Filtroil President Shares Lessons on International Expansion

Monday, August 29, 2016

When is it right to break into international territory? For Jeremy Leahman, the second time was the charm. With a nudge from his biggest client and guidance from a knowledgeable local resource, he’s become a bit of an international markets expert – even sharing his experience at the world’s largest industrial trade show this year. We sat down with him shortly after that to learn about his experience and how his business has changed. We also asked for a few pieces of advice for CEOs considering a move into an international territory.

He began his career at Filtroil in 1994 as a salesperson and was quickly groomed to become president – a post he accepted 1998.

“Any industrial manufacturer uses oil in their assets, and that oil is the lifeblood of their machine,” explains Leahman. “We offer a niche filtration product that filters oil about five grades cleaner than new oil and keeps it that clean over the life of the equipment.” Filtroil’s systems are primarily an after-market product, sold by a distribution channel to those in the mining, cement, paper mill, metal stamping, construction, injection molding and trucking industries to name a few.

Filtroil Goes International: Take One

Filtroil’s first launch into Europe in the late 90s was, in Leahman’s words, “not successful.” “We opened up a lot of distributors, but none were really active, and the cost of doing business was very high,” he says. The events of September 11 and the downturn in the economy, coupled with Leahman’s attempt to launch three other businesses, fractured his profit margins.

Still believing his product had a future in international markets, Leahman hired a sales director in 2005 to cover the Latin American market. Around that time, he also streamlined his production costs, relocating one of his international manufacturing facilities. Even so, it was a heart-to-heart conversation – not a manufacturing or operations decision – that ultimately proved to be the magic bullet for Filtroil.

When Your Biggest Client Says, “We Want To See More”

After graduating from the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia Leahman was awarded its biggest contract with multinational oil and gas giant Exxon Mobil. Leahman recalls the advice he got from the company. “In 2008, Exxon Mobil said to me, ‘Hey, your product line is limited. It’s a niche product. It’s a great niche product, but it only works for a small portion of the oil sold in our industry. You need to make more filtration products – products that filter not only hydraulic oil, but also gear oils, engine oils and phosphate ester fluids. Additionally, it needs to work for many different applications in multiple industries, because distributors want broad product lines that cover the general industrial market to heavy duty equipment.’”

So Leahman got busy. Fast-forward to 2016, and his product line is much more extensive, and he’s ready to get serious about Europe.

Filtroil Goes International: Take Two

Leahman knew it was vital to Filtroil’s growth for him to attend the largest industrial show in the world – Hannover Messe – so he called Josh Kaplan, the local contact for U.S. Commercial Service. As it turned out, the U.S. was the official partner country for Hannover Messe for 2016, which meant millions of dollars’ worth of services were being offered through government agencies like Commercial Service to U.S. companies with an interest in attending.

“U.S. Commercial Service had so much infrastructure in place there,” says Leahman. “I was hammered with pre-marketing opportunities. It was amazing. I had 22 appointments set up before I even got to the show.”

Filtroil Today

Leahman says his participation in Hannover Messe has paid off, as he has recently secured contracts with five solid distributors and has tallied sales in India, Portugal, Denmark, Bolivia and Poland. And, says Leahman, “That’s just the tip of the iceberg.”

These days, Leahman meets once a month with Josh Kaplan, making sure he stays on top of leads from Hannover Messe. He’s hired a marketing and West Coast salesperson to handle his growing workload, and his sales director in Latin American is doing well.

This coming February, Leahman plans to attend the US Commercial Service, Discover Global Markets, Advanced Manufacturing Business Forum Series conference in Scottsdale, Arizona, and rumor has it he may be asked to give a lecture on his experiences with finding new distributors in global markets. While there, he’ll meet with the U.S. Commercial Service officers who have vetted a multiple number of distributors for him to consider, reconnecting him with the international trade managers he met at Messe. The future looks bright.

-first appeared at VACEOs.org