Hello there. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. It doesn't matter what time is it. What just matter is that you are with us for one more, The Strategizer, our hub for sales strategy. Welcome to the place where the smart salespeople meet. Today I'm very proud to announce our guest. He is the CEO of AM Brazil, with nearly 30 years of experience in professional services, risk, and insurance industry. A father of three kids, wine lover, a formal leader of rock band and former student of MBA. Please welcome, Marcelo Munerato. [MUSIC] Marcelo, thank you very much for coming. >> It's a pleasure, absolutely. >> Well, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and your experience to share with us. >> Yeah, absolutely. First of all, thank you very much for the kind invitation. It's really a pleasure to be here and give some contribution. And I hope the learners will like it. And let's make it very dynamic. I have nearly 30 years of experience in the professional services industry mainly in the risk and insurance consulting, benefits consulting. And good part of my career was actually also in sales. Mostly, mostly in terms of complex sales, consulting sales. So hopefully we can have a good chat. >> Be as it on this extensive experience. What is the biggest challenge to integrate sales plan into cooperate strategy in your vision? >> Okay, let's just start very simple. Biggest challenge in many things about strategy and sales is one, it's people. >> People. >> How people react, how people embrace the strategy. Because honestly, PowerPoints and business planning can accept a lot of things. But the people is the key to the execution of the strategy. And the strategy, any strategy, regardless if your company is a small company or is a very big corporation, global, local, whatever, it's absolutely important that if you have the best strategy, you need the right people in the right places to execute the strategy. >> In this sense, how is the process of developing sales planning? >> Well, let's then take as a fact that the company has a strategy, okay? Regardless if it's a simple strategy or a very complex one. And, again, we are talking here about complex sales, right? We're talking about B2B sales. Sales that normally require, that's very important actually, sales that normally require decision-making process, okay? That's very different from selling something out of the shelf, and that can be another chapter, another interview. But when you're selling professional service or big projects, engineering, infrastructure, or a consulting project in any area, you normally have what we call complex sale. Because it requires a decision making process. It requires more than one buyer, more than one buying influence dealing with you during the sale. So okay, once you have the good strategy in place, to develop the sales planning, it's absolutely critical that you start with the key questions, right? At Eon, we are a global company. We have 70,000 colleagues around the world. And our strategy is multi-geography, is multi-line of business, and multi-segment. So we deal with clients of different areas, different sizes, and we deal with very different products. So that's why it's important. We use something that is called hit map. >> Very- >> Hit map, heat map is really a plan when you design, first of all, what you're selling. So it's actually four elements, okay? The geography, the line of business or the product, if you like, or the service you're selling, the segment of the company if it is a small, an SME, a small, medium company. If you're selling to global corporation, if you're selling to the local shop around the corner, it doesn't matter. But you have to understand to whom you're selling and the industry you're targeting. Because different clients from different industries, that's very important, have different challenges, all right? So it's very very important that you actually when you have a hit map. So once you watch your selling, you need to define to whom you're going to sell, and the how it's like the tree the top element. That's going to be absolutely based on what and to whom, because you have nowadays, a variety of distribution channels. It can be a one to one sale, you can use digital platforms. You can use sales teams, you can use experts. So that's very very important for us. The what, to whom, and the how, the when. All the rest comes with this. >> In this sense, you can share with us what are the key points that a sales planning should have to allow achieving the goals defined in the corporate strategy. >> Well, any plan must have those elements I was talking about. And you can probably add more things like deadlines, and the teams, the pricing. You remember the ps of marking, that goes right into this, right? Your product, plans, the point of sale, the pricing, and all that. That all comes in any sales planning. But, again, I emphasize that it's very, very important that you understand, okay, the work that comes with purpose. I believe this product or this service will be important to the person I'm selling to. So once you have that, when you establish your plan about, okay, who's my consumer, to whom I'm selling, what I'm selling, to whom I'm selling, and what are the channels I'm using. And what are the tactics or the tactical planning comes right after the strategy, the strategic planning. >> And still talking about sales planning, which is very important for us in this discussion, what should sales manager observe when defining tactical sales activities, during this planning, during this process? >> So to manage sales, first of all, you need to balance, I think three elements that are very important. First, you're managing the structure of the company that actually provides while you're selling, right? Regardless, again, if it's an engineering company, someone is producing what your team is out there to sell. So this is our first element. Then the other element that is very important is the pricing, the value proposition. This is a word nowadays that is very common. You see and you read that all the time value proposition, because people buy what they think have value to them, right? We buy what is valuable to us. And let's considered that especially in complex sales, every sales that change. So I'm changing my life depending on what I'm buying. Or I'm adding something to my life or I'm adding something to my family life, or to my company life. So it has to have a value proposition. And that comes together, of course, with the pricing because your company, unless you work for a foundation or for a philanthropic. >> Non profit. >> Whatever, you have to generate profit. And even if you actually work for philanthropy, you also have to generate revenues to sustain your projects. So the value has to come with a fair pricing. And the third element is, of course, the people. Reconsidering in your question that it's a sales manager, you're managing a team. Managing the people is very important because with people, there are no mathematical formulas. So you need to understand your team, know how they behave. Know how they react. And it's very important today that it will actually segment your team according to the segment of your consumers. >> In your vision, what are the most common mistakes made during the sales planning process that undermine the alignment of sales planning and corporate strategies? >> Okay, so one key thing, people normally overlook the importance of taking the time to have clear alignment and communication. Because the corporate strategy is developed by normally the leadership of the company, various stakeholders take part of that. So taking the time to really understand it. Taking the time to listen. We salespeople normally have a hard time listening.. We have to listen much more than we speak. So take the time, understand the strategy, then take the time and develop the planning. That's another point because a lot of times you just want to go out to the street and sell. >> Let's go do that. >> The energy is very important, but the energy will produce much better results if you plan before and then you go. >> Talking about advice. >> Yeah. >> What advice would you give to anyone who wants to pursue a successful career in sales. >> All right, well, coming from someone that loves to sell. And as I said before, today, I'm the CEO of the company, so I need to spend time and dedicate efforts to many other things. I don't have as much selling time as I would love to have. But whenever I talk to the young, energetic people that are starting in sales, I can give lots of advice based on my humble experience. But actually, I'll leave you with the top three things, top three things. First, learn every day, be humble. You can always get better even if you have exceeded your target this month, this quarter, don't give up learning every day. Second thing, you need to, as we said before, listen. Listen much more. That's very important because salespeople normally spend most of the selling time speaking instead of listening. Consulting sales, strategic selling requires understanding your client. So you can actually tailor made your value proposition and have much more successful sales pitches. So listen, listen every day. And the third, probably the most important, motivation comes from within. You can find any source of incentive or motivation that you like. You can have coaching from people you admire. You can have your family. You can have spiritual mental interactive physical activities that will give you motivation, but find your purpose, find your why, find the motivation. What makes you get up every day, go to work, and sell with all your heart, all your mind, and all your soul. Because this energy comes across and it's going to be better for you, better for a client. >> Thank you very much for staying with us. >> Really a pleasure and I wish very much success for you, for the team of FIA. And for all our learners go out there and sell with all your heart. >> Okay, and you, thank you very much for staying with us. And stay tuned for more The Strategizer.
