Summer minisode series: Seeing value of relationships with Andersen

Zach Wojtowicz (00:05):

What’s up everybody? Zach Wojtowiczhere. Welcome to “The Building Code,” minisode episodes, where we’re bringing on some of our brand partners. Where we discuss big names, what’s going on in the material vendor space. And today, we’ve got Eric Belcherfrom Andersen Windows & Doors. Eric, welcome to “The Building Code.”

Eric Belcher (00:19):

It’s exciting to be here. Glad to be here.

Zach Wojtowicz (00:20):

Nice to see you.

Eric Belcher (00:21):

Thank you.

Zach Wojtowicz (00:22):

How are you today?

Eric Belcher (00:24):

I’m excellent. Yeah. Loving life. It’s great weather in Omaha.

Zach Wojtowicz (00:28):

Wow. You don’t always get to hear that, depending on the time.

Eric Belcher (00:30):

Yeah. No hail, no tornadoes, just a nice breezy day.

Zach Wojtowicz (00:34):

That’s right. And normally the tornado thing is a little bit of like, yeah, that doesn’t happen. Then this year has been a little wild here in the Midwest, so we’re in the thick of it. So, it sounds like maybe we should talk a little bit about some of your windows in case people need it. Right? Why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself and Andersen Windows & Doors?

Eric Belcher (00:53):

I don’t know if Andersen is hail proof or tornado proof. I can’t say that online, at least, I can’t. But I’ve been with Andersen for about nine years. I live in Sarasota, Florida, so I work remotely. I travel all over the country. And my role primarily is working with some of the sponsorships that we have in place. So, CBUSA being one of those, Contractor Coalition. There are several others in the NEHB side that we also take care of. And the whole goal of that is just to get closer to our customers and get to know them better and get that good voice of customer feedback that helps inform how we show up.

Zach Wojtowicz (01:30):

I love it. Yeah. I think that’s really important in construction, especially, to have that relationship. I think Andersen Windows & Doors has a great brand and people know them, consumers, builders. Why don’t you talk a little bit about the key benefit of Andersen? How did you build that reputation and what does it really stand for?

Eric Belcher (01:48):

It’s been a long time coming. I think with any company, you go through evolutions. And Andersen started out with Fred Andersen being one of our founding members, owners back in the day, with something that he called the golden circle. And with that golden circle, what that meant was everybody that has any kind of interaction with Andersen will benefit from that interaction. And so, that’s been a huge part of our culture. And as we’ve evolved as a company, as we’ve changed our mindset through the years, it started to become more about the customer, more about that customer-centric mindset, and really understanding, not just the transactional relationship, but that relational understanding and generational understanding of our customers’ businesses. And so that’s customer lifetime value for those of you geeks that are out there, you like that kind of stuff.

Zach Wojtowicz (02:37):

Me. It’s me.

Eric Belcher (02:37):

Yeah. So, it’s something that has been more prevalent recently and as a result, we’ve actually, one of, I think our value props is how we show up in the market. And we used to have reps that would manage one or two things. And now we’ve broken those out, very similar to the way CBUSA has changed their go-to-market strategy, in that we’re able to put our arms around our customers a lot better. And so, we’ve stood up several different roles individually. One being a builder role, one being an architect role, one being a developer role, and we have a home improvement contractor role as well. And so, their focus is on that particular segment of the business. And so, as a result, we’re able to build those tighter relationships. We’re able to get our arms around our customer’s needs and speed to resolve is there as well. So, we’re really proud of that. That’s been going on this year, actually, so that’s very brand new for us. But it all comes right out of that customer-centric mindset that we’ve been talking about.

Zach Wojtowicz (03:40):

Yeah, it’s so critical in 2024, where things can be, it’s so easy to be transactional. So, to actually take a step back and say, what does the customer need? It’s just a way more warm and fuzzy way to do business that I feel a lot better about it when you can do it right, but also really stand by your product. So, tell us a little bit about that partnership and why did you partner with CBUSA and ultimately what has that relationship been like with you?

Eric Belcher (04:03):

Oh gosh. It’s been phenomenal. We’ve learned so much. Not only about ourselves and our sales organization, but we’ve never done anything like this. We’ve not done a group purchasing organization like CBUSA, where we’ve had to track sales. We’ve had to do a lot of that stuff. We’ve done some of that. Obviously, we track sales, but not for the purpose of the benefit, which is the rebate. It’s been going great because not only does just joining up with CBUSA, well, there’s a couple of things I could say about this. It’s, we’re like minded. I think the cultures are a good fit. There’s a lot of similarities there. So, that was the easy part. The hard part was to understand how to track all the business side of things, but we’ve figured that out pretty quickly. And as a result, we’ve learned about customers that we had no idea were out there.

(04:55):

So, I’d say 20%, I ballpark at 22%, 25% of the overall membership, we didn’t even have in our database. We didn’t know. So, that was a huge learn that we were able to gain and benefit from. The other part of it was we found out we had a lot of customers already in the organization, and so we were able to really shore up those relationships and make those a little stronger. And then through some of the evolution of the relationship building, we’re starting to see the other members in the different markets jump on board. So, we were just talking about the advocacy that we see happening in those groups, and they all have their opinions, and they listen to each other, and we listen to them as well because it’s real. And we want to be able to meet them where they are. And so, when they advocate for a brand, we certainly perk up and pay attention, and we want to know the why.

