Welcome to part 4 in our series of ordinary entrepreneurs and business owners operating successfully in these extraordinary, anything-but-normal and stressful times.
Not because they are anything special. Not because they have resources, talent or drive above others or have found the “silver bullet”.
While all of those may play a role, the simple reality is that they are where they are because they have worked smarter, adapted more quickly, anticipated these times better and built reserves. They have followed the rules for best practice and have come out the other side successfully. When COVID hit, they were prepared. Why? Because storms that hit us as business owners come with the territory.
In our introduction to this series, Kathi Clarke, our industrial psychologist and business growth expert at Building Best Business, reminded us that since 1929 we’ve had at least 29 major market dislocations to contend with. And in every single one of these, some businesses died, some thrived and some survived.
“Seasons of growth and business ‘easiness’ follow hard times as surely as the seasons of spring, summer, autumn and winter do. As owners we have to build with this hard truth in mind. If we don’t, we will find that when the difficult times come, we will fall into that category of not surviving,” says Kathi. So, over our series we have been meeting entrepreneurs in some of the hardest hit industries or sectors, hearing their stories, what they were facing and importantly what they did to survive and thrive.
We started with our intrepid trio from Learning the Harp – sisters who have turned a hobby into teaching the harp globally and now have a six figure a month turnover. We next went to Struisbaai and learned how Fish and More, who operate in the hospitality industry, pivoted and adapted to come through profitably despite lockdown.
In part 3 we featured AJM Financial Services, an accountant who has built and continues to build a successful practice, even though he sells his time. They all had valuable learnings to share.
CASE STUDY #4: Offshore Maritime Services (OMS)
Owned by Godfrey Needham
This time it’s Godfrey Needham and the Offshore Maritime Services (OMS) team. Global logistics has become nothing short of a nightmare in this latest seismic change in our marketplace, because of the various lockdowns and the impact this has had on supply chains and transportation flow. Shipping traffic, like ordinary traffic, works best when it flows. Unanticipated, unpredictable and sudden stops anywhere around the globe create backlogs which have a knock-on effect for most areas that depend on international shipping. As with an accident or pile-up on the highway that causes monumental tailbacks, international shipping cannot afford to stutter or stop without the consequences that we are all facing how – shortages, expensive price hikes, out-of-stock situations and snarl-ups at international harbours and ports that leave a legacy of chaos long after the initial shock has subsided.
And none more so than Cape Town which has historically been a port at the international confluence of east and west. It was a critical staging post when international trade routes first began and remains so today largely because of geography and operators offering world-class services. Offshore Maritime Services (OMS) is one such operator, and is in the business of transporting staff, teams, personnel, parts and supplies for and on behalf of local and international clients to and from ship to shore in the waters off Cape Town and Gqeberha (formally known as Port Elizabeth).
Without these operators, services and ships can’t run, and international transportation worldwide grinds to a halt. They are essential. But like most essential services, they were hit by COVID. They had to work around business coming to a lengthy standstill and choke points building up massively as a result. They had to engage at the highest levels to unsnarl trading and get back to work after lockdown. They had to deal with stressed clients and their overdue deadlines. They have fierce competition. They also have unscrupulous competition that cuts corners and safety mandates and continues to threaten good, safe, effective sector operations. They have to compete both locally and internationally. As stakes have risen and challenges increased exponentially, business – as is the case for most of us – got beyond tough.
And yet Godfrey will be the first to tell you that over the last two years they have continued to grow profitably and in terms of both clients and their reputation in the marketplace. “We have been able to post some of our best months ever, grow the business and make additional and substantial capital investments at a time when breaking even is the worry of most business owners,” he says.
So, what’s their secret?
Qualifying as a Master Mariner, capable of taking command of any ocean-going vessel afloat at only 28 years old, Godfrey Needham elected to avoid the queue for the ‘dead-man’s shoes’, and rather take up a career in the Port Services in Cape Town. Cumbersome bureaucracy quickly took the shine off that goal to be replaced by the exciting prospect of creating his own business, and in April 1998 Godfrey launched his Marine Services company, offering a wide range of services, all related to towing and salvage, purchase and sale of ships, marine surveying and brokerage, but specialising in transporting provisions, spare parts and ship’s crews to ships which pass Cape Town on their trading voyages around the world.
By 2013, Offshore Maritime Services owned 5 large Utility Service vessels and a work barge, some of which were employed in specific contract work far from Cape Town – dive support for a coastal operation between northern Angola and Congo and a year-long contract in Beira, Mozambique, supporting tanker operations off that coast.
Leading up to COVID, business was already starting to stagnate. Godfrey was convinced that growth was not possible, but through a fortuitous invitation to a presentation by coach Kathi, he realised that for all his experience he was wrong. There was a lot that could be done – but not without help. Signing up was a material action to re-plotting the course to his success. He answered Kathi’s initial question “what do you want to achieve?” with “double my turnover in a year”. And he achieved this goal!
Revisiting the basics
“We can’t really market like most businesses,” was CEO Godfrey’s first words to Kathi when he started his business coaching journey. She raised her eyes and informed him that ALL businesses are in the game of marketing. “It’s the full contact sport of building visibility, relationship, a predictable cash flow, ultimate asset value and an ability to compellingly and consistently tell others what you do so that you can turn on a sale or lure talent when you need to and not when either one happens. Simply put, it’s what keeps sales going, money flowing and a robust capacity to deliver. All of them are underpinned by consistent messaging done well to all stakeholders – especially in hard times,” she maintains.
And so, Godfrey – as a seasoned business owner – had to go back to the drawing board and learn new competencies and new ways of doing what he had always done to not only “future-proof” his business, but to also ready them for probable “perfect storms” – because all businesses have them.
