Entrepreneurship

A look at the
role of leader
with the president
of Sinisco Group

Our team recently had the opportunity to visit the head office of Sinisco Group in order to speak with company president Christine Dufour. We asked her about her role as a business leader, the disaster clean-up business and entrepreneurship in Quebec in 2016.

Like many Quebec businesses, Sinisco is a family business. Did you always plan to continue to operate the business started by your father?

No, never! When I was younger, I worked at Sinisco in the summer, but I had no intention of making a career out of it. I wanted to be a pilot; I even took flying lessons and training to become a firefighter!

One day a management position opened up at our Baie-Comeau branch and I jumped at the opportunity. After that, I held management and regional management positions. After climbing the ladder and going through a long transfer process, I took over from my father as head of the company.

What was your greatest challenge immediately after taking over as head of the company?

The first challenge on my first day was trying to understand what I was doing! When you find yourself in a leadership position, you kind of jump into it without fully understanding the responsibilities. My priority was to take charge of personnel management and to succeed in having the respect of the people I now had to manage.

Sinisco is a well-established company in the disaster clean-up market. To what do you attribute the company’s success?

My father always had a long-term view of the business and I was brought up that way. The important thing for us is to maintain long-term business relationships and the key to success in that area is honesty.

We have always been honest in the way we do business and the terms are always clear for our clients and our insureds. That’s how we were able to establish our business and grow our brand.

Is there a company that you admire and why?

McDonald’s. I really like their brand, especially the consistent way it’s promoted. Everything about McDonald’s is brand-oriented, down to the slightest detail. The guideline is clear, well thought out and well-managed.

Has the disaster clean-up market evolved in the last few years?

The market has changed a great deal. For example, six years ago, a comprehensive service offer, from water damage to reconstruction, was unthinkable. It was even frowned upon. Today, if you don’t have a comprehensive offer, you deprive yourself of tonnes of business opportunities.

Our field is like any other, it’s extremely important to adapt your way of thinking to the market.

What role does marketing play in the development of your business?

Since we sell a service that is contingent on circumstances, advertising doesn’t bring us new clients. However, it does allow us to enhance our brand by keeping our name and logo in the public eye. We mostly use marketing to maintain our brand awareness through repetition in small doses, but over a long period.

This all ties in somewhat with what I was saying earlier about our willingness to focus on our long-term business model.

What advice would you give to an entrepreneur who wants to start up a business in Quebec in 2016?

To succeed, you must be business minded. You have to be able to persist without worrying about the unexpected. It’s very hard being an entrepreneur today. The administrative part of a business is becoming increasingly heavier to manage and the various government structures that we have to deal with often make life difficult. However, if you believe in your project, take the plunge and devote yourself to it entirely.

In closing, what would you say to an ambitious woman who wants to break through in the business world?

Like the saying goes: if you want peace, prepare for war. There’s a lot of intimidation, because there are men who do not like being led by a woman. To counter this type of attitude, you have to be very firm and respect yourself as a woman. You have to gain the respect of your detractors.