April 11, 2022 • 46 mins
We are joined by Cindy Cameron from Gescan discussing the valuable partnerships between electrical contractors and electrical wholesalers.
We discuss the importance of relationships with your wholesaler and dive into some of the current supply chain issues.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Cindy Cameron (00:00):
Like in a flash, something can go desperately
wrong in electrical equipment orthat job, right. And what I, I
find, even to this day is thatelectrician should value what
they do so much more than howthey do. Because your job is
(00:22):
about life safety. What you do,prevents people from getting
hurt, when you do a efficientand effective job on your
distribution, and you putting itin, that is about keeping people
safe on the other side of thatreceptacle. Right. And, and I, I
(00:44):
find that value value the jobmuch more than I'm just, you
know, I'm just throwing inreceptacles. And I'm not because
you can save lives. You know,there's other, there's other
trades that are out there. Butthey're not dealing every day
(01:06):
with something that you couldhurt yourself with. Right? When
you're as an electrician, whenyou're dealing on those
voltages, you could you couldactually hurt yourself and cause
Life Extending damages to you.
And I think that, that the valueof an electrician is that they
have to understand that it's notjust an electrician, you're very
(01:28):
valuable entity.
Zack Hartle (01:34):
Those words you just heard, we're Cindy Cameron
of Gescan. She's going to joinus today on the show to talk
about a wholesalers perspectivein the electrical industry. This
is Watt's the Word an electricalindustry podcast. And I'm your
host, Zack Hartle, and I'mjoined by Jason Cox, when we're
having relevant conversationswith members from all over the
community. We're super excitedabout our conversation today. So
(01:58):
let's jump into it. Cindy,welcome to the show today, we're
excited to chat with you. Weknow you've been at Gescan for
19 years and then have moreyears of experience before that.
So I guess, first of all, canyou tell us maybe a little bit
what you do at Gescan now andhow you got to that point just
in like one or two minutes?
Cindy Cameron (02:20):
Or less or less?
Yeah, I do outside sales forGescan at the moment. I have
been like, with Jessica in 19years I have been in the
industry, electrical industry.
40 next week, April 9, yes.
Zack Hartle (02:37):
Congratulations.
Cindy Cameron (02:38):
Thank you. I started off as a mailroom clerk
went from there did filing Iparticipated in basically every
job that's within a in adistributor. So I worked counter
I did receiving I did purchasingI did inside sales, I did
quotation management, I workboth on electrical and data,
(03:01):
sides of the spectrum. I was aquotation manager and then I
went back out into outsidesales, and I did purchasing too.
So I get a lot of in like roleswithin the company in order to
have a big breadth ofunderstanding of how our
(03:22):
industry works.
Zack Hartle (03:24):
And that's useful, right? I mean, you've seen a
little bit of everything. I justgot to ask though, before we get
into too much more. I've alwayswondered what is the difference
between inside sales and outsidesales.
Cindy Cameron (03:34):
So inside sales, and I worked inside sales, so
what it is, is that a clientwill call and there's usually
they have bases or any any callthat comes into a building. So
they are answered, you know, byan inside sales, so you have the
inside sales that then take theorders and then process them.
(03:55):
And then they go back out to thebill. So they're some are called
data entry, but I prefer them tobe knowledgeable so that they
are able to when somebody callsin, they're able to ask
questions. So if you have EMT,they're asking where the
couplings and the connectors areor the big one, PVC. Do you need
(04:16):
any glue like so they're the Sothere there are a contact like
second contact either throughreception or nowadays there's a
lot of automated, automatedreception. So they are our first
contact with the clients. Sothey need to be knowledgeable
about the products that we havein house. As an outside sales.
My job is to develop accounts.
So I have a client base, who Ieither see on a regular basis or
(04:41):
have contact with the projectmanagers, the purchasers and the
owners and that's to develop arelationship to be able to see
what their needs are and to beable to find solutions for
problems they might be having orworking with them on future jobs
and having an understanding ofof where they're at, or if
they're changing their focus onon their business. So I tried to
(05:04):
be myself, I tried to besolution orientated. Because I
don't like dealing just withprice, not my idea of a good
time.
Jason Cox (05:17):
When if I'm a contractor and I have a job
coming up, and I'm doingcommercial business, and I need
a material takeoff list, do Isend you kind of, hey, this is
kind of what I what I need. Andyou guys give me a takeoff of,
well, this is the number ofpanels you need, like, do you
just build a whole packagetogether and say this is we can
(05:38):
give you this product.
Cindy Cameron (05:39):
But there's two different things. Jason, right,
there's, there's the serviceside, okay, so they may go into
a house and say, Hey, I need,they're building a little list
on the notepad, and I need threebreakers for this panel, and I
need to put some in and be inhere all I've got to change
that. So there's that type of,you know, an ask, then there's
(06:00):
another type of analysis. And Ithink this is more where you're
coming from is on the projectside, where there's a quotation
or a job or a closing date, it'sbeen driven by a GC and end user
client that way for you. So thenthat's a bid process, which is
done a bit differently. So here,and while in Calgary, it's the
(06:22):
responsibility of the contractorto provide a bill of material.
So that means that you go intothe plans, you go and you do
your counts on your fixtures,you put them you put them down,
you do your distribution, alsodo the quality, follow the
single line, and then you sendit into most distributors have
quotation departments. So thenthat would go into the quotation
(06:45):
department and whether they seesee the outside sales are not on
it, so that we're aware. So atthat time, then it would it
wants to take the quotationdepartment, okay, then they
would take it and dissect it,again, taking the luminaire
schedule, because thespecifications and drawings
should be all there, includingthe close date, including who
(07:07):
the engineer is, if there'squestions that are going back
out to the contractor. So wewould then take it out and put
it to the manufacturers to theagency that is involved in that
in that specific job. Thenthere's also the individual
customer that they're doing justthey have their own client and
(07:27):
they're out and they need alighting layout on they've
walked into the place and all weneed just a fixture, upgrade the
client, and he's only coming toyou. So you're marking down how
many fixtures I need. And youwould get that information we
have like a lighting specialist.
So then you go to your in youroutside sales, or if you have
(07:47):
one assigned, or you would takeit into the distributor to an
end, give it to an inside salesor speak to the lighting,
lighting wrap for thatdistributor. And they would ask
you like ceiling height, andthey'd ask you the color of what
was in the building? How widehow high, you know, how long?
What's the spacing? what's the,what's the building being used
(08:11):
for that space being used forbecause there's different
lighting degrees for differenttypes of workplaces. So they
would take that information,right, and then voltage lumens
and everything else would behigh bay, whatever kind of
fixtures you're looking for, andthen make suggestions back up to
you. Which then you can thentake to your end users and and
(08:34):
provide you know pricing laborand everything else to them.
That makes sense.
Jason Cox (08:40):
Yeah, how you set it way better than that I
articulated. So when when youwere speaking with one of your
potential clients or one of yourclients, a lot of time, you're
gonna send that informationright to your your quotation
department. Yeah,
Cindy Cameron (08:58):
so what happens, because I haven't developed
base, so a lot of the peoplethat are in my base, will
already send it right to thequotation people and they'll
copy me. Okay? If it's someonenew, right, something that's
new, they would come into ourbuilding, or they would phone in
(09:19):
and ask, hey, who can I get aquotation from, and then it
would go, depending on the typeof quotation they're looking
for, whether it's what we callthe material, which is anything
that's basically in thewarehouse, that would be day to
day goods, okay? Or if it's afuture, future shipping, future
job, then it would go into theproject department, and they
(09:41):
would then price it outaccordingly to either the
fixture manufacturers, they'rethe schedule that's given, or
there may be nothing, they haveto have them the conversation or
have a conversation with theclient to figure out what it is
they're trying to
Zack Hartle (09:55):
achieve. So one thing we mentioned, and I think
I'm correct on this, so correctme if I'm wrong Things like pipe
wire, I mean, boxes, those wouldall be B class material,
everything that's kind of morespecial ordered from the
manufacturer, that would be aclass material. So that correct.
Cindy Cameron (10:12):
You could have B beam class material, say
fixtures, two by fours, one byfours, LEDs, by bays, those are
still be class because they'resitting in the warehouse and
their turn, if so someone maycome in and get 32 by fours.
Okay, the differential itselfwhen you get to a project, and
(10:33):
it may be the same product,that's in is a be, however,
there's more of it. Okay, andthose a lot of projects go
direct to site. And don't turnout of the warehouse.
Jason Cox (10:48):
Cindy, if I'm starting a company, and I'm
coming to you guys to set up anaccount, what's what's some of
the some of the conversations wewould have if I was coming to
you trying to set up an accountfor my new electrical company?
