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<\/img><\/p>\nIn 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\u2019s 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\u2019s making the business more efficient, and being part of the Salesforce community.<\/p>\n
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Here at Horizon North, we provide modular construction solutions for the residential, commercial, and industrial sectors. I\u2019m the Director of Sales Operations and Strategy, despite my background as a chartered accountant! But I can honestly say I love my job, it\u2019s so satisfying to be able to make changes that completely transform how we do business. We used to simply fulfil orders, but now we\u2019re 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\u2019m looking to become even more customer-centric going forwards, and to better understand what they think, as they\u2019re key to shaping the future of the business.. <\/p>\n
The desire to be better for our customers. There\u2019s 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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
We\u2019ve transformed our sales processes and are getting closer to our customers, so we can better meet their needs. With Salesforce, it\u2019s easy to identify and action potential improvements. These don\u2019t 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!<\/p>\n
The importance of research! I did a lot of reading and research before I started \u2013 especially on Trailhead. I\u2019ve 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\u2019re doing and have the research to back it up, you can get around any roadblocks. If you\u2019re frustrated by constraints, be it budget or bureaucracy, just remember that a no doesn’t mean it\u2019s game over, it\u2019s just a person you haven\u2019t convinced yet!<\/p>\n
I\u2019m very active in Calgary\u2019s Salesforce community and really enjoy it. To be honest, anyone local who uses Salesforce probably knows me! I\u2019ve given several presentations and regularly invite people to our offices for demos. It\u2019s 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\u2019s even better!<\/p>\n<\/p>\n