Quick looks at the latest forecasts are showing some slowing
of momentum on the commercial building side.
The question though is… are we trending downward or is this just a blip
on the radar? One example? The Architectural Billings Index was positive
again for the 42nd time in the last 49 months but I was reading
online where some analysts were worrying over the number. I am not ready to fret yet given all of the
other action happening right now and the positive metrics out there, but as
always I will continue to keep close watch and see if anything looks out of
sort in the next few reports.
Elsewhere…
-- Congrats to Bill Daubmann and the team at D3 in Florida on
their latest expansion news. Man that
company has continued to grow over the years and it’s been nice to follow their
continued development.
-- Saw a thread on an architectural message board recently that
said architects are seeing less and less LEED projects. So I have to ask- is that something our
industry is seeing as well? Are you
getting less requests than in the past? I know glass is relatively minor in the
big picture of LEED, but still a slowing of LEED projects would be newsworthy.
-- And we are now just 2 weeks away from GlassBuild
America. I have told you about GEF, Fall
Conference, and Express Learning. Now
what about the awesome on floor ACTION DEMOS.
Seriously worth your time. Check
out the line up HERE. These demos are moneymakers
for you as a business owner or as a manager.
Check them out. There is still
time to register for the show and grab a room in Vegas. You want to be at the show and quite frankly
you NEED to be at this show!
This week’s
interview- Dan Plotnick, Vice President, Sales & Marketing, Solar Seal
I have known Dan for many years, but until I got the answers
from this interview I really never knew him.
My gosh his path to this business is a fun and wild one. (His wife
compares him to Forrest Gump with the travels/people etc. She’s dead on!) We are lucky to have him in our
industry. I enjoyed getting to
communicate with Dan no matter where in the world he was stationed and always
appreciated how he kept up with my posts.
Now its great to have him in North America and in the commercial fab
business! It’s a long one but well worth
the read in my opinion!
Am I reading your
past right- you were a history major? If
that is correct, how in the world did you end up as such a high powered sales
and marketing executive?
Max, you are correct – my major was history with a
concentration on the Middle East and a minor in political science. I went to a small liberal arts college with
1600 students in Los Angeles and my average class size was 15 people. In class, there was nowhere to hide. While on paper I’m a history major, in
reality, I was a communications major.
Every exam was essay based, I didn’t have one “scan-tron” test and
certainly didn’t need a #2 pencil.
With 15 students on average per class, all lectures were
discussion based with open debate based on assigned reading or current events
of the day. If you went to class
unprepared, you were embarrassed by the Professor and other students. You had to digest large amounts of
information, have a clear point of view and defend it. In short, it was analogous to sales: take in
large amounts of information, ask a lot of questions, listen and understand
other people’s points of view so you can come up with solutions to their
problems.
After university I was in film and television production in
New York City -- communications. Oddly
enough, my old babysitter and family friend opened the door to get me into the
business and I worked on feature films and commercials. I didn’t like the industry. I got into the business because a friend put
in a kind word to her contacts and helped me get interviews. I quickly understood that to move up in the
film industry it was all about networking and ultimately, nepotism. I enjoyed the networking and was too idealistic
at the time to appreciate the nepotism!
One successful film producer who liked me took me aside and
we had a heart to heart talk. Basically,
in a kind way he told me that if he had to do it all over again, he
wouldn’t. Chasing film work destroyed 2
of his marriages, his family life was in shambles and he had no free time. Being an idealistic 22 year old who was on
the fence about film, this talk reinforced my beliefs. I have no doubt I could have worked the
system and been successful, but I didn’t want to sell my soul in the process to
get there. An interesting aside: my family friend who introduced me to the
business was an accountant on motion pictures.
She has been incredibly successful and has produced the “Sopranos” and
“Girls” for HBO amongst other projects.
With film in my immediate past, I had to look for something
else to do. I was an athlete and I
played tennis for my college team. I
wanted to be involved with tennis and I got a job with the largest tennis court
and running track surfacing company in the West. It was Denver based with offices throughout
the Rocky Mountain Region and Far West.
This is where I learned specification-based selling and where I really
started to develop a career. One thing
that has been consistent is that I had a lot of decision making power and
autonomy at a young age. I was able to
make mistakes. At 26, I ran a sports
flooring division and was able to create a distributor network of installers in
multiple states. To keep this from running 30 pages, the company was eventually
purchased by the same group that owned Astroturf. After the sale, I didn’t think the company
had a future as Astroturf had lawsuits pending for patent infringement and
subsequently went bankrupt. My wife had
a great job opportunity in Seattle and we decided to move to the Pacific
Northwest.
