#243 Home Service Contractors: Stop Overpaying for Parts!

In this episode of Owned and Operated, John Wilson is joined by Jen Laughlin from WeSupplyTrades to break down how contractors can cut material costs without sacrificing quality. From OEM parts to exclusive brands, John and Jen dig into real-world ways to protect margin, get parts fast (even if you’re rural), and build supplier partnerships that actually help you scale.

They dive into shipping realities (UPS vs. LTL), why exclusives like Stream33/Breeze33/Bright33 can be margin game-changers, how to handle fraudulent tool orders, and what trust + open communication with your wholesaler should look like. John shares how swapping SKUs and auditing his top 500 items unlocked big savings inside a $30M home service company.
Together, they unpack:

Being the “lifeline” for hard-to-find OEM parts (and why that wins lifetime customers)
The SKU audit playbook: start with your top 500 and swap line by line
Partnering with wholesalers in 2025: trust, feedback loops, and clear expectations
Facility maintenance & rural logistics: stocking strategy without bloating inventory

🎙️ Host
 John Wilson
 
🎙️ Guest
Jen Lauglin

📞Sponsored by OpenPhone — the AI-powered business phone built for growing teams. Never miss a call, never miss a customer. Get 20% off your first 6 months when you start your free trial today HERE

💼 Modernize is how smart contractors scale.

With inbound calls, live transfers, and branded programs, Modernize connects you to ready-to-buy homeowners. Over 9M leads delivered and $4B+ in revenue generated.

👉 Start growing here

💼 Shoutout to Avoca AI!

Looking to train your call center and improve technician performance? Avoca AI helps teams identify issues, improve call quality, and drive results from start to finish.
🔗 Schedule a demo 

More Ways To Connect with O&O

• John's YouTube Channel
• Weekly Newsletter
• Owned and Operated

Leave a Review

John Wilson, CEO of Wilson Companies
Jack Carr, CEO of Rapid HVAC

📌 Disclaimer: Some links may include UTM parameters or affiliate relationships, meaning we may earn a commission if you make a purchase. Episodes may feature sponsors, but all opinions expressed are our own.

Chapters

• 0:32 Guest Introduction and Podcast Overview
• 2:04 We Supply Trades: Products and Challenges
• 18:40 Shipping Challenges and Anecdotes
• 20:38 Building Strong Customer Relationships
• 25:57 Expanding Product Offerings and Market Reach

Transcript

OAO EP 243 Transcript

Jenn Laughlin: [00:00:00] We know our customers. You know, we've been in the distribution business for 90 plus years. That's interesting. That one SKU you need that you can't find somewhere else. Totally. We wanna, we wanna be your resource for that. You, 

John Wilson: what do you think makes a good contractor? 

Jenn Laughlin: Partnership? Trust is the foundation of any relationship, whether it's personal or professional.

You know, we understand that it's important for contractors to get answers quickly. 

John Wilson: How do you feel like contractors can partner with wholesalers and drive? Margin. Maybe we should 

Jenn Laughlin: think about.

John Wilson: Welcome back to Owned and Operated. I am your host, John Wilson. During the day, I run a $30 million home service company in Cleveland, Ohio. And for fun, I run a podcast showing other people how to do the same thing. Today I'm joined on the show by Jen Laughlin from we supply trades.com. It's a wide ranging conversation.

We cover how to save on materials, how if you're rural you can get stuff fast. How to think about partnerships with wholesalers and a bunch more. If you're interested [00:01:00] in partnering with We Supply Trades, I highly recommend their pro account. It's free to sign up and you get a ton of awesome benefits like free shipping over $99 and discounted pricing per product.

Make sure you check out we supply trades.com/owned and use the code owned 20 to get a special 20% off your first order. I, we haven't had hardly any like wholesale. We're gonna provide, you know, the backbone of the business on the show. So this is gonna be, I think, I think this will be a good time. 

Jenn Laughlin: Yeah.

Looking forward to it. 

John Wilson: Are you still using a clunky phone system for your service business? Open Phone is the modern business phone platform, our by AI that helps you stay responsive, connected, and never miss a call with shared numbers. Call summaries plus deep integrations with Slack, HubSpot, and more open phone keeps your team aligned and your customers taken care of.

No matter what time, start your seven day free trial@openphone.com slash owned and get 20% off your first six months just for being a [00:02:00] part of the owned and operated crew. Open phone, no missed calls, no missed customers. So I would love it if you just like gave us a little bit of a primer what is We Supply trades all about?

Jenn Laughlin: Sure. Thanks. Appreciate that. So we, supply Trades is an online supply house, so we supply trades.com is our website. We have a large variety of products for, you know, your average HVAC plumbing mm-hmm. Contractor. So we've got HVAC parts and supplies, plumbing parts and supplies. Uh, we have some light electrical as well.

We have tools, little bit of lighting. So kind of a mixture of a lot of different things. Yeah. That anybody as a, as a trade professional might be, you know, touching any given day. 

Yeah. 

Um, we have major manufacturer brands. I could go on and, and list, you know, a myriad of them, but, um, you know, imagine a lot of the major manufacturer parts and supply brands for HVAC.

