• [00:01:07] Podcast introduction
• [00:01:09] What does Kick and Rush do?
• [00:01:33] What is merchandising?
• [00:01:56] Product catalogue
• [00:02:13] What about the competition?
• [00:03:11] CSRD: how does it work in practice?
• [00:04:05] To be sustainable or not to be, really
• [00:04:35] Key differentiators from competitors
• [00:05:31] The values of Kick and Rush
• [00:06:02] Advice for young entrepreneurs
• [00:06:46] Failures and successes in lead generation
• [00:07:26] Sales onboarding and training
• [00:08:50] Which sales techniques are applied?
• [00:09:52] Adapting your pitch to your audience
• [00:10:31] Greatest commercial achievement
• [00:11:12] To grow or not to grow?
• [00:11:40] How do you find new clients?
• [00:13:48] Working with PHCom: time well saved?
• [00:14:38] Essential commercial skills today
• [00:15:14] Next sales ambition
• [00:15:49] Why contact headquarters directly?
• [00:16:31] Any story to share about PHCom?
• [00:17:39] How to maintain trust with clients and prospects
• [00:18:05] Describe PHCom in three words
• [00:18:16] Episode closing

Stéphane Depaepe: [00:00:13] Hello and welcome to another episode of the "Performance and Harmony" podcast, produced by PHCom in the "transforma bxl" studio with technical support from "The Podcast Factory Org".

Nadia Ben Jelloun: [00:00:23] The "Performance and Harmony" podcast is aimed at marketing and sales managers, as well as company executives with commercial responsibilities.

Stéphane Depaepe: [00:00:32] Every month, we share with you our best practices in finding new customers for companies in the business-to-business sector.

Nadia Ben Jelloun: [00:00:38] You can watch every episode on the PHCom .be website. P.H.C. OM, and also on all good podcast platforms.

Stéphane Depaepe: [00:00:48] You can support this podcast and promote its visibility by sharing it with as many people as possible via a like, comment or share.

Nadia Ben Jelloun: [00:00:55] The answering machine is always open so that you can leave us a message, which we'll be delighted to answer.

Stéphane Depaepe: [00:01:00] You can also make an appointment directly with Nadia or Stéphane on PHCom .be

Nadia Ben Jelloun: [00:01:06] See you soon.

Camille de Meeûs: [00:01:07] Hello Thibault.

Thibaut Fontaine: [00:01:08] Hello Camille

Camille de Meeûs: [00:01:09] We're delighted to welcome you to our podcast today for the continuation of our episodes. So tell us, what do you do for a living, what's Kick and Rush?

Thibaut Fontaine: [00:01:16] Professionally, of course. Kick and Rush is a merchandising company. In French, le cadeau d'affaires, and so we help companies to promote either their brand to the outside world, or, since the covid, also promote the company internally, i.e. to employees.

Camille de Meeûs: [00:01:33] What is merchandising? Take a gourd, for example, and put a company logo on it, right? Or is it a bit... I think what I'm saying is a bit trivialized, but what is it really?

Thibaut Fontaine: [00:01:41] No, no, that's exactly it. In any object that's used on a daily basis, on which we'll put a logo, we'll put a first name, we'll put a message, and we'll try to communicate with this product over time, we'll stay close to people, to promote again: an idea, a product, a brand.

Camille de Meeûs: [00:01:56] And what type of product do you use?

Thibaut Fontaine: [00:01:58] So there are different categories. There are some categories that are working really, really hard, like textiles, anything gourmet these days, anything technological. But there are also products that are more mouth-watering, tableware, so it includes a whole range of products that are useful on a day-to-day basis.

Camille de Meeûs: [00:02:13] I presume there's a lot of competition in this sector. How does it work and what sets you apart?

