How does a business relationship last 3 generations?

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There's business and there's family business and what is particularly special making family business unique is the relationships that family business comes with. So this week we're talking about family business with a family that we have been associated with for three generations, you heard it right, three generations. Dilmah was launched by my father in 1985, September 1985. A few years later we found ourselves in Warsaw and in Warsaw we met the son of Mr. Janusz Zbigniew Vitomski. I don't know how I remember that but and today we have with us Thomas Vitomski and his son Piotr, Thomas and Piotr we are thrilled to have you in the studio, thank you for joining us.

Thank you for having us. 1990 we met in Warsaw, we spent some time discussing what should happen, we talked of Dilmah, we talked of tea, the Polish love for tea and finally Thomas said I will be your man in Poland and we have never looked back since. Thomas, tell me what it's been like to do business as two families united in one purpose. Well I would say it was pleasure and it was very good business because when you trust your friends you trust also the product, when you trust product it's very easy to sell. So it began from trust and I still remember how your father and you were telling me the stories about Ceylon, about Ceylon tea, how it began and what's so important in tea and why it tastes so good.

So for me it was just repeating to customers what you told us and it was a really beautiful beginning. But also it was a challenging beginning and I must tell you Piotr, one of the beautiful memories I have, it wasn't so beautiful at that time but was your mother in a tiny Cinque Cento, kind of a Fiat 500 and she had Dilmah tea packed everywhere because she was making a delivery to Krakow and she even had cartons on either side of her head so she could move, she could just see the mirrors and she had to do this twice in one day because we had our man in Poland who was saying you have to make this delivery, it was a spectacular time.

Tell me a few of your memories Thomas from this time. It was a very nice occasion what you said because another part of it was that she parked her car at the premises of the Baya and there were huge lorries around her small car but I think people also understood that the most important delivery was from this small one. And I think she even had a little trailer hitched up to the back of this Cinque Cento. Yes, sometimes it was but the trailer was very big so usually I traded behind my car. It was for really big supply at that time but now when I remember the volumes, actually it was so that within first year we saw the volume of tea that we are selling now daily.

So it was really a very nice beginning but now we remember it as something really beautiful. One of my memories from that time is something that I often go back to because it was a difficult time but I think we learned a lot and I'll never forget the time you took me to meet somebody at the Warsaw Marriott. We came to the loading dock and this guy wasn't interested in talking to us so he took us into a tiny little office at the back. He said okay what do you want, what have you got. We showed a few things, we talked and talked please take our tea, please take our tea. These are memories that today I tell my son Amrit, I'm sorry he couldn't join us today, he's not been feeling too well but if he had I would like him to hear these memories because it is what makes the foundation of a business. So talking about foundations Piotr, you came into a business which is filled with a lot of passion, your father's

passion, my father's passion and you have come into it with the same commitment and passion that we have seen. So this is how do you translate this legacy into something that you embrace. I mean how did you adapt, was it difficult? No it was not difficult because it's authentic and if something is really authentic it's very easy to get to be engaged in. So for me and for the whole our company this authenticity and the family values and everything that Dilmah stands for is so important you know in our very calling in our hearts that it was not an issue to get involved and to give our hearts and everything our energy to into it. But you know talking about family values something that over the years we've been friends and our relationship goes back 33 years. So over the years some of the challenges we have faced is saying look people saying look I want cheaper I want cheaper. But amongst all our partners around the world you have a few who say

okay give cheaper. But Thomas you never you never saw anything but integrity and I think this is what my father my family my colleagues and I we we value so much because we are perfectly aligned because there are two ways to do business isn't there there's the easy way and the hard way. But you always chose the hard way. Tell us more. No I didn't choose the hard way it was easy for me but it was nice also you know this is what I started with when you trust the product you just look for ways for your customer to understand what you say. Yes because the most important not most difficult thing is to today. In part it was also at that time is to make these people interested in what you say. So you must find something that they will say oh okay I didn't know that and maybe in fact this is important for my business as well.

