There are many different elements that help to build (or develop) company culture. How much emphasis you place on certain areas can ultimately help set that culture. For Martin Appliance in central Pennsylvania, education is one area that they’ve decided to invest heavily in – and it’s paying off in a major way. We chat with Matt Burkholder, vice president of Martin’s, about their approach to education and much more.
Rob Stott: All right. We are back on the Independent Thinking Podcast. And not a far jaunt for me to get to where you guys are, but it’s always neat when I get to have nearby neighbors on the podcast. I know people all know Nationwide Marketing Group’s based out of Winston-Salem, and obviously we got a field team that spans the country, but I sit in Philadelphia and I could take a quick drive out on 422 to where you’re sitting, Mr. Matt Burkholder, in Martin’s Appliance, vice president of Martin’s Appliance out there. Appreciate you taking the time and joining us for a podcast this morning.
Matt Burkholder: Yeah. Well ,thank you Rob. It’s a pleasure to be on the podcast with you this morning. Appreciate the opportunity.
Rob Stott: Next time, I’ll have to make that drive out on 422 to you guys.
Matt Burkholder: We’d love to have you.
Rob Stott: No, that’s awesome. Well, we got a lot to dive into and I know you guys are big proponents of our Nationwide Learning Academy platform, and I look forward to diving into that with you. But set us up first. Tell us about Martin’s Appliance, and who you guys are, and yourself as well.
Matt Burkholder: Yeah, well, thank you for that opportunity. Last year, it was an exciting year for us. It was our 50th anniversary, so we were founded by Dennis Martin in 1973 when he was 18 years old I believe.
Rob Stott: Wow.
Matt Burkholder: And he told his wife about two or three years later he got married, and he said, “I would, at some point, like to have enough business that I have to hire an employee.” And he did get to that point. Actually a blessing, my dad was that employee. Not that he was my dad then, but my dad was the first employee that Dennis hired and he’s now at about 375 employees I believe. So, having a business to hire one, that did come true and it did continue to grow from there. So, I grew up in the industry. Saturdays, my dad worked almost every Saturday back in the day. That’s the way it worked. That’s the way he got it done. And I rode with him every Saturday I could. So, I’d go and play in the warehouse and do a lot of things that probably are frowned upon today with all the safety conscious stuff. But really got my feet wet and got the industry in my blood at a very young age. There’s pictures floating around of me painting walls from when I was like two years old.
Rob Stott: Wow. Also, probably frowned upon today.
Matt Burkholder: Also probably frowned upon today. Yeah, that was where my journey started. And when I actually officially started working, I was on the appliance installation team for about five years and really enjoyed that. Learned a lot of stuff about customer interactions and how that part of the deal works. And then moved into sales, moving into sales management. And then last year officially as we get our organizational structure together better, I did officially take the role as serving as vice president of the company. So, now I’m helping collaborate between our install service and sales teams across our six stores.
Rob Stott: I love asking this, too, especially obviously Nationwide, small businesses, family owned businesses get to ask this a lot, and the answer always surprises me no matter how many times I ask it. Do you feel obligated as a generational employee to get into this business? Or did you ever feel like you had another choice?
Matt Burkholder: That’s a great question. And it’s something that’s funny. My wife and I talk about that a lot. She’s like, “Don’t you want to try something different?” I was like, “No.” And I think I thoroughly enjoy it. And it’s interesting that I never really considered much else, which maybe there was a obligation that was almost just behind the scenes that I never really thought about. But it just really became, like I said, this weird thing where you’re driving down the road or watching a movie or whatever, who cares about appliances? But it’s always like, oh, look at that appliance. I’m picking out the Sub-Zero, or the Viking, or whatever on a movie or a TV show. It’s like, who does that? But it’s just always been in my blood.
Rob Stott: No, that’s awesome. I think speaks to growing up into it, into an industry, whether you feel obligated or not, it’s just like it almost starts as a hobby and turns into a passion, and into a career. Which, for me seems like that’s how it’s supposed to be. It’s not supposed to feel like a job, it’s just something you like to do, and might as well be able to have it be a profession as well.
Matt Burkholder: I guess that saying if you find something you love to do, you never have to work a day in your life is true. It’s been work though, too.
