An old rugby coach of mine used to say that. He also ran a successful used car dealership, which is probably why he said it more than most. For non-Northern people, he meant that the money is in the unglamorous problems nobody else wants to touch.
I thought about him a lot at the International Mining and Resources Conference (IMARC) this week, because the businesses doing best weren't selling the shiny thing at all. They were selling the solution to the muck. Let me explain.
Nobody on the floor was buying a robot
Robots are all the rage now. They were everywhere. Robot dogs, robotic drills and drones in all shapes and sizes. However, not one buyer I spoke to was shopping for one. They were shopping for a solution to a dirty, expensive problem. A conveyor that stops when it overheats. A bearing that fails in the presence of chlorine. A bloke who has to go into a potentially hazardous and confined space.
The companies doing well had worked this out. Their stands talked about the problem, so the "What's in it for me?" was obvious to the person walking past. As for the exhibitors struggling for foot traffic, they had a machine on a plinth, a spec sheet printed out and a heap of water bottles. Please. Stop. Buying. Water. Bottles.
Miners don't muck about
A majority of my clients are dual-use, meaning their tech has a defence and a civil application.
Defence has perceived urgency and prestige, but a twelve-to-twenty-four-month procurement cycle might not work for your cash flow. Mining has the same hazardous environments, the same appetite for autonomy, and budgets that get spent this year. It's muckier, and it pays sooner.
The smartest dual-use companies I met had one technology and two sentences. For defence, it moves things through contested ground. For mining, it keeps the plant running.
The best stands weren't stands
One of my clients did IMARC with no booth at all. A sponsored roundtable on critical mineral supply chains, a slot on the BHP Investment Theatre panel, and four days in the right rooms with the right people. Every meeting booked before the doors opened.
Meanwhile, I watched stands that cost more than a decent car sit empty at three in the afternoon. The stand isn't the asset. The list is. If you haven't got forty names you want to meet before you arrive, a stand is a very expensive place to drink coffee and hand out water bottles.
The supply chain partners matter as much as the miners
Every technology company at IMARC wanted a meeting with a Tier 1 miner. The miners know this. The conversation I kept having with people who've actually sold in was about the layer (or two) underneath. The belt manufacturers, the equipment OEMs, the engineering firms already on site every week, up to their elbows in the problem. Get your technology into their offer, and you walk in with them. By all means pitch the miner if you get the chance. You'll almost certainly be referred to the supplier anyway.
What I'd do if I were selling into mining next year
Lead with the dirty or hazardous problem you solve, not the clever thing you built. If the prospect can't answer "What's in it for me?" from your first sentence, start again.
Find the three equipment partners already on the sites you want. Build the list before you book the stand. Maybe don't book the stand. Definitely don't order any damn water bottles.
Where there's muck, there's brass. At IMARC, the brass was going to whoever could talk about a stuck conveyor or a hot bearing, not to whoever had the best robot. The coach was right, and made good money from busted Japanese imports.
See you in a couple of weeks, Murph