Episode 17

Forty years on the road, more than two million kilometres travelled, and generations of customers supported along the way: a career that also tells a large part of EKKIA’s story.

Alain Delahaye joined the adventure in December 1986, when the company was still called Ukal. Over the years, he has seen products, stores, working methods — and an entire market — evolve.

As he looks back on four decades in the field, Alain shares his memories, his perspective on the role of a sales representative and, above all, the human relationships that have shaped his career.

🛣️ His early days and sales trips across Western France?

☎️ What was life like for a sales representative before mobile phones?

🤝 Forty years of relationships with customers?

🏇 The products and innovations that transformed the market?

What was your career path before joining EKKIA?

After finishing secondary school, I enrolled at the École des Directeurs Commerciaux de France in Le Mans. I didn’t complete the course because I joined EKKIA — then still called Ukal — in December 1986.

Interestingly, I had no particular connection with the equestrian world, and that was precisely what the company was looking for: genuine salespeople who could learn about the products and sell them without being influenced by their own preferences as riders.

My father ran a company distributing raw materials for the manufacture of shoes and leather goods, so I was already familiar with leather, materials, and the challenges involved in manufacturing and selling these types of products. That certainly worked in my favour.

Pascal Rambert selected my profile and trained me when I first joined, while Jean-François Vignon was the person who hired me. He was demanding and expected a lot, but he also had a very human side.

What was it like when you first joined the company?

After an induction period in Haguenau and ten days at the Salon du Cheval, after which my employment was confirmed, the company was reorganising its sales network and assigned me to Western France.

My territory initially covered 27 departments and gradually expanded to 35. That represented around 100 to 120 customers whom I visited regularly. I would leave on Monday morning and return on Friday.

Over the course of my forty-year career, I think I have travelled more than two… million kilometres! A true life on the road.

How did you plan your sales trips in the days before digital tools?

Everything was done on paper, with a pencil, a diary and a customer file. We organised our trips according to what we called the “daisy technique”.

On Monday mornings, we stayed relatively close to home. By the middle of the week, we travelled to the furthest points on our route, before gradually making our way back on Thursday and Friday.

We worked with specialist equestrian retailers, agricultural stores and sports shops. To make appointments, we used the telephone booths in post offices. We would ask the postal clerk to reset the line after each call.

Later, phone cards made things easier, and then mobile phones arrived. Today, it is difficult to imagine working that way.

After forty years, you must have developed very strong relationships with some of your customers.

Absolutely. When you work with the same customers for several decades, you see different generations come and go. I knew the grandparents, then the parents and, in some cases, the children who eventually took over the business.

When you have a good relationship, customers make time for you and welcome you under very good conditions.

I was particularly touched by all the messages I received at the end of 2023 when I became ill. Some customers even told me that they would buy from us — including products they might otherwise have bought from a competitor — because they wanted to support me.

That meant a great deal to me. Moments like that make you realise the strength of the relationships you have built over the years.

What qualities do you think are essential for a good field sales representative?

The objective isn’t to systematically offer the same product to everyone. You need to listen to your customers, understand their needs and present them with products that can genuinely help them.

You also need to adapt to the way they work. An appointment should be useful for both the customer and the sales representative.

Good interpersonal skills are important because conversations are not always solely about products or sales. Sometimes customers want to talk about something else, share some news or discuss a difficulty they are facing. Those conversations also help to build trust.

Did advice and training play an important role in your work?

Whenever a new store opened, I felt it was important to train its teams on the products. A retailer could be an excellent rider without necessarily knowing the technical characteristics of every piece of equipment they were going to sell.

So I took the time to explain the differences between products and, where necessary, why differences in quality and performance justified differences in price.

A common example is horse rugs and the concept of denier, which is used to describe the quality of the outer fabric. Many people think it simply refers to the thickness of the fabric, whereas it is more closely related to the weight and density of the material.

If waterproofing and breathability performance are lower, the rug will protect the horse less effectively or may disappoint the end customer.

A salesperson who really understands the product is more credible and is in a much better position to advise the rider.

Which products or innovations marked major turning points during your career?

When I joined the company, riding helmets were very different from the products we know today. The introduction of European standards profoundly changed both the market and consumer habits.

The development of synthetic saddles was another major change towards the end of the 1980s, when saddles had previously been made almost exclusively from leather. These innovations helped us develop a better understanding of materials, performance and users’ expectations.

We also saw major developments in horse-care products, including the growth of organic products, as well as technical clothing.

When I started, the EKKIA catalogue may have contained around sixty pages. Today, it has more than a thousand!

We developed footwear, boots, rugs, toys and many other product ranges, while also expanding the number of colours and sizes available across our collections. We constantly had to learn and adapt.

How have customers and the market changed over the past forty years?

In 1986, there was competition, of course, but it was much less intense than it is today. Customers are now approached from every direction.

That means we need to provide them with as many services as possible, help them save time and enable them to run profitable businesses.

Being close to the customer is essential. Customers should never feel abandoned. When they call or send a message, you need to respond quickly and try to find a solution. If they cannot get that solution from us, they will look elsewhere.

One of EKKIA’s great strengths has always been its stock availability and the breadth of its range. During difficult periods, retailers were reluctant to commit too heavily to their own stock, but they knew they could rely on us and receive products quickly.

For core products, that availability made a real difference.

Looking back, what are you most proud of?

I am proud to have fought for the company, particularly when it went through a turbulent period in 2019.

When Pascal Gautherin took over the management of the company, he told us we had one year to turn the situation around. We succeeded in less than a year, which was a great source of collective satisfaction.

I am also proud to have built genuinely close relationships with our customers.

A field sales representative does much more than simply take orders. They represent the company, support retailers, train their teams and build long-term relationships.

When customers call you first because they know you will find a solution to their problem, that is a real sign of recognition.

If you had to sum up EKKIA in just a few words?

Challenges, encounters and a great deal of loyalty.

After forty years on the road, what I will remember most are the people and the relationships built over all those years.