Yeah. Plumbing. And we have them in stock ready to ship from our distribution center. Um, we also have our own exclusive [00:03:00] brands as well, which are unique to our website. Mm-hmm. And our company, um, which are again, falling in that same HVEC and plumbing supply category. That, you know, offer our contractors are really quality grouping of products at really competitive prices.

John Wilson: Yeah. What has been the biggest surprise of doing like a direct e-commerce product? Like. I dunno, what's been the biggest shock here? I 

Jenn Laughlin: would say from an industry perspective, um, it's always unique and interesting to us to see where our customers are coming from. You know, what parts 

John Wilson: Like physically.

Physically okay. You know, geographically 

Jenn Laughlin: where they are. And understanding even just some of the differences in the nuances in the products that Yeah. That different regions of the country use. Um, I think from a business perspective, uh. One of the biggest eye openers for us as we, you know, have been growing, you know, with our, with our business mm-hmm.

From an eCommerce perspective is, you know, the amount of fraudulent orders that we have to deal with on the site when it comes to things like [00:04:00] tools. You know, we're a Milwaukee distributor. Yeah. Um, you know, it's amazing how much time and effort goes into just kind of managing the orders that come in Yeah.

And making sure things are, 

John Wilson: it's real 

Jenn Laughlin: legitimate and, and whatnot. So, yeah. We, a couple of different takes there, but 

John Wilson: Totally. Yeah. We had, um, I, I don't remember, uh. And I should, but we had a guest on, I wanna say it was a year ago, maybe two. Five years of doing a podcast, you forget. But, uh, and they ran a wholesale, uh, insulation business.

So like home insulation, like the big, you know, roles. Sure. And someone placed like a $20,000 order and it was fraudulent. Like it was just like a fake order. Yes. And it ended up bankrupting them like it was. It was wild. I had no idea this was this much of a thing. 

Jenn Laughlin: Yes. It's it's pretty eye-opening. Yeah.

You know, for us, um, it was definitely a change of pace from what we had, you know, seen in the past. Yeah. So definitely a, a difference in, you know, from an e-commerce perspective, 

John Wilson: and I'm not trying to give [00:05:00] people the guidebook on how to fraud, but like, how, how do you even flag, how, how do you find this out?

Jenn Laughlin: Uh, our customer service team has gotten very, very good at analyzing the information that's on the back end of our site. So making sure that, you know, if there's multiple attempts to charge a card, um, yeah, that's kind of a flag if somebody's trying to charge the same. Uh. Card different ways. Okay. Um, we have some visibil visibility into that because that's a stolen credit card.

Like, or somebody's trying to mess with, you know, the zip code or the security code that's getting put in and Yeah. You know, um, matching the billing address and the shipping address. I mean, that's another really big one too. Yeah. You know, if, if those two things are different, it's definitely a bit of a red flag.

John Wilson: It's wild. 

Jenn Laughlin: Yes, it is wild. Like how 

John Wilson: many times a week is this a thing? 

Jenn Laughlin: Prob probably out of all of our orders, I would say maybe 15% of the, the orders, I would say 10 to 15%. 

John Wilson: That is insane. Yes, it's crazy. Okay. Yeah, that, that's top of my biggest surprise. Yes. That's crazy. That's totally crazy. Um, [00:06:00] okay, so we supply trades the problem that we're trying to solve.

Is access to parts 

Jenn Laughlin: A Absolutely. Yeah, that's definitely part of it. Um, access to parts and supplies for contractors, no matter where they are. Um, and it can be just the, the type of parts and supplies that they need. Yeah. So we have a lot of the same parts that, you know. A contractor would see at a local supply house or another online supply house.

But what really sets us apart and makes us unique is that, you know, we have a lot of history behind us. We have a lot of experience behind us. Mm-hmm. I feel like we've really cultivated a grouping of, of products that we know contractors need. Again, not only the branded products, but our exclusive brands as well.

So it's really, you know, giving the contractors the opportunity to install quality products and, and experience some really competitive pricing. So it hopefully is gonna offer them some savings. And then, you know, on the branded side of things, um, we really pride ourselves on the amount of OEM parts and supplies that we have.

Yeah. And that we offer, uh, we are constantly adding more SKUs to our website. [00:07:00] Um, within the next couple of weeks we, we'll have roughly over 1200 additional SKUs added. A lot of those, a lot of those SKUs that are gonna be helpful going into, you know, the following winter months with equipment breakdowns.

And obviously, you know, contractors right now are probably in the height of. Furnace clean and checks. Yeah. And, um, you know, the, the repair and, you know, have that mindset going into the next few months. We, we would love to be a bookmark for a lot of contractors for either their, you know, their purchasing teams.

Yeah. You know, anybody that, you know, has clicks that, that require mm-hmm. You know, um, the ability to make purchases. Anybody who has the op, the opportunity to purchase for a company, you know, we would love to be that. Yeah, that bookmark. So if you need a replacement part, you know you need some parts and supplies, uh, whether it's, you know, stock material or, or whatnot.

We would love to be that resource. 

John Wilson: Um, alright, I wanna talk about grow, uh, like margins basically. So how, I mean, a lot of what. You guys are able to do is with the exclusive brands, you [00:08:00] are able to like, and it works for us, like we drove. Um, what, what are the name of the brands? 

Jenn Laughlin: Uh, stream 33 is our plumbing brand.

