Is It Loyalty—or Just Friction with a Friendly Face?

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The world is filled with two types of people: Those you worry about and those you don’t.

Given the volatility, uncertainty, and complexity within the construction industry today, that distinction means more than ever.

Every vendor, supplier, and partner falls into one of those two buckets.

In the Gotta Worry bucket, there are two levels.

Level I delivers rework.
They’re in your boat—rowing hard in the wrong direction. You need to flip them overboard immediately.

Level II delivers friction.
This group requires babysitting. If you had more time, you’d replace them, but for the time being, you’ve got more pressing issues to attend to.

On the other side, the Don’t Gotta Worry bucket also has two levels.

Level III delivers service.
They complete the scope.
Check all the boxes.
Get the job done.

Level IV delivers hospitality.
In the restaurateur Danny Meyer sense of the term—they make you feel like they are on your side.

They anticipate.
They are thoughtful, generous, and specific.

They see around corners. They help you avoid problems before you even know they exist.

When we say this is a relationship business, we mean profitability comes from partnering with more people on the right—and fewer on the left.

Most salespeople believe they live on the right side of this curve.

Oh, yeah. Definitely Level III.
And sometimes Level IV.

They believe this because they have evidence.

Customers pay on time.
Return calls promptly.

Golf at the summer outing.
Accept the tin of Christmas cookies.

“They love me,” the sales rep says.

The commissions keep rolling in.
Until they don’t.

And here’s the problem: The behavior of a Level III customer looks identical to a Level II customer.

What keeps customers from leaving isn’t loyalty.
It’s inertia.
– Status quo bias
– Switching costs
– Lack of better alternatives

Many sales careers have been built on this illusion—and are now being forced to confront it.

Friction with a Friendly Face
(This is a phrase I first heard from Jeb Blount, and it immediately resonated.)

LBM sales has historically been powered by information asymmetry.

Dealers and distributors know how much stuff is out there, how much it costs, and when it can be delivered. That’s been the gap between planning and building, budgeting and buying.

Salespeople filled that gap with takeoffs, pricing, and availability.

Combine that with a friendly face, responsiveness on the phone, and a little seasonal WTF (whiskey, tee times, and fishing) relationship-building—and you had a winning formula.

But that formula isn’t computing as well as it used to.

Within 18 months, takeoffs will be automated with a 90 percent accuracy rate. Pricing and inventory are already moving toward real-time transparency. And a new generation of buyers doesn’t want the dinner, the golf, or even a phone call.

Just text it to me already.

So, what happens when the friendly face is no longer required?

There’s only one thing left: friction.

An LBM Case Study
Tell me if you’ve heard this story before: an LBM dealer started thinking about upgrading their ERP system.

Every option felt like Level II.
Friction with a three-year contract.

The platforms were expensive. Sales reps carried more than a hint of “take it or leave it” arrogance. Meaningful data was hard to extract. Visualization required third-party tools. Getting up and running meant hiring outside consultants—and relying on users who’d already spent a year figuring it out the hard way.

Sound familiar?

A new-generation ERP provider emerged with a different philosophy: Build around how LBM dealers actually operate, not how a software company assumes they do.

That company is GenetiQ.

Over the past 30+ years, GenetiQ has partnered with more than 1,700 building material dealers. Their platform represents the next evolution of ERP—engineered to remove friction the industry had simply learned to live with.

That’s why we’re proud to partner with GenetiQ on The Craft of LBM Sales—both this newsletter and our podcast.

(And if margin enhancement is a priority this year, click here for free training resources.)

But GenetiQ represents something larger than software. It’s evidence that when friction decreases and better alternatives emerge, customers begin re-evaluating everything.

What’s happening in ERP is a preview of what’s coming for LBM sales.

The Future of LBM Sales
LBM sales is shifting from answering questions to shaping how decisions get made.

No builder will outsource a go/no-go decision to AI. No builder will risk a hallucination when their hard-earned capital is on the line. Those decisions happen face-to-face—with people they trust.

Level I suppliers won’t be invited.
They’ll be too busy fixing mistakes.

Level II might get a bid—depending on how much friction they’ve created lately.

Level III will get the call after the decision is made.

Only Level IV will be in the room while it’s being made.

Access to that room won’t come from takeoffs or pricing. It will come from insight, judgment, and trust.

Diagnose Yourself Before Your Competitors Do
So, are you in the room?
Or waiting for the phone to ring outside of it?

Ask yourself:

– When you bring a new idea, does the conversation devolve into a pricing discussion?
– Do you help your customers think better about their projects—or just execute their requests for products?
– When something important happens, are you the first call?
– Are you shaping decisions—or just reacting to them?

If your primary contribution is answers, you’re competing with what AI does best.

If your contribution is judgment, perspective, and trust—you’re still in the game.

Either way, great service is no longer enough.

A hospitality mindset is now required: Being proactive, peering around corners, becoming a linchpin of their operation, delivering value so consistently they feel you are on their side.

AI won’t replace LBM salespeople.

But it will expose which relationships were built on habit—not value.

Thanks for reading.
I’ll see you back here next week.