Orlando, Fla. — Globeius does not want to be a typical equipment distributor.
The Miami-based company has flipped the sales script — a move born out of necessity due to the coronavirus pandemic and a shortage of qualified employees — to move away from a traditional sales approach to one that emphasizes a digital approach and social media.
And business has never been better, President Ernesto Sosa said at his booth not long after NPE2024 opened May 6 in Orlando.
"The most important thing is you need to get information into people's hands so that they can do the preliminary work and find the products they might be interested in and then approach you," Sosa said.
Much like the new car-buying process these days, many customers want to be able to research their potential purchase long before engaging with a sales representative to ask questions.
While selling plastics equipment might have been a focus of past trips to NPE, Globeius is all about simply gathering contact information this year to then approach potential customers.
"Our goal is to generate leads and go back to those people," Sosa said, before determining whether an inquiry to the company actually has "legs."
In today's landscape, Globeius relies heavily on avenues such as the company's website and email communications to keep engaged with customers.
The idea is to keep the company's name front and center in the minds of potential buyers and be there when they are ready to pull the trigger on a sale. Email addresses are treated like "gold dust" at the company because of their value and connection to potential customers.
While Globeius was already muscling up the company's website before COVID-19, shutdowns caused the company to accelerate remote engagement of customers when the quarantine was in place.
"COVID was good for us because our model was based on reaching out to people remotely and getting their attention and bringing them to our website to do their initial research and then reach out to us because they had interest in the product," Sosa said.
That approach has become a way of life for many buyers.
"People are looking ... to have 90 percent of the information before they call anybody. A lot of people don't want to talk to people. I hate to say it, but they don't have time," he said.
Graeme Sands, general manager at Globeius, handles day-to-day operations for the company. Even he was shocked when the transformation to more remote sales started to take place.
He's not afraid to admit it took him some time to understand and embrace how the market was changing. He's a big believer in the new approach as he's seen how the company has grown using a digital-first approach.
Globeius, which tends to be the exclusive distributor of European equipment brands in North America, has seen sales triple in the past three years. It represents certain companies without exclusivity but would rather be an exclusive representative so that all of the firm's work to promote and sell a brand ends up in a sale for Globeius and not some other rep.
For Globeius, which changed its name from Plastec USA Inc. four years ago, NPE2024 was viewed as a bit of a coming-out party. The cancellation of NPE2021 due to COVID-19 did not allow for the firm to promote the name change and new approach then. But with the success of the past three years, Globeius went to NPE2024 with the company's largest booth ever.
Globeius decided to change its name to go along with a strategic shift in business. While the company has always been based in Miami, the firm previously only sold into Latin America. These days, sales efforts include Mexico, the United States and Canada. About half of the company's sales are in Mexico, another 40 percent in the United States and 10 percent in Canada, Sosa estimated.