Energy Week Sales Café, a workshop with aim to improve sales skills, filled the Hanken Assembly Hall to the last seat on Wednesday afternoon 16.3.2016 The extremely popular event was organized for the second time, which proves how eager companies in our region are to improve their sales techniques.

Sales Café participants absorbed new sales skills. Discussion at this table is being facilitated by one of the keynote speakers, Thomas Lundqvist.

The event’s first speaker, Thomas Lundqvist (Brainscan AB), who promotes himself as the best speaker in Sweden, quickly got the public, in the beginning somewhat nervous, to unwind. I his presentation he stressed that sales personnel need to stop selling and instead try to focus on how to get the customer to buy. He illustrated this by throwing a tennis ball: the seller has to focus on how to get the customer to catch the ball, i.e. change the situation, not the customer. Lundqvist also argued that extrovert persons are not the best sales persons, because it is essential for a sales person to listen to the customer and not just offer the merchandise, and this makes ambivert persons the absolutely best.

Paul Viio underlined the meaning of value for the customer.

Paul Viio, expert in value sales and value-based selling, activated the participants in clever ways and asked them to think whether their buying decisions are based on logic or emotions. According to him, the most important thing in sales is to understand the importance of value for the customer. Sales persons need to make themselves easy and worthwhile for the customer to find and connect with, and they also have to aim to become the authorities in their fields. To strategize your selling and to understand your customer are also things to be aware of.

The presentations were an inspiring start for round table discussions, which made the temperature in the Assembly Hall rise even higher. The participants formed smaller groups to discuss negotiation techniques, future sales tools and key account management.

One of the organizing team members, General Manager Pauliina Palomäki from Wärtsilä, was pleased with the number of participants and how the region’s companies were represented.
– We could have naturally had a better representation of companies from outside the region. The Sales Café concept has now been realized three times and we hope that even more companies would seize the opportunity and further improve the concept according to need and situation, and possibly bring it with them to other regions in Finland and even abroad.

Pauliina Palomäki from Wärtsilä was one of the main organizers and she also moderated the event.

– The hot topic in the field right now is development of sales tools, she continues. – Everyone collects data but does not really know yet how to use it. We still need to learn to analyze the customer’s life cycle and to look after ‘lost case’ customers. Companies also need support and new ways to find customers, keeping cost efficiency in mind.

The event was finished with a panel discussion that wrapped up the round table discussions. The panelists Camilla Sellberg from eCraft Oy Ab, Juha Kytölä from Wärtsilä and the keynote speakers Paul Viio and Thomas Lundqvist discussed, among other topics, collecting data, using it in sales and the importance of listening: only around 10 per cent of sales persons really pay attention to their customers, and they are the ones that are excellent. The panelists also pointed out that young people entering the field need a lot of training instead of fire rehearsals, and that the persons working in sales should receive a greater appreciation.

The panel wrapped up the topics discussed at round tables.

Lasse Pohjala from VASEK reflects over Sales Café:
– The advice and lessons received at the event were useful for all companies no matter which size or field. The examples could also be applied to other than selling technology; what was being studied was the customer. I hope that we can also get small enterprises in our region to learn together with the energy cluster.

This year's Sales Café was organized in collaboration between VAMK, Novia, Hanken, Wärtsilä, VEO and VASEK.

Additional information

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