Saturday, March 26, 2011

Early Birthday Gift (Bearista with Warmers)

3.25.11
Amici / Starbucks Megamall


Catching up with former colleagues made me walk down memory lane on how challenging it was to work for San Miguel.  We relived how we started out with proving ourselves to our sales counterpart and the pains we went through to get their trust, that we were not their nemesis in hampering their sales operations but we were allies that ensure that credit risk is addressed while maximizing revenues! :)


I have wondered why one particular Sales Information Head always try to disprove my presentation materials to my then Area Sales Manager.  Every meeting I had with the area sales personnel end up with a heated argument with that guy, while all the other attendants keep musing why he hates me a lot!  The thing was, I never raised my voice whenever he rebuts my materials.


Armand: 'Teka, teka, bakit yung figures ni East GMA kulang ng 50, and sobra naman ng 50 si North GMA?  Mali mali na naman data mo' (then all eyes darted towards me)


Hush: 'Armand, what is the agenda that we called for in this meeting?'


A: 'how to meet with our required area sales quota'


H: 'Exactly.  Area sales quota, not territory, but area.  So we look at the overall picture of how our area is performing versus our target.  At the end of the day, those territories will supplement each other, so if one territory does not meet his respective target, the other territory helps out to cover for those.  The important thing is we were not able to meet what National requires us, so we look at the overall figure, and whether I do the reclassification of those numbers now, will that change the scenario?'


Silence.


H: 'Very good then.  Let's do away with shallow analysis and proceed with more important stuff :) ' 


I was literally grinning from ear to ear, and the other salesmen were beginning to smirk.  Then, Armand walked out of the meeting (in front of our territory sales manager!).  I won. :) hahahahahaahah


We all laughed at how many times we had to continuously persuade our sales group to adhere by the credit policies, without them feeling that we were 'blowing' up operations. Paulette even narrated that she would go to the extend of drafting a letter addressed to herself from the area sales just to cover exception cases, so that sales could proceed while finance gets the required approval, commitment and timelines from them.  Then they were estopped from making excuses or denying our agreements because I could easily pull out those papers to prove to both my Chief Finance Officer and National Sales Manager that the Area has signed this! hahahaha :)


And the cherished moment we had was when we were able to gain the trust of our National Sales Manager, and all the sales guys obeyed every instructions that we had.  NSM would even mandate then whenever his personnel were requesting for exception cases, to consult first with Finance before he approves!  Sales even confided to us of their difficult positioning because of competition and we were there to help find ways that these were covered by the policies.  That was sweet! :)  We realized then that the battle between Credit and Sales was won unanimously by both parties :)


Then both Paulette and Irene opened up whether if given the chance, we would still go back to San Miguel.  I missed the challenge in working for that company, but I told them that let's not forget why we also left.  The thing is, we remember the hay days because we are with each other now, but we always forget the reasons why we moved on..


Silence.


Maybe if given the opportunity to work for another multinational manufacturing company, I would do so.  We move on to better pastures, as they say :) hehehhehehe


We ended up in Starbucks at around 1230am and both Paulette and Irene surprised me with their gift!! :) They knew that I am collecting bearistas and now I have another baby :)   Asia's version of the Valentine Bearista I talked about.  This had warmers on instead of the love letter on hand :) I !!!




Besides my Baguio carving =)


Hush hush for now**