Thibaut Fontaine: [00:02:19] There are many of us, and different companies cater to different sectors and audiences. We specialize in very large companies that want to communicate on a European level, in terms of their product range. Who, for example, will ask us to create a website for all their subsidiaries. Let me give you an example: a European company, based in Belgium or France, will ask us to create a collection, and all its employees throughout Europe will be able to order the products in small quantities. These products will be: one, bought in bulk so there are savings for buyers. Secondly, you can be sure that the brand name is respected, that the logo is printed correctly, embroidered correctly, etc. And thirdly, we're able to give them all the carbon emission calculations, an ecoscore, which is essential for the CSRD, which is therefore a European directive that is really the issue today for marketers and procurement.

Camille de Meeûs: [00:03:11] While we're on the subject of CSRD, how does it work in practice?

Thibaut Fontaine: [00:03:15] So we developed a tool to calculate carbon emissions by product. This means: we can give our customers the carbon emission, the ecological cost of producing a product, for a specific action or throughout the year. What does it mean? This means that, alongside the product's economic cost, we can also give the product's ecological cost. So I'll give you an example: someone - we were talking about water bottles - wants to choose a water bottle, and we're going to offer them two or three water bottles at different prices, both economical and ecological. And he'll be able to choose between a product made in Europe from a plastic material, a product made in Asia from a completely recycled material, and a third product which may be a mix of the two. And sometimes it's very surprising to see the ecological cost of a product, because you don't really realize that transport is involved, which isn't all that important.

Camille de Meeûs: [00:04:05] That's what I was going to say, sometimes the difference is obvious?

Thibaut Fontaine: [00:04:08] So sometimes it's obvious. We have a very good example of a campaign starting with PHCom at the moment, where we come up with two products, address sustainability managers, and simply show them two pens. One is made of wood, bamboo, and the other of plastic, and we ask him which is more environmentally friendly. And of course, it's the recycled plastic one that's made in China, and so it's used to start having a dialogue about the whole ecological thinking, the carbon footprint of a company through its merchandising.

Camille de Meeûs: [00:04:35] And this, I presume, is where you really set yourself apart from the competition?

Thibaut Fontaine: [00:04:39] So we're all trying in our industry to work on sustainability because, just a few years ago, our media, what we call product media, was seen as a polluting medium. Today, it's a medium that's made enormous efforts, so the whole industry is working on sustainable development, so we're all trying, in our own way, to do our bit. When we talk to marketing managers, we also talk more and more about the ecological cost compared to other media. So we realize that, today, to offer a gourd to someone, the ecological contact cost, which means: we divide the ecological cost by the number of times the product is seen, where the logo is seen, is much lower than an advert on a social network, on TV or anywhere else. And so we've really, in our industry, completely changed our approach to show that merchandising is ecological and that it respects the environment much more than other media.

Camille de Meeûs: [00:05:31] We're talking about the environment, we're talking about ecology, and these are pretty important issues today. So what does Kick and Rush stand for? Let's talk about ecology. Are there any others that come to mind?

Thibaut Fontaine: [00:05:43] At Kick and Rush, respect has been the leitmotiv of the company's development for 30 years. And ecology being one of them: a respect for ecology, a respect for our future generations, and so on. But it also means respect for the customer and respect for our employees. Well, we have six values, but this is the most essential one in our company at Kick and Rush.

Camille de Meeûs: [00:06:02] What's your advice? Would you give it to young people or people who want to go into the same line of work as you?

Thibaut Fontaine: [00:06:07] So I'm going to take the liberty of expanding and not just saying in my line of work, if that's okay with you Camille. I started this company as a student, in parallel with my marketing studies, and I don't think I'd recommend it today to young people who want to get started. I'd suggest they train at other companies, train in other sectors, go and see what's on offer left and right. There's no age limit for starting out, but I think one of the fundamental values is to have a good education. When you're just out of school or very young, but sometimes you can supplement your training with work experience, and that's the advice I'd give. You can wait five years to develop a business, I think there's plenty of time.

