Hoeks Rental & Catering

2012 – Hoeks Verhuur is a Rental & Catering company with 7 employees. The director and owner  has developed a strategic vision together with the staff and extended the business with new services by cooperating with external partners.

Approach
The problem mr. Hoeks felt, was that his company ‘Hoek Verhuur’ had  only work to do  in summer. The company rents catering equipment for festivals, fairs and corporate events, and that is almost entirely an activity which takes place from April to September. “That means five to six months of hard work and building a buffer for the winter when you hardly earn anything. Every year you start again at zero. You cannot employ people in winter, but you need them hard again in April.  And so I have to train new employees every year. I was just tired of that."

Hoeks was just about to give up and to sell his company when he met Ivo van Ham of Syntens. “He started asking questions: what do you want? Why did you become an entrepreneur? What are you good at, where are you less good at? He holds up a mirror before me and that was at that time very confronting. I thought: I can do two things. I can say that he has nothing to do with it. Or I can open up to him. The latter I have done that was the best thing I’ve done ‘ in years.”

Van Ham teached Hoek that he had to share his concerns about the company with his staff. “Do these people know what you ‘re doing and that you have a hard time in the winter?”  But also: “ do they know what you expect of them?” Actually I had never talked to them about that; for me all was quite obvious.  I also had the feeling that every initiative had to come from me, but of course it’s a matter of two-way traffic. You should continue to challenge yourself, because otherwise you are stationary.”

Hoeks got his transport papers, therefore he could employ his people in winter as well. He sought the cooperation with a cook and founded the catering company named Trents;  this made him more interesting for companies who want  to organize a corporate party. And together with a Belgium partner he took over a lease company of trusses; this was the origin of  Truss Concept. “This allows us to employ the staff in the winter as well and we really can offer them work. We now can employ six to seven people, while we hardly could keep one in the past. And we are still growing."

Results
The company grew  from 5 months of work a year  to enough work for the whole year. 7 people  can stay employed  all the year. The commitment of the staff grew.  The company delivers  new services.

Reference
See more about the company on its website: www.hoeksverhuur.nl

Properties