Interview with Glen Zagorne but the Wall Street Transcript:
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Questioning Market Leaders For Long Term Investors
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GLENN ZAGOREN - PRONETLINK.COM (OTC BB:PNLK)
CEO Interview - published 11/15/1999
DOCUMENT # HAW614
GLENN ZAGOREN is Chairman of ProNetLink.com and started working with the
company shortly after the firm began. He has been involved in every step
of the growth of the site and the business and has worked very closely
with Mr. Jean Pierre Collardeau to build a unique and useful product. He
is directly responsible for the expansion of the company's international
presence as well as the development of new strategic alliances,
marketing opportunities and business prospects. He recently completed a
ProNetLink.com marketing and development mission to Western Europe,
during which time he met with 126 executives from 85 companies and/or
Government organizations in eight countries over four weeks. Mr. Zagoren
is also the spokesperson for ProNetLink.com and travels around the world
to participate as a speaker in e-commerce seminars, trade shows and
special events. Prior to joining ProNetLink.com he was President of
Zagoren-Zozzora, Inc., the strategic development and marketing company
that has been working with ProNetLink since its inception. Mr. Zagoren
has been involved in international business development and award
winning marketing programs for over 20 years. As President of Zagoren-
Zozzora, he produced and implemented global marketing campaigns on
behalf of several governments and international corporations, including
the Principality of Monaco (SBM), the Government of Israel, Hachette
Filipacchi, Magazines & Cable Company, Times Mirror Magazines and JBL
Loudspeakers. In 1984, Mr. Zagoren was awarded the 'Billboard Magazine
Trendsetter of the Year Award' for his involvement in the launch of CD
Technology for Sony Music. In 1986, he was Knighted by the Knights of
Malta for his philanthropic work. Mr. Zagoren has also been Executive
Producer on various Network Television Specials including the Elite
Model Look of the Year Contest. Aside from his work at ProNetLink, Mr.
Zagoren has most recently been consulting on the production of
Millennium Events at the Statue of Liberty.
SECTOR: INTERNET SERVICES
TWST: Could you begin by giving us a brief description of
ProNetLink.com? Then tell us what the business and what the company is
all about today?
Mr. Zagoren: At the end of 1997, Jean Pierre Collardeau, who had been in
the import-export business for 30 years, saw the potential of the
Internet in terms of providing a communications and transactional
vehicle for expanding import-export marketplaces around the world. In
January 1998, Mr. Collardeau put together a private placement to begin
ProNetLink.com and I came on board at the end of January to help him
build the company. The idea was to create a business that allows
companies, predominantly small- and medium- sized enterprises, from
around the world to source, do procurement, do logistical work, obtain
cargo insurance, search for leads and bring all the global information
about trade that exists in many forms around the world into a single
online resource. With all the clutter on the Internet right now, we
decided to create a network that would help businesses find the tools
that they would need to expand their business in a global marketplace.
TWST: What's the competitive landscape like today? Do you see head to
head competition or others in this field?
Mr. Zagoren: I equate the Internet today as the same as Dodge City back
during the Gold Rush in the wild, wild west. Everybody is rushing out to
the Internet with 'get rich quick' thoughts, seeing the potential of the
market. There's competition all over the place. The question is does the
competition have the means and the resources to compete in the global
marketplace? There are literally millions of little web sites out there
saying that they're involved in global trade but the question is how
many people actually go to them, how many people are using them, what
kind of resources and partners do they have? I think ultimately you're
going to see a shake out of all the small firms and you'll be left with
your name brands like ProNetLink.com.
TWST: What are the necessary components to reach your audience? What do
you offer as far as features or services and where are the growth areas
in those components?
Mr. Zagoren: We've spent the last two years developing our
infrastructure and it's an ongoing process. You can't build a network in
today's Internet marketplace and just sit back on your laurels while the
competition moves ahead. Currently, we have strategic alliances with
many of the world's largest Chambers of Commerce, as well as some of the
best-known companies involved in global trade. This includes UPS, Aon
Insurance, Dun and Bradstreet and AT&T, to name a few. We've built an
online database of 3.2 million companies from 122 countries. We have
more than 5,000 freight forwarders online and approximately 30,000 trade
leads a month coming in from around the world. Most recently, we added
PNL-TV, which is our online broadcast division offering the latest
global trade and e-commerce news every weekday at 11:00am EST. We
archive all broadcasts so that companies can return to the site at any
time to watch the programming. In addition to news, we also broadcast
special events and other trade-related programming. The idea is to offer
the most comprehensive set of tool kits available online to businesses
around the world who are looking to increase their share of the global
trade marketplace.