Cindy Cameron (11:02):
Okay, so I can Yeah, I'll speak to just like
our company. So if you knowgentleman lady who comes in and
they want to set up an accountwith us, there's there's forms
on our website that would befilled out. We would, or I
(11:22):
would, if I'm talking to him, Iwould find out. First of all,
like, how long they've been anelectrician, if they're a master
or not. How many people theyhave employed as is their first
venture. Who else that they aresetting up accounts with, for on
the credit information. And wewould give them a credit app the
(11:45):
credit app has about ours hasabout 21 items on it. okay for
them to review. And they arelike, where I took a little
note. So they'd have like thingslike on the creditor like
payment terms, they would have,what happens if you don't pay
within a specific amount oftimes, what the interest would
(12:07):
be charged, where liability iswe have information, our
quotations and our pricing. Sothere's a little paragraph there
about price changes, ifsomething happens that we have
no control over, you know,there's a clause for that.
There's on taxations oncancellations on return
(12:32):
policies. Even on wire andcable, because wire, wire once
you've cut it, it's basically ofno value to anyone, right? The
status of the seller, theseller, the liabilities,
durations of quotes, like wehave 20 a compliance 2121
(12:52):
paragraphs that they have to gothrough, and they read them. And
then in our actual form, theyask about, you know, how many
dollars you spend, right? Do youthink how big do you believe
that you're going to be they askfor references on on who else
you've done business with. Orthey also ask for collateral or
(13:17):
guarantees for you know, linksif something goes wrong. So if
someone opens, opens an accountand they can't pay anything,
they need to put something up inorder for big. So unfortunately,
that distributor to havesomething to fall back on for
once the account is established,then they would then assign
(13:40):
either into the house where itwould get its pricing level or
depending on whom it is maybeit's an established account,
that's just decided they'regoing to open up at your branch
also. And it may get assigned toan outside sale. So if it were
to get assigned to me, then Iwould have a phone up and have a
conversation with the client.
And again, aspect what businesssegment are they? Are they
(14:02):
commercial, they industrial? Arethey institutional? I like those
type of questions. So I wouldfind whether or not I was a good
fit for them or not, becausethere's certain things I have to
strengthen. And there's otherthings that I don't and I don't
want to just have an account tohave an account I want to have
it because I want to try and addvalue to to their business. So
(14:22):
some of the gentlemen and ladiesthat I have in my account, I
then go a little bit stepfurther. And I asked them you
know, what kind of background doyou have? Have you ever taken
any business courses? Are youaware of what cost of operating
your, you know, your offices oryour van is or like have you
(14:43):
done any of these things?
Because if they don't understandhow, what their true costs are,
it's not about putting 50 bucksout an hour and hey, this is
great. I'm on my own and this isgood. It's also about the cost
of what they have in theirhouse, if they have an office in
(15:04):
their house, they still have topay for their lights, they still
should be paying their use WCBthey should still be, you know,
managing a cash flow, do theyunderstand that they should
have cashflow that they need aline of credit, that when
they're putting out a quotation,that all their operating costs
(15:28):
stripy in there before they putprofit onto anything, not just
take their labor, and figurethat everything is taken care of
that way, because it's not. Somost of the people that I have
dealt with, we've gone throughsome of those challenges. And I
also say to them, you can makeit through to the third year,
(15:49):
and you're turning a profit goodfor you. But those first two
years, they're going to betough. And you need to have
financial backing, or be verycautious of the type of business
that you take. There are someguys that open their doors, and
they already have clients thatthey are already taking with
them or have been working with.
But they still need tounderstand what that cost is.
(16:10):
And and yeah. I get worriedsometimes about especially with
economic, the economy the waythat it is. But I've also have
established customers that havegiven me a purchase order. And I
said no, I don't want it, it'snot good for us. And they go.
And, and because there'sholdbacks. There's guys that
(16:34):
aren't paying, there's GCS thatmay not want to pay within the
period of time, right? Or endusers or certain industries that
have a hard time paying in 30days, and usually 90 day, so you
have to understand who yourclient is, and if they're going
to pay you on time. Becausethat's important. Because
distributors, we don't, youknow, we pay our bills, we have
(16:57):
our bills paid in 30 days, ourexpectation is that you're
paying us on time, or you'redoing something that's
established with us, we canalways have a conversation
because you're all you know,through the years and through
relationships, you understand,you're going to do business with
that company, again, becauseyou've done business with them
before. And there was alwaysgoing to be bumps in the road.
(17:19):
And as a good and truedistributor that's working as a
partner, you work thatrelationship with that client.
But when you're just startingout, all the onus is on you to
make sure that you're, you know,that you're fulfilling your side
of the duty. So mostdistributors if you've not paid
your bills when they're done,especially right now with, you
(17:41):
know, because they eat thatmoney, right? It goes to the
bottom line, it's a loss, mostdistributed at most places at 1%
of overall sales is but youknow, bad data's and so they're
not gonna they're not playingwith anyone these days, they're
at all, the economy is tooshaky. And people, some people
(18:02):
just don't want to pay. Sohopefully that makes sense to
you.
Jason Cox (18:13):
Well, it's just the conversation what what your, I
mean, over over 40 years, thethings you must have seen the
successes and the unfortunatecircumstances, I mean, it, I
mean, some of those stories mustbe real doozies. I guess it's
time and having enough money towait to be paid as the
(18:34):
contractor, right, and thenrealizing that there's other
people waiting to be paid aswell, right.
Cindy Cameron (18:41):
And sometimes, like you get hold backs on, like
on that it's supposed to be 10%of what the overall is. And you
have larger jobs where I have aclient right now they have
$140,000 being held back forabout a $400 item. Now, where's
the logic in that? So they'refighting to get their money? I
(19:05):
mean, I would too, and, and sothat puts a flag up for them
going like I'm not sure if Ireally want to deal with that. I
have another I have anotherclient that has a contract for
one portion of the job and herand something happened during
this job. And so they got twoadditional contracts through
(19:27):
like through insurance. Howeverthe main the main job they're
utilizing it is not to pay themagain some of their whole back
for something because of theseother two additional which has
nothing to do with it makes mefrustrated when I see these type
of things like people should dogood business and business
(19:49):
fairly and equally. And somepeople are, are not they're very
like selfish. They think that byyou know, holding a carrot over
someone's head, that they'regoing to scrap late or be able
to get something better orquicker, more efficiently. And
sometimes it's just isn'tpossible.
Zack Hartle (20:09):
So are there if I am starting an electrical
company kind of back into thatthread a little bit, is there an
advantage to having an accountwith let's say, Gescan or any of
the wholesalers, as opposed to,if I'm more of a service type
company just going in and buyingstuff off the shelf?
Cindy Cameron (20:26):
Well, if you have an account, right, if you have
an account, and you have someoneassigned to it, you're going to
get maybe different discounts,or you're going to have the
ability to online, you can,well, we have our brochures and
stuff that are online that youcan take a look at. But your
actual pricing is probably well,it is better as an account than
(20:53):
it would be for a cash sin.
Because our business is aboutelectrical contractors, not cash
sales and walk in. We do havesome people that prefer to pay
cash, even though they're amaster electrician, and that's
what they prefer to do. However,that's, you know, that's their
(21:13):
choice. But they will pay theyyou know, they'll pay more than
if you have an account. Well,
Jason Cox (21:22):
I mean, when you look at the cash sales, what that
leads to is, is the electricianscustomer saying, Well, I'll tell
you what, I'll go buy all thematerial myself. And I'll get it
at the same price or cheaper.
But then that's when the clientforgets that there's those other
costs associated with theinstallation.
Cindy Cameron (21:46):
like pulling a permit. Sure. Yeah. Yeah,
exactly. Jason like that's,that's the thing, like, you'll
have somebody, oh, well, I canget this I can get cheaper. I
can get that. And, and then theymiss 40% of the components,
because they think that theyknow Oh, yeah, this is great.
Oh, this is wonderful. I got apanel. Yay. I didn't get any
(22:08):
breakers to put into. They don'tknow how to size the breakers to
go into it. Right. So theirexpectation is, like a lot of
like, where a lot of end userslike large end users will buy
the fixtures off a job. Well getthe fixtures out, we'll buy
those 1000 fixtures, and we'llsupply it to the contractor who
(22:31):
looks after the warranty. Right?
Do you just accept the fact thatoh, I'm going to put those
fixtures in and I'm going tolook after the warranty. Why
would an electrical contractorlook after the warranty for
something that they're notreceiving any type of
renumeration for
Jason Cox (22:51):
a good friend of mine once the gave a client a take
off on a job. And it wasn't abig job. And he included tape.
And he put a price on the tapeand the client was like, I'm not
paying for tape. And he said,Okay, so if you're not paying
for tape, you probably don'twant to pay for lube. You don't
(23:13):
want to pay for someone to carrythe material in. Like, what do
you want to pay for it? Well, Iguess they don't want to pay for
anything. But they want to havenew, a new install.
