“Being a Trailblazer means not taking no for an answer – if you hit a roadblock, it’s not the end; it’s just a person you haven’t convinced yet.”
In 2015, former accountant Joel Kuntz put aside his spreadsheets to make way for a passion for driving business change. As Director of Sales Operations and Strategy at Horizon North Logistics, he’s now using that passion to not only build a better business, but to help create more affordable housing for the community. We talked to Joel about his motivation, how he’s making the business more efficient, and being part of the Salesforce community.
Tell us about your role at Horizon North Logistics
Here at Horizon North, we provide modular construction solutions for the residential, commercial, and industrial sectors. I’m the Director of Sales Operations and Strategy, despite my background as a chartered accountant! But I can honestly say I love my job, it’s so satisfying to be able to make changes that completely transform how we do business. We used to simply fulfil orders, but now we’re a true business partner to our customers, with a big focus on relationship-based selling. Customers really value our expertise and in return we can add value to their projects. I’m looking to become even more customer-centric going forwards, and to better understand what they think, as they’re key to shaping the future of the business..
What motivates you to drive business change?
The desire to be better for our customers. There’s a real housing crisis at the moment, particularly in and around Vancouver, with hard-working people contributing to society and still not able to afford decent housing. Our aim is to manufacture affordable supplies for government organizations to help address this issue. There’s no silver bullet to fix these problems, but by being more efficient, we can keep our costs down and pass on that saving to bring down the costs of building houses.
How does Salesforce help you be more efficient?
We’ve transformed our sales processes and are getting closer to our customers, so we can better meet their needs. With Salesforce, it’s easy to identify and action potential improvements. These don’t just help us build a better business, but also make our staff happier in their roles. The initial implementation only took three months, and provided our users with a real wow factor straight away!
What have you learnt from rolling out Salesforce?
The importance of research! I did a lot of reading and research before I started – especially on Trailhead. I’ve got around 40 badges now! Reading up on best practice processes gave me the confidence that we were doing the right thing in the right way. If you believe in what you’re doing and have the research to back it up, you can get around any roadblocks. If you’re frustrated by constraints, be it budget or bureaucracy, just remember that a no doesn’t mean it’s game over, it’s just a person you haven’t convinced yet!
What does being part of the Salesforce community mean to you?
I’m very active in Calgary’s Salesforce community and really enjoy it. To be honest, anyone local who uses Salesforce probably knows me! I’ve given several presentations and regularly invite people to our offices for demos. It’s nice to meet like-minded people and share notes, and if you can help them achieve their goals faster or they can help you, that’s even better!