TWST: What are the limitations today as you look to grow the company or
to extend products and services? Is cash or capital a limitation at this
point?
Mr. Zagoren: As they say 'You can never have enough money and you can
never be too thin.' It doesn't matter what size company you are, there
are always limitations on the money that you have. I believe that we're
in a strong position but we are always looking for new partners and
investors. You have to remember that the global market is a huge
marketplace. To saturate the marketplace and have ProNetLink.com become
a business brand name requires a large amount of capital, if you are
looking to do it quickly. While our revenue base continues to grow, we
are always looking at additional opportunities in partnering, financing
and expansion. The limitation of the business is in the education of the
marketplace; and I use that in terms of Internet intelligence. As we
travel around the world, we are seeing many businesses just beginning to
understand the power of the Internet and e-commerce. We've initiated a
substantial global development program to make sure that we're in many
of the emerging markets as first-to-market. We see that as a huge
advantage for us.
TWST: Analysts and investors are more and more looking at traditional
assessments of Internet business today, particularly profit and loss.
Where do you see the top line wins and where do you see the bottom line
wins over the next few years?
Mr. Zagoren: To win, it's going to require eyeballs to the site. We
haven't focused heavily on the U.S. market, because it's such a
battlefield right now. We have run national TV advertising and print
advertising within the key publications. But we really have been
spending all of our time and effort focusing on markets outside of the
United States. We believe that this is where the next major growth spike
is coming from. For example, I just came back yesterday from a
presidential sanctioned trade mission to the Middle East with U.S.
Secretary of Commerce William Daley. We were the first 'dot com' company
ever invited on a trade mission and that shows the paradigm shift
outside the U.S. marketplace. We had the opportunity to meet with
Palestinian Authority Chairman Arafat, King Abdullah of Jordan and
Israeli Prime Minister Barak to discuss e-commerce and what it means to
their respective economies. Around the world, the Internet and e-
commerce are still very new concepts and that's where we're really ahead
of the game as first-to-market in many of these areas. Based on the
revenue streams that have been built into ProNetLink.com I feel that we
will see a significant increase in our sales this year. Now that the
major work on the site is completed we can focus on selling.
TWST: Over the next 12 to 24 months, what's on the agenda? What specific
accomplishments will make that time frame a success?
Mr. Zagoren: We will continue our global development programs by opening
up offices in several key regions. We see the Latin American market as a
major priority for the coming year as well as our continued expansion
into Europe, Asia, the Middle East, North America, Russia and India.
We've just announced a strategic alliance with Atwood Richards Inc. to
add a barter division to ProNetLink.com. The alliance will allow
businesses to move inventory and exchange unsold product for other
services online. It's something we believe is unique to the online
global trade space and will serve as another point of entry into
business relationships and regional expansion. We're also planning on
adding video conferencing functionality, expanding our broadcast
programming and creating online seminars for the global trade
marketplace. As I mentioned, there is continuous work on the site, but
sales will be our key focus.
TWST: Give us a little look at top management, a bit of a frank
assessment. Do you feel at this point you have the skill sets and bench
strength to meet these opportunities? Are there specific areas you're
focusing on today for change or addition?
Mr. Zagoren: I think that the core group that we have now is certainly
the best in the field. We've gone out, in most cases, and scouted out
key executives who have the certain skill sets that we were looking for.
Bringing them together has given us a very strong foundation. As we grow
and add new content over the next 12 months, we will be hiring
additional executives to fill in and manage that growth.
TWST: What's the vision, the ultimate enterprise?
Mr. Zagoren: We see ourselves as a full-service trading network that
businesses from around the world can utilize to improve their global
exposure as well as their bottom line. Businesses can go to a single
location _ HYPERLINK pronetlink.com __www.ProNetLink.com_ and
know that all of the resources that they need from markets around the
world are there. They are able to access country specific information,
participate in discussions, get their news, find trade leads and
opportunities, search statistics, find out tariff and tax information,
get forms that they need to move product around the world and
participate in a truly global online trading network.
TWST: For the investment community, how could they better understand
ProNetLink.com as you speak with your own current shareholders with
potential investors and with the industry analysts, what are the
misperceptions that you have to confront and address, what are the
assumptions that you disagree with, plus or minus?
Mr. Zagoren: I think that there are certainly a group of investors out
there that understand the potential of ProNetLink.com. The biggest
hurdle that we've had to overcome is explaining our global marketing
strategy rather than a U.S.-based approach. We've had to educate the
investment community as to the concept of what import-export and online
global trading really means. It's certainly not as easy as going to E-
bay, buying a Beanie Baby for $30 and having that shipped somewhere.