I had a career in construction specification-based sales and
wanted to continue with it. This led me
to Pilkington.
You’ve had a heck of
a career already and you are still pretty young too… can you walk me through
what its been like working for the biggest companies in our industry in roles
that took you overseas for years at a time?
I started in the glass industry at Pilkington as a territory
Manager in the Pacific Northwest, covering that part of the country, the Rocky
Mountain Region and Western Canada. My
work history in glass is clearly marked as entering companies during internal
transitions or seeing through major economic booms and busts. I got used to living in a blurry world and
have always been able to cope well with change.
As a newcomer to a company, change is easy to deal with as you aren’t
defined by historical constraints or enamored with certain totems from the
past.
When I joined Pilkington, there was major restructuring
right before I started. There were
employee layoffs in many departments, a new CEO was hired and my boss, Steve
Weidner was transitioning back into a Sales VP role. I was hired because of my sales and
specification experience. At this time
the PNA sales reps had a role change and were being asked to make sales calls
and architectural presentations.
Our North American division was successful under Steve’s
guidance. As a result, PNA was asked to
send people to attend a 2-week Pilkington global management identification
training program in the UK. I was
picked. This was a turning point for
me. At this program I was identified as
someone with leadership skills and the temperament to work and lead people from
other cultures. Working for a multi-national, these were desired traits. Steve Weidner was an excellent person to work
for and he took my career development seriously. In late 2004 he gave me a chance to work in
another culture to help grow our overseas sales efforts. The Country?
India.
I was one of the first North American employees to be sent
to India for the architectural business.
I had a simple mandate, which was: “figure it out.” At the time, we had one direct sales rep and
an independent agent. India was booming
and figuring out a sales and marketing plan was easy once culture shock wore
off. I visited 5 cities over 3 weeks,
met with glass processors, architects, glaziers, took part in a trade show in
Bangalore and subsequently went back to India to work with the team 2-3 more
times for similar durations in 2005.
Because of our efforts, we restructured sales and marketing and divided
the country into 4 zones with direct sales coverage as well as establishing a
central office in New Delhi. We
established new routes to market, created a team of sales people and technical
reps – in other words, duplicate what made us successful in other parts of the
world and localize it appropriately. It
was an amazing experience. The team was
our new local employees, our export manager from the UK and myself running a
program comprised of enthusiastic people, all in our 20’s and 30’s, running
around India like a bunch of headless chickens.
We got our glass specified in projects, sold tons of glass into premier
buildings throughout the country, while upsetting a global competitor who had
major operations in the country. We were
a small focused machine with a narrow highly profitable target segment -- a nice position to be in. Working overseas we had a lot of autonomy,
which continues throughout my career. I
always end up in positions where I must “figure it out.”
What was exciting for Pilks in India is that we were
identifying sites to build a float line in the country and my team and I were
establishing routes to market once we had a float. As I stated earlier – I enter companies
during transitions. NSG bought Pilkington.
The float project was scrapped.
From the success of the Indian experience, Pilkington was
looking to extricate from our Hong Kong Office and I was chosen to lead our
Commercial efforts based in Shanghai, China.
I was the first commercial employee based locally new office in
2006. My role was to help grow sales in
China to a broader customer audience, learn more about our JV partner, SYP, and
sell products from our global facilities throughout all of Asia.
You asked what was it like working overseas with large
players in our industry?
It truly accelerated my learning curve because I had access
to our global leadership team, took part in presentations to the Board of
Directors and was part of the decision-making process at the highest levels for
our efforts in Asia. Coming from flogging float in Seattle to understanding the
dynamics of working in China where one city, Qinghuangdao has more float plants
than the whole of North America really tested my strategic abilities, helped me
put convoluted routes to market in perspective, and understand channel
strategy/segmentation as a very small player in such a complex and ever
changing environment were our keys for growth.
In addition, being close to Japan, I had the pleasure of
taking part in the first commercial interactions between Pilkington and our NSG
counterparts. I was our commercial face
to the market in Asia. My intellectual
curiosity helped me learn and understand as best I could an ancient
culture. I asked a million questions,
learned the language, experienced many other points of view and synthesized the
information overload into action.
Bringing this full circle, my “history/communications” major uniquely
helped prepare me for these roles.
One of the most interesting, challenging and rewarding roles
was the National Sales Director for Pilkington China. I was in charge of sales and marketing from
our Changshu float and coating factory.