Yeah. Breeze 33 is our HVC brand. Uh, bright 33 is our lighting brand. 

John Wilson: Oh, okay. I didn't even know there was a light line. 

Jenn Laughlin: Yep. We have a little bit of lighting on our website. 

John Wilson: Okay. Yeah. Cool. All right. I'll check that out. Um, but yeah, that's been a really big one. Primarily in hvac, but like Yeah, the whips, the disconnects, the, yeah.

Maybe thermostats. Uh, but yeah, you guys took over a lot of our, like, you know, we do these kits Yes. For jobs and, uh, I'm sure there's a better version of what I'm about to say, but you guys took over like a large portion of the SKUs inside our kits. I want like 60% or something. It was a lot. So how do you, how do you feel like, uh, partner or contractors can.

Partner with, uh, wholesalers and drive margin like it's 2025. Tariffs are crazy. How can we win? 

Jenn Laughlin: Absolutely. So I think it's about taking a look at what you're using day to day and just [00:09:00] understanding what the other options are that are out there. 

Mm-hmm. 

Um, I think a lot of people probably in the contractor side of things, you know, you get accustomed to using.

A specific brand, right? Yeah. 

John Wilson: You get locked in. Yeah. Oh, I use X. Yeah. Right. 

Jenn Laughlin: You get, you know, locked in. You develop that sense of loyalty. Yeah. Because of it's just what we've, just what we do. Right? Yeah. And so many other things that we, we, we always say, well, that's just how we do it. Yeah. Um, you just have to stop and take a step back and say, well, maybe we should think about.

What, what else, what other opportunities there are out there. Mm-hmm. Instead of just saying, well, this is just how we've always done it. Um, because I think it's very eyeopening when a contractor it is eye can take a look. It is eyeopening. Yeah. Um, at the other products. Really see, touch, feel them. Yeah. And compare them and see that, you know, not only do they potentially look the same or look very, very similar, um, but when you, you know, get down to the, the dollars and cents so to speak, you can see some, you can realize some big savings opportunities.

You know, on the HVAC side, you mentioned some of those products [00:10:00] already. Oh, it was crazy. I mean, it was like 

John Wilson: 50, 60%. Yeah, it was wild. And we're like, why are we, why are we paying for this? 

Jenn Laughlin: Yeah. And you're gonna have, you know, essentially the, the same quality, the same type of warranty, if not even a better potential, potentially a better warranty than, than what you're getting depending on the product lineup.

Right? 

John Wilson: Yeah, yeah. Can you give an example? 

Jenn Laughlin: Yeah, like, let's use PEX as an example. Yeah. So our own, um, 33 stream 33 branded pex. Mm-hmm. Whether it's Pex A or Pex B, um, you know, we're gonna warranty our fittings the same no matter whose pipe you install it on. Um, and vice versa, our pipe's gonna be warrantied the same regardless of what fittings you use with it.

Whereas there's some other, you know, branded manufacturers out there that say. You have to use my stuff. Yeah. Fitting. Yeah. With our PEX pipe if you want this warranty. So, you know, there's, there's definitely some opportunities there to realize savings with some great, great quality products on items that, you know, your contractors are using.

A lot of trade professionals are using a high volume of these products. On the plumbing side. It's like 

John Wilson: PEX or like, or [00:11:00] just consumable site stuff. Oh, 

Jenn Laughlin: consumables. Sure. But, you know, PEX pipe, PEX fittings. Yeah. Um, supply lines stops. 

John Wilson: Yeah. 

Jenn Laughlin: Um, you know. Closet flanges, uh, anything like rough plumbing. Anybody that, any contractor that's doing rough plumbing work.

Um, you know, we offer just about anything needed in a 33 brand in our stream. 33. Same thing with, you know, on the HVAC side, you know, anything from condensate pumps to, like you said, registers and grills and Yeah, whips and disconnects. Um, are you guys 

John Wilson: doing consumables too? 

Jenn Laughlin: Not so much in the 33 brands.

Yeah, we have some. We do have some, 

John Wilson: yeah. We bought this business like four or five years ago and like good size business, so the savings were real. But when we bought them, I don't even know what we were buying, like saw all blades mm-hmm. Is, is the example here. But they were, we were buying whatever the, maybe it's Milwaukee, I don't even know, like what the normal Sawzall 

Jenn Laughlin: Sure.

John Wilson: Blade [00:12:00] mm-hmm. Is, but it's like two to $3 a blade. Yeah. It's like kind of a lot. Mm-hmm. And, uh. So we buy this company and they're buying blades totally differently than us, and they're buying blades for like a penny, a blade, like I'm bulk through eBay. Right. Or some ridic. I don't even know what it was. Yes.

And it was eyeopening. They had saved a hundred thousand dollars in one year. It adds up on saal blades, which like blew my mind. 

Jenn Laughlin: It, it absolutely adds up. Um, you know, and we do, you know, in addition to offering, uh, discounted pricing for member for pro members, so we do have a pro membership on waste supply trades.

Yep. Um, you can. Basically takes, yes, free shipping, 30 seconds to fill out the form to become a pro. Okay? It's your company name, your name, um, contact information. That's literally all you have to fill out to become a pro member, and it gives you about a 10 to 15% discount. Off the day-to-day pricing on, on our website.

