Paola Hernández
Customer Business Director at Honeywell
Paola is a Customer Business Director in Honeywell’s aerospace division, a multinational American company. In her current role, she is responsible for the entire sales process and post-sales contract execution; a role where she accompanies the customer throughout their journey with the company. In probing Paola’s past, we identified that she initially focused her academic trajectory around finance, but early in her career, she made the switch to the commercial field. Paola a passionate salesperson reaching the sky through sales. This intrigued us at The Lobby, prompting us to delve deeper into this topic to kick off the conversation.
What did Paola Share About her Career Shift?
Paola made the decision early on when she started working and spent a significant portion of her time working on financial models and focusing solely on numerical matters for the company she was employed with. However, her career took a drastic turn after a meeting where she excelled in contract negotiation skills and became involved in this area. It was there that she discovered her passion for the sales field and decided to explore specific options in this domain.
What Were Paola’s Best Practices when Starting her Sales Career?
For Paola, the main thing was having the right attitude and wanting to step out of her comfort zone with perseverance. She explains how a salesperson encounters different types of clients and competitors, and the solution is not to stay within the familiar and comfortable zone. The second indispensable practice is thoroughly understanding your product, studying it, and grasping every feature and functionality it possesses. This empowerment will enable the salesperson to sit in front of a potential client and effectively sell the product or service. The third practice is to understand the industry and the specific needs of each sector. Based on that understanding, construct a sales pitch tailored to the specific need. Lastly, Paola tells us that it is essential to understand who you are sitting across from when selling and highlight how your product or service impacts their specific interests.
What Specific Qualities does Paola Consider Essential for Successful Sales in a Multinational?
The first consideration in a multinational involves the established processes and bureaucracy. These processes are stringent and often involve steps that can lengthen a process. Paola’s advice in this case is to be patient and align with these policies. However, she also recommends never settling for doing the bare minimum. Always maintain an ambitious attitude and the motivation to propose and innovate within these processes. Paola compares this attitude to the one found in startup environments.
What Qualities does she Most Value in Members of her Sales Team?
For her, the most valuable trait in the people around her is their ability to solve problems and propose solutions. They should exhibit a genuine curiosity in learning from other team members to solve problems and avoid stagnation. This characteristic instills confidence in her when delegating tasks and distributing workloads within her team. The other indispensable trait that Paola seeks in her team members is consistently going the extra mile. Instead of settling for solution A, she values those who go above and beyond to propose options B and C.
“A salesperson is made. To be a salesperson, it’s not just about being outgoing and interacting well with people. To be a salesperson, there must be elements of discipline, creativity, dedication, research skills. But not only that, you also need the perseverance to continuously contact clients and the ability to solve challenges when sales become difficult.”– Paola Hernández
Delving a bit into Paola’s career specifically, we asked her how she believes a person can develop negotiation skills. For her, certain inherent traits in some people help them become good negotiators, such as having excellent communication skills and building relationships. However, being empathetic and personable with clients is not the sole requirement in negotiation or sales; concrete actions are needed to demonstrate what you have to offer to help clients solve problems or meet their needs. Additionally, within the capacity to develop negotiation skills, lies the ability to maintain humility and persistence when dealing with clients.
Are Salespeople Born or Made?
For Paola, salespeople are made. To be a salesperson, it’s not just about being outgoing and interacting well with people. It requires elements of discipline to maintain a follow-up methodology, creativity in offering your product, dedication to understanding the product, research skills to be interested in the client and the industry you’re selling to. But not only that, you also need the perseverance to continuously contact clients, actively seek out business, and the ability to solve challenges when sales become difficult.