Without getting too specific, I was the leader of a domestic Chinese
sales and marketing team who were technically employed by SYP but worked with
me. Fortunately, China wasn’t really
affected by the financial crisis, or as the NSG employees in Japan called it
“the Lehman shock,” whose 10-year anniversary is today. It was an amazing time
to be living in Shanghai – a true economic powerhouse that was undergoing a
tremendous rate of change. To be
involved in many prestigious projects in the country, working with the major
Chinese domestic and foreign curtain wall companies was eye opening and
humbling. For people involved in the
building industry, China was candy-land.
Working with our JV partner certainly wasn’t without major challenges,
such as training a domestic Chinese sales force about corporate compliance and
anti-corruption as expected by a multi-national company. I’m proud that I was the “bridge and shield”
between our respective organizations and that we had cultivated a local team
capable of working anywhere in the world.
I was in China for over 6 years and was going to transition
back to the USA with Pilkington in 2012.
The Guardian Asia team found out about my role change and contacted me –
they were looking to buy a large float and coating company in China and they
offered me a role I couldn’t refuse.
Sales and Marketing Director for all of Asia Pacific based in Hong
Kong. We lived there for four years. I was specifically tasked with growing the
coatings business in the region as well as helping qualify new investment
opportunities. Guardian Asia had a
traditional sales link to our UAE facility for coatings, but my team helped to
further open sales from Europe and the USA.
We were involved in hundreds of very large jobs, some we won – the new
Abu Dhabi airport terminal, Apple’s R and D headquarters in Japan, as well as
some we lost – the 2 spectacular buildings at Changi airport in Singapore, to
name a few.
In addition, there was more change to work through – within
3-4 months of starting this role, Koch Industries became Guardians
partner. I remember being in one of our
Reps cars in Perth, Australia huddled around the speaker on his mobile phone to
listen to the global announcement about Koch.
Again, change management and flexibility were required skills. I joined Guardian post Russ Ebeid and I had
the privilege of working under Scott Thomsen through the start of the Koch
transition.
This role was interesting because we had teams from New
Zealand through all of Asia and I was truly a road warrior. If you saw the George Clooney movie, “Up in
the Air” that lifestyle wasn’t far from my work life at the time. From this role, I was asked to eventually move
to Bangkok, Thailand to take the lead for all sales in Asia Pacific, including
float from our Thailand factories, managing the inside and outside domestic
Thai sales teams as well as the architectural teams throughout the region. This gave me a broader industry view as we
had a challenging Thai domestic market to work through as well as exports to
all the countries throughout the region.
I got to make sales calls in diverse economies, like Myanmar, where
tinted glass was a big purchase to promoting and writing code for the most
sophisticated triple silver coatings and laminates to the governing energy
departments in Singapore.
What I liked the most -- it was a different challenge every
day. On Monday I could be in Seoul
specifying triple silvers for the Hyundai headquarters curtain wall and the
next day we would be at the Hyundai auto factory negotiating the tinted auto
glass buy for the new Genesis. The glass
industry has a myriad of challenges, a lot is self-inflicted. Yet, there are so many applications for the
product, every sale presents its unique aspects, therefore it never gets
boring. Moreover, I had interactions
with key Guardian leaders, including Kevin Baird, Chris Dolan, Joe Butler and
Bruce Milley, whom I’m still friends with today.
I was very lucky those eleven years abroad – I lived in (3)
of the world’s great cities: Shanghai, Hong Kong and Bangkok, traveled to over
30 countries for the role; and because I
was always with local people, had an open mind and enjoyed travel, food and
karaoke in different cultures, my life was like an Anthony Bourdain episode of
“No Reservations” every day I was on the road.
My wife and I could have been “lifers” in Asia, but I lived away from
family and friends for almost 30 years and it was time to come home.
How has the
transition into the commercial fabrication world with Solar Seal been- this is newer
territory for you correct?
My transition to VP of Sales and Marketing for Solar Seal
has been fun. The role change takes me
from working with the major float companies calling on processing customers to
going to work directly for a processing customer. While I understand the industry, products and
how the parts fit together, learning the personalities, the challenges of
working downstream, and our operational constraints is certainly
difficult. That stated, my approach to
leadership and how we treat customers remain the same. The over-riding theme for me is to project to
the customer that we are taking an outside-in approach to their business –
trying to be the best solutions provider for them in their marketplace that we
can be. Which really is the essence of
marketing and what being a true partnership supplier is all about.
LINKS of the WEEK
Rough things happen when you abandon a dog.
Sorry. This is
idiotic and a waste of time by so many
Drunk man goes to parents home and sleeps- except it wasn’t
his parents home anymore. Uh Oh
VIDEO of the WEEK
This is a compilation of some crazy sports endings. Amazingly I did not see or do not remember a
bunch of them. Good stuff…