Camille de Meeûs: [00:06:46] Now we're going to talk about the commercial aspect, which is important: you have to find customers, you have to keep the business going. Could you tell us about a setback, or a positive experience you've had on a day-to-day basis in terms of finding new customers and new leads?

Thibaut Fontaine: [00:06:59] I think the biggest failure at Kick and Rush in terms of finding new leads is abandoning those leads. Over the years, when I look at the sales history, I realize that a whole series of customers have disappeared. Why did they disappear? Quite simply because they didn't order for a year or two for X, Y reasons, and we weren't diligent enough to continue, we didn't set up computer tools for reminders, and so I think the greatest failure of Kick and Rush is to have part of its database simply disappear.

Camille de Meeûs: [00:07:26] Someone who starts out with you as dirty people, because there are dirty people in your company, how does it work, are there several of you? Anyway, you'll tell me more later about the number of teams, the number of salespeople you have, but how do things work? How do you train a new salesperson, how do you set everything up with him or her?

Thibaut Fontaine: [00:07:40] So at Kick and Rush there are about ten account managers, and we're organized into four segments. We have four customer segments, and we offer different services depending on the size of the customer. And so a salesman, depending on his experience, will start in one segment or another. A young salesman will obviously start out in a segment that's a little easier with our typical SME and association segment. A salesperson who is 40 years old, with experience in the sector, may be more likely to focus on the strategic customer segment for the company. Training obviously depends on the salesperson's level of knowledge, and I'm not talking about the level of knowledge of the industry, because that can be learned quite quickly, but really on the level of knowledge he or she has in terms of customer follow-up, developing opportunities, etc., etc., etc. So either account managers come from outside, or many come from within the company too, having worked in sales support or various other functions, and then at some point an opportunity opens up within the company. As always, positions are first opened internally, and the opportunity seized by a person, and therefore the training, will depend at that point on his or her background. Maybe we'll have to train him typically in sales techniques, or maybe we'll have to train him in products and services, since he'll have sales techniques.

Camille de Meeûs: [00:08:50] We're talking about sales techniques. So what do you actually do?

Thibaut Fontaine: [00:08:53] Kick and Rush offers ongoing training courses for account managers. Earlier we were talking about sustainability, and I think the last training course they had less than six months ago was actually two full days on knowledge of standards, knowledge of how to calculate whether a product is less polluting than another, and eco-score training, so that's more technical I'd say. And then there were all the training courses on customer follow-up and development, because that's what account managers are asked to do. I'll explain later how we're organized for prospects and customer development. So in a company there are two things: we grow by acquiring new customers, but we also grow by developing our customers, obviously by not losing customers, right? But also customer development, because as I was saying earlier, we're talking to the marketing manager for the external side, but also perhaps to HR for the internal side. And so, once we're working with a company, with HR I'll say, who wants to make a gift for their employees, well we'll obviously try to work with the marketing manager and so we'll spread our, weave our web like a beautiful spider and try to reach out to all the different departments.

Camille de Meeûs: [00:09:52] Do you talk differently to a marketing manager than to a HR manager?

Thibaut Fontaine: [00:09:55] Of course, of course. And you speak differently to Procurement than to a Sustainability Manager. The speeches will be adapted, the content is the same, but we'll talk differently, yes, of course. We speak our interlocutor's language, and maybe we're people who are specialized in discussing marketing with companies in FMCG or cosmetics, for example. And then there are others who are more specialized and more attracted to the banking, service or automotive sectors. And so a marketing manager at Deloitte or KPMG is approached differently than a marketing manager at L'Oréal or InBev, for example.

Camille de Meeûs: [00:10:31] Adapting your approach is very important, and we see this every day in our prospecting activities at PHCom. What's your proudest business achievement? Is there anything you can think of?

