Business manager, Tatua Nutritionals

By PHILIPPA STEVENSON


My Job

Name: Brent Armstrong

Age: 34

Job title: Business manager

Working hours: Flexible between 7.30am and 6.30pm. A lot of overseas travel

Employer: Tatua Nutritionals, other dairy companies, food and pharmaceutical companies

Pay: $80,000 to $130,000


Qualifications needed: Sales experience and/or science or food science degree, an understanding of food technology

Career prospects: Management




Q: What do you do?

A: The Tatua dairy company has established relationships with medium-to-large food and pharmaceutical companies. I might be cold calling - introducing myself and our nutritional ingredient products - but more likely servicing existing clients.

There's no typical day. When I'm in New Zealand, because we are so far from everywhere, a lot of time the phone is glued to my ear.

I travel overseas for about a quarter of the year to meet clients. I deal with China, Southeast Asia, India and Europe. With the different time zones we also use email.

First thing in the morning I read faxes and emails, check what has come in overnight, then prioritise the things I've thought of on the way to work on the scale from urgent to very important. That might be to get a product price to someone.

Q: Why did you choose the job?

A: It was an opportunity. I've been here 11 months and this is the most senior position I've had.

I came from Fonterra and in a big organisation there's not as much responsibility because so many people are above and below you that no one has a handle on the whole situation.

Here, I'm responsible for the whole job. The remuneration is good but many other jobs are paid well. It's the challenge. You have sales targets to meet, and to ensure the business is growing, and that you are looking after existing business.

Q: Why is it important?

A: You can keep manufacturing, but selling it is what counts. You can churn and burn milk but making extra money is what you need for a good business.

Q: What's the best part of the job?

A: The challenge. Getting and securing business. You can spend years doing a 9-to-5 job but the challenge is in securing new business and making a measurable difference to company payout. I can see where I've put another few cents on the payout.

The travel is good - meeting people in China and Europe. You have to be flexible. You develop the New Zealand lifestyle, have your Weetbix every morning, coffee at morning tea but then you're away and you're eating yum cha for breakfast and something unrecognisable for lunch.

The oddest thing I've eaten is congealed duck blood in tofu in a soup, sea cucumber, and deep fried pigeon with its head attached and eyes looking at you. You have adventures in this job but the joy of it is returning to New Zealand.

Nice old Hamilton is relaxing and sane. The job can be frustrating. You can see what you could do but you are frustrated by a customer's or the importing country's regulations and you can see it's foolish - so can they - but you can't get around it.

Q: What are your strengths?

A: An ability to learn, and being approachable. I'm able to have conversations with people from different ethnic backgrounds, different technical knowledge, intelligence and language. You have to discuss their issues and understand their products and ours.

I could work on understanding products - there's so much more to learn, especially given the speed at which our customers and competitors come up with new things. It'd be great if I had more time for reading and research.

Q: Where would you like to be in five years?

A: I'm enjoying this job and would be happy in it for another three to four years. After that I'd like to be a general manager. In this job you're not managing people, though you are dealing with them in the labs, research and development and logistics. The next step would be managing people.

Q: What job hunting advice would you give?

A: Network. You need to know the companies and the people. These jobs don't come along that often so when they come up you want the people to know your name.