Funnel Principle in Europe
Recently (last night) I returned from a two week trip to Europe where I trained the entire EMEA salesforce of a large embedded electronics company.
Here are some observations regarding business, selling, food, exercise and more.
What recession? My client has nearly $1B in revenue and finished the year with record sales. The year before that they had record sales. How enjoyable it was to be consumed the entire day, every day, with positive thoughts about selling.
The secret to good health in Europe is that Europeans in major cities do a ton of walking. With train travel so common throughout the continent people are forced, ironically, to walk a lot. My feet thanked me for wearing a pair of 7 year old Allen Edmonds Seneca shoes that I’ve had resoled three times. I think I could run a 10K in those babies.
European sales managers are passionate about learning business processes for selling. In every office I visited, from Amsterdam to Milan to Munich to Dusseldorf and to Eindhoven the managers kicked off the training with a passionate speech. Better yet they stayed engaged throughout the two days. What a great example they set for their people.
Traditional US-based sales training is becoming a dying export for good reason. Companies want tailored programs that fit the European selling environment, cultures, and languages.
Europeans need long coffee breaks. In the States our breaks during training are usually 15 minutes. In Europe I gave 20 which pushed to 25 and that was needed to regain their complete attention when they returned from breaks.
The American way of business is admired by European business people. One sales manager told me that he was envious of how easy our governments make it to start new businesses. It’s mostly transparent too, void of multiple, mysterious intermediaries in the ‘supply chain’ of getting started. In Italy, the government leaders are fighting to overturn a 41 year old law that makes it virtually impossible to fire an employee. They recognize the need to give businesses flexibility to get rid of poor performers and hire new and motivated talent. Also in Italy, they are trying to increase the number of notaries in the country to inspire more competition. Same with increasing the number of taxis. It’s the right thing to do and many are against it. Though the American system also has flaws it’s easy to take for granted how pro-enterprise our society is.
Italian offices have the best coffee machines.
Europeans love to play US hits of the 80′s during breakfast. Instead of oatmeal there’s always scrambled eggs and beans and croissants.
Be sure you have coins when you want to buy train tickets because many of the machines do not take bills. Also, they won’t take US credit cards that do not have a European chip built into the card for greater security purposes. I found some merchants outside of the train stations also required this card. Have cash!
Have a backup plan to stay fit during long trips since many boutique hotels do not have an exercise room. I did circuit exercises in my room but was afraid the residents in the room below mine wouldn’t appreciate the skaters and squat jumps.
Many European salespeople love to work on their English language skills. As a result they might go on talking for longer than you’d expect, but this isn’t because they aren’t interested in listening to you. One of my clients based in Germany was always making sure she drove me from the hotel to the office so she could practice her English with me.
The 35 hour European work week doesn’t apply to salesforces. My clients selling and managing every day are working from 9 until 7 most days. I get more emails past eleven o’clock her time from my main contact in Paris than I do from any US based client.
The US English language is a gift to the business world. How else would Italians, French, Bavarians, Dutch, the three different regions of Belgium, Spaniards, Swiss, Danes, Swedes, Portuguese, and all of the unique dialects within these countries communicate were it not for the English language?
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )
