Gilbert Lorenzo was working for the Canadian branch of Soprema in 1989 when he received the challenge. The family-owned, $850 million French manufacturer wanted to expand its reach to the United States, and Lorenzo was asked to start an operation here from scratch. He grew the one-office upstart from $850,000 that first year to a 135-employee, $70 million operation in 2006 — and the company is still growing by double-digit percentages each year. Lorenzo, who is also in charge of Soprema’s Mexican operations, says the keys to expansion are knowing how to adapt your product to a new market and how to manage your employees. Smart Business spoke with Lorenzo, general manager of Soprema USA, about how to break into a market and how to create a feeling of ownership in your employees.
Set an objective, and stick to it.
One of the things any company needs to have is values. Create a Soprema mentality, create an environment, create a company philosophy and maintain that. Don’t change every two minutes.
When you start to change, people say, ‘Yesterday you said that, today it’s different.’ So you need to maintain consistency.
First challenge was to build a team. Second challenge was to face a huge corporation with a lot more resources and tools than we had at the time and really make it grow. Penetrate the market, get recognition in the market. That was a big, big challenge.
The way to overcome it is to make yourself available. Spend months and months doing seminars and promoting the product. I became a salesman. There’s recognition in the fact that you’re not just in your office managing a company, but you’re part of the company — you have a stake, you’re passionate.
It’s doesn’t mean the staff or salespeople are not doing it. It’s good that everybody worked hard and understood the challenge in front of us, which was to get Soprema known in the U.S. market.
Hire self-motivators so you don’t have to police your team.
We look for responsibility in workers, and we look for people who are not scared.
The environment we create is this: If you make a mistake, you have to tell us about the mistake. We don’t try to penalize you for the mistake. So, you have to be honest. You have to be a sel- starter, because we give a lot of freedom.
I don’t want to be a police officer. Our employees have the freedom to go address problems with kids or family and come back to work. But in the meantime, they need to be responsible, because the job has to be done. For that, you need a self-starter, an honest, responsible and dedicated person.
Keep communication alive.
If you crucify them for telling you about mistakes, they will tell you once, but then they’re not going to come back.
We like to acknowledge the problem and look for a solution. People don’t like to make mistakes; people are not trying to make a mistake against your company. They make mistakes because of misjudgment, or because they are sick, or because of a lack of communication or information.
You could try to create an environment where people don’t feel crucified every two minutes and don’t fear to lose their job if they acknowledge a problem. Let’s try to analyze their mistake, let’s try to help solve the problem. And for sure, if we find someone who really makes mistakes willingly, then we don’t need those people, and we won’t have them on our staff.
It’s a very interesting environment, and it’s working very well. People are happy, and I want people to be happy, I want them to smile. You can work very hard in a happy environment.
Create ownership by sharing your success.
I make myself available to be on the same level as everybody. I’m working like everybody else to make Soprema successful. When you build your company to success, you build respect with people. They’re proud of it, first of all, and they need to share in that success.
It’s not you — the success of Soprema isn’t Gilbert Lorenzo, it’s the staff and the people inside Soprema. When you really mention that, when you make them feel like that, then they endorse the company — they belong. It’s no longer the president or the owner of the company; the company belongs to them.
They take ownership, and by taking ownership, they build pride. They know my door is always open, they can ask questions. They know they can come talk. Mingle with them; listen to them.
Manage your growth.
You have to control your growth. If you grow too fast, you can lose control. It’s fun to show big growth, there’s no question about it, but a lot of times you don’t have the staff to handle the burden you increase.
You need to anticipate the growth, and start to train people. When you hire a person, they have to fit the mold, they have to fit the philosophy of the company. It takes a while to train people, because we have a lot of products, we have a lot of things to manage.
You need to have an indication of how much can serve tomorrow with staff we have today. You don’t want to grow at any price; you have to grow in an organized manner.
Our staff is quite efficient. We measure the efficiency of the staff, to analyze the amount of work they are doing. There’s a threshold, where we’ve all agreed that beyond that threshold, you need to do something. Because after that, you start to make mistakes when a person is loaded over the maximum he can give.
Everything shows (the growth) is not going to stop. Last year, we had 38 percent — that’s a lot. We were able to manage the growth because we had the dedication of employees.
They worked a lot, and when we saw that, we knew we would restructure and hire more people to address the problem, because so far we’re growing this year, too.
How to reach: Soprema USA, (330) 334-0066 or www.soprema.us