Okay. It gives you free shipping after $99. Normally our shipping is 1495 flat [00:13:00] rate. Um, but anything after $99 as a pro member is free. Yeah. 

Um, 

so it gives you day-to-day better pricing. We also offer bulk pricing discounts too. Mm-hmm. So there's some of that that you can already see on the site. But again, going back to kinda what sets us apart, um, our customer support team that's taking those inquiries mm-hmm.

That come in, they literally do cartwheels and jump up and down mm-hmm. And like yell when somebody inquires about, Hey, what if I ordered 15 or 20 or 50 of these? Yeah. What can you do? So, uh, we pride ourselves on, you know, really being able to, you know, differentiate ourselves in that you have an opportunity you wanna offer to us as far as giving.

You know, allowing us to give you a quote on a, a bulk purchase of something, we jump at the chance to do that. 

John Wilson: Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. Are most people ordering like onesie, twosies, or are people using this as like an inventory replacement? 

Jenn Laughlin: A little bit of both. A little bit of both. Uh, you know, as we've grown, definitely onesie twosie was probably more what we, what we saw, you know, but we're starting to see a, a lot more repeat [00:14:00] customers.

Yeah. 

Um, more of that, you know, stacking up, um, type. Type situation, especially as we get into that facility management part of the industry. You know, having, again, like those garbage disposals on hand. Oh yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. Those, you know, faucets on hand. Yeah. You know, Chrome, Chrome kitchen faucets or mm-hmm.

Um, or condensate pumps is another one. You know, a lot of contractors. Yes. You know. 

John Wilson: Yeah. I, I'm pretty sure we switched our, yeah, that was another one where it's just like, why are we paying? You 

Jenn Laughlin: just keep pallets of them around. Right. Because you know, you're gonna go through X amount a week, so. Definitely starting to see more orders like that, you know, more consistency in those types of stock up orders come through.

John Wilson: Is that like the dream pro, like inventory replacement basically? Yes. I mean, more money, less customers, right. 

Jenn Laughlin: I mean, yeah. I mean, in a, in an ideal state for sure. We love to see those kinds of big orders, just gimme all the inventories they do. You know, they're, it's great to see those. We, we get really excited with those.

Yeah. But you know, the other side of it is, I think because we've, a lot of us, we've all been in the industry so long. 

Mm-hmm. 

Um. I think we understand the importance of having those OEM parts and supplies [00:15:00] and being that like savior for the contractor. Oh, totally. Who's like, Hey, I need this replacement part.

I can't find it anywhere. You guys had it. This homeowner needs this replaced. They don't wanna, uh, total replacement. They don't want a total change out. We just need to fix this. Where can I get this product? 

I 

think we might get just as excited about mm-hmm. You know, being somebody's, um, lifeline so to speak in those situations.

Yeah. As we get excited about Well, 

John Wilson: you, you landed a probably a lifetime. Yeah. You know Right. You're gonna be a bookmark. Yeah. For you're gonna be a bookmark on their Yeah, for sure. On their tabs, right? Yeah. They bailed me out that one. Saturday hundred. Yeah, a 

Jenn Laughlin: hundred percent. Absolutely. That's, that's, you know, really exciting for us.

Yeah. Yeah. That's cool. 

John Wilson: You are great at fixing broken shit, so why not fix your lead flow? Modernize gives contractors predictable, high intent leads without a big marketing gamble. Break out of the feast and famine cycle and expand into new markets with a steady stream of homeowners ready to start jobs now.

Modernize is trusted by founders like myself because it actually delivers with over $4 billion in homeowner projects [00:16:00] started in the last 12 months. Visit the link below to get started. How, how often, like maybe percentage of purchasing. I'm, I'm thinking about the products we use from you guys. It's been a really big win for, uh, like gross margin?

Yes. For our h primarily hvac, like I think we're using the disconnects. I think we're using the wip. I think. I don't really know what else we're using, but that was a big part of like our gross margin success over the last year on a percentage of purchasing. How much are you seeing that. Like, are people open to the exclusive brands?

Like how, how do they think about that? 

Jenn Laughlin: Yes, yes. They're very open to the exclusive brands. Yeah. So from an HVAC perspective, I would say, you know, our registers and grills under our Breeze 33 lineup. Oh, yeah. That would makes sense. Uh, we see a lot of adoption, a lot of, yeah, a lot of purchasing, uh, in that product category.

Yeah. 

Um, they're very quality, very high quality registers and grills. Um. Pretty much the same lineup of skews that any contractor would be, you know, used to ordering. Yeah. Um, same colors, you know, et cetera, et [00:17:00] cetera. Yeah. But at a very, very competitive price, so, oh, yeah. We've, we've seen a tremendous amount of success with registers and grills as an example.

Mm-hmm. Um, but anything from whips and disconnects to thermostats mm-hmm. To. You know, mini split accessories, uh, you name it. Lots of those different types of parts and supplies that are just used on a daily basis that Yeah. You know, 99.9% of the time nobody really cares what that brand name is. Yeah.

You're just looking for a quality. I have idea, 

John Wilson: idea what brand my grills are. Right. Or disconnect, but like, I'm sure equipment gets a little bit, you know, sure. How does warranty work or whatever. I, I. I'm, I'm trying to imagine what someone would have more questions about. I would have zero questions about a grill.

