Marcel Kroon (49) is an ambitious entrepreneur from Hoogeveen. In 2011, he became the managing director and majority shareholder of Banzo Engineering, at the time a small, excellently organized company active in the design, production, installation and maintenance of recycling plants. In a few years, the company grew into an enterprise employing between 35 and 90 employees – both flexible and permanent. The average annual turnover is around 15 million euros. The company's mission is to help cities and regions turn waste into raw materials.
Banzo operates in a strong growth market. Kroon: 'Our products practically sell themselves.' Yet, at a certain point, he wanted to streamline and improve his sales process, even though it was already running excellently. He had a good reason for this.
'For almost my entire life, I worked with cost prices, figures, and optimization, but to be honest, I have 0,0% commercial background myself. I never really acquired knowledge in that area. What we did was primarily selling on substance; on process-related and technical arguments. That went well until the moment I got the feeling that growth was starting to stall. That was just when I had hired about ten extra people. In doing so, I created much higher recurring costs. I sought more systematic approach to sales to stay ahead of developments and realized that I lacked the necessary knowledge to do so.'
golden tip
One of his suppliers gave him a golden tip. He should go talk to Richard van Heukelum, a trainer at Kenneth Smit. 'This man turns your problem into a solution.'
A conversation followed, and Kroon was convinced. Van Heukelum told Kroon how he works: improving the sales process step by step and continuously. 'I was immediately enthusiastic about Richard. You could tell from everything that he knew what he was talking about. He himself successfully ran a company for years. He is a man of the field with a great deal of expertise that he conveys very well. His improvement plan was quite simple and manageable. Using eight KPIs and a clear dashboard, I was able to manage a team. He showed us how we could achieve our goals in a systematic and controllable way. It no longer had to be purely based on intuition. It could be better, more strategic, and smarter.'
Better step by step
'From the start, my motivation was to increase turnover to a level of 100 million per year. Together with three employees, a plan was developed to achieve that goal within 5 years.' Van Heukelum operates on the principle of continuous improvement: critically examining processes and making them a little better each time.
A principle like this might sound somewhat theoretical for a tough company that manufactures robust recycling installations. For Kroon, however, it felt familiar. 'It helped that I was already familiar with this way of working from my time as Operations Director. Back then, I was also working on making production 'lean'. However, I hadn't realized that this is also applicable to the sales department.'
The plan Van Heukelum put on the table was, above all, compact, manageable, and clear. 'That made me very happy. Simplicity pays off, that is my firm conviction.' The Service and Sales department was going to take the lead on the project. Three young, talented guys sitting there thought it was wonderful. They already had many good ideas, but they hadn't managed to push them all through the organization. Now they were presented with an approach they could really work with.' The fact that Marcel Kroon himself fully supported them in this was a huge help. 'In change processes like this, you have to clearly show within your organization that you, as the person ultimately responsible, stand behind that approach. I have to project that I think it's important, and then the whole company will pick it up too.'
Buying signals
Following the improvement process, the guys also received personal training. In this, they learned new ways to conduct sales conversations, to look closely at the customer's buying signals, and to think along with the customer. Ultimately, this results in assignments, and that is good for the company and for all employees.' 'Yes, such training requires a substantial investment, but I earn that back many times over. I will certainly recommend Richard wholeheartedly to my fellow entrepreneurs. Thanks to his way of working, he exposes a company's opportunities and inequalities in a very simple manner. Moreover, he is extremely reliable. He keeps his promises.'
Good way
Kroon himself participated in the training, certainly in the first few months. 'Also to make it clear once again how important I find it.' In addition, he naturally spoke a lot with the others and with trainer Richard. The goal had been formulated beforehand: 100 million in turnover within 5 years, 20% of which would come from the Service and Maintenance department. Now, after a year and a half, the picture is clear. 'Thanks to Richard, we are well on our way to that 100 million.'