So you know when I observed what what your father was doing you know I still remember all those moments when we sat together and your father was telling me stories of about his childhood about how he started the T business etc. These were so important moments for me also in a way of learning you know the how to how to do business and with integrity honesty and I decided okay I shall follow that you know I shall never look at the possibility to just buy cheaper something you know because it's cheap and maybe I can do one or two dollars more of profit. Now these are not things that that are really that important in in life. The pleasure that you make somebody understand that this product is really in fact it's better and its value is such that he should serve or sell that he is is the biggest you know profit from from this business I think. So in the process Thomas you built a business that is not just a passionate business it's a

formidable distribution entity you integrate technology modern methods and and really unconventional systems to ensure proper delivery proper service and of course respecting tea. So in that process I mean when we meant not wishing to tell secrets but I remember buying that wonderful amplifier from you because you were distributing pioneer equipment so you learned along the way many of this is so it is essentially a self-taught through commitment is that correct? I think you will agree with me that it is necessary to always learn you know and yes I learned and I'm not ashamed to say that I learned also from our competitors you know I looked what they do if they did something good I tried to even improve that what they did.

So yes it was a lot and on the way we all learned a lot but I must say that when Piotr took over the the management of the company he introduced many techniques and more scientific I would say approach to to running the company at which I look and well today I think probably I would not do it this way so good yes so so congratulations. Piotr when you have family values and a philosophy of family business the priorities in business are usually not the same as what the books from Harvard and other business schools would normally dictate what is your priority what would be the top three attributes that you think are important in business today? I believe it's communication because you need to get the you know you need to do it right to for people to understand as my father said so for us we live for me we live in a good times for that because now you know the content marketing and such terms are really up to date so we have the content we don't need

to invent it we don't we just need to do it right and for me the communication with our B2B clients and also with the customers is the most important thing for them to understand not only what is the difference but to understand what is the world that we are inviting them into and once they understand and we need five minutes 10 minutes maybe 15 minutes we cannot do that in 30 minutes commercial for example we need for them to really engage into the content that we are giving them and if we can have this 10-15 minutes with them they will not only understand but they will love what we are giving them what we are providing then the tea and your tea is an amazing and beautiful product and when for example when we give the when we are looking for people to accompany and we ask the main question why us they mainly send because tea and because dimma is a beautiful product to represent to get involved in so i think the the communication

for me is the most important thing but not communication to you know to talk louder or to talk more just to say the the right things for people to understand what how how tea how beautiful product it is. You started a shop Herbata Ikava how does this fit and how do you how do you justify it because you are in one of the arterial the main prime retail areas of Warsaw and it is a beautiful shop i had the pleasure of sharing knowledge of tea a few weeks ago it was sub-zero so the the pleasure began once i entered and got my cup of dimma ginger tea from your very kind staff there but how does this fit and is a is that an important part of your communication? Very much because people can can really experience what we are presenting them you know in the right place not only in digital not only through our partners and through the shops the shops in in most of the stores are really

you know very wide very not very wide but in our shop we have the the whole assortment and people can come and see okay this is not only two products this is not only 10 products but these are like tens of products and they ask us for the you know to explain why what is the difference and when we explain then we have this five ten minutes for them to to understand them to get involved in so this is a really nice idea of having the place where people can really experience not only you know not only read but also to see. And it's very important for us you know this is one side of this but also the idea was that we must experience what our customers experience in the in the market yes so as a retailer and as a food service yes point so it's valuable because we we learn what these people face every day and then we also learn how to

react to to their questions you know their problems how to explain how to help them and surround their business with tea. Piotr do you enjoy tea? Oh very much. So tell me sometimes people use the word passion in a very empty very marketing line way but what I find and I know from my father is that when you love something you are inclined to learn more to have better ability to innovate and it connects to so many other things what is the role of passion to your mind in today in technology in shopper marketing etc etc. That's a tough question but I think you cannot do anything right without the passion so the passion is the you know the the very starting point of of something that you really want to do if you do something without passion I think you cannot succeed succeed in that and when the passion is there you cannot not succeed say it in writing you can't fail you can't fail right so the what we are trying to do