Yeah. Right. And I would have a few more questions about Right. Like a mini split or something. 

Jenn Laughlin: Yeah. We're not really, we're not shipping any mini splits at the moment. Yeah. You know, as far as, you know. Equipment type products. Mm-hmm. You know, we, we have PTACs through the walls, you know, room air conditioners.

Yeah. Things like that, that we can ship, um, that are under our exclusive brands. Um, and we have toilets, 

John Wilson: [00:18:00] faucets, 

Jenn Laughlin: so we don't ship toilets right now just because of the sheer difficulty of shipping China products. Yeah. And having them get damaged. Mm-hmm. Um, but faucets, absolutely. 

John Wilson: I am curious how people ship toilets now.

Does that makes total sense. Yes. 

Jenn Laughlin: I mean, LTL honestly is the best way to ship that. Just putting on my, you know what, what is that? My other hat? Here's LTL, uh, less than truckload. Um, it's not shipping a full semi trailer, but you know, there's different contract carriers that ship what they call LTL. So it basically is a palletized shipment, which that's how we ship things like Ptax and through the walls and room airs.

Yeah. Or, or just really large orders that are heavy that aren't UP Sable, but you always run the is 

John Wilson: ups the small. Yeah. Or is u Okay. U 

Jenn Laughlin: ps is smaller items. A 

John Wilson: faucet is UPS. Yeah. 

Jenn Laughlin: Faucets, you know, a box of fittings. Yeah. A box of PVC fittings, a box of supply lines, things like that. 

John Wilson: That makes sense. 

Jenn Laughlin: Um, but heavier materials, things that really aren't UP sable have to ship LTL, which is basically a, a palletized order that shrink wrapped and, and whatnot.

Yeah. 

Um, but you really don't have a whole lot of control once it leaves your facility. Oh, totally. Yeah. You know, [00:19:00] it can get cross docked 

Totally. 

Who knows how many times. Yeah. And you know, you kind of fingers crossed hope that, you know Yeah, yeah, yeah. A a toilet shows up and it's not Yeah. You know, a powder.

Yeah. A pile of powder. 

John Wilson: We, we, uh, you know, my anecdote for this is, I think 10 years ago or 12 years ago, I still have the sink. We, it was like a $5,000 sink and it came, I don't know who shipped it. Mm-hmm. You know, whatever. But we accepted it. We didn't open the box immediately. Yeah, a big shit show. I can imagine.

You can imagine. And yeah, for some, I don't know why we still have it, but like it's still back there. Yeah. Uh. Yeah. 'cause like the legs, you know, I don't even know it was a very expensive like kitchen sink that had legs and I dunno. Yes. 

Jenn Laughlin: Yeah. You know, we, we love plumbing products. We, you know, want to at some point be able to have answers for shipping China.

Yeah. 

Right now for sinks at stainless steel sinks, you know, we can ship those pretty easily 'cause you don't have to worry about those breaking right. And on the plumbing side, you know, we're [00:20:00] growing those skews. Yeah. Obviously, you know, day, day to day too, but right now we are really, really strong in the parts and supplies.

Yeah. Uh, free rough or service plumbing. We've got a full line of Pex, so Pex A and Pex B pipe and fittings. Really, really competitive pricing on that. Thousands and thousands of units in stock. So yeah. We, you know, love the opportunity to, you know, start relationships with, uh, plumbers that are looking for, again, really quality products.

Yeah. From our exclusive brands, we can offer, uh, wonderful stock position shipping, you know, same day and, you know, really quality products. Yeah. Amazing. Great price. 

John Wilson: Amazing. I would love to dive a little bit into, um. I know your industry's been under some consolidation. Yes. Right? Yes. Uh, 

Jenn Laughlin: both of ours. Yeah.

John Wilson: Yeah. It's kind of wild. Uh, I feel like the, the service contractor thing started in the late teens and distributors seemed to start like two years ago. 

Jenn Laughlin: Yes. Um, roughly I would say, you know, we've. We've [00:21:00] seen consolidation in, in wholesale distribution for a number of years, but definitely ramped up within the last few.

It, yes. Yeah. Ramped. 

John Wilson: So as you guys are thinking about this, like we're coming into the space, we're here to solve problems, we wanna partner with contractors, like what does a good relation, like, what do you guys think you bring and like, what's a good partner to you guys? 

Jenn Laughlin: Sure. So we know our customers, um mm-hmm.

You know, we've been in the distribution business for 90 plus years. Um, our team, our customer support team, who are the ones that are, um, seeing the orders come in, they're the ones checking those orders like we were talking about earlier in the discussion. Um, they're the ones that are seeing it through from start to finish.

Answering questions that come in day to day from either our, our text to chat or our phone calls or just inquiries for our website. They, uh, they see things through, like I said, start to finish. Um, they've been with our company for a number of years. They come with experience. I feel that, you know, we supply trades is unique to the industry and in at least the, the [00:22:00] facet that we're in.

And that we, we bring that experience to our day-to-day interactions. You know, we understand that it's important for contractors to get answers quickly, um, and for us to deliver product quickly and damage free. 

Yeah. 

Um, you know, I think as you look at, you know, the industry and seeing how it's, it's consolidated so much, you know, companies become so big that I think a lot of times.

