Industry news

Spotlight on agents: Mal Thorne

After 30 successful years as salesman in the sports industry, Mal Thorne can say with authority that he found the secret of success: “to enjoy selling, you have to sell what you enjoy.”

And as an avid sportsman, sport and sporting equipment is what he enjoys. Cricket is his special passion — he played Premier League for Old Johannians under Don Mackay-Coghill as captain and with the likes of Clive Rice as team mates, and later joined Claremont cricket club in Cape Town, where he is still involved as a qualified cricket coach.

But, he has also run the Two Oceans, did the Big Walk twice, done The Argus Pick n Pay cycle race and became tempted to do the Cape Epic, after being inspired whilst watching his son competing for eight days in March this year.

His scope for sport enjoyment is wide.

Thorne started his career in Cape Town selling for Neste, then joined 3M, who transferred him to Johannesburg to sell cosmetics during the 1970s. But, unfulfilled with his life as a FMCG salesman, he went overseas and obtained the rights to introduce Patrick rugby boots to clients in Johannesburg, as well as the Donnay racket brand — then THE tennis brand used by the cool Swedish champion Bjorn Borg. Arena swimwear also became one of his brands in the late ‘70s, early ‘80s.

But, in retrospect Thorne could see that he was under-capitalised to properly market the brands and after his divorce, he returned to his home town, Cape Town.

There he became the sales agent for Hugo Snyman’s A Game tracksuits. “He was the most forward thinking tracksuit manufacturer of the time,” says Thorne. He soon added the Spoil Sports tracksuit brand, owned by Peter Warmsley and Mike Henshell, which he sold as far afield as Johannesburg.

“I also picked up the New Balance agency in Cape Town from Gordon Howie, who imported the brand at that stage,” he remembers. “I also came across Power, a brand that had just been started by Futura Sports, part of the Bata company.”

After selling Power for about a year as an agent, Futura offered him a full-time position as Cape Town representative in 1986.

“I enjoyed my 23 years with them immensely.” Power soon became a well-known brand that did really well, he says. “Remember that brands like Nike and Reebok were not in the country. In those days Power had the king of ladies aerobic shoes, Jade. In mens the Perfector was an absolute winner, we sold millions. And then there was the wonderful Jahangir Khan squash shoe, also a top seller. I showed Tim Noakes of the Sport Science Institute (SSISA) the Mentor anti-pronation running shoe, and he highly recommended it. It also did really well.”

Power makes very good shoes, not too expensive, and extremely good value for money, he says with enthusiasm. “It just lacked aggressive marketing and advertising to become a successful international brand.”

Futura also had the New Balance and Patrick agencies and Thorne was again selling these brands he knew well.” I knew the markets, and we did extremely well. I also sold Airwalk skateboard shoes for Futura.”

He believes that you can only be successful as a salesman if you love what you do and therefore sell with a passion. “You must also understand what you are doing, in other words, know the sport. Build up a reputation that you know what you are talking about.

“You must also believe in the products you sell — I was lucky, because I always sold very good quality products. The back-up service was also very good. The support and trust from your company is also important.”

Sell sincerely, he further advises. “I do not believe in being a high pressure salesman – you must supply what your customer needs.

“Be polite and treat people courteously. Get to know everybody from the top guy to all the guys on the floor. Make it a pleasant experience for them to give you feedback and show that you are interested in what they do at the coalface on the floor.

“I really enjoyed every single day.” This enjoyment can to a large extent be attributed to the people he met. “The Eric Logans, the Dave Stewarts, the Johnny Waites, the Dennis Lindsays, Gerald Bosch, Albie Bates… wonderful characters, I could just pop-in or otherwise chat to them on the floor, and walk around and chat to all their sales people. I had a brilliant time.”

Nowadays, because you have to try and get your brand into chains, selling has lost much of this personal touch and is no longer so relaxing, he says. “You can’t just pop in, you have to make an appointment.” But, he still made a point of knowing the names of the salesmen on the floor, even in chain stores, and greeted them all when visiting the manager.

Another change in the industry is that the sales people would not necessarily be sports people. “In the eighties you would find some of the country’s top sportsmen on the floor. Even the young guys they appointed were all very keen sportsmen — they played at least first team cricket or tennis. Now, even though the sales people might love sport, they don’t have much time to play, their working hours have become so much longer.”

He is concerned that young people don’t play enough sports nowadays, especially team sports, which affects equipment sales. “More of them tend to gravitate towards extreme sports or solo sports, instead of cricket and rugby.” He experienced this with his own children – although his eldest son played U13 cricket for Western Province and later played for the army, he now enjoys extreme sports.

His other son, who now works as a chartered accountant in Germany after a stint in London and Milan, was a Western Province triathlete, and is also a good golfer and tennis player. His daughter now lives in San Francisco.

Although he officially retired a few months ago, Mal Thorne is by no means inactive. He keeps close contact with former colleagues, is still involved with cricket at the Claremont club, mountain bikes and plays golf at his house on the Theewaterskloof golf estate. And then there is always the Cape Epic…