The company has moved away from the double-digit Buy Tonight price discounts that window companies used for years, toward transparent pricing. Hansons offers its private-label window in four price gradations. “We show all four, and we sell four,” Elias says, crediting Window World, the nation’s largest window replacement company, with having changed the paradigm of home improvement pricing by allowing homeowners to pick from a menu of window options and price the job from the bottom up rather than for the salesperson to re-price it from the top down. “I believe that the old tactics are starting to fail,” Elias says. “Because homeowners can readily get information online.”
COMMAND CENTER Hansons founder and president Brian Elias notes that “one of the hardest things, as you get bigger, is communication.” That’s particularly true when it comes to describing how to manage from a central location a salesforce of more than 100 people operating in two states.
Hansons distributes appointments and tallies sales from the company’s corporate office in the Detroit suburb of Troy, Mich. There leads are dispatched, appointments tracked, transactions logged, call reports noted, from a facility that looks like the flight deck of the Starship Enterprise.
The Command Center features 10 42-inch TV screens where the status or disposition of every lead appears in color-coded form. It’s typically manned by three people, who function as the conduit between Hansons’ marketing operation and its salesforce. It’s color-coded for maximum speed and efficiency.
“If it turns green, they sold it,” says sales manager Greg Shulman. “If it’s yellow, the reps are still there.” With that many salespeople running appointments, logistics become critical. Hansons doesn’t want its representatives driving for hours to reach an appointment, and it definitely wants them there on time.
WHAT’S IN THE FILE? Like many large home improvement companies, Hansons hires independent contractors to install most of the jobs it sells. On the advice of attorney D.S. Berenson, of Berenson LLP, the company has put into place airtight requirements for these contractors, which enable Hansons to conform to Internal Revenue Service rules governing employee withholding taxes as well as Environmental Protection Agency regulations concerning lead-safe renovation. Here is what Hansons requires:
- Subcontractors must be business entities rather than sole proprietors. Hansons requires subcontractors to file copies of their LLC paperwork from the state.
- Subcontractors must conduct nationwide criminal and sexual background checks as well as drug screening of people who work for them. All installers are required to complete and sign the company’s Drug & Alcohol Policy.
- Subcontractors are required to make copies of insurance certificates, with general liability insured at $1 million per occurrence. Hansons must be a certificate-holder and listed as additionally insured.
- Subcontractors are required to have workers’ comp of $500,000 per occurrence.
- Subs are required to have an Employer I.D. Number, also known as a Federal Tax Identification Number.
- A contractor’s license (if available) is required.
- Installers should have a Lead Safety Certificate. If not yet certified, Hansons will assist installers in obtaining certification to ensure that they comply with this requirement. Once on the schedule, new installers have 30 days to complete the training class and receive certification as a Certified Renovator, otherwise they’re removed from the schedule.
