My 9-5 (sometimes way later) Life

All this talk about travel, and I haven’t even begun to explain my new job working for BMG! I mean my blog title does suggest I am doing some kind of business...

A typical day (even though this job is extremely atypical) consists of waking up and getting ready, and then meeting Pedro downstairs for breakfast in the hotel (yummy hot breakfast every morning is definitely a plus). We usually have 1-2 meetings per day, either in an office in Zagreb or in one of the surrounding smaller cities. While we are not traveling to/having a meeting, we are making phone calls to Croatian companies to schedule more meetings. We make our own company leads, and have the freedom to call whatever company we would like to meet with. Obviously we contact the largest companies first, but one thing I love about this job is the autonomy I have about how I want the project to run. For example, I noticed the brand of chocolates the hotel leaves on my bed every day, looked up the brand and company contact information on the internet, and am currently in contact with the CEO right now in trying to schedule a meeting with him. Or Pedro and I will be out at night, try a beer we like, and be in contact with the brewery the next day. However, making phone calls really just plain sucks. One time a secretary told me that her CEO “was on vacation for two years” and another one said “I am not interested in buying your sugar” when I told her that we had been working with Croatian Minister of Finance Ivan SUKER. You just have to laugh it off, or make a game out of it – whoever makes the first meeting of the day from a phone call buys the other a coffee, or something along those lines. Pedro and I have a good time, despite the absurdity of a reciting a sales script to 30 Croatian secretaries per day.

The actual meeting is the fun part. First off, why are we even meeting with the CEO’s of the largest companies in Croatia? Before I was sent here, Pedro was “opening” the project here. The opening, which usually takes a month from the start of the project, is when the consultant meets with as many government officials and economic decision-makers as possible within the country to gain their support for our publication. The Ambassador of Croatia in France invited The European Times (the publication I work with) to make a report on Croatia, and Pedro also met with the Minister of Finance, head of the Zagreb Stock Exchange, President of the Trade and Investment Agency, etc. I have done some opening meetings here as well; for example, I met with the President of the American Chamber of Commerce and the German Chamber of Commerce, as well as with the Mayor of Zagreb. We get as much information from them as possible about the Croatian economy, and also receive letters from them to promote The European Times Croatia. Showing companies that we have met with the government and that these officials want to produce this positive report about their country definitely sparks the various CEO’s interests. Now what exactly is this “report”? The European Times has about 6 editions per year on 6 different countries. The European Times Croatia report will feature an article on the Prime Minister who will talk about Croatia and its succession into the European Union, and then the various sectors of the economy will be highlighted – infrastructure, technology, pharmaceutical, energy, food & agriculture, construction, tourism, etc. The publication is then distributed to 410,000 readers throughout Western Europe - to all parliamentaries, embassies, international funders, and the CEO’s of the top 500 companies in Europe. So basically these reports are free for the super mega big dogs in the European world, and Croatia is an important country for them to learn more about because it is planning on being admitted to the EU in 2011.

So in addition to gathering all of this information about the country through our “opening” meetings that we then send to our production office, we have to find a way to sponsor this report! That’s where the “sales” part of my job comes in…

SO the meetings are essentially to introduce the report to the CEO, and to show him the value in not only gaining more exposure in Europe, but also in supporting the initiative of the Croatian government. There are four parts to the meeting, and my field training has essentially been learning each part, one at a time.

1. Introduction: The night before, we assemble a tailor-made PowerPoint that describes the report, its distribution, why Croatia needs exposure, and why we are meeting with that specific company in that specific sector.

2. Fact-finding: This is where one of us asks the CEO questions about his company: Who are his clients? What projects is the company working on? Is the company looking to expand into Europe? Who are his competitors and what is his market share? What kind of relations does he have with the government and international funding institutions? (I love this part; you learn SO much about the way a company works in an international setting)

3. Pitching: Sales pitches are stories, questions, and tactics used to build value for the product you are selling, so an example of a pitch to, say, an insurance company in our case would be: “You have shown us how your main project is to increase your sales force to attract investors. When we met with the leader of World Bank Croatia, she emphasized that she is looking to allocate funds to company projects that she feels will have a positive impact on the financial sector. How important is it to you to show how well your project is doing to our readers such as the President of World Bank Croatia, and why would you be the best partner for these international funders?”

These examples and questions allow the CEO’s to realize the value of exposure within our publication, and so the night before a meeting Pedro and I discuss what kind of angles we should use depending on the type of company we are meeting.

4. THE CLOSE woop woop: This is the most critical part of a meeting, where you “lay it all out on the table” and truly use the analytical aspect of sales. You summarize the meeting and the major points, and try to make a match between what the CEO’s objectives are and what exposure in our publication would provide him to achieve those objectives.

At first I was intimidated to do this part of the meeting, but it is actually pretty thrilling when you have good sales angles and you make a true connection with the CEO.