Thibaut Fontaine: [00:10:42] I'd say the greatest achievement is to be here after 30 years and to have continued to develop, to have 80 people, to have 80 families behind kick and Rush. It's through the trust that our customers have in Kick and Rush that, in the end, it's that we work well and the customer stays. We have customers who have been loyal for more than fifteen years, I think, and these are big, big companies that are canvassed I think every week by our colleagues. They're still with us, so that makes me proud. I tell myself that all my colleagues are doing their jobs and can be proud of what we've achieved, yes.

Camille de Meeûs: [00:11:12] And you continue to grow and evolve, I think that's the most important thing, in a society where

Thibaut Fontaine: [00:11:16] We're very much in the "Do we always have to grow and do more?" discussion. But yes, it's an ambition for us, we like to grow, we like challenges. We're in the process of developing the French market enormously, and we have two acquisitions coming up in the next few weeks, but these are challenges, because ultimately, when you stagnate, I think you fall asleep. And when we start to fall asleep, our colleagues continue to develop, so that's the beginning of the end.

Camille de Meeûs: [00:11:36] Never give up, that's it!

Thibaut Fontaine: [00:11:38] Jamais, jamais, jamais. Of course.

Camille de Meeûs: [00:11:40] We were talking about maintaining customers over the long term. That's what's so complicated, I think. It's a day-to-day challenge. What do you do to find new customers? So you find them, then we know that the challenge is to maintain them. But what's the first step?

Thibaut Fontaine: [00:11:55] You need to find new customers, but you also need to reactivate dormant ones. And so, with regard to these customers, prospects and dormant customers, we realized that the sales people weren't very assiduous. In other words, as you know, there are salespeople who are more of a farmer and others who are more of a hunter. In any case, a salesman likes to go out and find sales, he likes to develop and so on. So when you have a customer who doesn't respond much, or doesn't respond enough, or who isn't very active, well, the sales person will naturally move on to another contact, and he'll move on to contacts, customers who will order more, or who will have more interaction with him. And so we've done all this prospecting and customer redevelopment work that was a bit on the back burner. It's true that it's a long-term job and, generally speaking, a sales person works in the short term. He'll be more attracted by answering a customer who wants to sign an order form than by starting to follow up five emails with prospects. And so, over the last few years, we've decided to set up a unit that really specializes in prospecting. So, with people who specialize in lead development, we're really talking about Hunter, aren't we? These are people who are very happy to go and sign a deal and develop it, but in the long term they're also very happy to pass the lead on to another salesperson who will develop it. But we were lacking in telephone prospecting and follow-up, meaning that we had developed a whole series of tools through our CRM to send emails, make posts on social networks about certain people we were interested in, and at some point we had to call. And it's very, very specific, which is why we called in PHCom, to get people who are very professional and who have the time to relaunch five, six, seven times, ten times if need be, and who won't give up. Because I think that one of the essential elements in prospecting, once you've defined your target and got the right message, is to keep going, to never give up, because it may be in six months or a year, or a year and a half that you'll finally get an appointment. And for this long-term work, I think we needed a consulting firm to help us.

Camille de Meeûs: [00:13:48] We're going to talk about the cost of working with PHCom. Do you think PHCom has saved you time?

Thibaut Fontaine: [00:13:56] Above all, it has enabled us to avoid wasting time and keep my teams motivated about the added value they can bring. Because a very good salesperson who's going to be very good at appointments and who's going to develop a product line for a customer isn't especially the one who's the most assiduous, and who's going to be the best at the first telephone contact. Quite simply, young people today, I'm not sure they're very comfortable calling a contact they don't know on a mobile number, and so they tend to send messages and send e-mails and hide behind WhatsApp (Camille de Meeûs: To get around what) that's it, that's it. Anything to avoid taking a live shot of the door closing, because that's never fun. And so a company like PHCom saves us time in the sense that we don't lose any, if I may say so, and we keep our teams' energy on the real added value they have.

Camille de Meeûs: [00:14:38] What sales skills do you feel are essential today, both in working with PHCom and with your sales team?