Cindy Cameron (23:21):
I had a many years ago, this one sticks out
on me because I get annoyed. AndI don't normally get too annoyed
because I every day somethingsomething new happens in my
world electrically. And I mean,not like I learned something
new, or experienced somethingnew. It is. One thing that
(23:45):
fascinates me is that every day,there is something different
than yesterday. But this oneincident was where we had we had
priced out I was a quotationmanager at that time. And we had
priced out this job four or fivedifferent times so far. And each
(24:05):
time it was all about the costsavings of coming down from this
fixture. Maybe it wasarchitectural all the way down.
So the person that workedunderneath me said oh my god,
and they've asked me again and Isaid, I said okay, just can you
just give me the file, take alook at it. So I phoned the
contractor. And I said, sohere's here we've finished we
(24:26):
have finished. We're not doingthis anymore. Here's the bottom
dollar. A 60 lamp is worth 60cents. A wire guard is worth 220
That's it no more. Call us whenyou're ready to place a purchase
order. That was the end ofdiscussion. Because you can
always find something that'sless expensive. You can find
(24:48):
such as people cheap, right, butdoesn't do the work that you
needed to do. Right. Even the 50fixtures in some places. Oh this
is wonderful. Overlay underlayThe spacings incorrectly
incorrect right? There. Thereare lots of reasons that people
should go to a distributor orelectrical contractor and use
(25:13):
the specialists that they havein their buildings in order to
make sure that the end user getswhat they want.
Jason Cox (25:20):
It sounds to me like you're almost describing a
partnership, right, versus thatperson that goes out. And hey, I
can go buy all this material atthe giant hardware store, when
you're, when you're dealing witha wholesaler, you actually have
a partnership there, wherethey've got experience from
doing this in the past, theyhave experts in lighting, you
(25:43):
just mentioned that I'm surethey would have an idea of data
communications, right? Whenelectricians are doing cable
poles and stuff, they might notknow exactly what they're doing.
You guys have seen in the past,all the hurdles that people are
going to run into and challengeswith trying to set up their
business. So the big word out ofthis I'm getting right now is
(26:05):
you're you're setting up apartnership.
Cindy Cameron (26:10):
I like that term like that, that partnership
relationship with with withclients and trying to understand
what it is that their needs areand that they trust, that you're
trying to understand that, like,we have like we have a
distribution specialist also inour building, some do, some
don't determine depending on onthe job, so they can actually do
(26:35):
the single line provide you withwhat is required on the full job
because that's basically whatwe're we tried to do is to
provide a Amgen solution for acontractor. Alright. And, yeah,
so when someone opens an accountwith us, it all depends too,
(26:55):
like, like, they could belittle. Or they could end up
being mouse. Right. And someonethat's a medium size guy,
depending on where so theirbusiness may only be Oh, today
it's town analysis risk. Youknow, we did a really good job
at this. Six months from now ora year from now their cash flows
(27:16):
coming in, they're paying theirsupplier, they're getting paid
by their and you know what, Ithink we might branch off a
little bit and try that littlecommercial strip mall. Right? So
you have to have an idea of howto flow with them and grow with
them, and give them whatever itis knowledge wise, or some sort
(27:38):
of through either yourself andor through the manufacturers
reps so that you can help themgrow, if that's what they're
designed to do. Right. And inthat industry that they choose.
And as distributors, okay, youknow, we have manufacturers that
we represent. And they havetheir expertise, which were to
(28:00):
utilize the salespeople, becausewe don't know everything, we
need to rely on ourmanufacturers, especially
lighting guys these days when itchanges like that. Right
distribution, not so much.
However, with lighting, goingfrom fluorescence to t, you
know, t 12, t 85. Now, we'reinto LEDs. Alright, and you've
(28:24):
got selectable so you can getthree different types of colors,
three different voltages, threedifferent lumens, all in one,
you know, in one simple two byfour, right. So there's a lot of
things that hopefully, as adistributor, we can bring to an
electrical contractor to helpmake their job easier, because
at the end of the day, right,people want to deal with people
(28:49):
that make their lives easy. Ourjob is to have, you know, the
top items that the client needson our shelf, right, so that
they don't have to put it intheir house. Some of these
medium sized, there used to beyears where people fill their
warehouse and their service icecame in, picked up what they
wanted and left in the morning.
(29:12):
Now a lot of companies havetheir service guys come into the
building, pick up what theyneed, and then leave. And like
our company like we have. So wehave our apps like our mobile
app is awesome. Like you can goin a guy can go in and make a
(29:32):
quick list for themselves. So ifthere's 10 products that they
use every day, they can put itin, they can order online, it
comes out onto the system. Andthen if you know within, you
know the next day, the morning,it's ready. They can pick up go
to the EECOM get it and off theygo right so if you're smaller to
(29:54):
mid size, it cuts down on time.
coming in and doing the counterAlso if you know if it's a
foreman that's doing it fortheir, their apprentices to come
pick it up. You don't have that.
Usually the mistake isapprentices are learning. Right?
So they'll go, oh, yeah, I gotthat. Oh, but where's this?
(30:16):
Isn't this Oh, I didn't realizeI needed it. So here's the trip,
I gotta go back again. The, theapp also can tell you if they're
stuck. Like if you're out in themiddle of nowhere, and you're
stuck and you've got a phonedistributors around I need this
who's got it? Well, at least itcan go on or off and go, Hey,
yeah, they have a foreigncountry or three in Airdrie. I
(30:38):
know it's not a wasted trip.
Right.
Zack Hartle (30:41):
That's the moneymaker right there. Like
nobody likes phoning peopleanymore. And nobody likes going
anywhere, when you don't know ifit's gonna be on the shelf or
not right.
Cindy Cameron (30:51):
And right now, and right now we have, and it's
no fault of any distributor, itis a supply chain issue. It is
it is a wave world, you may goon to a distributor today and
get, for instance, number 12,you'll get red and black, oh,
sorry, my whites in transit. Sothen they have to leave and go
(31:12):
to that distributor, two blocksaway to go get the white and now
they're really feel because nowthey gotta go get the red
somewhere else. Because it just,I'm only using that as an
example. Right. But those thingsare real. Those types of things
are real, that's costly to anelectrical contractor when they
have to go three or four times.
But there's also the, you know,the the other side of it were
(31:35):
larger companies where you havethe where they're issuing
purchase orders, and there's theintangibles. So you have a Pio
that has, you know, four itemson it. And all of a sudden,
well, this guy has a hearing for$1. And this one has it at 98
cents, and this guy had, I'llcreate three purchase orders, so
that I can save myself, youknow, 25 bucks, and then they
(31:58):
create themselves X, you know,more purchase orders that have
by the time they receive them bytime, because then you have to
check them off, or they have towrite them up. They've extended
the $25. Now you've you've gotthe intention, you don't see it.
But there is a cost right in thepurchasers there's a cost of
(32:20):
paying them out twice. Cost ofyou know, having somebody driver
where they could have justgotten the material one place
for the extra $25. Instead,they're spending 75 on
intangibles. Right?
Jason Cox (32:36):
Well, I mean, it's your time, right? What is your
time worth? Right? Is it is itworth, I mean, setting up like
you're doubling your POS, soit's gonna be double the
administration there to save $25And then you're gonna have to go
from A to B. Right. So sometimesit's it's just, you want the one
one stop shop. Right?
Cindy Cameron (32:58):
Yeah, you try for that? That is the thing. That's
the thing that it would bereally, you know, really great
to be able to do that. Right nowit is, it is more difficult. But
you have to think past just the,like the dollars, like I said,
I'm only using that as smallanalogy. Sometimes there's like
(33:18):
a lot of dollars involved. Soyeah, it makes sense. But
sometimes it just, it doesn'tyou have to sometimes right now
change the way that you look athow you used to do business and
how you do it today compared tohow you did it last year or the
year before, right? You have tocontractors, even if products
(33:39):
that used to be seven to 10days, maybe over the East
performance. Unfortunately, thecontractor also does not have
that window of time, becausepeople hold on to their, to
their contracts. And the windowkeeps getting shorter for when
their end date is. And then theexpectation is that oh yeah,
(34:02):
we'll have no issue getting thatproduct. Yes, you do. And that
line here gets extended. And ifcontractors aren't careful, they
signed deals that if they don'thit that date, cost them money,
which is their whole backs. Andthen they're still responsible
(34:22):
for something that they couldn'tdo in the first place because
the timeline wasn't wasn't goodenough or right with the
expectations. So and also tothat and this will be a good
one, but I can't wait to seewhat happens in the next little
bit too. With transportationcosts with our you know how our
(34:43):
gasoline and like oil, diesel,all of it is going up. But
there's not as many goods thattravel west to east as east to
west. So when you're looking attransportation vehicles, like
just act We'll trucks and semisthat are coming this way. And
(35:04):
you've got no load to go back asa transport company, and not in
transport. Since what 2018There's already a driver
shortage. Regardless, prior topandemic, no matter what
everybody's prior to thepandemic, there's a shortage of
20,000 drivers. Prior to that,and manufacturers are gonna go
(35:25):
well, okay, or transportcompanies are gonna get, it's
gonna cost, you know, more moneyto go from east to west, because
I don't have anything goingback. So it's going to cost me
twice as much, because since Ihave nothing east to west, then
or West west east, then I'm notgoing to have just a free truck
out there for two, two weeksdoing nothing. So that I'm sure
(35:48):
something that's might you know,is going to be affecting the
cost of goods to here in thenext three to six months. It's
not just about the shortage ofcommodities.
