In 1996, the Italian company QR Srl was the first to deploy the Cone Beam technology, commonly used for C-Arms, to manufacture a tomograph specifically for the dental field. The three founders, two geniuses and one sales person had had an amazing vision that would change the world of the low dose 3D radiology forever.
Yet, they were the typical “self-made” Italian company with an amazing know-how and work dedication, but little to no skills in sales and marketing. I joined the company in 2007 and after two years I got promoted and joined the Sales and Marketing team. There, I was handed over a portfolio worth a little over 100k € with a couple of existing clients and one new mandate: the company has basically no market shares and presence in Africa, Latin America and most of the middle East.
The product was a top-tier, highly technological and qualitatively superior than the competitors. Though in most of the countries where the competitors have reached long before, nobody knew that who the inventor of the technology even was. So, I started from a position of a great product that nobody knew, thus trusted and would buy.
Selling across 3 continents which comprise a large variety of countries, different cultures and languages required the ability of building and carrying on a massive operation and distribution network capable of penetrating market with zero presence, build credibility, brand equity and scaling.
Each situation and phase needed a proper action plan, wielding different tools from traditional ads and publicity, congresses and sponsorships, KOLs deals and partnerships, masterclasses, speeches and trainings to have the word spread both organically and through paid media.
9 years after I was first told to “go and conquer” I handed over a portfolio of over 6M Euro, spread across 4 continents (since I was assigned the Italian market as well, which I took from a 1.2M euro annual turnover to almost 2M), more than 15 new markets opened and market shares that reached up to 10%, starting from 0%.
In these 9 years, my tasks included B2B and B2C sales, designing and planning sales and brand strategies, writing marketing plans for new products that were launched through the years, sales training of the network and added salespeople along the line, business development, complex sales network handling composed by distributors, sub-distributors and agents, crisis-management, public speech in medical top notch conferences around the world, KOLs PR and partnerships, private and public sector negotiations including top governmental institutions, public tenders offers etc.
