He is not afraid to ask: meet account manager Victor Battisti
He’s born and raised in the city that holds the Fieldly Headquarter, Malmö, and has recently returned after having started up a new division of his former employer’s company in Oslo, Norway. His name is Victor Battisti and sales is his thing.
“The customer is always wrong”
Physical education and woodwork (!) were Victor’s favourite subjects in school. A short but intensive career in ice hockey is one of Victor’s many merits that are worth mentioning. He was also quite good at Maths in school. Strong mental arithmetic skills aside, Victor has chosen to learn and improve his practical skills by doing, which in his case means selling.
Starting off as a telemarketer during his High school years, Victor caught the sales bug and has continued selling since finishing school. His most recent employer, European Media Partner, is a major content marketing agency dedicated to creating and selling “content with a purpose”. When not working Victor likes to consume content with the purpose of improving his sales skills. One thing reading up on sales techniques and strategies has taught him is that the customer is not always right. In fact, the customer is almost always wrong. What does this mean, you might wonder? Victor explains:
- The customer often thinks he wants or needs a particular thing. When you start asking questions about his situation and what he wants to achieve it often becomes clear that they don’t know what they want.
You must dare to ask
Asking questions is something Victor strongly recommends when selling. By asking questions you show an interest in understanding the customer while at the same time building a relationship, another area that Victor underlines as important for anyone wishing to be successful in business.
- It’s important to really get to know people and not just talk about your product.
As a self-described social person who likes to meet people, we have no doubt that Victor will do a lot of asking. And there is one “ask” that is particularly important in Victor’s line of work. The deal.
- 99 per cent of salespeople don’t dare to go for the deal. In general, salespeople fail because they don’t ask for the deal. I always ask.
Trivia
Apart from Swedish and English, Victor speaks Hungarian fluently as his family and relatives hail from the beautiful city of Budapest. Apart from one great grandparent who was Italian.