Zack Hartle (35:56):
And that's definitely something I never
thought of. But yeah, you don'twant that empty truck driving
back. Right? It's pointless.
Cindy Cameron (36:03):
Yeah. And trains are effective. But and a lot of
delivery time.
Jason Cox (36:12):
We're talking about I mean, everyone's hearing the
supply chain issue now. I can'tremember where I was the other
day and in somebody, I think Iwas in a retail store and the
guy stocking shelves mentionedsupply chain. What's What's the
the dreaded hard to find thingin your industry right now?
(36:33):
Like, we hear breakers are hardto come by? What's the what's
the hot topic of things that arehard to hard to pick up these
days?
Cindy Cameron (36:43):
Really, it depends. I guess it depends on
what the contractor is askingfor I had, I was looking for
some RW 90 number for 16 weeks,I was looking for our Wu number
for right to 20 weeks. And itcould be different from
manufacturer to manufacturer.
Every manufacturer when you do asingle pole breaker, it's one
(37:05):
type of residence if it's doublepole breakers, it's a different
type of residence. So resin isis something that is right now
in in short supply. So that'swhy the breakers are are longer
to come out. PVC is anallotments PVC has a resonant
wire has resin in it right inthe in the nylon. So every so
(37:28):
one I am just causes a bunch ofdifferent types of products to
be to take longer deliveries.
And we forget as much as we loveour electrical world. We're not
the only industry in the world,you have a mechanical industry,
(37:53):
you have a car industry thatuses steel, right? You have all
these other industries thatactually use the same products
that you do. So you may or wemay think that we're like number
one on the list. But inactuality, there's a lot of
other industries that may usesome of these products much
(38:16):
more. So they're higher on thelist for some of these
manufacturers that maybe theydon't We don't utilize all the
time coming down than us. Sothat's just reality. But we
never think about it like thateither. With we have with supply
(38:38):
also the chips, electronicchips, but we've been we knew
electronic chips are going to bean issue prior to pandemic like
they were, they were havingissues there. Now it's just
harder. And in those chips, alot of ballasts like on
fixtures, you know, some evensome of your distribution
(38:59):
equipment have electronic chipsin them right for on in larger
electronic breakers. So thingsthat never used even cross your
mind. And it could be just onesimple little thing. But you
can't get it and you can't sendlike sometimes you can't send a
panel for instance, out becauseit needs CSA approval on it. So
(39:24):
it isn't about just hey, oh, Ican send that No, it's the type
it needs to be certified beforeit goes and sometimes they don't
allow you to certify them in theprovince or or take it apart and
put it in. So there's a lot ofother things that happen even
though you don't have that onelittle part.
Jason Cox (39:43):
I never thought we talked about resin today on the
podcast but are you seeing a lotof your contractors kind of
build up their their stock justin in preparation for these
escalating prices?
Cindy Cameron (40:03):
No, not really.
There's they're sort of likebuying as at buying as required
and or trying to pre, pre, preorder. I quote, I had an
incident where we put somethingin order last year in September.
And we were still working ongetting deliveries in December.
(40:25):
And this is of the material,right? The client knew ahead of
time that there was going to beissues, right? So we just worked
through them. And they were ableto work. And we worked with the
with the manufacturer, so thatthe product, some of the
products that they needed frontend, that we were able to get
those. And then as the, as theybuilt their building, we were
(40:50):
able to bring in other productsout along the way. So that a the
manufacturer had an idea of whatthe overall usage would be and
what was required. However, wedidn't need at all like right at
that moment. We needed it. If wecan stagger here, here and here.
Then that worked also. And themanufacturer, it didn't cost of
(41:11):
manufacture anything more forfreight didn't cost the client
any more to hold the materialthey were or having to finance
it, because we build it as itcame out. But by giving the
manufacturer that extra amountof time or lead time, then then
then that allowed them to dotheir job more effectively and
efficiently also. And I haveI've had different things like
(41:33):
that happen. I had I had a wherewe had a huge amount of a
product, and the manufacturerdidn't have the employees
available because of COVID to beable to build the product. He
had the material didn't haveanyone to put the product
together. Right. So we staggeredit out. It took I think 16 weeks
(41:57):
for us to get everything.
Jason Cox (42:02):
One at a time for logistics, right? We got COVID
We've got fluctuating gasprices, we got a lack of
staffing, right. Resin shortage,resin shortage. You love that
when? Well, it's just like youwere saying, I mean, you learn
something new every day. And alot of times we take things for
(42:24):
granted. Right? And
Cindy Cameron (42:27):
well, and I'm like, like I said, it will be
interesting. Like I mean, wehave all the shorts, we have all
that we've been dealing with itwe are still dealing with not
full manufacturing plants andeverything else, right. Even
with the COVID there's peoplethat are not going they just
don't want to go back to work.
Right. Like, and people areleaving the industry. Right and
doing something else. And thenwe have within the industry too.
(42:53):
There's, I have contractslooking for journeyman. Oh, you
haven't seen or heard anelectrical contractor look for
journeyman in a very long time.
And then wait no wait out likewe've had that discussion. Wait
with the low because of the thepandemic and the and what has
(43:14):
happened? The low of apprenticesand moving forward? Because
they're for a year and a half,two years? Very unsteady. Like,
I'm not sure how that how that'sgoing to form in the next in a
little bit. Right? Like you'realready having a shortage of
like, journeyman. Like, I'mguaranteed we're not gonna have
(43:37):
a whole bunch of apprenticeshere in the next year or two,
you could speak to that you guysprobably could speak to that
more than I can.
Jason Cox (43:44):
It's hard to say though, right? I mean, like you
said, during that COVID break,or whatever we want to call it,
there's people that have justthat, that have decided to move
in different directions forcareers. And so we could, I
don't I never like to think ofit as a boom, because we were so
low down there. Right? But, butI mean, sure we're gonna see the
(44:06):
economy start to build up. Sothere could be there could be
changes to our industry forsure.
Zack Hartle (44:14):
Neither Jason or I, I mean, I guess I shouldn't
speak for him. But I've had thechance to deal a lot with
distributors, rather than goinginto a counter or sometimes
emailing an inside sales rep. Soto hear about, you know, those
partnerships between buildingbusinesses and between
distributors, it's great to hearright I mean, it's, it's what we
want in the industry and that'sactually what this podcast is
(44:35):
all about just buildingrelationships, building
connections and partnershipsbetween everyone involved in the
industry, right?
Cindy Cameron (44:43):
Well, and you're gonna have to see more of that
happening just because of theway the world right now. Right
and if we do go into another oneof our we have to remember for
two and a half or two years tohave your very little building
was done very well. Maintenancehadn't been done very little
upgrade, like, so now all of asudden you have the backlog of
(45:04):
years of work. Also, that has tobe done in buildings in in, you
know, in doubt in our downtowncore here too is like 3030 35
years, probably most of it.
Okay. So and you know that,like, there's a maintenance
schedule, like after a certainamount of time. It has to be
redone. Yeah,
Zack Hartle (45:27):
there's lifecycle.
Yeah.
Cindy Cameron (45:29):
Yeah. So a lot of our core that even though it's
at, like the vacancy rate, itstill has to be done. Right,
because it's end to end of life.
Zack Hartle (45:40):
So yeah, I mean, just to wrap things up, Cindy,
like, thank you so much forcoming on the show. Jason and I
both really do appreciate yourtime.
Cindy Cameron (45:47):
Well, and I appreciate that you asked me
however, I hope I did. Like Isaid, I hope I did justice to
our, you know, our distributorrole. I hope I answered the
questions effectively andefficiently. Right, because as a
distributor, right, we're like,a conduit or right no pun
intended, or a bridge betweenmanufacturers and agents tasked
(46:11):
to to contractors and end users.
Zack Hartle (46:15):
Thanks for joining us today on what's the word
podcast. We really hope youliked this episode. And if you
did, please make sure yousubscribe to the show wherever
you listen to your podcast. Ifyou haven't had a chance yet,
leave us a review on Apple orSpotify to help us get the word
out. And most importantly, ifyou think this show could be
valuable to one of your friendsin the electrical community,
please share it with them.
