How a discouraging assignment became a lesson in listening—and more than 30 home sales.
Just before the 2008 housing crash, a modular factory recruited me as a business manager. That was the new name for salesperson, although changing the title didn’t change the fact that you still had to sell houses to earn your commission.
The money was better, the commission was better, and the factory was closer to home. From where I was sitting, it looked like a good move. Then I showed up for my first day.
To this day, I’m not sure whether my new sales manager was an idiot or one of the smartest people I ever met. I’m still leaning toward idiot, but I have to admit that an assignment he handed me taught me something worth remembering.
Welcome Aboard. Here’s Your List.
When salespeople move from one modular factory to another, they often hope a few of their best builders will follow. I had three customers I believed I could count on for substantial business. Naturally, those relationships were on my mind as I started the new job.
My sales manager had something else in mind. He handed me a list of 65 builders who had purchased at least one home from the factory and then apparently dropped off the face of the earth. My assignment was to call every one of them and find out whether they wanted to buy another house.
Now, I’ve known plenty of salespeople throughout my career. Many would have worked through that list asking some version of, “Do you have anything you need quoted?” Others would have made a few calls, received a few unfriendly answers, and decided the remaining names weren’t worth the trouble.
I suspected the assignment was a test to see whether I could bring any of those builders back. Whatever my sales manager intended, I decided to approach it my own way.
Before asking these people for another order, I wanted to know why they had stopped placing orders in the first place.
The Question That Opened the Floodgates
On my first call, I skipped the usual sales conversation and asked one simple question: “Why don’t we hear from you anymore?”
That question became the starting point for the calls that followed. Some builders had gone out of business, which explained their disappearance. But among those still building homes, there were plenty who had something to say. In many cases, that question opened the floodgates.
They described broken promises, unresolved factory defects, unanswered calls and emails, and quotes that took too long to arrive. Some remembered rude truck drivers delivering their modules. Others had accumulated enough disappointments that they simply stopped buying.
A few yelled at me. Some threatened to sue the factory. Others hung up before much of a conversation could take place. Those weren’t the most enjoyable introductions of my sales career, but they told me something that a request to quote their next house probably never would have uncovered.
These builders had reasons for leaving. Until someone asked, those reasons sat outside the factory while management sat inside, wondering where the orders had gone.
They Wanted Someone to Care
In about half the cases, the complaints came down to inconsistency and the feeling that the factory, the salesperson, or both no longer cared about their business.
Think about that for a moment. A builder had already chosen this factory, worked through its process, and purchased a home. There had been enough confidence to begin a business relationship. Somewhere along the way, that confidence had worn out.
Builders have customers of their own to answer to. When a factory doesn’t return a call, the builder may have no answer for the family waiting on its home. When a service issue remains unresolved, the builder is the person that family sees. The factory’s silence becomes the builder’s problem.
Eventually, a builder gets tired of asking. The calls stop, the orders stop, and a name ends up on a list handed to the new salesperson.
What struck me was how many people were willing to explain what had happened once someone actually asked. Some conversations were uncomfortable, but discomfort wasn’t a reason to avoid them. It was a reason to pay attention.
Two Weeks of Uncomfortable Education
By the time I finished calling everyone on that list during my first two weeks, I had received quite an education about my new employer. To be honest, some of it was discouraging.
Based on what I heard, I began questioning the owner’s reliability. I also came away concerned about whether the service department took builders’ problems seriously enough. And it was clear that follow-up had been missing from too many sales relationships.
That is a lot to absorb when you have just changed jobs because the opportunity looked better. But the calls also gave me something useful: a clearer understanding of what stood between the factory and its former customers.
Another sales pitch wouldn’t erase those experiences. Before there could be much hope of another order, there had to be room for an honest conversation about the last one.
Listening didn’t guarantee anyone would return. It did give me a place to begin.
Nine Builders and More Than Thirty Homes
Here is how that supposedly discouraging list turned out: I brought nine of those builders back as customers, and they purchased more than 30 homes during my short time there.
Nine out of 65 might not impress someone who looks only at percentages. More than 30 homes certainly impressed me. Those orders came from a list of builders the factory was no longer hearing from, people who could easily have remained forgotten.
I didn’t bring every builder back. Some were no longer in business. Others had no interest in giving the factory another opportunity. That was their decision, and a salesperson has to accept it.
But nine returned. The opportunity to earn their business began with a question that allowed them to talk about what mattered to them.
That’s encouraging for any salesperson handed an old customer list or struggling to figure out where the next order might come from. You don’t have to assume every quiet customer is a lost cause. You do have to be willing to hear an answer you might not like.
Gary’s Observation
Factories spend a lot of time trying to get builders to notice them. I sometimes wonder how much business they could recover by reaching out to builders who have stopped calling.
An inactive customer list can tell you things your sales meetings never will. It can reveal where promises broke down, where service failed, and where follow-up disappeared. It may also contain people who would welcome a reason to trust you again.
The encouraging part of my story is that an ordinary phone call gave me an opportunity to begin rebuilding some of those relationships. No clever presentation was required to ask the question. What mattered was being willing to listen to the answer and recognizing that another person’s frustration deserved attention.
I still don’t know whether that sales manager understood what he was handing me. But I know what I found on that list: nine returning builders, more than 30 home sales, and a lesson I have never forgotten.
Sometimes, the best opening sales question is simply, “Why don’t we hear from you anymore?”
