Introducing Brian Edwards:
Houston Daylighting would like to introduce our newest team member and director of sales, Brian Edwards. It is Brian’s driving goal to treat every customer with the utmost respect, satisfy your needs, and help you live in a happier & more comfortable home.
Early Career:
Brian started his sales career in cell phone sales. While in Lubbock Texas, Brian answered the hiring posting for a life-changing offer. Brian accepted a part-time job selling cell phones for only a few hours a week at a local cell phone store next to his college.
The thing was, Brian’s parents required that he be actively employed while in school!
Advice From Dad:
When he told his parents about his new job in sales, his dad joked, “Good! The first thing that you learn in sales, is that the first millionaires in any business are the best sellers!” His dad also cautioned, “It will get in your blood. If you have a knack for sales you will stay with it.”
Punted From The Office:
Brian was quickly a victim of his own success in the office! Working part-time, he quickly outstripped the performance of all other in-store salespeople, because Brian focused on serving his customer’s needs first. Brian was punted from the office-based sales rep position and into a full-time business-to-business sales rep role.
Brian says, “It was only about two and a half to three months before it was completely self-sustaining. And the leads were coming to me in the form of referral instead of me knocking on doors.” That kind of contagious customer service that Brian was providing to his valued customers was exactly the kind of thing that was needed to drive all his future success.
Brian Edwards then relayed a story about an older lady named Gloria, who shot him eye daggers, sneering at the sales guy invading her office at Energas! Brian’s natural problem-solving approach quickly melted Gloria when he introduced himself by stating, “I’m Brian, and I’m here to fix any problems you’re having with your cell service.”
Gloria quickly reversed track when she remembered that she was having issues with billing.
Brian seized the problem, and on the spot worked through the issue, and got the issues corrected.
Thrilled, Gloria quickly introduced Brian to three of her friends having similar personal issues. Remember, this was in the early days of cell phones, so the networks were replete with problems from billing to service.
It wasn’t long before Energas eventually signed up as a happy corporate client! So many of their employees raved about Brian’s personalized and caring service that the whole company management decided to trust him with all their corporate business!
The critical lesson Brian learned was to, “solve people’s problems first!” Brian then states, “That was the best lesson I have ever learned!”
Yesterday With Brain:
Just yesterday, Brain was visiting an estimation call. Brian describes the encounter, “Yesterday we visited an existing customer who had a tube for fifteen years and was remodeling her home. She was asking about an upgrade to a modern system, and to add another in a different room.” Brian noticed that there was another area where Houston Daylighting could help, and asked, “I know that we are here about adding some daylighting to your home, but while we were up there I noticed that you’re a little short on attic ventilation. Have you considered adding some solar-powered fans to keep the sun from broiling your attic?” It being only January, Brian joked, “The summer is only about a month away, here in Houston!”
Once the realization was in place Brian was told, “Absolutely! My attic gets really hot all summer. Please send an attic ventilation estimate too.”
Brian counts that as a huge win yesterday because he got to offer needed solutions to a valued customer who did not even realize we could solve that problem for her!
Silver Eagle & Budweiser:
Once Brian Edwards found his calling in sales and finished school, he moved back to Houston after graduation. Along the way, Brian discovered golf and his competitive edge. One of Brian’s favorite past times at Silver Eagle was seeing how many performance-based trips and contests his teams could win each year!
Starting At The Bottom:
During his transition from student to full-time employment Brian learned a critical lesson upon entry to the workforce. A family friend introduced him to the Marketing Director at Silver Eager. That was September of 2005, but with Budweiser, you have to start at the bottom!
Brian chuckled at the memory and shared, “When I was hired as a sales guy, I was put on a truck! I was a little shocked, being fresh out of college and not really understanding how the world worked I asked, ‘why’? And I was told, ‘You’ll hate it for now, but later you will thank me for the decision!'” The lesson learned was that learning from the ground up is crucial to learning the business, customer expectations, and capabilities of those you work with.
Current Times With Houston Daylighting:
In current times, with Houston Daylighting, Brian is actively involved in answering inbound phone calls, follow-up calls, post-installation quality calls, estimating, and even assisting with installations to learn everything he can. From his last installation visit, Brian commented, “It was really cool to see how we replaced the tube downtown. I don’t think I had ever even been on a roof before that day!”
When asked, ‘What did you like the most?’ Brian answered, “I liked the products that we are selling the most. I loved the customer’s reactions and the quality of the products. And I can’t believe more people don’t know about us! Silver Eagle has a 72% market share, which is unheard of! There is something to be said about working for the best that gives automatic street credit.”
Entering A Small Growing Business:
Brian Edwards enters Houston Daylighting with an aggressive market-making attitude that strives to excel in all things related to his work. Entering the small but successful Houston Daylighting, the relative market share differences are staggering. Going from a 72% control over the Houston adult beverage market to a small business focused on providing beautiful natural lighting solutions, top-line ventilation, and attic insulation solutions where you need to visit approximately 32,000 of your friends and neighbors to find someone with our product, Brian is hungry to put his skills to use introducing the city of Houston to some truly cool solutions for ubiquitous problems!
Why Leave a 72% Market Share Business?
When asked, ‘Why would you want to leave a 72% market share business?’ Brian responded directly, “I want to take my big business expertise and see if I can make Houston Daylighting a stellar success! Everyone, literally everyone in Houston, can use at least one of our product lines! The potential for massive growth and success here is absolutely astounding!”
When asked, ‘How do you plan to execute this vision?’ Brian admitted, “Through sales calls, follow-up, ad generation, and good old fashioned hard work. We want ten full-time installation crews running full-time by the end of the year. And I see that as very attainable.” After a pause, Brian added, “Right now only one out of every 32,000 homes in the Houston area has our products and that is an awesome opportunity for growth as we introduce the city to the wonderful daylighting, ventilation, and insulation options we offer.”
Vision to Build The Houston Daylighting Sales Team:
The next logical question following up with Brian was ‘What is your vision to build Houston Daylighting’s sales team in support of your stated goals?’
Brian answered immediately, knowing the exact vision he wishes to pursue, stating, “We need a dedicated sales staff to build massive team cohesiveness. I won lots of trips because I always lead by example. Sometimes we need to show success and how to maintain it. We need to find those rare wonderful people. I’m very good with reports and seeing areas we can develop. I also always taught [at Silver Eagle] that it doesn’t matter if the customer ordered five cases or thirty pallets, you need to treat all customer accounts with respect.”
When asked about his planned benchmarks for success in his new sales team, Brian offered, “If they are following up, producing sales, checking a few days after their scheduled installations after the work is finished so that it meets our warranty standards, and producing 100% customer satisfaction, then they will likely be working in the right direction. We will need to develop those metrics over time and get more specific as we continue to grow and develop.”
Brian Edwards made the comment about his short-term goals, “By the time Spring time is over in April & May we need to have three to four crews running full-time helping customers.”
Brian concluded by stating, “We need to get our name out there. There are a ton of people who just don’t know about us, and the awesome solutions we offer. We want to see a 2%-3% positive swing in our market share each month. We’ll do that through hard work, effective customer conversations, and building a wonderful, reliable team.”