In order to move from a trainee to a consultant, you have to do the close and sell 30,000 euro, which could all be in one sale or in many small sales. Our turnover in Croatia for the past 3 months has been 15,000 euro, so I kind of figured I would become consultant during my next project. However, the second time I did the close I SOLD one page of sponsorship for 35,000 euro!!! It was an amazing meeting with a construction/infrastructure company called Zagorje Technobeton. The CEO didn’t speak English so we used a translator for the entire meeting, which honestly was good for me because I had more time to strategize how I would make the close. He loved the idea of sponsoring The European Times, especially because he has a lot of international partners in Western Europe. I offered 35,000 and when he said ok, I literally started shaking and could barely sign my name on the contract agreement. He signed it, and screamed, “WAIT” in Croatian, which petrified me because I thought he was going to back out as he ran into his office. He came running back with a huge stamp of the company logo, and hammered it down on the contract with an enormous smile on his face. I thought I would die of happiness and relief, and to top things off as we were leaving the CEO gave us each a big bag of goodies with wine, t-shirts, towels, etc. Pedro and I were in shock as we walked out of the office, and once it sank in that I HAD BECOME CONSULTANT and we had just sold double the amount we had made in 3 months, we started jumping up and down with joy, hugging and kissing each other, calling our coaches, and blasting “We are the Champions” the whole way home.

So now I am officially a sales consultant, and I am so happy that I accomplished this with Pedro in Croatia. This past week has been extremely slow as literally everyone in Europe is on holiday, which has been pretty nice! The CEO of Whirlpool took us out to a glamorous lunch on Tuesday, and other than that we have been trying to schedule more meetings for next week and managed to make 2 on the coast! Tomorrow we head to Split and are staying overnight there because we have another in Zadar on Tuesday, about an hour away from Split on the coast as well.

The Croatia project ends in a mere two weeks, and I do not know where I am going next! I have no idea what country I will be in (the office has suggested I might be in Austria, but we’ll see) and I don’t know who my next partner will be! (Pedro is headed to the states to study and apply for grad school) I am extremely anxious – I want to know so badly! I am also really going to miss Croatia – I love how safe it is, how nice the people are, how much I have learned about Eastern Europe, and I am really going to miss Pedro! I am hopeful I will be sent to another amazing country and make another great friend in my partner, but only time will tell! Much more to follow…

Sofia, Sandanski, & Thessaloniki

It’s Monday morning and I am wide awake as I sip a coffee in my lively hotel lobby. I’m waiting for Pedro to get here so we can start our work day (he went to Slovenia this weekend and is driving back this morning). This past weekend was a semi-long one in Croatia; there was a national holiday on Thursday, so Pedro gave me permission to fly to Bulgaria that day to visit two of my fellow trainees, Slavy and Mwongola! Needless to say my Thursday morning flight through Budapest was an unenjoyable one, as Pedro and I had been out CELEBRATING the night before because I made consultant! (much more to come on that later!)

Slavy – who is from Bulgaria – and Mwongola – from California – picked me up at the airport in Sofia, the capital city of Bulgaria. I immediately felt a difference in the culture, atmosphere, and comfort level. Bulgaria has a long, suppressed history – the Bulgarians were basically the Turks’ slaves for 5 centuries, and after World War II became a communist state in the Eastern Bloc. Slavy was two years old when the communist regime fell, but felt the repression throughout her entire childhood as anarchy became the norm. Now the country is under a parliamentary democracy, but remains completely corrupt. The normalcy and functionality that we take for granted in the United States simply doesn’t exist in Bulgarians’ lifestyle. Street signs don’t make sense, nor do road lanes; radio stations don’t function most places and nicely-paved sidewalks and clean building facades are nonexistent. I was too excited to see my friends to have any time to feel unsafe or culture-shocked, but Mwongola said it took him a good 3 weeks to not get pissed at every Bulgarian who shook their head yes and nodded their head no (Bulgaria is the only country where this occurs).

After a trip to the American and German embassy (it was still their work day and they had to pick up some documents for their project), we headed back to their chic hotel downtown and immediately set out on foot for dinner. A five-minute walk brought us to an amazing outdoor restaurant that is “sooo typical Bulgarian”. The waiter greeted us with huge loaves of bread and spices – “we always greet our guests with a batch of warm bread and traditional Bulgarian spice; now who wants rakia?” Rakia is the typical alcohol in the Balkan region (very popular in Croatia as well), which tastes like licorice vodka. I try to like it and always pretend I do, hoping eventually I will acquire a taste for it, but honestly it is 100% disgusting. We ordered some anyway, as well as a “traditional Bulgarian salad” and our various meals. They all had hilarious names, and under each order a badly-translated description of exactly how the chef prepares the meal attempts to lure you to order it. For example, one meal was “Rabbit with Expired Game License” and Slavy ordered “Mrs. Foxey’s Female Chicken dish”. I opted for stuffed paprika, and after some rakia and house beers enjoyed a wonderful meal. Full and tired, we called it a night after one more trip to a local bar, as we had to wake up the next morning to work from our hotel.