Thanks for coming today. Haveyourself a great day. Keep
(46:39):
yourself safe out there. And ifyou can someone else to
Like in a flash, something can go desperately
wrong in electrical equipment orthat job, right. And what I, I
find, even to this day is thatelectrician should value what
they do so much more than howthey do. Because your job is
(00:22):
about life safety. What you do,prevents people from getting
hurt, when you do a efficientand effective job on your
distribution, and you putting itin, that is about keeping people
safe on the other side of thatreceptacle. Right. And, and I, I
(00:44):
find that value value the jobmuch more than I'm just, you
know, I'm just throwing inreceptacles. And I'm not because
you can save lives. You know,there's other, there's other
trades that are out there. Butthey're not dealing every day
(01:06):
with something that you couldhurt yourself with. Right? When
you're as an electrician, whenyou're dealing on those
voltages, you could you couldactually hurt yourself and cause
Life Extending damages to you.
And I think that, that the valueof an electrician is that they
have to understand that it's notjust an electrician, you're very
(01:28):
valuable entity.
Zack Hartle (01:34):
Those words you just heard, we're Cindy Cameron
of Gescan. She's going to joinus today on the show to talk
about a wholesalers perspectivein the electrical industry. This
is Watt's the Word an electricalindustry podcast. And I'm your
host, Zack Hartle, and I'mjoined by Jason Cox, when we're
having relevant conversationswith members from all over the
community. We're super excitedabout our conversation today. So
(01:58):
let's jump into it. Cindy,welcome to the show today, we're
excited to chat with you. Weknow you've been at Gescan for
19 years and then have moreyears of experience before that.
So I guess, first of all, canyou tell us maybe a little bit
what you do at Gescan now andhow you got to that point just
in like one or two minutes?
Cindy Cameron (02:20):
Or less or less?
Yeah, I do outside sales forGescan at the moment. I have
been like, with Jessica in 19years I have been in the
industry, electrical industry.
40 next week, April 9, yes.
Zack Hartle (02:37):
Congratulations.
Cindy Cameron (02:38):
Thank you. I started off as a mailroom clerk
went from there did filing Iparticipated in basically every
job that's within a in adistributor. So I worked counter
I did receiving I did purchasingI did inside sales, I did
quotation management, I workboth on electrical and data,
(03:01):
sides of the spectrum. I was aquotation manager and then I
went back out into outsidesales, and I did purchasing too.
So I get a lot of in like roleswithin the company in order to
have a big breadth ofunderstanding of how our
(03:22):
industry works.
Zack Hartle (03:24):
And that's useful, right? I mean, you've seen a
little bit of everything. I justgot to ask though, before we get
into too much more. I've alwayswondered what is the difference
between inside sales and outsidesales.
Cindy Cameron (03:34):
So inside sales, and I worked inside sales, so
what it is, is that a clientwill call and there's usually
they have bases or any any callthat comes into a building. So
they are answered, you know, byan inside sales, so you have the
inside sales that then take theorders and then process them.
(03:55):
And then they go back out to thebill. So they're some are called
data entry, but I prefer them tobe knowledgeable so that they
are able to when somebody callsin, they're able to ask
questions. So if you have EMT,they're asking where the
couplings and the connectors areor the big one, PVC. Do you need
(04:16):
any glue like so they're the Sothere there are a contact like
second contact either throughreception or nowadays there's a
lot of automated, automatedreception. So they are our first
contact with the clients. Sothey need to be knowledgeable
about the products that we havein house. As an outside sales.
My job is to develop accounts.
So I have a client base, who Ieither see on a regular basis or
(04:41):
have contact with the projectmanagers, the purchasers and the
owners and that's to develop arelationship to be able to see
what their needs are and to beable to find solutions for
problems they might be having orworking with them on future jobs
and having an understanding ofof where they're at, or if
they're changing their focus onon their business. So I tried to
(05:04):
be myself, I tried to besolution orientated. Because I
don't like dealing just withprice, not my idea of a good
time.
Jason Cox (05:17):
When if I'm a contractor and I have a job
coming up, and I'm doingcommercial business, and I need
a material takeoff list, do Isend you kind of, hey, this is
kind of what I what I need. Andyou guys give me a takeoff of,
well, this is the number ofpanels you need, like, do you
just build a whole packagetogether and say this is we can
(05:38):
give you this product.
Cindy Cameron (05:39):
But there's two different things. Jason, right,
there's, there's the serviceside, okay, so they may go into
a house and say, Hey, I need,they're building a little list
on the notepad, and I need threebreakers for this panel, and I
need to put some in and be inhere all I've got to change
that. So there's that type of,you know, an ask, then there's
(06:00):
another type of analysis. And Ithink this is more where you're
coming from is on the projectside, where there's a quotation
or a job or a closing date, it'sbeen driven by a GC and end user
client that way for you. So thenthat's a bid process, which is
done a bit differently. So here,and while in Calgary, it's the
(06:22):
responsibility of the contractorto provide a bill of material.
So that means that you go intothe plans, you go and you do
your counts on your fixtures,you put them you put them down,
you do your distribution, alsodo the quality, follow the
single line, and then you sendit into most distributors have
quotation departments. So thenthat would go into the quotation
(06:45):
department and whether they seesee the outside sales are not on
it, so that we're aware. So atthat time, then it would it
wants to take the quotationdepartment, okay, then they
would take it and dissect it,again, taking the luminaire
schedule, because thespecifications and drawings
should be all there, includingthe close date, including who
(07:07):
the engineer is, if there'squestions that are going back
out to the contractor. So wewould then take it out and put
it to the manufacturers to theagency that is involved in that
in that specific job. Thenthere's also the individual
customer that they're doing justthey have their own client and
(07:27):
they're out and they need alighting layout on they've
walked into the place and all weneed just a fixture, upgrade the
client, and he's only coming toyou. So you're marking down how
many fixtures I need. And youwould get that information we
have like a lighting specialist.
So then you go to your in youroutside sales, or if you have
(07:47):
one assigned, or you would takeit into the distributor to an
end, give it to an inside salesor speak to the lighting,
lighting wrap for thatdistributor. And they would ask
you like ceiling height, andthey'd ask you the color of what
was in the building? How widehow high, you know, how long?
What's the spacing? what's the,what's the building being used
(08:11):
for that space being used forbecause there's different
lighting degrees for differenttypes of workplaces. So they
would take that information,right, and then voltage lumens
and everything else would behigh bay, whatever kind of
fixtures you're looking for, andthen make suggestions back up to
you. Which then you can thentake to your end users and and
(08:34):
provide you know pricing laborand everything else to them.
That makes sense.
Jason Cox (08:40):
Yeah, how you set it way better than that I
articulated. So when when youwere speaking with one of your
potential clients or one of yourclients, a lot of time, you're
gonna send that informationright to your your quotation
department. Yeah,
Cindy Cameron (08:58):
so what happens, because I haven't developed
base, so a lot of the peoplethat are in my base, will
already send it right to thequotation people and they'll
copy me. Okay? If it's someonenew, right, something that's
new, they would come into ourbuilding, or they would phone in
(09:19):
and ask, hey, who can I get aquotation from, and then it
would go, depending on the typeof quotation they're looking
for, whether it's what we callthe material, which is anything
that's basically in thewarehouse, that would be day to
day goods, okay? Or if it's afuture, future shipping, future
job, then it would go into theproject department, and they
(09:41):
would then price it outaccordingly to either the
fixture manufacturers, they'rethe schedule that's given, or
there may be nothing, they haveto have them the conversation or
have a conversation with theclient to figure out what it is
they're trying to
Zack Hartle (09:55):
achieve. So one thing we mentioned, and I think
I'm correct on this, so correctme if I'm wrong Things like pipe
wire, I mean, boxes, those wouldall be B class material,
everything that's kind of morespecial ordered from the
manufacturer, that would be aclass material. So that correct.
Cindy Cameron (10:12):
You could have B beam class material, say
fixtures, two by fours, one byfours, LEDs, by bays, those are
still be class because they'resitting in the warehouse and
their turn, if so someone maycome in and get 32 by fours.
Okay, the differential itselfwhen you get to a project, and
(10:33):
it may be the same product,that's in is a be, however,
there's more of it. Okay, andthose a lot of projects go
direct to site. And don't turnout of the warehouse.
Jason Cox (10:48):
Cindy, if I'm starting a company, and I'm
coming to you guys to set up anaccount, what's what's some of
the some of the conversations wewould have if I was coming to
you trying to set up an accountfor my new electrical company?