We're looking at large transactions, million dollar transactions. For
example, we recently had a company contact us saying that they're moving
5,000 tons of sulfur from India, a much more complicated process than
consumer transactions over the Internet. It involves banking, letters of
credit, insurance, logistics, shipping, customer confidence, legal
jurisdiction and much more. So explaining all of that to investors
sometimes is time consuming if they are not in the business. Our goal on
this has been to stay with our business plan ' we feel strongly about it
and we see the potentials of the international market. I believe that
eventually the Internet will be the standard that everybody will use for
international trade. If we can be first-to-market and work with the
businesses in the region to expand our presence and functionality, then
we have the benefit of branding and eyeballs early on and that will
certainly pay off down the road. That's why we're making an investment
into many of these international markets now with an eye toward the
future. We will continue to build alliances and partnerships around the
world. There are so many value-added companies that are beginning to
take notice of what we are building.
TWST: Give us a look at your own management philosophy, the experiences
that you bring to these challenges. Can you distill that into a bit of
an ABC's of business that you apply as you set strategies and goals?
Mr. Zagoren: The ABC's stand in our mind for 'Always Be Closing.' We're
always looking to close new deals and new alliances. It's an aggressive
marketplace out there. Additionally, I think that what separates us from
other Internet companies is that we are businessmen first. We're running
this as a business, not as a 'get rich quick' Internet company.
Understanding the potential of the Internet brought this group of
businessmen together and we have a very strong understanding of what it
takes to run a business, what the potentials are for joint ventures, for
financing, for understanding burn rates and how to keep those burn rates
low while in your growth stage. Because of our business sense, we've
built a company that has $150 million market cap for under $5 million
with zero debt. We trade an average of 500,000 shares a day and have
over 13,000 shareholders. The investment market is beginning to see what
we are about. We have always positioned ProNetLink.com as a large
company. We became a fully reporting company even though we were not
required to. We have strong business advisors, legal support and
financing guidance. In terms of the future we see the potential of
partnerships, moving to NASDAQ, global expansion, greater revenues and
technological leadership ' those are the things that we consider on a
regular basis. Frankly, I think we look very attractive right now.
TWST: When you consider merger and acquisition activities, what would be
the criteria you would use? Is it to bring in products or services? Are
there others out there that fit your mold or fit your philosophy as far
as integrating a comparable business model?
Mr. Zagoren: We meet with companies every week that we have either found
through our network or have found us through their contacts to discuss
the potentials of partnerships or alliances. I believe that the nature
of the Internet will require companies to have alliances and we are
looking for value added partners on a regular basis. We have currently
have many negotiations taking place. As I mentioned, as of this week we
added Atwood Richards as our barter partners. We've brought in Chambers
of Commerce from around the world. We bring in logistics companies ' UPS
is certainly a strong online alliance of ours. We've partnered with Aon
Insurance so our members can get cargo and risk insurance online. We're
constantly looking for opportunities and negotiating deals. We just
added SWBC International from the Netherlands as a new alliance
providing legal and technical information about the CE mark. You see, we
are constantly adding partnerships.
TWST: What today is the summary statement or essential message for
investors? If you could address a potential investors directly, what's
the short list of strengths and highlights that you suggest to convince
and investor today to buy in?
Mr. Zagoren: ProNetLink.com is certainly the leader when it comes to
expanding global e-commerce on the business-to-business trade level. Our
strengths come from our advanced Web tool and our current alliances.
Obviously these companies have done their due diligence on our business
plan and capabilities. You can also look at the track record of press
that's come out about the firm, the events that we've been involved in
and produced, the fact that we're able to speak at the United Nations
regarding the effect of the Internet on global commerce. We're very
proud to be the first 'dot com' company to ever be invited on a
presidential trade mission and participate in the Transatlantic Business
Dialogue in Berlin with the European Commission. Our sales offices in
Europe, Asia, the Middle East, India, Russia and the United States show
that we have a strong international presence. Eventually, the rest of
the global market will catch up to what we're doing and realize that
we've got a major head start into the global unification of the Internet
and international trade.
TWST: What have I overlooked? Are there thoughts or issues you would
address that we've not covered?
Mr. Zagoren: I think we've really covered the essence of what
ProNetLink.com is. Our strength comes from our international presence
and that's what we're going to continue building.
TWST: Thank you.
GLENN ZAGOREN
Chairman
ProNetLink.com
645 Fifth Avenue, Suite 303
New York, NY 10022
(212) 688-8838
(212) 319-4598 - FAX
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