Certified professionals

Dixie Construction Products wins 2008 Progressive Distributor Sales Training Excellence Award

by Rich Vurva

Shannon Worthington vividly recalls his first day selling construction supplies nearly 26 years ago. New to the Atlanta area, he took a job with a local company and was handed the keys to a van filled with drywall screws, wedge anchors, drill bits and miscellaneous products used by drywall installers.

His training consisted of one day in the warehouse to get a broad overview of the company’s products. The next day, the branch manager drew a circle on a map covering about one-third of the city of Atlanta, handed him the keys to the van and told him to get to work.

“I was never more terrified in my life. I rode by the first job site three times before I got the courage to stop,” Worthington says. He promised himself that if he were ever in a management position, he’d do everything in his power to prevent another salesperson from feeling so unprepared.

Worthington was fortunate because he had patient customers willing to show a greenhorn the ropes. He realizes that most contractors today don’t have the time or patience to deal with untrained salespeople. That’s why, as president of Atlanta-based Dixie Construction Products, Worthington has built a company that emphasizes sales training.

“Training is part of our culture,” he says. “They’ll go to school and learn or they won’t work here. It’s just like coming to sales meetings. That’s not an option here; it’s a requirement. All salespeople come to sales meetings because you can always learn something.”

Dixie Construction’s emphasis on sales training earned the company the 2008 Progressive Distributor Sales Training Excellence Award. The annual award recognizes one distribution company for its efforts to train salespeople and other employees.

“It’s an honor to receive this award. It means so much to our company,” says Worthington.

Dixie Construction’s Brian Neal (above) and Jeff Faulkner (below) received hands-on training at the Evergreen Marketing Group’s training center in Dallas.

Certified Tool Specialists
“Dixie Construction has the best salesman retention of any company I know,” says Darcey Arena, vice president of sales for Relton Corp., a Dixie supplier. “They offer valuable sales training through their company and Evergreen Marketing Group.”

A major part of Dixie’s training efforts includes sending salespeople to the Evergreen training center in Dallas. Among the company’s 14 inside and 13 outside salespeople, 12 have received Evergreen’s Certified Tool Specialist designation. More Dixie personnel have completed the rigorous certification process than any other Evergreen member. Three salespeople hope to achieve Diamond Level status in 2008 (see below, “How to become certified” to learn more about the Evergreen certification program).

“Dixie is a great company. From a training and education standpoint, they’ve supported the program from the beginning,” says Wade McCone, Evergreen training manager.

As a former chairman of Evergreen’s Training and Education Committee, Worthington was instrumental in developing the marketing group’s training effort and has taught the Selling to the Phases of Construction class. The course helps salespeople understand enough about the construction process so they can walk onto a job site and know what products to recommend.

“He’s always deeply involved in training,” McCone says about Worthington.

Worthington strongly believes in the need to provide training for salespeople.

“If you don’t have a trained salesman and he gets out there and starts talking to the customer, everything reverts to price. And you can’t sell on price,” he says. “A trained salesman isn’t so quick to drop the price. He’s more apt to point out features and benefits and services provided as opposed to the lowest price.”

When Worthington learned in mid-December that Dixie Construction was selected to receive the Progressive Distributor award, he was finalizing the company’s marketing and training plan for 2008. It includes Evergreen classroom and online programs, a series of lunch-and-learn sessions with suppliers, and other sales meetings scheduled throughout the year.

In 2007, Dixie spent about $28,000 on travel costs to send employees to Evergreen’s Dallas headquarters and other training locations.

“We send people to Dallas for training every month or so. We use every penny we have in the training budget and usually exceed it,” Worthington says. “I do my best to go over the training budget within reason. I think it’s the most important dollars spent.”

Role-playing videos
Throughout the year, salespeople also participate in role-playing sessions recorded on video. The entire sales staff reviews the videos and discusses their observations.

In each video, one person assumes the role of a salesperson and another plays a customer. The participants receive a scenario describing their objective. For example, the customer might tell the salesman that his price is too high, but his real objection concerns the quality of service he’s receiving. The salesman’s job is to probe to get to the heart of the customer’s real concerns and find an equitable solution.

“It makes for some fun scenarios,” says Worthington.
“Everybody does it, even experienced salespeople. What better way for your inexperienced people to learn than from your experienced people?”

Worthington is always on the lookout for other tools to enhance training and education. For instance, Dixie used STAFDA’s Counter Pro sales training handbook to train inside salespeople. Each inside salesperson read the book and answered the test questions provided, and then discussed the material with their inside sales manager.

“It’s a great tool,” says Worthington. “It’s one of the many things in our arsenal to train our people.”

Training takes place in the field as well, not just in the classroom. A full-time field sales manager devotes all of his time to helping salespeople be more successful and to continually improve.

As long as Worthington is in charge, Dixie will continue to emphasize training and education. He believes it makes his salespeople better qualified to help customers, which ultimately improves his bottom-line profits.

“Training is not glamorous and it’s sometimes redundant, but it’s something you can never stop doing,” he says.

How to become certified Earning the Evergreen Certified Tool Specialist designation is no easy task. Salespeople must be employed by an Evergreen member for at least three years before they’re eligible. Participants earn a specific number of educational units requiring 137.5 hours of training in product application, selling skills, supplier-sponsored product knowledge and online training modules. After earning the CTS designation, salespeople receive either a gold ring or custom-made watch. Certified Tool Specialists who complete an additional 52.5 hours of training, complete one teaching experience and three additional online training modules, achieve Diamond Level status, and a diamond for their ring or watch. Left to right: Dixie Construction employees Steven Rogers, Ron Seymour, Zac Drury, Jarad Crumbley, recipients of the Certified Tool Specialist title, with company president Shannon Worthington.

This article originally appeared in the January/February 2008 issue of Progressive Distributor. Copyright 2008.

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