(05:54):

So, we’re gaining some of that. So, that’s another win that we’ve been able to glean, and it’s, we’re excited. A year and a half in, we’re seeing incredible results. As the market starts to soften a little bit, we’re seeing this group, and I’ve said this a time or two about this organization is that it’s a group of members, trade members, yes, but they’re counter market. Most of them are doing something a little bit different, a little bit smarter. And by virtue of even just joining a professional organization like CBUSA, they’re taking steps to make themselves better. And I think that’s something that we resonate with as well and appreciate in how they run their business. So, of course, we want to come alongside and help, how do we help grow your business as well? And so, all boats float.

Zach Wojtowicz (06:45):

That’s really cool. And I think in construction, especially, where relationships are a driver for a lot of the ways that they interact with their subs, especially, the people that are installing these windows and all these things, but to have a partnership with the vendor itself, so that those people can see that relationship impacting the overall construction process and business, it’s really amazing. You mentioned that with CBUSA, you’ve gotten a little more access to some people that were new to market or to your products, and what are some of the ways that, and then you also mentioned how you’ve learned some things, what are some of the ways you’re adjusting the way you handled your customer experience that you referenced earlier?

Eric Belcher (07:25):

Gosh, there’s a lot into that. I think real quickly because of the way we’ve changed our go-to-market strategy, it’s really aligned well with the ability to get arms, like I was mentioning earlier around these customers. But hopefully, what I think the benefit of the customer has been is that they’ve gained a person in that organization that they know, not only nationally, but locally. And that’s one of the things I’d share with you that has been another insight we’ve gained from just this organization is that the feedback that I get from a lot of the trade members is, I just want to know somebody. I want to know who my person is, and I want them to know me. And it’s not just that cursory, “Hey, how you doing? See you at the water cooler,” all the time or whatever. I know your kids, I know your family, I know where you shop, I’ve seen you out in the public spaces that we share, and then nationally.

(08:25):

Eric, you keep showing up at IBS and I see you there. I see you at the Power 30s, and I see you at … You see what I’m saying? So, there’s this phrase I’ve coined called, know and be known. And I think that’s really what our audience wants. And I think that’s an extension of the brand, but it’s the fulfillment of the brand because then they understand that the brand cares for them and it’s via the relationships they have nationally and locally. Like another thing, as we’ve dedicated our teams to really serve all those segments that are a makeup of CBUSA, they’re gaining education. I believe we’re there to really not only give them the ability to understand our brand because we’re very complicated, window and door categories are very complicated. It’s very architectural.

(09:14):

And the members that we meet with in the general market meetings, wherever, they’re saying, “I don’t need to know all those details.” But we know who does need to know those details, and so we’ve got local teams to really go in and affect that. So, bringing education into their offices and taking care of that. Of course, they get the rebate, and that’s really the cool part of this. And then the other business building tools that we’re able to put together for them as a result of the feedback that we get from them. So, one of those is, just launched this year called Andersen Insider. And so, we’re really excited that we’re starting to see people join up with that engagement program and find some benefits there to help grow their business as well.

Zach Wojtowicz (09:58):

That’s amazing. It makes a ton of sense. As you work with partners, you listen to your partner’s needs, you have common customers, you work together collaboratively to try and figure out the best way to serve those customers. When I think about windows and doors as just someone who is an outsider looking in in the construction process is there’s a lot of window and door technology that’s really innovative and cool, and exciting. Is there anything that you’re really excited about or projects that our listeners, related to Andersen, that you want to share with us?

Eric Belcher (10:26):

Wow. Well, there’s some stuff coming. I can’t really tell you a whole lot about it yet.

Zach Wojtowicz (10:32):

That’s okay. We love a little dangle.

Eric Belcher (10:33):

But I will tell you, Andersen, we pride ourselves on innovation, and we’ve got a whole team that stood up, our research development and innovation department is always hard at work to try to evolve their products and tweak them to make them better. A lot of this, again, comes from our customer feedback. The other thing I’d say is a new product line. So, again, I can’t talk a whole lot about that, but it’s coming. We’re starting to see some of the manufacturing equipment being installed already, but we’ll see that launching, if not this fall, early next year. And we’re pretty excited to, maybe that comes out as an early sneak peek to the CBUSA members. We’ll see.

Zach Wojtowicz (11:14):

Yeah. You never know. That’s right. There’s always interesting things that our partners are working on. It’s really exciting to hear about some of things. I’m excited. Talk about having windows power your house, and that was a theme in a lot of our conversations with our partners about the coming age of the net zero and just in efficiency standards. So, it’s really cool to see a window company embracing that as well. With that, where can listeners follow and know when these new things are coming out? What’s the best way to make sure we are up to date about what’s happening at Andersen Windows & Doors?

Eric Belcher (11:45):

Yeah. We’re real active on LinkedIn, on Instagram, all the socials, of course, Andersen Windows, andersenwindows.com. You can access, any numerous ways to contact us, whether it be phone, email, fill out a quote request form. We like to do it personally, so that’ll get you started. If you don’t know how to get ahold of us. There’s also some blog links on there that help with some trends that we get from our partners, so a lot of our design customers as well will feed into that. Actually, Sherwin-Williams, who’s here today with us, is also partnering in on some of those blogs. So, there’s a lot of trendy stuff there to go out and look for and consume. But we’re just a phone call away. We want to be local and available to you.

Zach Wojtowicz (12:37):

I love it. Eric, thank you so much for coming on “The Building Code.” For all our listeners out there, check out our show notes. We’ll have all that listed. For Eric, what he just mentioned, the best way to follow along with Andersen Windows & Doors. Thank you so much for listening to our minisode series, where we bring on our partners to talk about some of the exciting things happening with our CBUSA chapters, as well as our Buildertrend Purchasing events. So, thank you so much, and we’ll check you next time.