The success story of the MULTI/JOINT® in Canada

Glen Steele was born in the picturesque St. John’s, a
colorful port town located in the province of
Newfoundland, the most north-eastern province of
Canada. This is also the place where in 1901, the first
transatlantic message to Europe was sent from.
Apparently this ‘pioneer spirit’ runs through the area,
given the fact that Glen Steele, sales manager at Georg
Fischer in Canada, paved the way for the introduction
of the MULTI/JOINT® restraint fitting in the Canadian
market.

With computer programming
as his technical background,
Glen first worked at Fabco
Plastics, where he became
familiar with GF. After a few
years, he received a call from GF, asking him
if he was interested in working for the sales
department. He accepted and was appointed
utility sales manager at GF Canada. In this
position, his goal is to help customers solve
problems and issues by providing ‘Quality
Dependable Manufactured Product System
Solutions’ to the Water and Natural Gas
Industries. With products that are
manufactured to the highest standards and
designed to fit perfectly together, this sounds
like a piece of cake. However, the market in
Canada is tough and entering it, is not as easy
as it might seem…

Entering the Canadian market: a big
challenge

GF Canada entered the utility market 11
years ago, when GF acquired Central Plastics.
As Glen tells us himself, he introduced the
MULTI /JOINT ® restraint fitting to the Canadian
market ‘from scratch’, with lots of hard work
and perseverance. “Of course the waterworks
in Canada have the same function as in
Europe, but in North America, they are still
using more traditional solutions and oldschool
products. Furthermore, every city,
town and region in North America has its own
approvals, which means that a lot of legwork
needs to be done before a product is
approved in a certain region”.
Social media as sales tool
In order to enter the Canadian market and
steer it towards the GF MULTI/JOINT®,
LinkedIn might be the best word to describe
Glen’s success. Glen tries to be as proactive

as possible by applying the push & pull
strategy: “My strategy is to be very active on
LinkedIn and to organize ‘lunch & learns’ or
conferences. This means that I will contact my
customers and offer them lunch in return for
time. Then I will go to an engineering company
for example, bring lunch and talk about the GF
MULTI /JOINT ®. This works really well, because
the more people see my products, GF or me,
the more ‘subconsciously’ people will
remember MULTI /JOINT ®. People already call
MULTI/JOINT® my ‘baby’!”.

The North American ‘hub’ for Waga
Glen is very clear on his goal for the upcoming
years. “Growing the business is my top one
priority! The most ideal situation would be for
Canada to become the North American hub for
our Waga products. And I want Canada to be
the country that generates the most sales. To
realize this we need a lot of perseverance,
because one thing I can guarantee you, is that
we will receive a lot of ‘no’s’ before getting a
‘yes’! We have to believe that our product is
the best and never give up!”
A legacy for Canada
Glen loves helping clients in solving their
problems. Every challenge and sale can
become like a ‘high’. According to Glen, you
have to enjoy what you are doing and let the
product surprise you every day. For him,
seeing the theory of the MULTI/JOINT® put into
practice, is the most rewarding thing to see.
You need to have character and a strong
personality to be able to do this. “Being able
to overcome difficulties is what drives me. I
think that this will be my legacy for Canada,
besides my two children ;-).”