Rob Stott: Yeah, for sure. When it’s a hobby, the stress is less. Now that you’re actually in it, I’m sure there’s more stress on the day-to-day than you anticipated, but still, yeah, to your point, you’d love to do it. And it feels a little bit less like work, which I think we’d all strive for in our lives. So, that’s awesome to hear. So, turn into the business, how is business today? What’s going on with Martin’s Appliance and what you guys are getting yourselves into?
Matt Burkholder: So, in a lot of ways, today’s business, and here we are almost middle of 2024, and it feels in a lot of ways like 2019. And I’ll say that in obviously higher volume than 2019. But we went through these last three or four years of really not having to be good at what we did. All we had to do is know how to find product in a relatively timely manner. And essentially because we hired a lot of people in the last few years and they don’t even remember at all what selling appliances in 2019 was, how you do it. Now, you do have to work for it. You have to know what you’re talking about. You have to win that customer’s trust.
And it’s definitely more challenging than the last three or four years in a different way. Last three or four years were challenging just in and of themselves. But the new challenge today is money is tighter, so people are shopping longer. They are more concerned about getting something that fits their need but also fits their budget. And it does take some really thorough research and understanding of customer’s needs. And really the other thing is the buying habits. They’re starting to buy around the holidays and when the discounts are. So, you can estimate that 70% of your business happening in that two week timeframe and then it gets quiet. People are like, “Boy, why is it so slow?” It’s like, “Well, you didn’t ask me that last week.” But yeah, that’s what we’re seeing now. It’s just almost getting back to what we were good at four years ago.
Rob Stott: Gotcha. I feel like it’s been a theme if you’re at the Prime Time shows once every six months or so, the drum beat has been getting back to basics. To your point, customers were, as long as you were open and had product, they were coming and they were buying and for one reason or another. And all of a sudden, that obviously stops. Inventory levels probably get back to a little bit more than what you’re hoping. And you actually have to remember what it’s like to sell product or to entice customers to get off their couches and come out to you. And they haven’t been locked up at home for a couple of months, so they’re not as antsy to get out. So, it’s that back to the basics mindset as you’re talking about.
Matt Burkholder: Yeah, and we’re definitely seeing more duress purchases. Too. And they talk about that a lot at Prime Time where I think, what was it, 73% of the purchases in 2023 were duress purchases. And that’s almost shocking in a way because that’s three quarter of business. And then it’s the whole challenge of how quickly can they get into their home. And I think that’s one of the things as an independent, when we’re doing all our own installs, we’ve had to be really creative in trying to keep that lead time down to where we can get to those duress purchases quickly. Because especially considering box stores, if they’re just subbing to anybody can have a truck, sometimes they get there in a day or two. So, that takes some logistics management from our install manager side. And we’ve been doing well at it. It’s something we can keep improving on.
Rob Stott: You mentioned something, too, obviously you guys have service. How important has that been the last couple of months, years as the way shoppers habits change, being able to offer that as a resource to them as well?
Matt Burkholder: It’s been a huge part of our company. In fact, that was one of the interesting things. Dennis and my dad would’ve done service for I think three years before they actually did anything with the showroom at all. And then that first showroom was in a garage and then they moved into a store a couple years later. But the service aspect of it has always been our foundation. And right now, we’re running I think 33 or 34 service technicians.
And that is a challenge finding with the technology today in appliances, just finding techie people and then getting through the training process and having them right at our fingertips to solve customer’s problems is great. But then they also have the stress of they’re rarely dealing with the customers in the best time of their lives. They’re dealing with somebody that’s in distress. So, it is a huge asset as a company to be able to dispatch our service tech in real time. And we may have, whether it’s a brand new product or something that’s fairly new and it failed, a lot of times getting somebody out there same day is the answer to whether that customer wants to return it or whatever. It just totally changing the customer experience and taking control of that.
Rob Stott: I might have undercut my next question, but is that something that you think sets yourself apart from other local competition? Or is there something else you’d identify in that realm?
Matt Burkholder: That is part of it. Now we are also in a unique market where a lot of our local competition, they are self-servicing dealers. So, that’s unique here in central Pennsylvania, I believe, where there’s very few of our competition that do not have at least a couple service trucks on the road. Some of them are not doing all of their own service, but they at least have trucks available.
