I stayed at Hotel Europe while I was there for my business trip and the first thing that caught my attention looking from my room's window was the number of white graves on top of the hills. When the war in Yugoslavia took place I was doing my vocational training in Germany and frankly spoken I wasn't really aware of the cruelties that were happening at that time in that part of Europe. Sure, I had friends who had escaped from war..Croats, Bosniaks or even Serbs with whom I shared a classroom but still I didn't pay any attention to their tragedies. I was caught in my own small world. Now almost 20 years later I've got to see Belgrade, Skopje and now Sarajevo and I started to think about this war that was in the heart of Europe. Most fightings took place in Sarajevo and that is clearly visible..still..you can see houses and buildings with damages and holes caused by artillery or machine guns. I took a taxi from the airport, which is reeeaaallly small, to the hotel and chatted as usual with the taxi driver. Friendly guy who spoke quite well English. We chatted about football, the high unemployment rate in Bosnia, economic crisis and ended up again with football.
The hotel itself was situated next to the old Ottoman-market and it was quite nice. No complaints here. Food was great. I visited some possible customers but as it is everywhere you have to compete with Chinese products or in my case with Italian brands. In my line of business, which is the HVAC (heating, ventilation, air conditioning) branch quality is of course quite important; however if you can offer quality products with competitive prices than you probably have a good shot to sell your stuff. Of course,often it is not that simple as there are other factors involved in the sale process: maybe a competitor has a good personal relationship with the client or maybe you don't speak the same language and the client has a hard time explaning himself. Or the client thinks you don't have enough technical knowledge and you won't be able to help him when he's having technical problems..etc. So many factors. Well, the Italian brands have good products and competitive prices so it was hard for me to convince the buyer why he should buy a German product that is produced in Turkey when it has the same quality and is about 10% higher in price. Part of my sales strategy is to be completely honest with the client. Of course you can buy the cheaper product with the same quality level but the 10% you'd pay is not for the quality of the product: it is for my service because I will be at your disposal 24/7; there will never be a moment where you try to reach me or my assistant for any matter that is important to you and we won't be there. This will not happen. You will always get the truth.
So this strategy worked almost always for me as I was lucky; of course there are times where you cannot convince everbody but being honest is in my humble opinion one of the strongest tools in sales. You don't want to rip-off your client; no sir, you want to grow together and support each other. Then it will be really hard for competitors to get in between with you and your customer/partner. But hey, if you have time go see Sarajevo..it is still a nice city with nice people..
(view from the Europa Hotel)
