Martijn Westenbrink: We need to get back into action!

My name is Martijn Westenbrink, deputy director at Gibus NL BV, responsible for the Gibus and Leiner brands in the Dutch and Belgian markets.

I was asked to submit something for ‘The Pen’ and I am proud to say that this is my second time. To be honest, I don't quite remember the content of the previous version, but if I'm not mistaken it was around the topic of human resources and the difficulty of finding them. Unfortunately, little has changed in that regard.

What I would like to talk about now is that we all need to take a little more action. Both at the manufacturer level (after all, we have to lead by example) and at the dealer level. Unfortunately, it's been a long time since we open the door of the store in the morning, customers come in nicely spread out over the day and we can write orders. I hear quite regularly that sometimes it was quiet in the showroom for a long time, there are even doubts about the usefulness of this. 

I think we could all think a little better about the distribution of our time in its deployment. If no one comes into the showroom during the day, perhaps it would be an idea to close it on a few mornings to use this time to seek out potential customers? Leafleting in neighborhoods with potential? Approaching ‘old’ customers again to see if everything is still up to date and to their liking, visiting restaurant owners, municipal authorities, contractors... In short, make people familiar with your company and the products and services you provide. Making sure you are and stay ‘top of mind. But also literally giving a face to the company and not hiding behind ads and social media posts.

Recently we had the Polyclose fair (also plenty to read about in this issue) and here too you see that there are quite a few reputable manufacturers, who do not participate, and dealers who no longer visit the fair because of the low offer. And with that you all end up in a negative downward spiral that nobody wants.

So we can resign ourselves to it during periods when things are down or we can take action. As far as we are concerned there is only one right way, and that is ACTION, step on the gas, react quickly, try a lot, learn from what doesn't work and move on. We have a beautiful market in which we work with beautiful products, what more could we want? 

A sunny greeting and a great 2026 season!