Rob Stott: That might help segue to our next section here. Training, I have to imagine then becomes a real important thing for you because if that’s what your competition is, obviously having the and everything like that helps separate those service departments apart from one another.
Matt Burkholder: Yes, and that’s one thing we right now take about four to six months to train a technician, which is a lot more than I know that most of the competition does. We have some teams that their training is YouTube. And it’s like, all right, we’ll work with the guy for a week and then go figure it out. We have technicians that have been with us servicing on the road for 20 plus years. And they’re just an incredible depth of knowledge to do some of that training. So, we are trying to find a way to shrink that four to six month timeframe because it is long. But we do end up with techs that are extremely well qualified. And it’s fun to see when a guy’s only been with us for a year and customers are asking for that person. And some of them they’re 20, 22 years old. And we train them six months and they’re out there, and customers say, “I need him back because he’s so knowledgeable,” and that’s always just thrilling to hear.
Rob Stott: That’s awesome. It seems like you talk about softball questions, I feel like I’m throwing one at you, but why is training so important to what you guys are doing? I think the answer to that, even if someone listening is like, “Well, I’d be able to answer this,” but to hear it I think is important, too, for that retailer seems easy, but I also think there could be a different take on it, too. You never know. So, to ask it again, why is training and education such an important aspect for you guys?
Matt Burkholder: So, when we think about whether it’s on the server side or selling, we often try to say we’re not selling things, we’re serving people by meeting their needs with a particular product. And I think the most treasured commodity or whatever you want to call it that we all have is our time. So, that’s one thing you can’t get back. Time is gone when it’s gone. And when it comes to our customers, if our technician knows what he’s doing or if our salesperson knows what he’s doing, we can serve them in a more timely manner just respecting their time.
And I think that’s the biggest thing, is just being able to care for them and serve them in their time of need, whether it’s a purchase or a repair, and do it in a way that respects that time. So, we don’t have multiple recalls or we don’t take them down the wrong path and have to come back. So, I think that aspect of it probably just, from a time perspective and just the overall experience of that brings to that client, it can make a bad time good. You can take a rough time of where something failed, they didn’t want to fail. But if we do our job because of the proper training, it can turn that into a positive experience.
Rob Stott: And that might be something, too. On the service side of things, if they haven’t necessarily purchased from you in the past but they know that you’ve got a well-trained team and can get the job done, if you fix that appliance, in their mind, hopefully they don’t have to buy a new one. But if time ever comes to pass where they need to purchase that new appliance, I imagine have somewhere they feel comfortable going, knowing the job you guys did to prolong the life of what they were currently using.
Matt Burkholder: Yeah, we’ve definitely seen a lot of that happening where they’ve said, “Well, you’ve been working on my stuff for the last few years. I don’t see any reason why I wouldn’t start buying from you.” So, that’s been a big lead into people’s homes.
Rob Stott: You mentioned that that training time for to six months. What are your employee when you’re training them, what does that entail? What things are you doing to train them and get them up to speed on this industry?
Matt Burkholder: So, there’s a lot of different things we use the first few days we’re often doing something in-house, where we’re just teaching, we call it soft skills. But just teaching how to be that friendly face and how to park in the driveway, how to walk to the door, how to read the customer, how to deal with controversy when does come up. And then we do use a bunch of different online tools and I’m going to forget what some of them are called here off the top of my head. But we do get them into some online training for electrical stuff, just understanding how all of the wiring diagrams and schematics work. We do some obviously the whole Freon testing so they can be certified for all of that. And then it’s a lot of on the roads. They ride with a tech that is a good teacher. And for the first while, it’s observing and then it switches to where the teacher is the one doing the observing and the other one’s doing the work.
And so, that’s what draws it out. We are looking to do more of a, we want to call it a lab classroom setting for more of the things where we could have somebody work on 20 dishwashers in a week rather than one a day or whatever so that they can just really figure out all the different aspects. We get bug things that we can create scenarios that we know they’re going to run into, but we can actually just create them and have them find that we know what’s wrong with it before we ever start. So, that’s some of the stuff we’re looking at to shorten that window and get maybe a better result than a shorter amount of time.
Rob Stott: It’s almost like an in-house vo-tech situation it seems like.