You know, the customer, the end user, that contractor. Right. Um, it's kind of the one who takes the hit, you know, they become more of a number mm-hmm. Than an actual person. You know, I can confidently say that our customer service associates who are handling these orders day to day, um, you know, they, when they have a conversation with somebody on the phone and they see them place an order, we're sending an email saying, oh my gosh, thank you so much for placing that order.

Mm-hmm. You know, thanks for taking the time on the phone with me today. You know, you're not gonna see those kinds of. Human interactions. 

Yeah. 

They're not bot interactions. Yeah. 

Yeah. 

They're human interactions. Um, we celebrate every order that we receive. Uh, we celebrate the [00:23:00] relationships that we establish.

Um, we're adding products to the site mm-hmm. Based on the conversations that we have with customers. Um, we're making a cha changes and adjustments to how we do business based on those kinds of human interactions. So, you know, apart from, you know, the product that we offer and, you know, just the, I guess the.

The fundamentals of, of the business that we have. Um, it's really how we treat our customers, I think. Yeah. Uh, that, that really sets us apart from, you know, our other competitors 

John Wilson: in most of our wholesale relationships over the past, over the past two years. And I think it's because of consolidation. A lot of wholesalers are, are trying to figure out how does differentiation look like if.

If contract, you know, we don't wanna be seen as numbers to you, but you don't wanna be seen as numbers to us, right? Absolutely. A give and take. Now where everyone basically knows what everything costs. Like it's not hard to find a price on something, and it's also not hard to mass bid like very [00:24:00] quickly.

Mm-hmm. Uh, like what do you think makes a good contractor partnership? Like what are you guys looking for? 

Jenn Laughlin: I think open communication is probably a big one. You know, trust is the foundation of any relationship, right? Mm-hmm. Whether it's personal or professional. Um, as a wholesale distributor, as a EE e-commerce distributor, um, we certainly want to develop that type of trust with our customers and, and we hope they feel the same from us.

So open communication, I think, is probably the foundation of that, you know, understanding what the needs are and what the expectations are. So, you know, both sides, you know, we can make sure we're meeting expectations on both sides of things. Um, our contractors giving us open, honest feedback is, is very much valued.

John Wilson: Can you gimme an example? I'm trying to think of like, Hey, it shipped too slow. Like, is that the feedback? Yes, 

Jenn Laughlin: absolutely. Please tell us, you know, if you need to, if you need us to provide it faster, let us know. If the price looks extremely out of whack, you know, please let us know that if, if we are carrying a skew [00:25:00] that you know is slightly different than the one you prefer, you know, let's say it's with stops and you need one without stops, you know, whatever.

That little. You know, adjustment is that that needs to be made. We wanna know that, you know, we wanna be able to carry all the products. Mm-hmm. And all the, and all the, you know, all the varieties that are needed. We don't want you to have to go to, you know, another supply house down the street because we just didn't carry that Yeah.

Specific version. Yeah. Um, you know, that's really important feedback for us too. For sure. 

John Wilson: Like what is the most complicated part of like bringing, we supply trades to, to market? Like is it number of skews? Is it. Number of contractors, like what is the hard part? 

Jenn Laughlin: Definitely number of SKUs is, is a big, is a big part of it.

You know, we obviously when we decided to, you know, launch our e-commerce business here with we supply trades, you have to start somewhere. Mm-hmm. Right. You have to start with a certain grouping of SKUs and you know, you can't have everything all at once or we, [00:26:00] we at least acknowledge. Yeah. Yeah. We can't have everything we want all at once.

We have to. You know, grow in phases. So that probably has been the most difficult part, you know, and obviously, you know, as we grow, we're hungry, we're hungry to add business. Mm-hmm. We're hungry to, uh, grow relationships with customers and we, we want to be everything for everybody. Yeah. But, you know, you can't always be everything for everybody.

So it's, again, it's getting that honest feedback, understanding what's really important. So as we have this roadmap that we, you know, we, we walk down as we grow, you know, how do we prioritize, you know, what do we do next? Yeah. To try to help. Be a better partner for our contractor customers. You know, is it offering tax exempt?

Is it adding X, y, Z products to the site? Is it, you know, improving some, you know, shipping options? You know, all those different aspects of, you know, distribution. Is is really kind of the, you know, the framework for how we decide, you know, what we do next and what we put more focus on going forward. 

Yeah.

SKUs is huge though. You, the more SKUs we have, the more opportunity we have for [00:27:00] somebody to visit the site and say, oh great, they have what we need. 

John Wilson: Yeah. So lead gen's probably like two different, like one, how do people hear about us? Yes. In the first place. Yes. Then two, I'm gonna look up this obscure.

Faucet repair thing. Yes. And you guys will have it 

Jenn Laughlin: correct. 

John Wilson: Okay. 

Jenn Laughlin: Yeah. Uh, we are, you know, trying a lot of different things right now. Sure. As far as how to, you know, get, get more customers. Mm-hmm. How I think everybody that's in business is asking themselves how to get more customers. Right. So, of course, you know, partnerships such as this.

Mm-hmm. You know, um, industry organizations, um, podcasts, uh, you know, influencers, um. Industry organizations, trade shows. Yeah. Um, but then, you know, we're also going down the route of, you know, you know, buying lists. 

