stefanie Couch (13:09): I love that.

Ryan Dempsey (13:10): Uh and making it as easy as possible.

Stefanie Couch (13:12): Yes, simple and fast and just give it to them up front without them having to dig. I think that's the biggest thing that even with me in my day-to-day work, um, you know, now some of the AI platforms have the plugins where like my email pops up and says, hey, do reply to this thing. And it's just right there. It's like, oh, yeah, I do need to do that. Just click right there. If you can do that with your AI, with your sales tool, it is huge. How have you seen some success in the industry? So, you're working with a lot of dealers, a lot of people already throughout. So talk to me a little bit about some of those stories of what you've seen people really win and make more sales with this tool.

Ryan Dempsey (13:47): Absolutely. So, I think the one we talked about a little bit there on permits and identifying for your existing customers, which jobs you've won versus not. That's always an interesting surprising one because we when we talk to a lot of sales reps, a lot of times they think they know for every customer whether they've won all the jobs or not. And sometimes there's some surprise we've seen there, where there probably is like your top 10, 20 customers you have a really good view. But a lot of times we found with some customers, um, you'll identify that they actually do have jobs you didn't know about. I can think about one dealer that we work with in Indiana. One of the sales reps we work with there, worked with him to like kind of build out his list and he could see for each customer, hey, here's all the jobs that you sold to them. But then here is the jobs that you haven't uh that are active projects. And so he started calling through those. And within two days he had reached out to one, found out, hey, there's actually like three projects we didn't even realize existed. Wow. There was a supplier that they're working with in a different market, but he got the opportunity to quote. Two weeks later, we reached back out to him, he'd won an extra $250,000 in sales just from that.

Stefanie Couch (14:46): Wow. That's amazing.

Ryan Dempsey (14:47): So, again, just like one phone call and a couple weeks, uh and a huge, huge uh area of growth for him and his business.

Stefanie Couch (14:52): Yeah, maybe your new tagline should be, you think you know, but do you really?

Ryan Dempsey (14:55): Yeah.

Stefanie Couch (14:55): Because I think all of us, we have a lot of information, and we always think we know our customers and what's happening and all of those things. But a lot of times you you can't know that unless you see the data. So, I love that you're giving them that. One of the things with implementations with software is the timing and the expense and the people costs of having your team and and things shut down and setting these things up can be pretty tough.

Ryan Dempsey (15:21): Yeah.

Stefanie Couch (15:21): Is it tough with SalesJack?

Ryan Dempsey (15:23): We try to make it as easy as possible. I'd say it's a pretty short, seamless process. So, I'd say setup with us is about four weeks. And that first four weeks is really us integrating with all your different data systems and getting feedback from from that dealer on, what's important to you? How do you want your to view your data? How do you want your sales reps to view your data? And we can have a different view depending on the level of person and what access or what data they should be seeing. So, the first bit is really us just getting feedback and setting up the system. Not much a dealer has to do, uh, during that other than just give us feedback on what they want to see.

Stefanie Couch (15:55): Yeah.

Ryan Dempsey (15:55): After four weeks, we come in person. We do an in-person training with that dealer. We show the team the system and walk them through that, get everybody kind of logged in. Uh, and then they're kind of going. And then from there we will kind of have ongoing meetings up front. Really about, I'd say, the system's quite self-explanatory, but it is a new muscle to kind of learn a system. So we make sure we have regular check-ins, uh, and we we we're also there kind of through the entire process. But yeah, we try to make it seamless. We're really, there's not much they have to do from integration process. It's really just about explaining to your team and and really starting to build that muscle to go out there and uh go try to win those new leads or, you know, try to win more business for your existing customers.

Stefanie Couch (16:30): Yeah, and from that last story you just gave, if in four weeks you could get an extra $250 grand in your sales bucket and you're doing most of the heavy lifting. It's probably worth it for most businesses. So four weeks is not that long, especially when it comes to software. So, if someone is interested in talking to SalesJack, getting started, they're ready to go, make more sales in their market and use this tool. What do they do next?

Ryan Dempsey (16:50): It's pretty easy. Our website's salesjack.com. Sounds like it sounds like sales and then the name Jack. Uh from there, if you want, you can book a demo with us. We're happy to set up a call, walk you through the system and uh we make it pretty simple from there.

Stefanie Couch (17:04): Awesome. Well, thank you so much for joining me on the Grit Blueprint Podcast. And if you are looking for a great sales tool in the LBM industry to help make your business better, you got to go check out Ryan and SalesJack. So, salesjack.com. And we will see you on our next episode of the Grit Blueprint. Thanks, Ryan.

Ryan Dempsey (17:20): All right. Thanks, Stefanie.

Stefanie Couch (17:21): Thank you for listening to the Grit Blueprint Podcast. If this episode helped you think a little differently about how to show up, share it with someone in your building world who needs it. If you're ready to turn visibility into growth, then head to gritblueprint.com to learn more and book a call to talk to us about your growth strategy. Until next time, stay unmistakable.