Matt Burkholder: Yeah, it does become almost a trade school. And we said, boy, if we get this thing perfected, we might even be able to reach out to local school districts and say, “Hey, we have this thing available if you want to put some kids through it as an alternative.” So, there are also at some of the dealer trainings. Like with our local affiliation within Nationwide, they do service trainings that we can send new techs to that are… So, we send people away, too, for some of those technical trainings the manufacturers put on.
Rob Stott: When you have employees that go through that, what’s the feedback you hear from the team as they’re going through that or when they come out the other side? Are you actually presenting them? Is there a graduation type deal at the end of it?
Matt Burkholder: Great question. I don’t think so, but there should be. We do love to celebrate wins as our company, so it’s funny and we do usually celebrate around food. So, anytime food shows up it’s like, okay, why is this here? And the reason is usually pretty lame, but it’s great to have good food around. It’s like, “Oh, this person moved from that desk to this desk so we decided to party.” I’m like, “Oh, I’m with that.” But yeah, we do definitely love to celebrate those wins. But as far as having a formal ceremony or anything at this point, we do not.
Rob Stott: Yeah, I have to imagine the feedback from them as they’re coming out the other side of completing that training. What kind of things are you hearing from them as they do?
Matt Burkholder: So, a lot of times it is a relief because they came through feeling like somebody’s looking at their shoulder all the time like, “All right, now I got my own truck doing my own thing and I feel productive.” So, that is just that if you call it the self-fulfillment of getting up in the morning and knowing that you’re making the company money instead of just being paid to get trained. So, there’s a lot of just seeing that success in their faces that first day where it’s like, “Hey, got my truck, it’s fully stocked, hitting my first day.” And knowing that they have their trainer or their team of people behind them that if they do get something can reach out to somebody. And it is often fun. You hear them say, oh, I’ve been on the road three weeks now, four weeks now. And just the milestones that they hit early on.
Rob Stott: I have to imagine, too, from a company perspective, having them go through that creates a lot of buy-in to what you’re doing. And you talk about, obviously there’s the customer aspect of wanting to build a loyal base of customers that comes to you. But even from a team perspective, when you’re putting them through that, and they’re committed, and they don’t drop out per se, they leave the company and feel like they get to stay with the company, and build a loyal community amongst your team has to be an important aspect that… I don’t know if it maybe gets talked about enough.
Matt Burkholder: Yeah, and that’s something that we’ve been… especially the last four or five years ago with the stresses, with everybody’s lead times. A lot of times the service tech would get up, you look at his schedule and he is three weeks out. And the pressure of how can I get more done in the same amount of time and all of those pressures. But with that, we tried to say, you can’t just decide every six months, let’s do something fun. You have to try to find fun in the every day. And that is just what has made our team really click together well. And whether it’s just that morning coffee together or crossing 4:30 in the afternoon, everybody gathered together and telling their war stories from the day. So, it’s been great to see that camaraderie that continues to thrive even in the stressful times of business.
Rob Stott: I know we obviously have the ability internally at Nationwide. We see user data platforms and things like that. I know the Martin Appliance name regularly at the top of NLA, our Nationwide Learning Academy platform. What role has that played in your training and what you guys are doing? Talk about that a little bit.
Matt Burkholder: So, just talking about the fundamentals of training. So, it was pre-COVID, we sat together as an executive team and came up with a list of seven core values just for our company. And two of them specifically. One is team building, another’s personal and professional development. So, when we look at both of those and the way the points come under. So, under team building we talk about… I can’t even find what I was going to say there. Sorry. But yeah, just the working around as a team. But then from a personal professional development, that’s been a fundamental aspect of enough to be one of our core values. And we talk about encouraging mentoring individual growth, discover strengths, and focus on continuous training. So, right there in that core value is focus on continuous training.
And as a result, so we talked a lot about service, but when a salesperson is hired, sometimes they come to us from another appliance dealer where they’ve been selling applies for years. We still go through some of the same training just because want to have them understand the Martin way of doing things. We’re very big on the consultative selling approach. And as a part of that process then, we give them access to – we have our training manager, will create a login for them on the Nationwide Learning Academy automatically when they get hired. And we have about a six-week plan for a sales training process. So, they’re cut loose on core products. And on week two I believe it is where we have them start diving into… So, week one’s often just again, how do you relate to people, just the soft skills part of it.
