A working day in the life of Patrick
In this blog, we take you through a working day in the life of Patrick, Area Sales Manager of Animo’s export department.
My position
As Area Sales Manager of the export department within Animo, I often travel abroad. This covers so 40% of my work and I may say that this is the most important part of job because it puts me in touch with existing clients but also with potential clients.
Potential and new customers
9:00: First appointment. This is a potential customer who is not yet well acquainted with Animo’s product range. First, let’s have a cup of coffee and get to know each other a little. Then let’s take stock of what brands the company carries and how and where it operates. Then presented the assortment most appropriate for this company. Finally made an appointment to send terms and pricing, as well as schedule a machine test. After my farewell, I get in the car to go to my next appointment.
11:00 Arrived at my next appointment. This is an existing customer. The client has just moved to new premises and I am first given a tour of the property. Then we go upstairs where the meeting room is. However, I see my contact taking off the shoes and after looking around, everyone seems to be walking in socks or slippers. Strange but I decide to take off my shoes as well and then walk into the conference room. A talk in socks, there’s a first time for everything! During our discussion, we talk about how to expand our partnership. What can they do? What do they need from us? What can we offer as Animo? Are there problems or are there perhaps opportunities that we can collectively capitalize on.
Presenting Animo
12:30 Time for a little lunch and then on again.
13:30 My next appointment is at a coffee shop (no client yet). In the showroom, I see many different machines. After studying them, I see that they have mostly high-end (Eversys) and low-end (Dr. Coffee) machines, in the mid-range they have virtually nothing. So that’s where our OptiMe would fit in nicely. So during the interview I focused on this. The presentation done to three people and they were enthusiastic. However, nowadays it is very important that they can test a machine because buying a machine from a picture is very difficult. Agreed to take care of this as soon as possible.
Time to leave Riga and drive towards Talinn. This ride takes about 4 hours and on this route we will also unfortunately not encounter any highways but there is enough time during ride to look around and enjoy the beautiful nature. I arrive at my hotel around 7:30 pm. Checked in, freshened up and went to get something to eat. After that, enough for today!