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✅ Boost Your Business Leads: Exploring AI-Powered Prospecting

Who is Rick Wedding, and why should I care?

Rick Wedding is a 35-year industry veteran who spent the bubble years as a GM at a small-town yard that was part of a regional LBM chain in the Midwest. When his location was closed during the Great Recession, he decided to move home to Cincinnati. Job opportunities were slim, but Wedding ultimately found work on the sales counter at McCabe Lumber in suburban Loveland.

A lot of people take a temporary income hit at some point in their careers. Wedding decided to use his situation to see just how far he could push the boundaries of the inside sales position.

McCabe’s home builders work with outside salespeople, so Wedding’s customer base was limited primarily to remodelers. He knew most remodelers struggle with marketing, and figured that the best way to build a customer base was to become a steady source of job leads.

“I expect my salesperson to be knowledgeable, responsive, and friendly. Most of the lumberyards in my market can do that. Rick has taken basic expectations with a pinch of marketing, and raised the bar to a whole new level. I believe lumberyards across the country could implement his strategy and own their market.” Joe Hagen, All Decked Out

To help remodelers with marketing, he needed a following among homeowners. He used a free DIY website builder to build his own personal website. As the Building Supply Guy, Wedding’s mission is to provide DIFM consumers “with all the tools you need to confidently choose the products and services that are right for your home.”

He uses the site to post product reviews and project advice, to showcase his clients’ projects, and promote products and services at McCabe Lumber. Each week they get bundled into an email newsletter that goes to a list Wedding built by promoting himself on social media platforms and a YouTube channel, and by inviting anyone who visits McCabe’s showroom to subscribe to his list.

Wedding has since expanded his repertoire to include a podcast and occasional videocasts in which he interviews contractor clients and promotes their services. His customers have come to see him as a partner and not a vendor, to a point where some even have him build and manage their websites.

It didn’t happen overnight, but eventually Wedding’s sales revenue far outstripped anyone else on the sales counter at McCabe. He was promoted to outside sales as a result, but his client base is still almost exclusively remodelers. The biggest change is that he now works from home. And makes more money.

What if my sales counter people don’t like change?

Futurist Alvin Toffler, who way back in 1970 warned of the shock of accelerating change in the future, once said:

“The illiterate of the twenty-first century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.” Alvin Toffler

With the rate of change accelerating each year, and new technologies such as artificial intelligence and augmented reality certain to change your work environment, it’s a necessity that we periodically reset our thinking and behavior.

In fact, it will need to become part of who you are. Fortunately, the unlearning process is an ongoing, compounding, and virtuous system. That means the more you do it, the easier it gets and the better your results. But it’s up to you, of course, to embrace the process in the first place.

You need employees who are ready to learn, unlearn, and relearn.

Why is now a good time to embrace this strategy?

“This decade will likely be remembered as The Golden Age of Remodeling.” Todd Tomalak, Zonda