What does it mean to be an Inside Sales Manager at Simpson Strong-Tie? Steve Zanco, Inside Sales Manager of our Riverside, California location, shares the story of his career and role. His 24-member team is a mix of Inside Sales Reps, Hardware Quote Reps, and Strategic Account Reps. They’re laser-focused on customers while processing orders, requests, and questions throughout the Southwest. 

Hi, I am Steve Zanco, Inside Sales Manager in Riverside. My career at Simpson Strong-Tie started in 2003 when I was looking for a career change. I had worked for some of our dealers and in construction, so I knew the company and the products. I saw an opening on a career website and applied. I was hired the next day as a retail sales representative and have gone on to have many regional, national, and international sales roles. I had worked in sales in a few roles prior to Simpson Strong-Tie and that path fit.

My 20+ year journey brought me to leadership, and I managed sales teams, large accounts, and our Inside Sales team in Riverside not once, but twice.

The role of an Inside Sales Manager has many responsibilities. Our team of 24 Inside Sales Reps, Hardware Quote Reps, and Strategic Account Reps is laser focused on our customers and processes all orders and many quotes for our region. We take calls from customers, engineers, end users, other branches and departments, outside sales and more. We get emails with comments, issues, orders, inquiries, and help our customers solve problems. The team consists of 20+ year veterans and new employees just a few months in with diverse backgrounds and skillsets.

With the help of Inside Sales Supervisors – Alexis Buenrostro and Jackie Zamora, and Hardware Quote Supervisor – Tami Carr, the department has a team of leaders dedicated to supporting their needs, development, challenges, and ideas. We also have three Senior Inside Sales Reps –Channica Keo, Elaine Seale, and Lionel Jaquez, to help act as mentors and coaches to the team, find opportunities for training, and help with special projects.

We foster an environment of growth and development on the team and encourage everyone to take on new challenges and share ideas. The best idea wins and everyone has input in creating the NO EQUAL customer experience with each call. We want to answer calls quickly, process orders quickly and accurately, and create a connection with each customer to be top of mind as a trusted advisor. The team lives our #1 Core Value – Relentless Customer Focus.

I strive to lead with compassion and be a cheerleader for my team. We talk often, share feedback, encourage risk taking, and create a culture of fun, hard work, and support. We are all customer service. Every level, department, and employee. Everyone can learn from each other and constantly strive to deliver better service always. Our focus is on product knowledge, process improvement, and customer experience.

The day-to-day responsibilities of an Inside Sales Manager include, coaching the team leaders and agents, strategizing targeted customer experience improvement initiatives, working on long-term projects, working closely with all departments to process orders quickly, efficiently, and keep communication flowing to best serve our customers – our true “bosses”. We focus on goals and career development across the team (Core Value #6 – Enable Growth) and support the team to create a continuous learning environment. Many of the team grow within their roles or move to new roles within the company based on their strengths, passions, and unique individual paths.

We have our Inside Sales Team laid out in 4 teams of 4 Inside Sales Reps each whom focus on our top 40 largest customers. In Riverside, we manage the Southwestern US, Hawaii, Pacific Rim, and parts of Asia and sold $324M in 2023. Our top customers account for a large majority of the business so having dedicated teams for those accounts helps us deliver more focused customer service. The nuances and specific needs of each customer can be met and exceeded with this focused level of service.

We recently took a page from McKinney and added a Strategic Accounts Team to the department. This team will prioritize a select group of customers and partner with our Outside Sales Team to look for opportunities to grow the business, help onboard and acclimate these customers, and look for process improvements to create a more tailored experience with Simpson. The customer journey is the obsession of this team and finding new and creative ways to serve our customers will be the daily focus. The team will consist of 2 members, Krista Solorza and one we are currently filling.

The team has many tactics to focus on this year around customer experience, process improvement, upselling opportunities, and quality. We continually strive to deliver relentless customer focus with every call and seek to ensure high quality and accuracy with all orders. The team culture of work hard/play hard encourages collaboration, communication, and accountability. This culture has helped build a team that loves to have fun and will often hang out outside of work with each other.

We encourage Core Value #7 – Risk-Taking Innovation throughout every process. Failure is welcome if we learn from it and grow. Many of our best ideas come from trial and error. We acknowledge what didn’t work and recognize successes to encourage the team to try new things. We celebrate those on the team who deliver excellent service and get customer compliments with Barc Bucks. We have quarterly incentives for the top 3 team members who process the most orders accurately and answer the most calls. The team is also encouraged to look for opportunities for add-on sales to help customers meet prepaid freight, add fasteners or anchors to orders, and take advantage of promotions. Every quarter we have incentives they can earn based on add-on sales growth.

We have many events to make work more fun in Riverside. We have various themed days, potlucks, give back events, job shadowing, and more. Riverside has its own 3 day Cultural Onboarding Program hosted many

times a year where new hires and veteran employees are immersed in the Core Values over the 3 day workshop. The presenters go into great detail about each of our 9 Core Values, visit a jobsite, see how our product is merchandised as a customer, take tours of the facility, demo our products, and see some tests conducted in our test lab. We encourage camaraderie across departments and the relationships formed over the 3 days can last throughout their career at Simpson. Riverside also has its own quarterly newsletter, The Steel Press, that shares company updates, branch initiatives, department information, and employee announcements and milestones.

Through service, quality, and sales, the team is focused on delivering NO EQUAL customer experience. Our passion is the customer, and we continue to seek new and creative ways to anticipate the need behind the need.