Thibaut Fontaine: [00:14:45] Well first of all it's empathy and loving contact, I think that's the first thing. We need to be sure of what we're offering, because I think that today we're no longer in the business of offering products. Well, maybe that was the case 20 or 30 years ago, but today we need to believe in what we're offering. I think there are two skills that are essential for me: the empathy I was talking about and tenacity. Because after all, you have to be able to hold on, you have to be able to bounce back, you have to be able to keep going. There's no such thing as a customer you meet for the first time and after ten minutes you walk out with a substantial order form. That's impossible.

Camille de Meeûs: [00:15:14] What's your next "sales target" ambition? With PHCom or with your teams?

Thibaut Fontaine: [00:15:19] Here, in the very short term, we have a huge prospecting campaign underway, focusing on the CSRD we were talking about and the sustainable side. And we're going to try to get into companies with our USP, our Unique Selling Proposition, which is to have this carbon calculator and eco score on every product. And so our ambition is to get into companies we haven't yet managed to work with, thanks to this aspect of the environmental side, but above all of proof and figures and data, to really develop our customer base in the years to come.

Camille de Meeûs: [00:15:49] I understand that your prospecting is geared more towards headquarters. What's the point of contacting them directly? What's in it for Kick and Rush?

Thibaut Fontaine: [00:15:58] But often, when a European company's head office is contacted, the European marketing manager is there, the procurement manager is there, so we have all the right people on the spot. And by contacting the person in charge directly, we'll be able to have a presence in all the countries that are either NPIA or NPA, all at once. At Kick and Rush, we exported to 92 countries last year, so we can't afford to go to 40, 50, 60 countries to prospect. There are language barriers, and time-slot barriers too, with different schedules. So we're trying to find the head of marketing and procurement at European level.

Camille de Meeûs: [00:16:31] We're going to finish, very slowly (Thibault Fontaine: But it's going fast, isn't it?), because we're coming to the end anyway, it's going very fast. Is there any particular story or anecdote you'd like to share with us from your collaboration with PHCom? I think we've been working together for a year, a year and a half now. Is there anything you can think of that you'd like to share with us?

Thibaut Fontaine: [00:16:48] We started working with PHCom... But maybe it's because I met Stéphane ten years ago, Stéphane Depaepe, but we've never worked together. But eight years ago, I remembered that I'd had a good contact and that I'd liked his speech. And so I think that beyond the success and beyond all that can be said about our collaboration over the past year and a half, what I'd like to pass on as a message is: you have to work on the long term, you have to work on the long term because you never know what it's going to become. A customer can come on his own afterwards, and that's what we did at Kick and Rush at the very beginning, I mean, and still now, we're very focused on Scout leaders and Student Circle leaders. Why? Because in ten years' time, they'll be our customers. And so if they have a good experience today, well, they'll have a good experience and they'll come back to us in ten years' time. And so I think it's an illustration of what happened with PHCom, you always have to work on the medium-long term, and not look at the short term and say "I've got to sign, I've got to have something for the next month or the next few weeks".

Camille de Meeûs: [00:17:39] Much has been said about this long term. What's the key to keeping that trust with customers and prospects we find for Kick and Rush?

Thibaut Fontaine: [00:17:46] I think it's important to be able to say no to customers. You have to be able to say "I don't think what you want to do is right for you". It's all about advice, and understanding a brand's and a customer's philosophy so as to be able to advise them as objectively as possible. You have to be able to say no and explain that there are risks involved. And if he wants to take the risk, he can take it and then, uh... But he'll be right back!

Camille de Meeûs: [00:18:05] Last question: can you define your collaboration with PHCom in three words?

Thibaut Fontaine: [00:18:10] So I'd say the three words that come immediately to mind: confidence, tenacity and honesty.

Camille de Meeûs: [00:18:16] It's very beautiful, to conclude, thank you in any case Thibaud. And all the best for the future.

Thibaut Fontaine: [00:18:20] Thank you Camille, goodbye.