is to show the passion and it is not really easy thing to show the passion because everyone is trying to say all the right things about their product and it is very rare thing to to have the passion to the passion to be behind the product and in shopper marketing in digital marketing you know people are used to very short messages and how to show the passion through a very short message this is a very tough thing now to do and we are still looking for a way to do that right so it was a question to you in our journey of many many years many times we came across businesses or competitors that lacked passion who were selling tea for profit did you ever feel that that was maybe something we should consider or did you always because it was hard it was difficult times I mean going back in those days I know it was very challenging because the business began in your own living room in the marijuana in this your apartment

which by the way was above a sex shop so you know it was interesting environment but you know taking the cartons up and storing it and having your warehouse in your living room not easy so in this environment how did you react to the fact that so many of our competitors along the way some who are still there many who have disappeared were in the business for the business rather than for the passion but first please define what is profit well if you can measure profit in many ways and you know it is natural that you run business and you must have profit to to live on and to develop so the money aside money comes with time when when you do things right but there are other profits which we enjoy and you enjoy while those people who are only targeted at money they don't have this feeling you know of the of the joy you know when when when you know that you did something right yes that

when you talk with with the customer who who is not interested you know who who serves some funny tea that is sold to him at several cents per tea bag and he he just doesn't understand the pleasure that comes with serving beautiful tea to a customer who will you know taste it and will say wow it's really special so you can't have this this pleasure you know in other things so the thing is that we found it quite early Piotr started to sell tea as a teenager yes he was still you you were still in school as i remember when you sold first batches of of tea and so we understood it quite early and we decided this is the way we want to run this business honestly telling always the the truth and seeing people that they enjoy dulmati you probably had some really tough customers along the way tell us the story of one of your toughest i remember first first talks with the really big guys that came to poland

and started with already several hundred supermarkets and they were really tough and this was the moment that we learned a lot because this was talking with the completely different people you know with different approach with different needs we had to understand their way of thinking yes and their way of valuing whether they they want product or not you know and and it was completely different language and different different way of exchanging information you know with with these people but a lot and in a market where you have the highest density of supermarkets that is supermarkets per head of population i think you did incredibly well so there's a ton of questions i would love to ask you but i think we have to wind down for the moment but i know you'll be back i hope you enjoyed sri lanka very much cilantro was enjoyable it's exceptional even though i love it and we enjoyed even weather was not so nice but but still walks among the the bush you know the the views are exceptional

uh and it was christmas day so the the the team prepared a very special dinner they they were wearing the santa clouds even the santa clouds came so he found us he found us yeah also okay okay with balloons which is exceptional but very nice you know it was so it was really pleasure but but not only three tea trays we we visited also the the wild coast lodge and pieter tell please about the the walk nature walk yes it was exceptional even better than the safari games and the one hour nature walk with the ranger at seven o'clock in the morning when we observed and get to know the little worms and flowers and so on was really exceptional i recommend it to everyone you didn't mention the tea though you said you like the scenery you liked walking in the bushes but did you enjoy the tea hmm in tea trays don't tell me you drink coffee please thomas no i actually know but but in it was different different

in in in tea trays and and the other because in tea trays they served the local tea freshly produced so it's it's something that that i love to experience you know it is like like feeling this aroma in in a factory you know at the estate the aroma that you next look for for in every pack of of tea and luckily it's it can be found only in Dilmah pikes but but this is something very exceptional and they they served the the noru tea which was really nice and next in in the yalla it was vatte Dilmah vatte they they tried to persuade us to start with ranvatte but they didn't know who he was so they they recommended the ranvatte and i said look it's in the morning i would rather have the medavatte and he was like surprised a little bit and said oh you know your tea well it's true i think many europeans would like a light cup i mean i don't know everybody's subjective but yeah also we have a challenge in near yalla because

you have brackish water so very high salinity so it's it's not easy but i'm thrilled that you enjoyed and i wish amrit was here to enjoy this conversation but before you leave i'll be insisting that you book in the dates of your return at which point we will meet again so thank you thank you so much for joining us for this chat about family business and tea