Today Sean Colgan – owner of “IMI” (www.irvmat.com/company.asp) – delivered a fascinating presentation to the students in my Strategic Marketing class at the Eastern Institute of Technology. Although Sean has only recently relocated himself and his family to Hawkes Bay, New Zealand; he has had strong ties with N.Z. since the 1970’s through his involvement in Olympic rowing.
IMI is the largest distributor of raw materials (including natural Gypsum – which is used in building construction) in the world. It supplies 14 million tonnes of raw materials to B2B customers located in 60 + countries each year, involving 600 ship voyages/ sailings p.a. and annual revenues which exceed NZ$1b p.a.
IMI used to distribute 100 % of the mined Uranium from Australia.
One of the key drivers of Sean’s success has been to remain with a firm focus on ensuring that his company satisfies customer needs; achieving this by maintaining close connections with key customers in each destination country by visiting these people in person…and not using the convenience of electronic communication platforms to achieve this. In my first book I have devoted a chapter to this topic. The importance of maintaining face-to-face contact with key business stakeholders cannot be over-stated.
IMI fully accepts incurring significant travel costs in relation to its directors and senior management meeting face-to-face with B2B customers across many countries, and considers this expense to be well justified given the benefits that stem from maintaining such close and strong connections with key customers.Such visits allow Sean to demonstrate new innovative products that have been commercialised; and most importantly it creates the opportunity for customers to air/ voice their problems…which in turn creates the opportunity for IMI to address these problems and often solve them in front of the customer. And when you manage to solve a customer’s problem (i.e. satisfy their needs/ wants) more often than not those customers tend to want to engage with you again…and again…and again.
I really enjoy Sean’s definition of what “luck” is; that being:
…”when opportunity and preparation meet.”
Sean maintains that the single most important element of being in business is maintaining mutually beneficial “people relationships”.
During the course of the presentation today we spoke about the tendency that many people have to “hide behind computer devices” sending email and txts to other people. Like Sean, I strongly recommend to such people that they put down their devices for a while and instead concentrate on fostering face-to-face relationships which are rich in not only stimulating conversation but which involve healthy emotional exchanges…where meeting attendees can see and feel each other’s emotions as exchanges take place. That’s called REAL contact.