They tell me that we have a problem; that we’re an industry in crisis. I’m left wondering which particular crisis they’re talking about; after all, we have too many supply companies, both manufacturers and distributors – and we’re offering too many products into a market that’s shrinking. I can see those factors being a bit troublesome.
But that’s not the crisis for today – not this time.
Do you remember when the main complaint about the Premier League was that the top teams could just go out into the marketplace and buy whatever talent they needed; no need to train youngsters and scout for talent on the local rec? It was a strategy that threatened the quality of the national team and created an unbridgeable gulf between home-spun football and the globe-trotting superstar teams.
Of course, if you’re the owner of a PL team then you have constant global access to an entire generation of young hopefuls wanting to play the best football – and drive the best cars and live in the best houses. So you’re unlikely to see the lack of sustainability in the system.
But let’s shift our focus and look at the UK lighting industry.
Every lighting business relies on a single thing: profitable sales. That adjective is quite deliberate because any fool can sell at a loss. Profitable sales require good quality field staff and better quality sales management. That, they tell me, is our problem. Apparently, we risk having neither.
A good sales team doesn’t come together by accident; its crafted and sculpted by the quality of its management. Which means that a good sales team is the product of good sales management. And, in turn, good sales management needs a solid boardroom behind it. But here’s the hard story: we prefer not to train anyone; we expect to import top quality sales staff already fully experienced, fully-equipped and ready to go. But if the sales manager can’t identify the potential in a job applicant; can’t pick out the can-bes from the wanna-bes from the never-will-bes, then we have a problem that goes all the way to the boardroom table. The problem is creaking sales management; a classic case of being promoted beyond the level of competence.
So – company not working so well? Always look upwards, not downwards. And if the sales management can’t cut it, how can those of us on the other side of the table expect to trust a sales engineer who’s pitching solely on the basis of how much things cost and how much the price can be reduced?
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The Lita Display sales team in I983. John Barnett on the left; his design manager on the right. Mark Ingram, front and centre – as ever.
Meanwhile . . .
Last weekend I stood at the graveside of the man who did more for me than anyone else I have ever worked with. John E. Barnett was my managing director in the first half of the 1980s. He saw something in me and poached me from the company I was working for at the time. For that, I owe him so much. Strangely, I don’t remember him ever telling me what to do or how to do it. We had ambitions and targets to meet and he steered me through with his enthusiasm and focus to get on with my job.
JEB was not an easy man to deal with (I think I’m using the word ‘deal’ in its most literal sense, because he was a consummate trader) and there were offices where he wasn’t welcome. Mind you, John was a man who didn’t suffer fools and that may explain some of the animosity.
There’s strength of character and there’s force of nature – take your pick. But he was also loyal to his staff and we were loyal to him, sometimes in extreme circumstances. I’m not sure where my job description said that I was expected to clear a wholesaler’s shelves of our fixtures at midnight – before the bailiffs arrived early the next morning – but there you go; and I also learned that wearing a leather jacket and aviator shades really can get an outstanding bill paid. Not quite Arthur Daley and Terry McCann, but sometimes it felt pretty close.
But John was also prepared to take an afternoon to sit with Annabel, my partner, when she turned up unexpectedly at our office after being made redundant. I was out and about, but John was there for her. And we’ve never forgotten that act of kindness.
I hope that whatever John saw in me, and what I learned from him, is something that I’ve been able to pass on in my own career to the young designers who’ve worked for me; though I don’t remember commissioning any midnight raids or suggesting any debt collecting exploits.