From Framing Houses to Forging Customer Relationships
Jeff Watson, Home Depot’s Senior Director of Pro Sales West
By Carole VanSickle Ellis
When Jeff Watson was framing houses in college, he had no idea that his decision to leave that job and look for “more consistent” work at The Home Depot would result in a career with the company spanning more than 29 years (and counting). That initial decision shaped Watson’s professional life — for the better, he said.
“For me, it has been a wonderful growth opportunity,” Watson said. “I was going to college and framing houses, then came to Home Depot to try to have a more consistent job so I could get through school. When I graduated from college, I ended up staying and have had some incredible experiences ever since.”
Currently, Watson serves as Home Depot’s senior director of Pro Sales West with a specific focus on “outside sales.” This division of the company is dedicated to what Watson describes as “pursuing the professional customer in a more complex project environment;” his team works with some of the company’s largest Home Depot Pro customers to help them source products and services needed to complete jobs and perform on a larger scale.
“It is definitely a unique position,” Watson said. “We have always been grateful for the Pro Business that walks into our Home Depot stores or shops with us online, but we realized over the past several years that some of our biggest customers really needed new types of support and solutions that would enable them to thrive in their businesses and steer their larger project purchases to Home Depot. That might mean consulting with them about the best product choices and decisions or helping them figure out when to start thinking about the next purchase so their timeline remains intact.”
Whatever the need, Watson’s team is dedicated to first identifying it and then meeting it in unique ways only possible because of their close working relationships with these customers.
Translating Personal Experience to Professional Success
Over the course of his own personal real estate journey (buying and selling seven homes over the course of roughly two decades), Watson became very tuned in to the elements of the industry that are most important to keeping projects on track for his clients. In the end, he said, it boils down to two elements: products and services.
“So many of our customers’ entire focus has to be on getting properties up to speed — either by updating or renovating new assets or fixing up and maintaining existing ones — so those properties can be either rented or sold,” Watson explained. “When you have a really large company, you need strategies and capabilities to alleviate friction that comes with purchasing products for those projects. That is where my team comes in.”
Watson recalled an incident while in a previous role that really drove home for him the need for a new infrastructure when it came to serving large-scale real estate investors. A renovator who was dealing with multiple assets in markets distributed around the country ordered doors for a project in one area that were identical to those the investor had used successfully on another project. Unfortunately for this individual, the maxim that “location is everything in real estate” held true in this scenario, and the doors that had been appropriate for his project in one state turned out not to meet code in the new market.
However, Watson said, the customer who placed the order with the store failed to note this potential issue, simply replicating the original order for the doors. When they came in, the customer was furious. Watson returned early from a family vacation, resolved the situation, and realized there was a clear need for a more “centrally located” type of associate on the team.
“We saw that there was a need for people who would understand some of these clients are transacting in multiple areas and markets and would know to ask the customer to check the local building codes,” he observed, noting many of his team members have a deep familiarity with local building trends and can assist customers in need of insight in this arena as well.
“Today, that is something our outside sales representatives are capable of recommending along with the Home Depot Pro Support Center folks, whereas sometimes store associates may only leverage the closed quote order history. We knew that bringing this element to our team could give customers a better experience.”
Watson is particularly proud of his work with Home Depot and recalled an opportunity in his previous role over National Accounts to expand in order to better serve the Pro customers and specifically serve the real estate investing industry more appropriately. Over the past couple of years, he headed up an initiative to segment this area of business into four distinct verticals and establish experienced, qualified leadership positions in each vertical, including a vertical dedicated entirely to residential property managers and investors. “The result has been we are now able to generate lots of value and create a more streamlined approach and better pricing tools to help that industry,” he said.
And the original irate renovator? Well, Watson and his team were able to resolve the situation to his satisfaction. After remaining a steadfast Home Depot customer for nearly 10 years after that incident, the investor sold his company to a private equity firm and has started several other businesses. “They are all Home Depot customers, of course,” Watson laughed.
A Proud History of Growth & Career Enhancement
As a long-time Home Depot employee himself, Watson does not fail to note how the expansion of the outside-sales program has changed lives within the company as well as outside of it. “Six years ago, the National Account team consisted of about eight associates, and, five years later, it was up to 32. The Outside Sales organization has grown three times over in the last three years alone with over 1,000 associates impacted. That is a lot of lives changed, careers enhanced, and opportunities created as well as helping out our Pro and real estate customers,” he said.
Watson emphasized his experience with the company has been one of growth, change, and expansion, even though he has remained with The Home Depot since college.
“It is an incredible company that stays very focused on its customers and its frontline associates,” he said. “Home Depot is a growth company that affords its associates a ton of opportunity to develop and grow in their careers and do it multiple times within the company. For me, personally, it has been a wonderful growth development opportunity.”
