3
"Outstanding feature of sales
representative should be sincerity"
Spanish barley
for Albert thanks
to El Aguila
Ibecor training centre in Zaïre
Heineken Belgium sends out its invoices
J.H. Dello, Head of Catering Sales for Rotterdam district;
Building site
More interesting
For a man who says he has 'ants in his pants' he's certainly
remained loyal to one employer for a long time. For 32
years now Mr. J.H. Dello has been working for Heine
ken in Holland and all that time in the catering sector.
First as a catering trade representative, later as leader of
the district sales team and since 1979 as head of sales for
the bars, hotels and restaurants trade in the Rotterdam
district.
All Heineken customers receive bills
for the goods delivered to them. The
same is true of the customers of
Heineken Belgium. But there used to
be one difference: the (Belgian)
customers were invoiced by Heineken
Holland.This situation changed on 1st
January this year. From then on
Heineken Belgium has been invoicing
its customers itself. And, according to
Mr. Vertonghen, head of the accounts
department at Heineken Belgium,
that's "a great improvement".
"Previously, Heineken Holland sent
out invoices to our customers. All
goods, return packs and advertising
materials were specified on separate
invoices. A separate invoice was even
sent out for each product type. So the
customer received a whole stack of
bills for just one delivery. That had to
be changed, as it was troublesome for
the customers. Now our customers
receive one single invoice direct from
Heineken Belgium. Heineken
Holland then invoices Heineken
Belgium.The new system is much
more efficient, for now we can soon
see for ourselves what the position is
as regards deliveries and amounts
outstanding", says Mr. Vertonghen.
Right from the very first day the
Belgian invoicing system worked
flawlessly. Heineken Belgium had
already gained experience of its own
invoicing system for deliveries of
spirits such as Jagermeister, Coebergh
blackcurrant gin, Hoppe liqueurs and
Bokma genevas.
The 'Vega de Nervion' from Bilbao docks at the malting plant to deliver the
first 2,500 tonnes of barley.
The very wet and cold summer in
Central and Northern Europe has had
an adverse effect on the barley harvest
in these regions. Harvesting had to be
delayed by three weeks. It was not
until mid-September that the British
barley was brought in, whilst farmers
in Denmark were then still waiting to
start harvesting. But the Albert
malting plant in Ruisbroek
(Belgium), in cooperation with El
Aguila in Spainhad already found an
answer to possible supply problems.
Spain's accession to the E.C. means
that the Albert malting plant has an
extra possibility of purchasing its
barley within the Common Market. In
anticipation, a study of the quality of
Spanish barley had already been made
in the spring. Thanks to the help of El
Aguila, the Albert malting plant was
able to buy in Spanish-grown barley.
The first ship, carrying some 2,500
tonnes of Spanish barley, docked
alongside the malting plant at the end
of August. In the second half of
September a second batch of the same
size was supplied.
!wV
From left to right: Messrs. Welmers
(general managerDe Bruyn
(production manager) and Janssens
inspecting the first shipment of Spanish
barley.
To get ahead as a business yo'u have to invest. Not only in machines and buildings, but
also in your employees, for instance by giving them the opportunity to attend training
courses. A training centre has been opened in Kinshasa, the capital of Zaïre, especially
for the African breweries. Technicians as well as commercial and accounting
employees can boost their practical skills in this centre. Our photo shows a group of
salesmen from Zaire, Burundi and Rwanda during a training session at the new
centre.
In the 1950s many pub-goers in
Limburg still had to be convinced of
the good taste of Heineken beer.
"People in those days all drank Dutch
gin (geneva).They'd been put off
drinking beer because of the wartime
brews which had not been really
pleasant-tasting. When I went into a
pub in those days, I'd offer a glass of
Heineken to the people at the bar. I let
them discover for themselves that the
beer tasted good, whilst I clearly
showed how much I enjoyed drinking
it and told them how good it was. The
method had excellent results."
To expand the number of customers it
was important thirty years ago to
respond quickly when a new pub was
being built. "Once a pub had signed a
contract with another brewery you
were not allowed (until the early
'sixties) to try to persuade that
business to start selling your products.
So, when we saw a building site for a
retail business, we always went along
and asked what sort of business it
would be. If it was a pub, you had to
contact the owner at top speed and
convince him that Heineken beer was
the best choice. Nowadays the system
is completely different. The owner of
the licenced premises comes along to
the brewery and asks 'What have you
got to offer me?"
This big change has made the job even
more interesting, Mr. Dello feels. "A
representative has to maintain good
contacts by providing the catering
business with sound advice. For
instance, if a representative has a poor
knowledge of management and
financial affairs, the customer's feeling
will be: 'I'm getting no help with my
problem', and that's terrible. It's the
representative's task to chivvy the
businessman along, to encourage him
to run his establishment as efficiently
as possible and to help him to obtain
the resources that he needs to run that
business."
What makes a good representative?
Mr. Dello ponders for quite a while
and chooses his words carefully: "A
good representative is a man with a big
personality. He has to have a
compelling presence, but without
being arrogant. His outstanding
feature should be his sincerity, which
means that he has to have a
sympathetic ear for the problems of
the businessman.The representative's
wishes are not important. Everything
revolves around the customer."
Mr. Dello is someone who has
put in 100% effort for
Heineken during those 32
years, including the past twenty years
in Rotterdam. Shortly he will be
moving to Maastricht, the city where
he was born. At the De Ridder
Brewery he will act as an adviser for
the catering sector. "I hope that the
knowledge I have built up, plus my
Maastricht background, will help me
to carve out commercial openings
there for the sale of Ridder beer".
It was 1955 when Mr. Dello completed
his accountancy study and discovered
that his ambitions lay more in the
commercial field. An advertisement
for a job with "a concern in the foods
sector" caught his eye: that company
(Heineken) was looking for a catering
trade representative for Limburg
Province. Mr. Dello did not meet two
of the requirements (aged at least 30
and with a driving licence), but his
studies had given him a thorough
grounding in financial and economic
matters. The upshot was that Mr.
Dello became Heineken's youngest
catering sales representative. In 1972
he was promoted to district team
leader for the Rotterdam catering
area, followed seven years later by his
appointment to his present post.
"As a representative you don't visit the
customers simply to jot down their
orders. You must try to build up a
relationship and keep it going. You do
that by giving the proprietor advice
about running his business and by
providing him with service.Those are
the essential duties of a
J. H. Dello is taking his leave of
Rotterdam after twenty years and going
back to his home town of Maastricht
where he will be advising the catering
trade sales department.
representative. If your advice and
your service are good, you know that
that customer will stick with you."
