The answer man builds trust, margins
Greg Vincent knows what he sells, and how to listen to customers
By Ken Brack -- Industrial Distribution, 4/1/1998
Greg Vincent drives a company car these days, a '96 Chevy Lumina that treks across central Kansas to the tune of 800 miles a week. Vincent makes the most of his trips to customers' plants, brainstorming solutions to upgrade their electrical control components and other gear in between his planned stops and "cold calls.''Customers sure don't mind his traveling ways.
If a motor blows out after midnight at a plastics plant, Vincent, the account manager at Lakeland Engineering Equipment Co.'s Wichita office, will get out there. He won't hesitate either to suggest a new tool or more efficient motor controller, for example, even if Lakeland doesn't stock it.
Selected as Industrial Distribution's 1998 Salesperson of the Year Merit Award Winner, the 40-year-old Vincent has a hard-earned reputation among industrial customers as an answer man who listens closely to their needs. He's helped triple the sales in his Kansas-Oklahoma-northwest Texas sales territory since joining the company more than two and a half years ago. With about $40 million in sales last year from New Mexico to Minnesota, Lakeland Engineering Equipment is a distributor specializing in controls and automation products.
"Greg is one of the rare salesmen who can actually come in and troubleshoot and design equipment for you," says Harold Frost, a lead maintenance manager at Coleman Co. in Wichita. "I think one of his greatest assets is he knows what he sells. He usually knows the answer.''
Solving problems and growing the business keep Vincent going. He says he realized his calling soon after he began doing outside sales for another company in the late 1980s. He hooked up with Lakeland when the firm opened its Wichita office in 1995 and many customers like Coleman Co. went with him.
"I realized that's what I enjoyed doing, helping customers out with a problem or applications they have,'' he says. "Even if it wasn't an outcome for sales, helping them to find where they could get a part or a tool...''
Self-made researcher
Vincent, who began overhauling car engines like a prized 1972 Camaro as a teenager, has extensive hands-on experience with motors and controls. After high school he joined the Air Force as an aerospace ground technician and worked with generators to start up aircraft and do pre-flight tests. After completing technical school later on he was hired to repair motors at a small electrical controls distributorship, then turned to outside sales. Vincent, who married his high school sweetheart, Donna, has two children, ages nine and 15.
Floyd Jaggers, a plant manager at Spartech Plastics in McPherson, Kans., which makes sheets for consumer goods such as truck and boat interiors, plus plastics profiles, describes Vincent as a salesman, technician and researcher. Located in Vincent's hometown, the plant employs 102 people. Jaggers says Vincent routinely helps him upgrade electrical controllers and temperature controllers for the plant's 15 plastics extruders. Vincent also programs new motor control drives for Spartech and stays on top of innovations recommended by manufacturers, which sometimes, Jaggers admits, he doesn't have time to read himself.
"We don't have to deal with three or four guys, just him,'' he says. "He gets all the technical information because he knows all the aspects... He's pointed out things that are possibly simpler, newer or even cheaper than what we thought of bringing in.''
A couple of years ago Vincent made a suggestion at a PMS Foods plant in Hutchinson, Kans. that improved production with more efficient controls and motors. Because Vincent had established trust as a salesman over the previous three-plus years, he convinced plant engineer Arne Pinto to begin converting from DC to AC motors. Pinto recalls how Vincent programmed the first one and it worked exactly as he had described. Soon Pinto and his entire maintenance crew were convinced.
The company, which makes textured soy protein for dog food and other products, now has seven AC motors driving feed augers, drying mix blenders and machinery which moves and packages their products.
"He's more than just a salesman,'' Pinto says. "I have an engineering degree and I go to him for advice.''
Pinto says Vincent apparently gained expertise from reading manufacturers' product manuals, something he -- like Jaggers -- often doesn't have the chance to do. That "saves me a lot of time,'' he adds. "He has the experience in other places that I tap into. That's why we can kind of get ahead in the game.''
Vincent's boss, Ron Riedel, president and executive of the Lakeland Engineering Equipment distribution group, says one key to Vincent's success -- and that of his company -- is solid listening skills. Lakeland Engineering is one of several companies that form the larger Lakeland Group consortium.
"Listening is the number one business," Riedel says. "Rather than be reactive, Greg is proactive in finding their problems. His customers realize he's a valuable asset to them.''
Homework counts
Doing that also requires listening to oneself at times, and Vincent does just that. For at least six years he's carried a hand-held tape recorder with him on sales calls. Driving away after each visit, he'll note what products the company might need, list their concerns and details about the plant's business. By the end of the day he'll write out those notes on a planner.
Like other salesmen, Vincent also does his homework before his trips, finding out "undercover'' what products a plant uses and who its distributors are. If a company buys strictly on price, he'll contact a purchasing manager first. If they want service, he checks out a project engineer or maintenance supervisor. If he makes an unannounced ""cold call'' and his contact is busy, Vincent leaves a line card and business card and quickly follows up.
His problem solving abilities have not just brought Vincent customer loyalty. Sharing that knowledge has also built friendships. Larry Briggs, a salesman at Hyspeco, Inc., a Wichita fluid power distributor, says Vincent was a mentor to him several years ago. Briggs now lives in McPherson and is a friend. On many occasions, Briggs says Vincent suggested less expensive products than his customers had considered, or "tweaked" a product carried by another company to improve performance.
"He's not adverse to giving us advice if we run into a problem," agrees Gary Honomichl, the plant manager at Vanguard Industries in McPherson, which makes polyethylene potable water tubing. "He can offer us more than one solution generally to a problem and that's a very added value, and then we can look to see what we can afford to budget and which direction to go." I
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