Ruth Grady found success selling products in the male-dominated industry of sanding sponges and sanding products. She proved untraditional industries hold many opportunities for women who confidently step across barriers.
- By Donna Benjamin
Northern Abrasives markets, manufactures and distributes abrasive products for a wide range of applications to the Retail, Hardware, Building Supply and Do-It-Yourself Markets. It is not a glamorous business, but it is certainly a necessary one and one mostly associated with men. This particular traditional business is a bit unconventional because it is run by a woman. Ruth Grady is the President of Northern Abrasives -located in Summerside, Prince Edward Island - and she used her ability to market and sell products to turn a local Canadian business into one preparing to go global. This is a story of a talented woman who recognized a business opportunity and then quietly sold a 1.3 million dollars of sandpaper in her first year.
The reason Ruth invested into Northern Abrasives in the first place was because of a man – her husband. Ruth ran a travel agency with her father for years, and learned all aspects of running a business. Her husband already involved in the manufacturing of abrasives products, and recognizing his wife’s ability to sell, encouraged her to enter the sandpaper business. When the internet appeared and people began making their own travel arrangements, she decided the time was ripe to move into selling sandpaper. There were two conditions: It had to be her own business, and she had to have at least one customer. Ruth also had to have a crash course on sandpaper and typical sandpaper customers.
All That Matters is Selling Quality and Price
Selling a 1.3 million dollars of sandpaper products the first year is an impressive accomplishment. Asked how she managed this kind of success, Ruth explains, “The sandpaper industry is male-dominated and a very mature market. The major competitors are 3M and Norton Abrasives. They make great products, and they are my goliath competitors. I studied and analyzed them and then identified my niche market.” Competing with the giants in the sandpaper industry means Northern Abrasives is sharing shelf-space with these recognizable brand names. Ruth attributes her sales success to a belief that today’s consumers are more price and quality conscious, and she can compete on both.
Since Northern Abrasives does a lot of work under private labels, it is not the Northern Abrasives brand per se that Ruth is always selling. Her main objective is increasing market awareness of Northern Abrasives’ product quality and prices. The twist is that customers buying products off the shelf will not know that Northern Abrasives manufactured the sandpaper. Ruth’s pragmatic explanation makes sense. “I am getting a piece of the market, whether it’s the Northern Abrasives brand or a private label brand. All that matters is that we produced the products and that they are on the shelf.”
Northern Abrasives is on the cusp of growth, but must strategically manage that growth to continue success in a mature market. Pricing is important, of course. The ideal price is one which leaves room for the retailer to offer the best possible price to consumers without sacrificing margin. Beyond pricing, each new account is treated as a 100 percent scorecard experience to prevent excessively rapid growth that jeopardizes service quality. “Deliveries must be on time. Customers should never worry that orders will not be fulfilled as promised. There should be a balance between soliciting small business accounts that react quickly and have a shorter lead time in making buying decisions verses larger corporate accounts that take longer to make buying decisions,” explains Ruth. Maintaining this customer balance is essential in “keeping the pipeline primed” in her words.
Stick With It!
Women entrepreneurs should take note of Ruth’s comments about WEConnect. Until joining the business support organization, she did everything on her own. After joining WEConnect, “It was the first time I felt like I was in a safe spot where I could learn and ask questions.” One of the takeaways from networking with other business women is learning to break down the fear of approaching buyers from large corporations. Success requires patience when corporate responses to inquiries do not come fast enough and a willingness to keep making presentations and offering solutions. If it is important to get the business, then it is important to stick with it.
With the confidence built on business success and networking support, the next step is to begin expanding beyond the Canadian and U.S. markets. A market analysis is in progress to determine the best way to pursue the Mexican market. The recession taught Ruth to not rely on just the U.S. for a large amount of sales because buyers freeze under uncertainty. One possibility being studied is warehousing product on the U.S.-Mexican border to better serve U.S. customers, while slowly moving into the Mexican market.
Growing the business is important to long-term success because sandpaper is such a mature market. Canada offers limited opportunities for product sales due to its relatively low market size. Northern Abrasives needs large sales volumes and repeat orders to achieve economies of scale in its production. Thus the plans to expand into new markets is a critical strategy. The addition of new manufacturing lines means Northern Abrasives can easily handle the Canadian and U.S. volumes. Adding Mexico will require additional warehousing and manufacturing capacity.
Watching, Learning, and Growing
Keeping an eye on trends is one of Ruth’s responsibilities. Northern Abrasives representatives attend the hardware show in Cologne every two years to identify new products and industry trends. China currently dominates in low cost sandpaper manufacturing, and Northern Abrasives does do a small amount of outsourcing to China. In a sign of the times, “We do thorough testing on all outsourced products because I do not want to be involved in poor sell through results due to customer returns over poor quality,” says Ruth. Elaborating, she adds, “It is one thing to sell something that is cheaper, but if it doesn’t work or doesn’t last then we are not interested.”
The primary way Northern Abrasives remains competitive is by watching the leaders in the abrasive industry - where they are building new manufacturing plants and how and where they are spending their time and energy in developing new innovative products. That means one thing – Ruth will continue doing what she does best and that is managing the business and selling. So move over men. There is a successful woman entrepreneur in town, and she is selling sanding products ….lots and lots of them.