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Wilson Tile and Stone Increases Sales
Wilson Tile and Stone, a leading residential and commercial building materials provider, has a rock solid reputation for world-class fabrication, top-quality products, leading professional installers, and outstanding customer service.
Customer Service Leader in Ohio, Michigan, Indiana
Located in Holland, OH, ten miles west of Toledo, Wilson Tile has earned a reputation in N.W. Ohio and S.E. Michigan as the leader in the region for qualified customer service representatives and knowledgeable sales staff. Experienced sales teams have built their careers around their professionalism, commitment to quality, and the customer. Wilson Tile & Stone sells a variety of products, from tile that costs $2 per square foot, to granite countertops that can exceed $5,000 each.
The old and new plan side by side shows how Wilson Tile provided greater upside to the reps in the new plan while reducing base salaries.
New Home Starts Drop by 92%
In 2007 the company had annual revenues of $8.5 million, selling to builders that averaged 25 new homes a year. Until the recent economic slowdown, a significant portion of Wilson Tile's business stemmed from these new construction projects. Today, many of the same builders' new projects have fallen to two houses a year. Demand in the renovation market, while also slowing, continues to be a strong area of focus for Wilson Tile & Stone.
Challenge: Grow Renovation Market
Wilson Tile's key challenge was to grow sales in the more robust, higher margin renovation market. Most of the company's renovation sales have traditionally stemmed from homeowner walk-ins and appointments made in the company's showroom. Ninety-five percent of sales representatives' compensation was based almost solely on salary and the impact of incentives designed to foster up-selling or prospecting were negligible at best.
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Potential Customers Walking Out the Door
Looking ahead at a quickly declining environment, newly appointed general manager, Matt Wilson, knew that he needed to find a way to motivate his team while cutting costs. He knew that the existing commission structure did nothing to prevent potential customers from just walking out the door. Wilson became increasingly convinced that the only way to increase inside sales would be to dramatically change the nature of the sales position by focusing it more on performance.
Free Resources and Ease-of-Use
Wilson went to the web to find a solution to his problem and looked at 6-8 companies before settling on Makana. "We selected Makana Motivator Express for its ease of use and the user friendly information on the web. Managing sales commissions is not my background, the advice and expertise that Makana provided greatly benefited us," says Wilson.
"I was very pleased with what I found in Makana. It was user friendly. I was able to jump in and figure it all out. Makana is exceptionally intuitive. I can push and pull all the various components of the plan and see in an instant how different approaches would play out at Wilson Tile and Stone," states Wilson. Wilson bought Makana Motivator Express online and within a few hours - created new sales compensation plans designed to motivate performance and sell more profitable products.
The ability to quickly and easily print graphically descriptive plan documents made buy-in of the new plans much easier. "It gave my staff a chance to see what their commissions would be and how it would affect them. The charts and graphs enabled me to quickly convince them that they could in fact make more money on the new plan," states Wilson.
Includes All Legal Terms and Definitions
Makana also includes legal terminology in all plans, which for resource strapped small businesses is a great benefit. "It's fantastic that the plan includes the legal terminology small businesses need, but typically would not know or have to go to an attorney for," says Wilson.
New Plans Made Sales Team Hungry
According to Wilson, Makana has proven to be a huge time saver for Wilson Tile and Stone, saving them 3-days worth of work in the annual planning stage.
Every Rep Made More Money Than Ever Before
Despite the increasingly challenging economic conditions plaguing the building market Wilson Tile & Stone serves, the company's increased revenues by about 11% to $9.5 million in 2008. Every rep on the team made more money than they have ever before. "One thing to keep in mind is that as a small business you always want to keep your costs down and try to figure out a commission structure that will minimize overhead and motivate your sales staff and see results. Makana helps to minimize cost, motivate sales staff and maintain profits. ," says Wilson.
Learn how you can build great plans with Makana Motivator
- Create great plans that drive strategy and promote teamwork with best practice advice built in.
- Accurately project your incentive costs with easy modeling
- Generate graphical plan documents that your team understands
- Upgrade anytime to calculate payments and generate reports