Week two we start talking product. And the learning academy and videos are a huge part of that. And we really try to get them through all of them that pertain to what they’re going to sell. And that’s maybe a big part of why you see a push for education because it’s a focus where it is mandatory from that early training process. And then the other cool thing is we have salespeople that have been with us selling for 15, 20 years and they’re still looking at… they’re watching everyone as it comes out, new product. And it’s been just a big part of our team. Being aware of new product so that they can, by asking the right questions, lead the customer to the right product the first time. And it just makes a better experience.
Rob Stott: It’s cool to see it from the training and education for you guys. Obviously the service side of it, the being technical and getting that training, but also the soft skills that you talk about on the sales side as well. Cool to see how important it is to the business I think. And that it’s applicable to every aspect. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a service tech or someone on the sales floor. Do you guys find a way to make it a big part of what you do?
Matt Burkholder: I love to learn things from other companies and not even other industries. And we just had, just about a year ago, a new coffee shop popped up in our market. I’m not promoting, but Seven Brews, they came from Midwest or something. They have modular, they drop in a modular building. So, they’re the same all across the country. And it was interesting when they dropped in and I stopped in the first time, and just the way the people made you feel. And so, I was like, this is unique. So, I jumped on their website, I was like, what’s going on with these people? I’ve been through drivers before and this is different. And they have this thing on their website it says, “We believe people are priceless. So, we treat them like it. Our goal is to make your visit the happiest part of your day.” That’s cool.
So, we’ve actually used that in some of our trainings. And obviously credit Seven Brews for the… it’s their statement, but it’s like that’s something that is just real. And if we can make appliance shopping, it’s appliance shopping. But if it’s somehow just the interaction can be the happiest part of their day, whatever we can do to make that happen. And you can say some people that maybe happens organically, but a lot of times, some days you just have to focus on it more than others.
Rob Stott: It’s cool to see, too, your passion bleeds through in it. And I think that when I think about it, you you’re constantly wanting to learn and apply what you’re learning to the business. So, I think we hear regularly about the importance of a top-down approach and the ability to create buy-in, it starts at the top like oh, use all the cliches about things starting at the top. And they’re cliches, but they’re cliches for a reason because they work. And great example, I think of you guys and here an example like that of finding things, and obviously not in an industry that’s related to ours other than the fact they have coffee makers that probably sit on some small appliance shelf. But it’s the fact that you’re willing to step outside of your box and what you’re doing, and take those learnings and apply it to what Martin’s Appliance is doing.
Matt Burkholder: And back to the earlier question you’d asked that ties into this same conversation is, how does service to this part from our competition? And one of the things I thought of just in general, we have great competition. I mentioned that earlier. Even a lot of them are servicers. And I am honored to be on really friendly terms with a lot of the owners of our competitors. In fact, like I mentioned in our conversation before this, that it was actually day after Valentine’s Day, we lost one of our seven stores in the fire and it’s gone. I have to train myself to say we have six stores, not seven. And the interesting thing was that day, I got multiple texts and phone calls from owners of other appliance dealers in the area just saying, “Hey, we heard what happened. Let us know what we can do to help.”
And it was really cool because it’s like all right, they’re a competitor but they’re also a friend and the community member. So, we’ve been blessed to have that kind of relationship. And on that, I think where that comes from, again, going back to our core values, one of them is passion to serve. And under there is listen intently to the needs of each other and our clients. Build lasting relationships. And choose to have a cheerful and friendly spirit. So, some of these lasting relationships are competitors. Most of them are clients, but that is something that we do really just focus on, is just the relationships in the community, and put those above relationship above business to a certain extent.
Rob Stott: Yeah, it almost goes to that, I hear this in some of our conversations with members and other industries, especially that another cliche, high tide raises all ships. When it comes to your competitors, if you’re on friendly terms and not undercutting one another or trying to the dirty tricks department, whatever you want to call it. If you all are doing well by your customer, which in turn is your community, it’s just going to have… at the end of the day the customer wins and you’re pushing each other to be better. And that is a pretty cool approach.