First up they tackled formalising business systems and processes; crafting succinct job descriptions to replace impossible function lists; capturing performed and useable SOPs; and making vital changes in and additions to staff and their functions to achieve and support operational goals. Godfrey was challenged to think differently, try new concepts, test proposals against critical review and find ways to successfully introduce highly valuable leads and contacts into his prospecting mix. Group workshops and training; lived experiences of other business owners and an inspired need to read more business material which came with joining Kathi produced in Godfrey a stronger will to succeed – which he says has been key.
Then came the crushing destruction of lockdown. Designated as an essential service provider, OMS was still permitted to proceed out to sea and supply passing shipping with provisions and spare parts, but no foreign ship’s staff were allowed to leave their ship, no fresh crews could join anywhere in the world and business instantly dropped away by half, with no reduction in overheads possible.
But OMS and Godfrey had done the hard yards and so were able and ready to pivot, react and adapt – fast. The bittersweet blessing for him, his family, the sixty-five people OMS employs, their families, their clients, agents, supply chain and service providers was that OMS was prepared and therefore ahead of the curve. It meant that he and OMS were not only able to pull through, but do so profitably.
They had the systems that meant they could manage despite lockdown restrictions. They had a meetings rhythm going, clear lines of responsibility and go-to help crafted. They had prioritised marketing which meant more work incoming and strong client relationships.
Building your ‘crew’
To cope, Godfrey actually needed additional team members. But additional staff costs money, and it’s easy in tough times to justify not doing so. Kathi and Godfrey had already steadily been building up the management team by careful additions of people who not only had the essential skills, but also shared similar values, work ethic and “ways” of doing business. “Finding a like-minded team who are excited about what you are building, share your values and beliefs on how to do this, fit well and resonate with you as part of what Seth Godin calls your ‘tribe’ is half the battle to building well when it comes to people,” says Kathi. The other half is having the cash to pay for it!
So, counter-intuitively, while so many were cutting back and retrenching, OMS grew their team with Ingrid Coulter in Finance, Luke Mostert in Commercial Customer Relationships, Rod and Debz Oscroft in General Operational Management and Strategic Marketing respectively, and lastly, more hands both on-deck and at the quayside.
Each of these team additions went through a comprehensive recruitment process that started with getting to know each other. And once on board it was about setting crystal clear job expectations, access to proper standard operating procedures, slotting into a rhythm with routine and frequent opportunities to get help and ask questions, enrolment into the vision and psychometric profiling.
And, as coach Kathi says: “Through it Godfrey held onto the truth that identifying, attracting and securing talent is fundamentally a marketing game. A-players want to work for a leader who is clear, committed, positive, passionate, resourced, communicative and organised. To quote Andy Stanley, ‘you have to be the kind of person that the kind of people you are looking for, are looking for’, and in this Godfrey has excelled.”
Marketing and nurturing relationships
The second thing that Godfrey has done to thrive in this current season is embraced all things marketing – to strategic alliances, other players in the sector, current customers and clients, agents who operate in the field, talent, allied government departments, prospects and of course the broader world of shipping which were also caught up in the global chaos.
Accepting that marketing in his industry is a long-game of relationship building, Godfrey and the team have created routines of connecting with, remaining visible to, calling on, communicating with and providing enjoyable and well-implemented social opportunities to everyone in their spheres of influence. And it has worked.
The first win was for the imprisoned international crews. Godfrey understood the hardships they faced stuck on board – some of them for two years. After lobbying all National Government Departments and engaging widespread radio support, in October 2020 the Department of Transport issued their statement that international seafarers may leave their ships at both Cape Town and Durban ports, and OMS was ready for it! At that point they effectively tripled their monthly turnover!
The next win was to be well-enough placed to fast-track identifying and the onboarding of new employees to cope with the round-the-clock workload when it came. Anyone who has had to do this will appreciate that it is an art and a science to get this right and at speed. That this also positively impacted the impoverished Eastern Cape by creating career path opportunities was doubly satisfying. A young school-leaver from Oceanview, first employed as a support staff trainee, moved to the newly created role of Marketing Officer and over time into the role of Commercial Manager. A young shepherd from Motherwell outside Gqeberha, in two years, achieved a Master Coastal Certificate of Competence and today is responsible for training OMS’s new candidate Skippers. A couple of the young ladies from rural Eastern Cape who entered the business as Trainee Seafarers have now risen to the level of Senior Operational Managers.
The third win was to have the cash reserves to enable them to recapitalise and extend their fleet to take advantage of market opportunities as they emerged. In preparation for even further growth, OMS now owns 6 custom-built, standard-setting, service craft; a fleet of crew buses and a dominant branch in Gqeberha. This has propelled them to a position of market leader in this service sector.
And the final win has been the customer loyalty that comes with having the resources and relationships to carry on communicating and marketing through tough times like COVID – even when it seems no one is listening. The simple efforts and discipline of staying in touch have paid off through the pandemic and are reaping rewards now. It has been much easier to tackle the post-COVID problems, challenges and difficulties with established, strong and positive relationships in place, and having go-to people already identified. It has been a boon for staff to receive this committed communication right through the pandemic. They have always known where they stand, and things are clear.
OMS has assisted too in the formation of an overdue and welcome Association of players in the game, working in collaboration with Colleen Jacka (Managing Editor of Maritime Review Africa). The aim is to ensure industry standards of safety and best practices, and to create a united front to re-attract international patronage and position both the Western Cape and South Africa back on the international map. OMS has been key in getting this initiative off the ground and is looking forward to what the future holds in this regard, as well as to continued profitable growth.
And all during and since COVID. Makes you think doesn’t it?
By Kathi Clarke, registered Industrial Psychologist, internationally-certified Business Coach and an award-winning business growth expert.
