A lot of companies will tell you a multitude of reasons why you should work with them while trying to keep it light hearted, offering the experiences from their customers and people outside of their company and saying “Don’t take our word for it…”. While this is nice and dandy, I think it’s very reasonable to have a biased opinion on why you think a company you work for is worth working with, especially if you truly and earnestly believe in your opinion. 

My name is Jake (yes there is actually a human being behind this website blog) and before moving into my current role, I spent more than two and a half years as an Account Executive at 3BG Supply. My biggest take away from my time on the sales team is that 3BG actually cares. It’s easy to grow numb to the feeling that companies don’t care with the modern day norm of lifeless corporations that  prioritize checking boxes, bureaucratic processes, and hiding behind fake politeness. At 3BG, there is a sense of pride in making sure not only the customers are set up for success, but also the employees. 

 From weekly product training, weekly sales philosophy classes, and making sure employees are set up for a successful future (with 3BG or elsewhere) it was evident from the start of my  time here that 3BG wants to do good for everyone it interacts with. 

For a lot of people at 3BG, this is their first job in the MRO industry, so learning as much as you can about the parts and applications we work with is crucial. Instead of just having training during the onboarding process and relying on learning on the job, 3BG takes it to the next level. Once a week, there is an hour-long product training class before work that covers a variety of parts and topics to further immerse the account executives and sales admins in the MRO world. While getting up earlier once a week doesn’t sound like a lot of fun, it becomes a part of your routine like going to the gym. But instead of strengthening your body, you are working out your brain and sharpening your sword. I was blown away by the amount of times I had a customer reach out to me about a particular product the same day we had a product training class covering the exact part they needed help with. This allowed me to be so much more confident in helping solve their pain, and gave the customer the peace of mind in knowing they were talking to someone who knew what they were dealing with. 

Someone is not going to be an expert on bearings, motors, v-belts, etc. after just one class, so the product engineers and seasoned account executives are still there to assist when needed, but having the constant training makes the learning process much easier to navigate. 

Let’s say you become the most knowledgeable person possible in the MRO industry (an AI level of intelligence on legs if you will), that doesn’t automatically make you the best problem solver you can be. It helps, but technical knowledge isn’t the end all be all in solving problems. This is why on top of the product training classes, there is also a weekly sales philosophy class that takes place an hour before the work day starts and is led by the president of 3BG Shane Araujo. I’m not sure how many companies the size of 3BG have weekly classes taught by the president, but I would love to see that statistic. 

Reading that you might think “great, so the sales team is full of a bunch of sleazy salesmen who will say and do whatever to make their next buck” but the class goes much deeper than just sales. It’s a class that helps the team become better communicators, listeners, and problem solvers. It’s a time where people can bring up issues they have been struggling with and have a group of people who have gone through the same thing offer advice and wisdom. It helps build confidence and clear your mind of the “head trash” that causes so many of us to become our own biggest obstacle at times. We even have a yearly vision board class to help the team plan out what they hope to accomplish and make sure they are putting themself in the best position possible to do so. 

I don’t know how many times I heard “don’t focus on the money, just become a problem solver and the money will grow on trees” but it is a point that was brought up often during class. It may sound cheesy but it is something that is truly a belief around here. I always felt like the class was much more focused on the philosophy aspect than it was the sales aspect. We were told that our lessons weren’t just meant to help us with our current roles, rather they were skills that we could take into our everyday lives. 

The better one is at communication and understanding the problems our customers face, the better we can help solve those problems. Solve their pain. If we just focus on selling someone a part because it’s what they asked for and we have it in stock, we could totally miss that their part has been going out much faster than it should and isn’t even the best solution for their application. Sure we would make a quick buck, but we wouldn’t have truly solved their pain, we would have temporarily put a bandaid on it. 

Before getting to the point of knowing all of the exact questions and information needed to help solve a problem, it was very often that I would ask to bring a product engineer onto the phone call, and MAN are those guys some wizards. Like a great artist painting their masterpiece, the product engineers would hop on every call and make sure every little detail was complete. Not only would they attack every situation like a professional, they would do so with a team mentality. They wanted to see the account executive and sales admin get the win. They wanted to knock it out of the park and hear about the customer sending their praises to our team for doing what we do: caring about doing a good job. 

I know this is all a very biased opinion (kinda the whole point of this blog) but it would be hard not to be after seeing how much this team works and truly cares about doing a good job. A saying that gets thrown around from time to time in the office is "they're bearings not babies”. This is when someone is getting so worked up about a situation and they start to act like they are in a life of death situation. While it’s a good thing they care so much, it’s important to remember we can’t put all of the weight of the world on our shoulders and it’s best to focus on the things we can control. 

If you have worked with 3BG before, I am sure you have seen this level of caring and dedication, even in situations that don’t seem like a big deal to you. If you haven’t worked with 3BG before, I would suggest giving the sales line a call. You will be greeted by an account executive who wants to do the best possible job they can for you and is backed by a team of sales admins and product engineers who will be your personal MRO assassins who are ready to attack any project, big or small.