Yeah. You know, 

trying to call contractors in lots, lots of different areas of the country.

Yeah. Um, we focus primarily on some areas that, you know, we think there's, you know, the most opportunity outside of, you know, major metropolitan [00:28:00] areas. Areas that we know we can, we can service very quickly. It's a drought, but for. But for parts. Right. Right. Absolutely. Think I have a parts drought.

Absolutely. 

John Wilson: Yeah. I'm, I'm always amazed, uh, like I'm super spoiled. Where we, we were founded in acronym, we ran outta that location for like 63 years or something, and then we've been here for three and it has, you know, I'm 10 minutes from a supply anywhere I look, I'm 10 minutes from a supply house. Yeah.

Like my whole life. Uh, so it's always wild to talk to people and they're like, oh yeah, we have to. We have to carry X amount of inventory. 'cause our close supply house is an hour. 

Jenn Laughlin: Right. 

John Wilson: And I can't even imagine. I mean, well I guess I can, yeah, it would be like certainly easier with like a, we supply trades, uh, but I.

That's complicated. 

Jenn Laughlin: Yeah. And it's, it's, it's crazy too when you think about even just, you know, geography of big cities, so, you know Yeah. We're talking about areas where, you know, it, it's a hike to get to a local supply [00:29:00] house. Yeah. But then there's also the contractors that are in, let's say a suburb of Atlanta.

Oh yeah. And it. It might be it's hours, a 10 mile drive. Yes. But it could take 'em like two and a half hours. 

John Wilson: Yeah. You know, like Chicago has to be the same. LA has to be the same. Atlanta, 

Jenn Laughlin: Chicago, even Nashville's, you know, crazy with traffic. DC Metro. 

John Wilson: Yeah. 

Jenn Laughlin: New York Metro. Um, so, huh, for sure. We see a lot of, you know, interesting.

Trends when we look at that, um, yeah, we're, we're targeting a lot of different facets of the industry. Yeah. Uh, from the trade professional side, you know, facility management's another aspect too, you know, for us to take a look at, you know, people that are managing properties. Yeah. You know, doing a change outs and things like that.

Apartment buildings and facilities, hospitality. Like what? What does 

John Wilson: that look like? Like they need inventory on hand for 

Jenn Laughlin: that. Yeah. You know, they need to replace a faucet. They need to replace a garbage disposal. Right. You know, you've got somebody who complained their garbage disposal's broken in unit three B.

Right. I have to go change Mrs. [00:30:00] Jones's garbage disposal out. Yeah. Do you have 'em on hand? Yeah. Do you buy 'em a pallet at ti at a time? Do you just run to the local supply house and get 'em, you know, take a look at, we supply trades. We've got great, great products. Again, our exclusive brands, um, the lineup we have in our exclusive brands matches up really nicely with a lot of those same types of products that are used day to day and those kinds of service calls, calls.

I've never thought about 

John Wilson: that. That makes total sense. So for these rural guys, like what we're aiming to do is, hey, we can basically keep your inventory burden low. Like I was talking to someone, uh, I think they're 45 minutes south of us, or an hour south of us or something, so like, not that crazy, but they're also 45 minutes or an hour away from any supply house, and they had to keep four or five times our inventory, which is insane to me.

That's a lot. It's a lot of 

Jenn Laughlin: overhead. 

John Wilson: Oh yeah. Yeah. So, so the whole idea here is like, you're gonna be able to ship. Fast and like cover that essentially 

Jenn Laughlin: 100%. Okay. We ship same day. If we get the order by about 3:00 PM 3:00 PM or so. Yeah. Uh, Eastern time. [00:31:00] We'll ship it same day UPS. Um. In Ohio, for example.

You know, it's basically one day shipping. Um, we have a map on our website that shows the typical UPS shipping chart Oh, nice. Of the United States. So anybody that has questions on how long UPS ground would take from us, they can take a look at our website and see that map. Um, the majority of the Midwest to the East Coast, pretty much down to almost like that.

Carolina, Georgia line. It's like one to two days. Ground shipping. Yeah. Anything farther south is probably two to three. Um, as you get farther Midwest out west, even down into Texas. And it gets to be, you know, three to four depending on how far it's going. Um, but we do offer faster shipping options too.

Yep. 

So we can do expedited shipping if, if that's something that's required. But yeah. Ship same day and, you know. In the Ohio area, it's really, really quick. 

John Wilson: Are you still missing calls after hours and losing leads while your team sleeps? Well, that's why we work with Avoca AI owned and operated as exclusive call center partner.

They answer twenty four seven, sound like a real [00:32:00] human, and plug straight into your CRM to book jobs, send quotes, and even revival leads. There are plenty of AI call centers out there, but we trust Avoca because we've seen the results firsthand. More books, jobs, less wasted spend and no more missed revenue.

See an action at the link below and start winning more jobs today with Avoca. What's your one piece of advice for contractors looking to take more control of their supply chain? 

Jenn Laughlin: I would say diversify, you know? Take a look at at us. Of course. I mean that's of course why, why I'm here once talking on today.

Once you land on us, don't diversify anymore. Yeah, right, right. Um, obviously seeing what's going on in the industry and understanding where there's opportunities to, um, maybe change out some of those products and, and realize some savings like we talked about with our exclusive brands. Um, that'd probably be one of my big takeaways or one of my big suggestions would be to start giving some opportunities.

