We recently published the 60th episode of the Dion Guagliardo Podcast, featuring Adrian Cester founder of Flavour Makers. It’s one of my favourites for multiple reasons.
Adrian’s story is fascinating, and he is a fantastic storyteller. He grew up in a family business, but his parents went broke in the 70’s. His brother rebuilt the family business only to himself go broke in the 90’s. Adrian is not only humble, but he is engaging and genuine when he talks about his journey through life and business. You’d never guess he was running a business turning over $220m and employing over 300 people.
The learnings that he shared are insightful and can be applied across any field. But there is one story in particular that really resonated with me because of its simplicity and power. The story of how he got his products into the world’s largest retailer, Walmart.
It starts with Adrian working with Woolworths on their rotisserie chicken flavours. During this time, one of the senior executives at Woolworths, Greg Foran, would occasionally come by to check in. Adrian got to know him from these interactions.
Down the track, Greg missed out on the CEO job at Woolworths and ultimately left to take on a role as head of Walmart China. Soon enough, Greg was promoted to the top job as CEO of Walmart in the USA. Adrian saw this information in the news and promptly decided to send an email of congratulations. Not knowing his email, he guessed what the few combinations he thought it might be and hit send. Within 15 minutes he had a reply ‘Thanks’ Adrian, I really appreciate it”.
A few months passed and Adrian wasn’t sure about whether to send a follow up email to Greg about his products. He knew they would be a great fit, but he didn’t want to ‘burn’ his goodwill he had with a great contact as Greg. Eventually he decided he had nothing to lose and just sent an email, saying he thought his products would be a fantastic fit with Walmart. Incredibly, within 15 minutes he had a reply from Greg that he liked the idea. Within hours, Adrian was inundated with correspondence from the heads of various departments at Walmart bending over backwards to work with him.
The lessons here are twofold.
The first, more subtle lesson here, goes to Adrian’s ability to foster relationships and be memorable. Developing a business relationship to the point that they will do business with you doesn’t require you becoming best mates and catching up for Friday drinks. That might happen after years of doing business, but to start doing business that person or client needs to know enough about you and their interaction with you to start the process of doing business. If Adrian didn’t keep track of Greg and his career path with a keen eye for what’s going on in the industry, he wouldn’t have even known to send the email.
The second and most important is to make the call or send the email to that awesome contact that you have. No point sitting on it waiting for the perfect moment. There is no point waiting for the right time. The biggest lesson here is simply to get on with it. Go for it. Everyone in business or sales has been in this situation at some point, or worse, operates in this situation. It’s one of the simplest things to do but very few people do it.
It brings me back to the stories I’ve told previously about super successful people who did this relentlessly such as Kobe Bryant and Steve Jobs. There are many others too, but it’s a trait of the most successful people that they will make the big call. They are not scared of doing what it takes to level up and improve.
These lessons apply to all of us in some way. So whatever industry or pursuit you have in life, dream big but make sure your actions are in line with achieving that big dream. If you’ve got a contact that you think would be an awesome client, go after them. Unashamedly go after the whale that will be biggest client you’ve ever had. Make that call today!
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