Area Sales Manager, Mechanical Engineering

Sales is my great passion, so I was always delighted when we had interesting sales positions to fill. After we had successfully filled several sales positions in various European countries for a large Swiss mechanical engineering group, word had evidently got around the industry that we knew this field well.

One day, the head of the German subsidiary of an Italian company approached us. He too was looking for several area sales managers for his sales team in Germany.

The difficulty: because of the technical complexity of the products, only sales engineers with correspondingly deep expertise were an option – and they also had to be able to communicate in English, as communication with headquarters in Italy was in English. To make matters worse, a large share of the potential candidates worked for the Swiss company – and we could not poach anyone from there, because it was also one of our clients.

We mastered this challenge. We found the client not only the right area sales managers, but also a commercial law firm in Cologne to advise him on all questions of German employment law, and an Italian-speaking tax adviser to take care of proper payroll and the correct payment of all taxes and social security contributions.

What made this project truly special was the briefing. The client was based near Milan, so I flew there early in the morning. A limousine with a driver was waiting at the airport to take me to company headquarters. There I spent a whole day with the head of the German subsidiary: I got to know the company on site, we defined precisely what the future post holders would need to bring, and we agreed on the approach. I took the opportunity to stay in Italy for two more days to get to know the region and its people. As I left, my host said: “Just tell us when and where you want the car. The driver will take you to the airport.”

Wow! When a client treats you like that as a service provider, you go the extra mile – twice over.