Cindy Cameron (11:02):
Okay, so I can Yeah, I'll speak to just like
our company. So if you knowgentleman lady who comes in and
they want to set up an accountwith us, there's there's forms
on our website that would befilled out. We would, or I
(11:22):
would, if I'm talking to him, Iwould find out. First of all,
like, how long they've been anelectrician, if they're a master
or not. How many people theyhave employed as is their first
venture. Who else that they aresetting up accounts with, for on
the credit information. And wewould give them a credit app the
(11:45):
credit app has about ours hasabout 21 items on it. okay for
them to review. And they arelike, where I took a little
note. So they'd have like thingslike on the creditor like
payment terms, they would have,what happens if you don't pay
within a specific amount oftimes, what the interest would
(12:07):
be charged, where liability iswe have information, our
quotations and our pricing. Sothere's a little paragraph there
about price changes, ifsomething happens that we have
no control over, you know,there's a clause for that.
There's on taxations oncancellations on return
(12:32):
policies. Even on wire andcable, because wire, wire once
you've cut it, it's basically ofno value to anyone, right? The
status of the seller, theseller, the liabilities,
durations of quotes, like wehave 20 a compliance 2121
(12:52):
paragraphs that they have to gothrough, and they read them. And
then in our actual form, theyask about, you know, how many
dollars you spend, right? Do youthink how big do you believe
that you're going to be they askfor references on on who else
you've done business with. Orthey also ask for collateral or
(13:17):
guarantees for you know, linksif something goes wrong. So if
someone opens, opens an accountand they can't pay anything,
they need to put something up inorder for big. So unfortunately,
that distributor to havesomething to fall back on for
once the account is established,then they would then assign
(13:40):
either into the house where itwould get its pricing level or
depending on whom it is maybeit's an established account,
that's just decided they'regoing to open up at your branch
also. And it may get assigned toan outside sale. So if it were
to get assigned to me, then Iwould have a phone up and have a
conversation with the client.
And again, aspect what businesssegment are they? Are they
(14:02):
commercial, they industrial? Arethey institutional? I like those
type of questions. So I wouldfind whether or not I was a good
fit for them or not, becausethere's certain things I have to
strengthen. And there's otherthings that I don't and I don't
want to just have an account tohave an account I want to have
it because I want to try and addvalue to to their business. So
(14:22):
some of the gentlemen and ladiesthat I have in my account, I
then go a little bit stepfurther. And I asked them you
know, what kind of background doyou have? Have you ever taken
any business courses? Are youaware of what cost of operating
your, you know, your offices oryour van is or like have you
(14:43):
done any of these things?
Because if they don't understandhow, what their true costs are,
it's not about putting 50 bucksout an hour and hey, this is
great. I'm on my own and this isgood. It's also about the cost
of what they have in theirhouse, if they have an office in
(15:04):
their house, they still have topay for their lights, they still
should be paying their use WCBthey should still be, you know,
managing a cash flow, do theyunderstand that they should
have cashflow that they need aline of credit, that when
they're putting out a quotation,that all their operating costs
(15:28):
stripy in there before they putprofit onto anything, not just
take their labor, and figurethat everything is taken care of
that way, because it's not. Somost of the people that I have
dealt with, we've gone throughsome of those challenges. And I
also say to them, you can makeit through to the third year,
(15:49):
and you're turning a profit goodfor you. But those first two
years, they're going to betough. And you need to have
financial backing, or be verycautious of the type of business
that you take. There are someguys that open their doors, and
they already have clients thatthey are already taking with
them or have been working with.
But they still need tounderstand what that cost is.
(16:10):
And and yeah. I get worriedsometimes about especially with
economic, the economy the waythat it is. But I've also have
established customers that havegiven me a purchase order. And I
said no, I don't want it, it'snot good for us. And they go.
And, and because there'sholdbacks. There's guys that
(16:34):
aren't paying, there's GCS thatmay not want to pay within the
period of time, right? Or endusers or certain industries that
have a hard time paying in 30days, and usually 90 day, so you
have to understand who yourclient is, and if they're going
to pay you on time. Becausethat's important. Because
distributors, we don't, youknow, we pay our bills, we have
(16:57):
our bills paid in 30 days, ourexpectation is that you're
paying us on time, or you'redoing something that's
established with us, we canalways have a conversation
because you're all you know,through the years and through
relationships, you understand,you're going to do business with
that company, again, becauseyou've done business with them
before. And there was alwaysgoing to be bumps in the road.
(17:19):
And as a good and truedistributor that's working as a
partner, you work thatrelationship with that client.
But when you're just startingout, all the onus is on you to
make sure that you're, you know,that you're fulfilling your side
of the duty. So mostdistributors if you've not paid
your bills when they're done,especially right now with, you
(17:41):
know, because they eat thatmoney, right? It goes to the
bottom line, it's a loss, mostdistributed at most places at 1%
of overall sales is but youknow, bad data's and so they're
not gonna they're not playingwith anyone these days, they're
at all, the economy is tooshaky. And people, some people
(18:02):
just don't want to pay. Sohopefully that makes sense to
you.
Jason Cox (18:13):
Well, it's just the conversation what what your, I
mean, over over 40 years, thethings you must have seen the
successes and the unfortunatecircumstances, I mean, it, I
mean, some of those stories mustbe real doozies. I guess it's
time and having enough money towait to be paid as the
(18:34):
contractor, right, and thenrealizing that there's other
people waiting to be paid aswell, right.
Cindy Cameron (18:41):
And sometimes, like you get hold backs on, like
on that it's supposed to be 10%of what the overall is. And you
have larger jobs where I have aclient right now they have
$140,000 being held back forabout a $400 item. Now, where's
the logic in that? So they'refighting to get their money? I
(19:05):
mean, I would too, and, and sothat puts a flag up for them
going like I'm not sure if Ireally want to deal with that. I
have another I have anotherclient that has a contract for
one portion of the job and herand something happened during
this job. And so they got twoadditional contracts through
(19:27):
like through insurance. Howeverthe main the main job they're
utilizing it is not to pay themagain some of their whole back
for something because of theseother two additional which has
nothing to do with it makes mefrustrated when I see these type
of things like people should dogood business and business
(19:49):
fairly and equally. And somepeople are, are not they're very
like selfish. They think that byyou know, holding a carrot over
someone's head, that they'regoing to scrap late or be able
to get something better orquicker, more efficiently. And
sometimes it's just isn'tpossible.
Zack Hartle (20:09):
So are there if I am starting an electrical
company kind of back into thatthread a little bit, is there an
advantage to having an accountwith let's say, Gescan or any of
the wholesalers, as opposed to,if I'm more of a service type
company just going in and buyingstuff off the shelf?
Cindy Cameron (20:26):
Well, if you have an account, right, if you have
an account, and you have someoneassigned to it, you're going to
get maybe different discounts,or you're going to have the
ability to online, you can,well, we have our brochures and
stuff that are online that youcan take a look at. But your
actual pricing is probably well,it is better as an account than
(20:53):
it would be for a cash sin.
Because our business is aboutelectrical contractors, not cash
sales and walk in. We do havesome people that prefer to pay
cash, even though they're amaster electrician, and that's
what they prefer to do. However,that's, you know, that's their
(21:13):
choice. But they will pay theyyou know, they'll pay more than
if you have an account. Well,
Jason Cox (21:22):
I mean, when you look at the cash sales, what that
leads to is, is the electricianscustomer saying, Well, I'll tell
you what, I'll go buy all thematerial myself. And I'll get it
at the same price or cheaper.
But then that's when the clientforgets that there's those other
costs associated with theinstallation.
Cindy Cameron (21:46):
like pulling a permit. Sure. Yeah. Yeah,
exactly. Jason like that's,that's the thing, like, you'll
have somebody, oh, well, I canget this I can get cheaper. I
can get that. And, and then theymiss 40% of the components,
because they think that theyknow Oh, yeah, this is great.
Oh, this is wonderful. I got apanel. Yay. I didn't get any
(22:08):
breakers to put into. They don'tknow how to size the breakers to
go into it. Right. So theirexpectation is, like a lot of
like, where a lot of end userslike large end users will buy
the fixtures off a job. Well getthe fixtures out, we'll buy
those 1000 fixtures, and we'llsupply it to the contractor who
(22:31):
looks after the warranty. Right?
Do you just accept the fact thatoh, I'm going to put those
fixtures in and I'm going tolook after the warranty. Why
would an electrical contractorlook after the warranty for
something that they're notreceiving any type of
renumeration for
Jason Cox (22:51):
a good friend of mine once the gave a client a take
off on a job. And it wasn't abig job. And he included tape.
And he put a price on the tapeand the client was like, I'm not
paying for tape. And he said,Okay, so if you're not paying
for tape, you probably don'twant to pay for lube. You don't
(23:13):
want to pay for someone to carrythe material in. Like, what do
you want to pay for it? Well, Iguess they don't want to pay for
anything. But they want to havenew, a new install.
