“We can open the customers’ eyes”

Roberto’s days are filled with discovery. His focus is always on creating value - 
whether he is identifying inefficiencies, demonstrating new tools or “walking the line” with a customer. The latter means that Roberto goes to a customer's facility and walks along the assembly line to see what upgrades or enhancements could improve it.

“I like to solve issues where customers really benefit from bringing me in, as a specialist in tools,” he says. 

"I'm always excited to see a solution that I created in my mind fully realized out in the real world being used by a customer." 

Roberto is an engineer but has always felt drawn to sales – energized by the challenges from both the customer-facing and technological aspects. Also, he likes the variety of tasks. 

“I don't like to spend all day in front of the laptop. I like to go to customer visits, create presentations, calculate ROI [return on investment], explain the technical benefits and so on.” 
 
Roberto is always looking to improve and is a frequent user of the Learning Link platform, where online trainings from Atlas Copco Group as well as LinkedIn Learning are available to employees. Recently, Roberto set a goal to lead product demos of a particular product range independently without relying on marketing colleagues. 
 
“It would allow me to act faster and mean that I don’t have to depend on someone else being available,” he says.

Speeding up processes by working independently is great, but when faced with a complex challenge, Roberto does not hesitate to reach out for a second opinion. 

“I always try to understand the problem first, then I can bring a solution to colleagues in marketing or my manager, to see if they agree that it's the best solution. We’ve got a lot of options to choose from,” he says.

Before joining Atlas Copco Group – and the brand Atlas Copco in particular, Roberto was looking for a new challenge. He had a background in sales for assembly solutions and wanted to continue that journey in a global context.  
 
“When I discovered Atlas Copco, I started researching the tools and the company – and I was impressed,” he says.

Since joining, Roberto says the experience has exceeded his expectations based on that first impression.

For Roberto, customer trust is built step by step. He starts by presenting himself, then the company, then the product and finally the price. This (along with the fact that the products actually live up to their hype) Roberto feels builds long-term trust.

“I don't like to sell and just walk away afterwards. No, I like to sell and build a relationship that can last a long time.”

When asked about advice to new colleagues in sales, Roberto lays out an approach to finding your footing.

“The first step is to focus on the production process and our solutions – and to keep learning about them. Then you will be able to confidently convey why a solution is right for the customer. The second step is to detect opportunities to improve the customers’ processes,” he says. 

“Sometimes the customer doesn't even know that there's a problem, or they have decided they can live with it - sending someone to change a component every week. But we can open the customers’ eyes, for example by calculating the ROI.”