Matt Burkholder: And the tangible example of that is just something… and this has happened multiple times where a part is needed. We find that every part distributors out of this part, “I need one, do you have it?” I’m like, “Yes, I do. Pick up this afternoon.” And that can happen. Once you develop that relationship, then it can be mutually beneficial because I’m in the same boat at some point I can call them and have the… we’ve had issues with damaged product that were backordered and called the… they’re like, “Yeah, I have one in my warehouse. Come over and grab it.” And it’s been really helpful, to your point, the customer benefits from that relationship.
Rob Stott: Well, last thing I want ask about, and I feel like it’s been part of the conversation, but to hear you put it into your words, that employee buy-in creating that or getting that to happen, what’s that been like for you? And has the NLA platform helped in any way with that? Or what are you guys doing from a training and education perspective to make sure your team is all marching down that same path or not really pushing back, I guess, against your training and education approach?
Matt Burkholder: So, outside that initial thing that I would say almost is a mandatory part of their initial training process, we also try to keep some of that fun where we have tried to develop a culture where we’re coaching each other. So, I said it’s one thing if it’s a manager’s full responsibility to coach the entire team. But a lot of times we hold each other accountable and we also can do some friendly ribbing, too. It’s like, “Hey, I did this many videos, how many did you do?” And so, we get these little competitions in between where it just creates a culture of wanting to continue to learn, sharing what they learned, say, “Hey, this is something new. I learned on this video, did you watch it yet?” And there’s actually a push even outside of the Nationwide Learning Academy, some of the manufacturers like GE, and Miele, and different ones have their own portals now, too. And they’re really promoting that.
So, we see the success and if you call it time invested, not spent, but the time invested on Nationwide Learning Academy. And that’s the only part of what they’re doing as far as video. And some of them are the same video. So, sometimes GE video will be exactly the same thing that’s on Nationwide Learning Academy. But we’re focused on really a culture where we want to be kind, caring, and hopefully most informed because that all has to do with the experience the customer’s going to have. And we made mistakes. I just was working with one yesterday that was a model change, one number different, and a significant feature change. So, pick the new model and when they got it it was like, “I thought I had this.” “And so did we.” It’s something that training does avoid some of those awkward moments. And sometimes you still have them, but then as soon as we trip on that thing, we try to inform the entire team say, “Hey, here’s something we learned. Let’s not make this mistake twice.”
Rob Stott: Yeah. No, that’s awesome. It is cool to hear. Like I said, I get to have selfishly, and I enjoy it, so many conversations with members about so many aspects of business. And training is one that I talk about it a lot, but the level of importance it gets, I think to your point, time invested not spent, is always awesome to hear from the member perspective. And to see you guys doing it and doing it well is exciting for me to be able to have you on to share that story and dive into it with you. And look forward to doing it again, man. And like I said, from the store, maybe next time I’ll make that trip up there. It’s not terribly far. But hey, maybe we could also connect out in Vegas at a Prime Time, travel like 3,000 miles to have that conversation in person.
Matt Burkholder: Prime Time has been a more and more of a priority. And I said even if it’s a deal where my life schedule is a deal. And literally last time I flew out Sunday morning and I got the red eye back Monday night because I had to be back for something Tuesday. And so, I drove in my driveway at 8:30 and nine o’clock drove back out. But I look at that, I was like, I’ll do that all over again because Prime Time is always a tremendous value.
And again, another aspect of training, this just crossed my mind. One of our sales trainers was giving a question on how do you define a professional? And there’s all kinds of ways to define a professional visa. It is somebody that makes a difficult task look easy. And selling or just meeting a customer’s needs is a difficult task. But with the proper training, you can make it look easy and then it’s easier purchasing process for the customer. There’s just so many aspects and so many cliche responses you can throw into that. But it really lessens the stress on everybody involved in the process when you’re well-trained.
Rob Stott: Oh, I love that. Great mic drop moment. I don’t know, you got your mic on the table. It’s already sitting there, so it’s all good. But no, I appreciate all that. Awesome to be able to get your insights on it and hear your perspective. And I’m sure plenty for our members to learn from as well. So, a great example that you guys have set and excited to be able to share it, man. This was awesome.
Matt Burkholder: Yeah, well, thanks for your time. And hopefully, if training is on somebody’s to-do list, hopefully 2024 is the time where they tackle it and put a system in place and get it done because it’s a difference maker.
Rob Stott: Yeah, appreciate it. And I look forward to connecting again soon.
Matt Burkholder: All right. Thanks, Rob.