Cindy Cameron (23:21):
I had a many years ago, this one sticks out
on me because I get annoyed. AndI don't normally get too annoyed
because I every day somethingsomething new happens in my
world electrically. And I mean,not like I learned something
new, or experienced somethingnew. It is. One thing that
(23:45):
fascinates me is that every day,there is something different
than yesterday. But this oneincident was where we had we had
priced out I was a quotationmanager at that time. And we had
priced out this job four or fivedifferent times so far. And each
(24:05):
time it was all about the costsavings of coming down from this
fixture. Maybe it wasarchitectural all the way down.
So the person that workedunderneath me said oh my god,
and they've asked me again and Isaid, I said okay, just can you
just give me the file, take alook at it. So I phoned the
contractor. And I said, sohere's here we've finished we
(24:26):
have finished. We're not doingthis anymore. Here's the bottom
dollar. A 60 lamp is worth 60cents. A wire guard is worth 220
That's it no more. Call us whenyou're ready to place a purchase
order. That was the end ofdiscussion. Because you can
always find something that'sless expensive. You can find
(24:48):
such as people cheap, right, butdoesn't do the work that you
needed to do. Right. Even the 50fixtures in some places. Oh this
is wonderful. Overlay underlayThe spacings incorrectly
incorrect right? There. Thereare lots of reasons that people
should go to a distributor orelectrical contractor and use
(25:13):
the specialists that they havein their buildings in order to
make sure that the end user getswhat they want.
Jason Cox (25:20):
It sounds to me like you're almost describing a
partnership, right, versus thatperson that goes out. And hey, I
can go buy all this material atthe giant hardware store, when
you're, when you're dealing witha wholesaler, you actually have
a partnership there, wherethey've got experience from
doing this in the past, theyhave experts in lighting, you
(25:43):
just mentioned that I'm surethey would have an idea of data
communications, right? Whenelectricians are doing cable
poles and stuff, they might notknow exactly what they're doing.
You guys have seen in the past,all the hurdles that people are
going to run into and challengeswith trying to set up their
business. So the big word out ofthis I'm getting right now is
(26:05):
you're you're setting up apartnership.
Cindy Cameron (26:10):
I like that term like that, that partnership
relationship with with withclients and trying to understand
what it is that their needs areand that they trust, that you're
trying to understand that, like,we have like we have a
distribution specialist also inour building, some do, some
don't determine depending on onthe job, so they can actually do
(26:35):
the single line provide you withwhat is required on the full job
because that's basically whatwe're we tried to do is to
provide a Amgen solution for acontractor. Alright. And, yeah,
so when someone opens an accountwith us, it all depends too,
(26:55):
like, like, they could belittle. Or they could end up
being mouse. Right. And someonethat's a medium size guy,
depending on where so theirbusiness may only be Oh, today
it's town analysis risk. Youknow, we did a really good job
at this. Six months from now ora year from now their cash flows
(27:16):
coming in, they're paying theirsupplier, they're getting paid
by their and you know what, Ithink we might branch off a
little bit and try that littlecommercial strip mall. Right? So
you have to have an idea of howto flow with them and grow with
them, and give them whatever itis knowledge wise, or some sort
(27:38):
of through either yourself andor through the manufacturers
reps so that you can help themgrow, if that's what they're
designed to do. Right. And inthat industry that they choose.
And as distributors, okay, youknow, we have manufacturers that
we represent. And they havetheir expertise, which were to
(28:00):
utilize the salespeople, becausewe don't know everything, we
need to rely on ourmanufacturers, especially
lighting guys these days when itchanges like that. Right
distribution, not so much.
However, with lighting, goingfrom fluorescence to t, you
know, t 12, t 85. Now, we'reinto LEDs. Alright, and you've
(28:24):
got selectable so you can getthree different types of colors,
three different voltages, threedifferent lumens, all in one,
you know, in one simple two byfour, right. So there's a lot of
things that hopefully, as adistributor, we can bring to an
electrical contractor to helpmake their job easier, because
at the end of the day, right,people want to deal with people
(28:49):
that make their lives easy. Ourjob is to have, you know, the
top items that the client needson our shelf, right, so that
they don't have to put it intheir house. Some of these
medium sized, there used to beyears where people fill their
warehouse and their service icecame in, picked up what they
wanted and left in the morning.
(29:12):
Now a lot of companies havetheir service guys come into the
building, pick up what theyneed, and then leave. And like
our company like we have. So wehave our apps like our mobile
app is awesome. Like you can goin a guy can go in and make a
(29:32):
quick list for themselves. So ifthere's 10 products that they
use every day, they can put itin, they can order online, it
comes out onto the system. Andthen if you know within, you
know the next day, the morning,it's ready. They can pick up go
to the EECOM get it and off theygo right so if you're smaller to
(29:54):
mid size, it cuts down on time.
coming in and doing the counterAlso if you know if it's a
foreman that's doing it fortheir, their apprentices to come
pick it up. You don't have that.
Usually the mistake isapprentices are learning. Right?
So they'll go, oh, yeah, I gotthat. Oh, but where's this?
(30:16):
Isn't this Oh, I didn't realizeI needed it. So here's the trip,
I gotta go back again. The, theapp also can tell you if they're
stuck. Like if you're out in themiddle of nowhere, and you're
stuck and you've got a phonedistributors around I need this
who's got it? Well, at least itcan go on or off and go, Hey,
yeah, they have a foreigncountry or three in Airdrie. I
(30:38):
know it's not a wasted trip.
Right.
Zack Hartle (30:41):
That's the moneymaker right there. Like
nobody likes phoning peopleanymore. And nobody likes going
anywhere, when you don't know ifit's gonna be on the shelf or
not right.
Cindy Cameron (30:51):
And right now, and right now we have, and it's
no fault of any distributor, itis a supply chain issue. It is
it is a wave world, you may goon to a distributor today and
get, for instance, number 12,you'll get red and black, oh,
sorry, my whites in transit. Sothen they have to leave and go
(31:12):
to that distributor, two blocksaway to go get the white and now
they're really feel because nowthey gotta go get the red
somewhere else. Because it just,I'm only using that as an
example. Right. But those thingsare real. Those types of things
are real, that's costly to anelectrical contractor when they
have to go three or four times.
But there's also the, you know,the the other side of it were
(31:35):
larger companies where you havethe where they're issuing
purchase orders, and there's theintangibles. So you have a Pio
that has, you know, four itemson it. And all of a sudden,
well, this guy has a hearing for$1. And this one has it at 98
cents, and this guy had, I'llcreate three purchase orders, so
that I can save myself, youknow, 25 bucks, and then they
(31:58):
create themselves X, you know,more purchase orders that have
by the time they receive them bytime, because then you have to
check them off, or they have towrite them up. They've extended
the $25. Now you've you've gotthe intention, you don't see it.
But there is a cost right in thepurchasers there's a cost of
(32:20):
paying them out twice. Cost ofyou know, having somebody driver
where they could have justgotten the material one place
for the extra $25. Instead,they're spending 75 on
intangibles. Right?
Jason Cox (32:36):
Well, I mean, it's your time, right? What is your
time worth? Right? Is it is itworth, I mean, setting up like
you're doubling your POS, soit's gonna be double the
administration there to save $25And then you're gonna have to go
from A to B. Right. So sometimesit's it's just, you want the one
one stop shop. Right?
Cindy Cameron (32:58):
Yeah, you try for that? That is the thing. That's
the thing that it would bereally, you know, really great
to be able to do that. Right nowit is, it is more difficult. But
you have to think past just the,like the dollars, like I said,
I'm only using that as smallanalogy. Sometimes there's like
(33:18):
a lot of dollars involved. Soyeah, it makes sense. But
sometimes it just, it doesn'tyou have to sometimes right now
change the way that you look athow you used to do business and
how you do it today compared tohow you did it last year or the
year before, right? You have tocontractors, even if products
(33:39):
that used to be seven to 10days, maybe over the East
performance. Unfortunately, thecontractor also does not have
that window of time, becausepeople hold on to their, to
their contracts. And the windowkeeps getting shorter for when
their end date is. And then theexpectation is that oh yeah,
(34:02):
we'll have no issue getting thatproduct. Yes, you do. And that
line here gets extended. And ifcontractors aren't careful, they
signed deals that if they don'thit that date, cost them money,
which is their whole backs. Andthen they're still responsible
(34:22):
for something that they couldn'tdo in the first place because
the timeline wasn't wasn't goodenough or right with the
expectations. So and also tothat and this will be a good
one, but I can't wait to seewhat happens in the next little
bit too. With transportationcosts with our you know how our
(34:43):
gasoline and like oil, diesel,all of it is going up. But
there's not as many goods thattravel west to east as east to
west. So when you're looking attransportation vehicles, like
just act We'll trucks and semisthat are coming this way. And
(35:04):
you've got no load to go back asa transport company, and not in
transport. Since what 2018There's already a driver
shortage. Regardless, prior topandemic, no matter what
everybody's prior to thepandemic, there's a shortage of
20,000 drivers. Prior to that,and manufacturers are gonna go
(35:25):
well, okay, or transportcompanies are gonna get, it's
gonna cost, you know, more moneyto go from east to west, because
I don't have anything goingback. So it's going to cost me
twice as much, because since Ihave nothing east to west, then
or West west east, then I'm notgoing to have just a free truck
out there for two, two weeksdoing nothing. So that I'm sure
(35:48):
something that's might you know,is going to be affecting the
cost of goods to here in thenext three to six months. It's
not just about the shortage ofcommodities.
