Lars Kåre Øijord … on seeing the human being
He is responsible for one of the smallest TOOLS stores in the Nordics, where contact with customers often becomes just that little bit more personal.
There are only a thousand people living in Glomfjord, in Nordland county, so how is it possible to run a TOOLS store there? “Well, there isn’t a big population here but there are a couple of big companies,” explains Lars Kåre Øijord, Store Manager for the last five years. Including a number in the salmon industry.
“Salmon farmers are going at full speed ahead – the world can’t seem to get enough salmon,” he exclaims.
It’s a nice and very Visit Norway-compatible image: a small northern Norwegian community close to the ski slopes and with a lucrative salmon business, but that’s not really the whole picture. Yara, a large Norwegian industrial company that exports fertilisers across large parts of the world, is also located here. TOOLS finds a lot of its customers there. Either directly at the factory or to all the technical consultants and other related commercial activities.
Lars Kåre Øijord has himself worked in the process industry for around 20 years, not least in “the Norwegian solar panel miracle” as he puts it.
“I understand such businesses well, I know the challenges and can come up with solutions.
And here we find one thing that makes Lars Kåre a little special: he doesn’t stop at the first solution.
“Many people either do what they have always done, or they may come up with a new solution. I can’t stop. I like to come up with two or three different solutions to be sure that I have come up with the best one. And preferably a good bit outside the so-called box.
The obsession with solutions is also connected with a genuine interest in people. What do the customers really need? Lars Kåre only has one colleague in the store, and another as a field salesperson. This means that his contact with the customers are both frequent and important.
He tells us about a customer who was in the store just a couple of days before the interview – a man Lars Kåre knew superficially while growing up. During childhood, the man suffered a brain injury and wasn’t allowed to go to school with other children.
“He hasn’t had a easy time, but as I knew him and know where he comes from and what he is like, I was able to meet him on his terms. We had a really good discussion. I could help him with what he needed, and he left the store with a big grin on his face. That made me really happy.”
The trick is just to see people as they really I”, says Lars Kåre. Customers work at different companies, but at the end of the day we are all human beings.
”Everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about. Be kind. Always.” That’s what it said on a note that the character Noora in the Norwegian global hit “Shame” had on her bathroom mirror. It could just as easily have been in Lars Kåre Øijord’s office.
