Interview with an Entrepreneur: George Vis of G J VIS Enterprises, Inc. Dwayne Kolodka GMGT-7350 G02 October 4, 2017
On Friday, September 29, 2017, I met (via Skype) with George Vis, co-founder of G J VIS Enterprises, Inc. The purpose of the interview was to ask George questions regarding his experiences as an entrepreneur. I also wanted to hear advice George felt was of value to students in the GMGT-7350 Business Ventures Analysis class. The questions developed for an entrepreneur like George originated from the first class of GMGT-7350 during discussions with my class partner, Mandeep Saini. I first met George in September of 2015 when he and his brother Jim, toured the Westfield Industries manufacturing facility. As the General Manager of Westfield, I was asked to provide the tour. In November 2015, after 15 years in business, George and Jim sold their company, G J VIS Enterprises Inc., to Ag Growth International (AGI). AGI (headquartered in Winnipeg) is the parent company to Westfield Industries and a dozen other farm and commercial grain handling manufacturing companies around the world. The synopsis below includes exerts of what George felt was key to successfully starting, running, and exiting an entrepreneurial enterprise. Sacrifices and Stresses vs. Gaining Control vs. The Twins What was your biggest sacrifice/stress during your entrepreneurial journey? George was the VP of FeedRite, a Canada wide animal feed company with 500 employees and 10 plants. He was comfortable in his stable career. Taking on new stress of giving up financial and career/job stability was his biggest sacrifice. However, George felt gaining more control of his destiny by being able to make the decisions that affected his future offset his sacrifices/stress of starting a new business. In some ways, starting his own company was easier than his previous job at a private firm. In his new company, he could pay greater attention on the decreased number of employees and customers. George felt less stress knowing we was able to focus on his stakeholders 2
which he could not do as well in his previous job. George however, did not feel he had as much stress as his brother Jim. Jim had twins two weeks after resigning from his job to start G J VIS. In addition, Jim s wife went on maternity leave from her well-paying job adding to more financial security stress in his life. Family Ties & Common Outlook but also a Good Lawyer How did you effectively deal with partnership disagreements/stand-offs? No issues arose that each brother could not logically work through and there was never a situation where either brother had to seriously compromise. Both brothers had a very similar vision of what they wanted to do with customers and how they would satisfy a customer s needs. For example, if hiring staff or buying machines was required to help customers, both brothers believed they would not have to worry about the investment and it was the right decision keeping the customer need at the forefront. From George s perspective, it is very important in a partnership to have a common outlook, trust, and confidence in each other. Interestingly, George did divulge that even though his brother was a business partner, he and Jim still had formal agreements/clauses in place to deal with impasses if they ever did arise. Don t show me the money! What was your motivation to succeed beyond financial? Aside from financial gain, George felt that being the business decision maker and controlling his own schedule gave him additional motivation to succeed as an entrepreneur. A public company purchased George s previous employer. George felt the new ownership s Board of Directors were doing things he did not agree with including not listening to the advice of management. George 3
also felt he was losing control of his time. It was very important for him to dictate his own schedule so that he could attend his children s and family events. Put me in coach!, but father knows best Who was your most trusted advisor/council during your early days? George had three trusted advisors/coaches. One of his previous colleagues was a sole proprietor of a business in Grunthal, Manitoba. He provided George with insight into how to start a business. George also heavily relied on his brother Jim. Finally, George regularly discussed how to run a business with his father who had previously owned a private business. Networking and Risk Aversion Who did you trust? Who did you avoid/not trust? As mentioned earlier, George had three key advisors/coaches. George knew the industry he was getting into very well and the first customers were actually his previous competitors. In addition, George had a good reputation in the industry since he had been the Chairperson of the Canadian Feed Industry Association. Networking was key to gaining credibility for him and his future customers. Hence, he knew the good customers in the industry and avoided the high-risk ones. G J VIS only wrote off $5,000 in 15 years and was never unprofitable on a sale. However, because of not taking risky orders, G J VIS probably grew slower than it could have. Quality People on the same wagon What traits did you look for in hiring during your early start-up days? George hired employees who were interested in achieving the desired product quality. He knew that the products they were going to produce needed to be as good as or better than what others 4
were doing. Therefore, he hired people who were on the same wagon and paid attention to what the design intent was. The customer is #1 (even for the smallest jobs) Describe the lowest point in G J VIS s history and how did you become so resilient? George believed that one should not underestimate the value of luck and G J VIS only experienced one year with decreased sales volume. The company was always confident absent/lost customers would return and it paid particular attention to even the smallest jobs a previous large customer may have ordered. George noted that taking care of small orders eventually resulted in an unexpected large order in the future. George also felt it was important to be extremely customer focused. When G J VIS did this, George was confident the customers would come back. In addition, business diversification from animal feed processing to fertilizer and grain handling helped enable the resiliency in tough times. It s hard to let go How did you handle delegation on your team? George indicated he was not great at delegating. For 12 years (3 years before G J VIS was sold), 100% of sales, engineering, and purchasing relied on George and Jim. It s about the people What was the eventual turning point that made you decide to give up equity? Both George and Jim had a clear discussion regarding their exit strategy and conditions when they founded the company. They decided they were not building G J VIS as a generational business (not going to tempt their children to work for them) and eventually, they would sell the business. 5
A private equity firm first approached George, enquiring about the possibility of purchasing G J VIS. After further discussion, the private equity business backed out due to the small size of G J VIS. Four years later, the equity firm contacted G J VIS again and noticed G J VIS had grown and presented another offer. George and Jim agreed that if they were to entertain an offer, it would have to be from more than one bidder. Furthermore, the G J VIS disaster/contingency plan included a list of potential suitors to contact if something happened to each brother at the same time. AGI was on the list of contingency suitors. George was acquainted with AGI people, familiar with AGI advisors, and it was a benefit that AGI was a local company. Both George and Jim were concerned about their employees future so it was important to them that AGI s reputation was to buy a company and keep it operating. It was probably 5 years before they wanted to think about selling, but the list of companies like AGI was not extensive so they accepted the offer from AGI. Showed me the money. Now what? After G J VIS s sale to AGI, what motivates you to jump out of bed every morning as an intrapreneuar? The customers are one of George s motivators since they are a group that he likes and he has no desire to back out of the industry. George and Jim accepted vice-president positions in AGI. In addition, the G J VIS employees are still very important to George. He wants to continue to develop the G J VIS employees to be successful. Customers, trust, and credibility are key! What word of advice would you give to the 2017 Business Ventures Analysis class with respect to starting their own business? 6
George felt that focusing on the customer is critical and trust and credibility are key features to have people wanting to help you. A big part of G J VIS s success is having a strong relationship with customers. As an example, George sold feed to Hutterite colonies for 10 years when he worked for FeedRite. Now, many of those same colonies are wonderful customers of G J VIS. In addition, George s previous competitors became his customers and vendors from past ventures knew they could trust George and he knew he could trust them. Furthermore, George and Jim were able to recruit employees who had worked for them before because they liked and trusted George and Jim s vision. 7