Surround Yourself With Experts, Then Truly Listen: Bob Lennon on Growth

2 hours ago

6 min read

Bob Lennon, president and CEO of Thermalwood Canada, wrote his guiding principle on a napkin. Surround yourself with the expertise needed to succeed, then truly listen to what those experts tell you. Most leaders say they listen. Most owners know they can't build anything alone. The gap Bob points to is between collecting experts and letting their insight change the next decision. He had reason to learn it. Bob brought a new technology, thermally modified wood, into an old, mature industry he describes as an old boys club. The company launched in 2008, and four months later the market went the other way. What carried the company was not pushing harder. It was listening to architects, builders, guitar makers and people in his own region who were holding keys to doors he hadn't seen yet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdQNaOJDsao

Inspired by Paper Napkin Wisdom Episode 373 with Robert Lennon.

Why listening matters more than knowing

Bob's starting point is simple. You can't know everything. So get a vision of where you want to go, work out what has to happen in between, and notice the things you don't know. Then make sure you have someone who can fill that gap, and pay attention to what they do. Don't discount anything they bring to the table, because it might be something you never considered.

He learned that over 33 years in mining. "The mining industry for me was my university." He graduated with an engineering degree and says he didn't know anything after graduation. Over those years he held thirteen different roles, each one completely different from the last. At twenty-six he was running a department of a hundred and thirty people.

What mattered most, he found, often had nothing to do with someone's education. It had to do with their experience, what they were good at and how they got things moving. His natural knack was building relationships with those people.

How to break into an industry that doesn't trust newcomers

Mining taught Bob to share. Everything was sold into the London Metal Exchange, so mines weren't competing on price. Everyone was trying to become the lowest cost producer, and information flowed between companies. The wood industry is different. Information doesn't share as easily, until people feel comfortable with you and trust you.

So he walked in as the one who didn't know it all, and he came with a problem solving approach. Thermally modified wood uses only heat and steam to make wood resistant to rot, with no chemical additives. The process also makes the wood hydrophobic, so it stays stable instead of swelling and contracting. Bob's move was to explain that, then ask. How does this fit for you? What problems do you have? Could a more stable or rot resistant piece of wood solve them?

I've lived a version of this in renewable fuel. Every time I said biodiesel, someone asked if I meant ethanol. I think the challenge for leaders is "not to shout in our own language, but to whisper in the language of our clients." Bob says there was no single moment where that clicked. Each market has its own language. He keeps learning the keywords and linking them back to what the wood can do.

What a pivot looks like when your customers disappear

In Bob's words, "the word pivot became a household word in our house" in 2008. The original model was a service. Customers brought their wood, Thermalwood treated it and sent it back, and they developed their own products. In a recession, developing your own products is expensive, and nobody wanted to. They lost their customers in a very short period.

The pivot came from listening to where the knowledge already existed. North America still needed to be educated, so they kept giving one hour presentations to architects. Europe already knew the technology, and Bob estimates about ninety-five percent of the operators there were doing softwoods. A Canadian company focused on hardwoods had an advantage. He once proposed maple to a client in Austria who had never seen it.

They couldn't ask Europeans to send their wood to be treated. It had to be their own wood to stand apart. So they moved into manufacturing and product development. They kept educating, pivoted to manufacturing and focused on a different geography to stay alive.

How one local relationship opened the door to Fender

Bathurst, New Brunswick has fourteen thousand people. About twenty-five minutes away was a local investor who supplied birdseye and curly maple for guitar necks and bodies. He had a problem. The music industry wanted clear white wood, and his beautiful wood had mineral stains that made it waste.

He asked Bob what thermal modification would do to the spots. Bob assumed they would disappear but hadn't tested it. So they tested it, and the stains disappeared. Through the investor's network, the wood went to Fender first.

They started at around twenty to thirty guitar necks a quarter. Today Bob treats fifteen thousand a month. They work with Fender, Gibson, Martin and Ernie Ball. Stability turned out to matter as much as color, and research from Germany found thermal modification equal to thirty-five years of natural air drying, the vintage sound guitar players look for. Listening kept opening doors. Pool cues needed stability. Fender's ebony supply was getting harder and more expensive to source, so Bob's team created Obsidian Ebony, a real wood alternative made from maple.

I believe there's someone in all of our orbits walking around with the keys to an opportunity. Our job is to truly listen to them.

How to build trust before the first sales call

Bob's marketing has nothing to do with the wood industry. He hosts a weekly podcast called Northern Heat, telling the stories of people in his region. When the mines closed, many expected the area to turn into a ghost town. Bob saw a region full of untold stories, with all those keys already there. Brand specialist Gare Maxwell helped him start it, around the idea that your brand is your story.

He explains the results with a baseball diamond. "Put people on first base. You don't need a home run. All you need is base hits." The podcast reached 4.3 million people. Some get curious, Google Bob Lennon or Thermalwood Canada, and land on second base. When they ask for a quote, they reach third, and that's the first time the company talks to them. About eleven thousand people visit the website every month. "We don't make any cold calls."

At third base, Bob and Jason, his sales team, act like consultants. They listen, figure out the problem and help solve it, even when the answer isn't thermally modified wood. One couple found them through a Northern Heat episode about a quilting weekend. They Googled the company and called about a deck.

The point for any owner is who moves the customer. You show up consistently enough to build trust. Their curiosity does the moving.

How to apply this in your business this week

At a round table on tariffs with the premier, most owners described their problems. When she asked Bob, he answered with one word. Opportunities. Buyers in Europe were looking for new partners, and a buyer sourcing wood for mega yacht decks had just found Thermalwood on Google. His advice is to "listen to everybody that comes through the door, no matter what they're talking about."

This week:

Write down the names of three people whose expertise you have access to right now.
Ask yourself whether you have truly listened to what each of them has been trying to tell you.
In your next customer conversation, ask what problem they are trying to solve before you explain your product.
Learn the words your market uses for the problem, and link your answer to those words.
Look for one story in your community or customer base worth telling, and tell it.

The expert you need may already be close by. The key may already be in someone else's hand.