Um. To switch to those types of exclusive brands that again, are gonna give you a very quality product Yeah. And a more competitive price point, [00:33:00] you know, allowing you to, you know, obviously be more competitive, you know, overall, and hopefully see some savings. Yeah. 

John Wilson: The exclusive brand thing was really eye-opening for us.

Um, we, I wanna say we were always just the, uh, like whatever the, the main brand was. Sure. On equipment and parts, uh, we got. I'm sure state's not gonna like me saying this, but state's an off-brand, so, but uh, I get you. But yeah, we started using state as a water heater and that was our first like, okay, this might actually work more.

And that was more like two or three years ago. And then from then on we've really started to go full hog and it has been astonishing. Like, yeah. Genuinely astonishing. So, yeah, I, I totally agree. Like looking for what's out there. Uh, and like my quick take for the, I guess the contractor out there is we, what I see and just what I've experienced personally is [00:34:00] there, you know, you talked about the SKUs being the main game.

Contractors have no idea what their SKUs are, like how would they Right, 

Jenn Laughlin: right. 

John Wilson: We're just getting a handle on it and we're like in the top 4% of our industry, so I don't, you know, it's just too much. Yeah. Like we buy like a hundred thousand SKUs a year. Like that's insane. So how are you supposed to keep track of that?

Uh, so something that we did a few years ago that I found really helpful, which I'm sure like this is how you thought about initial SKUs, but. We just got, Hey, here's our 500 most purchased items. And then over the years we've just been going through that list of like, okay, what, what's our alternative for this line of products?

What's our alternative for like black, malleable, right? Or like, does it have to be whatever the prominent brand is, or can it be something different? And just like going through it by line or by like series of product. And we, yeah, we found that pretty helpful. But yeah, I, I think it is funny, like people have no idea, like we barely have any idea, and I'd say we're [00:35:00] like more sophisticated than most.

Absolutely. No, you're, 

Jenn Laughlin: you're spot on. We see it with contractors. All over the country. Yeah. Yeah. It's, uh, it's a tremendous amount of SKUs, obviously. It's too much. 

John Wilson: I mean, you talk to another industry and it's like, yeah, we have like 10 SKUs, and I'm like, oh my God. I have like, right. 3000 per trade. Right.

Especially on 

Jenn Laughlin: the service side, you know, it's, it's a whole different world than, you know, the new construction kind of cookie cutter templates. Yeah. You know exactly what's going in. Well, that's, that's 

John Wilson: locked in. Yeah, that's locked. They probably have, that's like 400 total skews for everything. 

Jenn Laughlin: They're literally templates, right?

Yeah. You know exactly what's gonna go into those houses. Maybe give or take some elbows or tees or things on the plumbing side. And the same for HVAC, right? When you're running duct work. But everything else, you're pretty much able to quantify that. Yeah. Not in the service business. Yeah. So that's where, you know, again, those, those SKUs come in for us because at the end of the day, that one s skew you need, that you can't find somewhere else.

Totally. We wanna, we wanna be your source. Source for that. You, 

John Wilson: yeah, absolutely. We wanna own 

Jenn Laughlin: that. 

John Wilson: That's amazing. Okay, so if people want to get a hold of you guys. How can they do it? 

Jenn Laughlin: [00:36:00] We supply trades.com. 

John Wilson: That is a killer. URL. 

Jenn Laughlin: We love it. It's like very, we're biased, but we love it's, 

John Wilson: yeah, it's very direct.

Yeah, it's awesome. And then who, who's like target customer? Sounds like property managers, plumbing contractors, HVAC contractors. Any geographic, any size that's like perfect. 

Jenn Laughlin: HVAC. Contractors. Plumbing contractors. Facility maintenance. Yeah. Associates. Um. Light, like I said, light, light, electrical. We have very, you know, a little bit of electrical, some lighting.

Mm-hmm. Um, tradespeople in general. General contractors, I mean, you name it. Yeah. Anybody who touches tools, anybody who has anything to do with the trades. We likely have products on our site that will cater to them. 

John Wilson: Amazing 

Jenn Laughlin: Geographically. Anywhere and everywhere except for California. We aren't shipping to California at this moment, but we shipped to every other state of the 

John Wilson: Will you eventually or just like Nah, we 

Jenn Laughlin: will eventually.

Okay. We will eventually. We're just not there yet. 

John Wilson: Okay. Yeah. Cool. Like Alaska, Hawaii. 

Jenn Laughlin: Yes, we've actually taken some orders, so 

John Wilson: literally everywhere but California. Yes. Okay. Yeah. All right. Sweet. 

Jenn Laughlin: [00:37:00] Yeah, we're, you know, we, we will be in California. It's just gonna take us a little bit of time to Yeah. To get there.

But it's on the roadmap. 

John Wilson: Awesome. Well thanks so much for coming on today. This was a ton of fun to get to dive into. We supply trades. 

Jenn Laughlin: Oh, thank you so much for the opportunity. I really appreciated it. Um, and we look forward to hopefully meeting some customers here soon. Awesome. 

John Wilson: Heck yeah. 

Jenn Laughlin: Thank you so much.