The next day, we were trying to figure out how to spend our weekend together, and Slavy casually chirped in, “why don’t we visit Greece?” – WHAT? GREECE? It’s close to Bulgaria? And we have a car? Nothing could change my mind. After numerous work phone calls and emails from the hotel, we wrapped up the workday and hopped in the car to head south. We stopped in Slavy’s hometown, Sandanski, for dinner. Driving through the place where Slavy grew up was even more of an alarm – ramshackled apartment buildings, uprooted sidewalks, tons of barefoot children running around…meanwhile Slavy is in the front seat, as cheerful as she always is, proclaiming how much she loves her hometown. Her parents were waiting for us outside and her mother came running down the cement staircase of the non-insulated, fading building to greet us with warm hugs and kisses. She ushered us inside to meet Slavy’s father, grandmother, and younger sister, and immediately directed us to the kitchen table, where platters of food were waiting for our arrival. Slavy’s whole family sat and watched as we helped ourselves to meatball soup, Shapska salad (tomatoes, cucumbers, herbs, and tons of feta cheese), and meat patties. All “very typical Bulgarian”. When I didn’t take a meat patty right away the grandmother became nervous I was a vegetarian, and the father kept commenting on how we weren’t eating enough, despite grabbing seconds and thirds of everything. Oh yea, and her family doesn’t speak a lick of English, so all the while I was trying to thank them and attempt pleasantries and they would just smile and shake their heads (meaning yes, yes) as Slavy attempted to translate 5 conversations at once. We were eager to head to Greece, and knew we would be staying in Sandanski the following night, so we said our lost-in-translation goodbye’s and hit the road. I was ecstatic to reach the Greek border – after passing it you could immediately notice a difference in the road quality, the radio station selection, the signage, and the preserved landscape – and Greece is the country that is supposed to be one of the “worst in Europe right now”, which just shows how the media solely cares to highlight European Union countries’ problems, rarely touching on the difficulties of less-developed countries in the region.

After somehow finding our hostel with no GPS and no map, we hit the town of Thessaloniki, the second largest city of Greece and the capital of Macedonia. Greeks don’t consider Macedonia a real country, so depending on whom you ask, we could have been in Greece or we could have been in Macedonia! We woke up the next morning to a nice breakfast on the back terrace of our hostel, where newly-born kittens roamed beneath our feet and Greek music filled the air. We then walked through town, where large, modern buildings juxtaposed thousand-year old Greek ruins. We took a short bus tour as well, and then drove even more south to check out the Greek coast. We definitely were not in the most pristine beaches of Greece because we were so far north, but the sandy beaches were exactly what we needed – we sunbathed the day away and enjoyed frappes (cold Greek coffee drinks) and people-watching. The amount of Greeks enjoying the beach, happily ordering numerous beers left me wondering just how hard the crisis has hit the Greeks – they should take a trip to Bulgaria or Bosnia and then talk about decrease in quality of life…

I was sad to leave, but eventually we headed back to Thessaloniki to grab a “truly Greek meal”, and luckily found some locals who led us to a hole-in-the-wall Greek restaurant, where we indulged in Greek salads, potatoes with yogurt sauce, stuffed peppers, and tzatziki spread. Full to the brim, we arrived to Slavy’s house ready to shower and rest, but her mother had spent all day cooking us another meal! Of course we had to eat it and enjoy it, as she had made Slavy’s favorite Bulgarian dish – we each received our own pot of vegetables, ham, spices, cheeses, and egg that takes hours to cook and is a true delicacy in Bulgaria. It was probably one of the best foods I have had abroad, and we made room to enjoy it, thanking her profusely for her time and effort in trying to make us feel at home in this outlandish country of Bulgaria. The family shares one bathroom in the entire apartment, and when I was given a towel to shower, I was confused on where to go because I had not seen a shower when I had gone to the bathroom before, but they led me there anyways, along with a pair of clunky shoes to wear “so I wouldn’t slip”. I realized that the bathroom WAS the shower, and I had difficulty in not getting the toilet, sink, mirror, toothbrushes, etc. completely soaked! The family did not seem to mind/notice, and gave me one of their few bedrooms for myself. Staying with Slavy’s family was a truly eye-opening cultural experience; her parents were some of the nicest people I have ever met, which I could immediately grasp despite not being able to communicate a word to them. We walked around Slavy’s downtown the next morning, and she pointed out her elementary school, the “dance club they would go to when they were 13”, and the numerous cafes/random shops she would visit when she and her friends felt like skipping school. Truly living a different culture, even if it was just for one night, was an amazing and unforgettable experience, and makes me grateful to have friends like Slavy!

We headed back to Sofia and did a little bit of last-minute sight-seeing in the city center (churches, government buildings, the normal) before I was dropped off at the airport. Another life-changing weekend down, who knows how many more to go...