Zack Hartle (35:56):
And that's definitely something I never
thought of. But yeah, you don'twant that empty truck driving
back. Right? It's pointless.
Cindy Cameron (36:03):
Yeah. And trains are effective. But and a lot of
delivery time.
Jason Cox (36:12):
We're talking about I mean, everyone's hearing the
supply chain issue now. I can'tremember where I was the other
day and in somebody, I think Iwas in a retail store and the
guy stocking shelves mentionedsupply chain. What's What's the
the dreaded hard to find thingin your industry right now?
(36:33):
Like, we hear breakers are hardto come by? What's the what's
the hot topic of things that arehard to hard to pick up these
days?
Cindy Cameron (36:43):
Really, it depends. I guess it depends on
what the contractor is askingfor I had, I was looking for
some RW 90 number for 16 weeks,I was looking for our Wu number
for right to 20 weeks. And itcould be different from
manufacturer to manufacturer.
Every manufacturer when you do asingle pole breaker, it's one
(37:05):
type of residence if it's doublepole breakers, it's a different
type of residence. So resin isis something that is right now
in in short supply. So that'swhy the breakers are are longer
to come out. PVC is anallotments PVC has a resonant
wire has resin in it right inthe in the nylon. So every so
(37:28):
one I am just causes a bunch ofdifferent types of products to
be to take longer deliveries.
And we forget as much as we loveour electrical world. We're not
the only industry in the world,you have a mechanical industry,
(37:53):
you have a car industry thatuses steel, right? You have all
these other industries thatactually use the same products
that you do. So you may or wemay think that we're like number
one on the list. But inactuality, there's a lot of
other industries that may usesome of these products much
(38:16):
more. So they're higher on thelist for some of these
manufacturers that maybe theydon't We don't utilize all the
time coming down than us. Sothat's just reality. But we
never think about it like thateither. With we have with supply
(38:38):
also the chips, electronicchips, but we've been we knew
electronic chips are going to bean issue prior to pandemic like
they were, they were havingissues there. Now it's just
harder. And in those chips, alot of ballasts like on
fixtures, you know, some evensome of your distribution
(38:59):
equipment have electronic chipsin them right for on in larger
electronic breakers. So thingsthat never used even cross your
mind. And it could be just onesimple little thing. But you
can't get it and you can't sendlike sometimes you can't send a
panel for instance, out becauseit needs CSA approval on it. So
(39:24):
it isn't about just hey, oh, Ican send that No, it's the type
it needs to be certified beforeit goes and sometimes they don't
allow you to certify them in theprovince or or take it apart and
put it in. So there's a lot ofother things that happen even
though you don't have that onelittle part.
Jason Cox (39:43):
I never thought we talked about resin today on the
podcast but are you seeing a lotof your contractors kind of
build up their their stock justin in preparation for these
escalating prices?
Cindy Cameron (40:03):
No, not really.
There's they're sort of likebuying as at buying as required
and or trying to pre, pre, preorder. I quote, I had an
incident where we put somethingin order last year in September.
And we were still working ongetting deliveries in December.
(40:25):
And this is of the material,right? The client knew ahead of
time that there was going to beissues, right? So we just worked
through them. And they were ableto work. And we worked with the
with the manufacturer, so thatthe product, some of the
products that they needed frontend, that we were able to get
those. And then as the, as theybuilt their building, we were
(40:50):
able to bring in other productsout along the way. So that a the
manufacturer had an idea of whatthe overall usage would be and
what was required. However, wedidn't need at all like right at
that moment. We needed it. If wecan stagger here, here and here.
Then that worked also. And themanufacturer, it didn't cost of
(41:11):
manufacture anything more forfreight didn't cost the client
any more to hold the materialthey were or having to finance
it, because we build it as itcame out. But by giving the
manufacturer that extra amountof time or lead time, then then
then that allowed them to dotheir job more effectively and
efficiently also. And I haveI've had different things like
(41:33):
that happen. I had I had a wherewe had a huge amount of a
product, and the manufacturerdidn't have the employees
available because of COVID to beable to build the product. He
had the material didn't haveanyone to put the product
together. Right. So we staggeredit out. It took I think 16 weeks
(41:57):
for us to get everything.
Jason Cox (42:02):
One at a time for logistics, right? We got COVID
We've got fluctuating gasprices, we got a lack of
staffing, right. Resin shortage,resin shortage. You love that
when? Well, it's just like youwere saying, I mean, you learn
something new every day. And alot of times we take things for
(42:24):
granted. Right? And
Cindy Cameron (42:27):
well, and I'm like, like I said, it will be
interesting. Like I mean, wehave all the shorts, we have all
that we've been dealing with itwe are still dealing with not
full manufacturing plants andeverything else, right. Even
with the COVID there's peoplethat are not going they just
don't want to go back to work.
Right. Like, and people areleaving the industry. Right and
doing something else. And thenwe have within the industry too.
(42:53):
There's, I have contractslooking for journeyman. Oh, you
haven't seen or heard anelectrical contractor look for
journeyman in a very long time.
And then wait no wait out likewe've had that discussion. Wait
with the low because of the thepandemic and the and what has
(43:14):
happened? The low of apprenticesand moving forward? Because
they're for a year and a half,two years? Very unsteady. Like,
I'm not sure how that how that'sgoing to form in the next in a
little bit. Right? Like you'realready having a shortage of
like, journeyman. Like, I'mguaranteed we're not gonna have
(43:37):
a whole bunch of apprenticeshere in the next year or two,
you could speak to that you guysprobably could speak to that
more than I can.
Jason Cox (43:44):
It's hard to say though, right? I mean, like you
said, during that COVID break,or whatever we want to call it,
there's people that have justthat, that have decided to move
in different directions forcareers. And so we could, I
don't I never like to think ofit as a boom, because we were so
low down there. Right? But, butI mean, sure we're gonna see the
(44:06):
economy start to build up. Sothere could be there could be
changes to our industry forsure.
Zack Hartle (44:14):
Neither Jason or I, I mean, I guess I shouldn't
speak for him. But I've had thechance to deal a lot with
distributors, rather than goinginto a counter or sometimes
emailing an inside sales rep. Soto hear about, you know, those
partnerships between buildingbusinesses and between
distributors, it's great to hearright I mean, it's, it's what we
want in the industry and that'sactually what this podcast is
(44:35):
all about just buildingrelationships, building
connections and partnershipsbetween everyone involved in the
industry, right?
Cindy Cameron (44:43):
Well, and you're gonna have to see more of that
happening just because of theway the world right now. Right
and if we do go into another oneof our we have to remember for
two and a half or two years tohave your very little building
was done very well. Maintenancehadn't been done very little
upgrade, like, so now all of asudden you have the backlog of
(45:04):
years of work. Also, that has tobe done in buildings in in, you
know, in doubt in our downtowncore here too is like 3030 35
years, probably most of it.
Okay. So and you know that,like, there's a maintenance
schedule, like after a certainamount of time. It has to be
redone. Yeah,
Zack Hartle (45:27):
there's lifecycle.
Yeah.
Cindy Cameron (45:29):
Yeah. So a lot of our core that even though it's
at, like the vacancy rate, itstill has to be done. Right,
because it's end to end of life.
Zack Hartle (45:40):
So yeah, I mean, just to wrap things up, Cindy,
like, thank you so much forcoming on the show. Jason and I
both really do appreciate yourtime.
Cindy Cameron (45:47):
Well, and I appreciate that you asked me
however, I hope I did. Like Isaid, I hope I did justice to
our, you know, our distributorrole. I hope I answered the
questions effectively andefficiently. Right, because as a
distributor, right, we're like,a conduit or right no pun
intended, or a bridge betweenmanufacturers and agents tasked
(46:11):
to to contractors and end users.
Zack Hartle (46:15):
Thanks for joining us today on what's the word
podcast. We really hope youliked this episode. And if you
did, please make sure yousubscribe to the show wherever
you listen to your podcast. Ifyou haven't had a chance yet,
leave us a review on Apple orSpotify to help us get the word
out. And most importantly, ifyou think this show could be
valuable to one of your friendsin the electrical community,
please share it with them.
Thanks for coming today. Haveyourself a great day. Keep
(46:39):
yourself safe out there. And ifyou can someone else to
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