Operations man is super salesman
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THERE'LL BE some glasses raised in Lowfield Distribution's depots this month as the company celebrates a new national drinks contract from Scotland. It will not be whisky filling the tumblers, but the Scots' other national drink — lrn Bru.
And Lowfield will not just be toasting its new customer, soft drinks maker AG Barr and Company, but also Bob McLean, the general manager for Scotland, who won the business in the first place. Barr's is going national with Lowfield after one year using the Scottish operation.
Barr's traffic — deliveries of drinks to wholesalers and retailers — is the latest in a series of contracts won by Mr McLean. Yet winning business for the company is not his main job.
His main responsibility is to ensure the smooth running of the operation, but he has the rare talent for an operations man in a large company of being able to sell as well.
Mr McLean says he has no difficulty changing hats between operations and selling. "There is a close link between marketing and operations. You cannot sell if you don't know what you are selling." The company is the only product Lowfield has, he adds.
You have got to sell with confidence, and to do that you must know the nuts and bolts of the operation. Otherwise you can end up selling a service you cannot in practice provide, or selling at the wrong price."
Lowfield, which aims at a target market in the food and drinks industry, has two salesmen seeking national contracts. Operationally, the company has a bias towards deliveries only from its depots. But in bringing in his own customers. Mr McLean believes he has been able to tighten the efficiency of the operation. Instead of running back from the day's drops empty, drivers 'phone in to pick up a load from customers. "The vehicle is them to be used," comments Mr McLean, "even if it takes a bit of head scratching occasionally."
Bob McLean has had some bold success operationally also. Two years ago, other national
companies were "rationalising" their Scottish operations and concentrating on a single depot north of the border. Lowfield had its main Scottish depot at Harthill, ideally sited just off the M8 between Glasgow and Edinburgh, and a second depot at Montrose, between Dundee and Aberdeen.
Mr McLean closed Montrose, but rejected the single depot rationale and opened a new depot further north at Grantownon-Spey, near Inverness. "People said I was crazy but it has run for two years and been very successful." The depot saves on night money and unproductive mileage, and supports Lowfield's claim to offer a truly national service, he says.
Any national customer intro
duced to the company by its sales team will of course expect to get involved with the manager responsible for keeping the lorries on the road and getting his goods out on time. But in a large distribution company, where jobs are more specifically defined, relations between the person placing the business and the person responsible for making the contract work can be more remote than in smaller firms.
Managers like Bob McLean prove that this need not be the
case.
In selling as well as running the operation, he has established relations with customers which have benefitted both his
own area and the company as a whole.