By Emma Green, NATSPEC Communications
Sam’s phone is ringing loudly. As often happens at moments like this, the phone is not conveniently in his pocket, where it should be. Instead, it is buried somewhere deep down in the recesses of his bag. Rushing up to a bus stop and riffling through his belongings on the bench, he unearths the phone and answers it at the last second.
“Hello, Sam?” comes the voice on the other end. “My name’s Francesco. I was given your number by Katrina.”
“Ah, you must be an architect then,” Sam says calmly. “What can I do for you?”
“Well,” says Francesco, “I’ve got a bit of a conundrum. I lead a small firm and my team and I are absolute perfectionists. We want the best for our clients, as any architect does, so we’re sticklers for conformance and compliance.”
“Right,” nods Sam. Eyeing an approaching bus, he slides everything back into his bag one-handed and hurries out of the way.
“But the truth is that we’re just bogged down by research and paperwork. Do you know how long it takes to check whether a product is conformant?” Francesco sighs in exasperation and Sam imagines him slumped at a desk.
“It’s a nightmare, I know,” Sam says sympathetically. He leans against a nearby tree.
“Anyway, I was chatting to Katrina because we both use your company’s product. She suggested I get in touch with you, seeing as she was so pleased with that Branded Worksection. Could we arrange a meeting?”
Sam, now strolling up the footpath back towards his office, smiles and says happily, “Of course. I think I’ve got just the thing to help you.”
*
Two days later, Sam is standing at that same bus stop in the late morning winter sun, checking his calendar. Today is relatively quiet, with two afternoon meetings and a few follow-up phone calls in between. Tomorrow will be slightly more chaotic, but right now, he’s heading out to meet Francesco.
The little multi-use building housing Francesco’s firm is on a busy main street and Sam arrives at a bus stop right in front of the entrance. The firm is on the ground floor and through the window, a man wearing round glasses waves brightly at Sam before coming up to open the door. Sam smiles back, feeling happily prepared.
In a small meeting room, Francesco taps his fingers on the table in anticipation and asks, “So, do you think it’s even possible to reduce time spent poring over conformity documents?”
“It’s definitely possible,” Sam assures him. “Have you heard of the National Construction Product Register?”
Francesco raises his eyebrows. “No, I haven’t! Tell me all about it.”
“Have a look,” says Sam, passing a brochure across to Francesco. “The National Product Construction Register, or the NCPR, was created to help solve this exact problem. The NCPR is a database of products with valid evidence of conformity. If a product is listed in the NCPR, that means its evidence of conformity is available, real and issued by a credible organisation. You can browse by category or search for a specific product and access all the information you need. Here, I printed out the listing for my company’s product.”
Sam hands the listing to Francesco, who looks at it carefully, intrigued.
“That’s brilliant,” he says. “But what if there’s a product with fraudulent documentation?”
Sam shakes his head. “If a product’s in the NCPR, you can trust that the documentation is all valid. It massively reduces the risk of litigation. And, most importantly, you and your team don’t have to spend hours researching and verifying conformity documentation for a single product.”
“That,” says Francesco, grinning at the listing and the brochure, “is the dream. Can I hang onto these?”
*
After the meeting, Sam waves goodbye to Francesco through the office window and crosses the street to get the bus back to his own office. Clouds have made the sky nearly as dark as dusk, even though it’s barely midday. Sam signals the approaching bus. He grabs his travel card from his wallet just as his phone starts to ring again. Sam answers it quickly.
“Katrina!” he says. “How are you?”
He steps onto the bus.
Keep a look out for the next instalment in the series Tales of a Sales Representative, to be continued in the September 2022 Product Partners Newsletter.
For more information on the NCPR visit www.ncpr.com.au.