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Life TV, today we will meet a manager, a young manager, who will give us,and the managers who are watching, some useful hints, we could all use everyday, to work better and most of all to feel better
Andrea Bragato, Brand General Manager, Aveda Italy, welcome to Life tv show.
Thanks and welcome to you.
Thanks to you Andrea, can I call you Andrea?
We are very glad to have you here with us, beacuse you will tell us very interesting stories.
We are very glad to have you here with us, because you will tell us very interesting stories.
Let just start with Aveda’s mission.. which we’ll discuss later in detail..
Our mission at Aveda is to care for the world we live in, from the products we make to the ways in which we give back to society.
At Aveda, we strive to set an example for environmental leadership and responsibility, not just in the world of beauty, but around the world.
This is a statement from the founder of Aveda isn’t it?
Yes it is a statement from the founder of Aveda, Horst Rechelbacher, a visionary genius , a hairdresser who, in 1978 left Austria, to reach the US
and after a , luckily, not serious, car accident, he stays, and decides to outreach people with his mission, with a clear statement, , and a clear philosophy, like the one you just read
which is to obtain beauty, through well being and respect of the planet we live in. So in 1978 Aveda was founded in Minneapolis.
Now, before we go to Aveda, I’d like to talk about your story….. you started at L'Oreal
And a peculiar characteristic in your professional path as a manager, which I think I have noted
is that you have always managed to carry on in your next jobs, the professional experiences you made, and be able to grow in each one more and more.
Sure, and it was a premeditated and well defined choice of mine, which I recommend to any manager, if possible of course, which was to always work with top multinational, structured companies
because such companies, give enormously, to a manager, in terms of mindset, cultural approach, and professionalism, and the working experiences a manager can then carry along in the future.
L’Oreal, namely, was an incredible experience, it being a great company, a natural place to learn, with distribution strategies that are different from those of Aveda today…
but that gives to all managers working with L’Oreal, some great schooling . And I must say that this type of philosophy and business approach, I brought into my next move that was the experience with Tissot watches
belonging to the Swatch group, another very important worldwide corporation in the watch industry
and the cultural background I carried with me , was extremely important at the time, since I was called by an ex colleague of mine, who was then leading the brand
and asked me to become commercial director..and what I brought from my previous experience at L’Oreal, was the same “modus operandi “
a professional way of presenting and selling, which was totally lacking within the sales forces, in the watches industry
And which was the peculiarity of this system you learned at L’Oreal?
Well, the peculiarity is that of an organized system, especially in the presentational phase of the sale… in reality very often the salespeople, are either too cold and too professional, or viceversa, too little organized…
consequently, the sales process was in this case very basic and too simple, just by coldly proposing the products to be sold…. On the contrary, there are sales tools that can be used
to properly, verbally and visually present in a better way , so to give a much better perception to the counterpart, and therefore, things work a lot better….
So, let’s say a sales technique, which is more attentive to the tools and the quality of communication…?
Absolutely…. More attention to the clients’ needs, more attention to be ready to get what is defined in selling techniques, as the “ golden moment” so the proper moment to close a deal
but not a deal which is simply selling the products, but a deal which is a better up selling of oneself and the company we represent.
Today….. what vision do you have of “ selling”.. after all this story, which as we’ll see, continues with you at Levi’s….… In your opinion, which is the best way to sell a product and at the same time to interact with the counterpart?
Well, the best way, and I am discovering this with Aveda, is to sell oneself.. to sell human relationships, and to sell one’s image, one’s vision and to generate the highest grade of trust in the counterpart…
the product, especially for us at Aveda, is certainly a very important value, but what really charachterizes a company like ours, is the relationship you manage to entertain with the client…
The relationship with the client, and also with the products you are sellling…?
Absolutely, absolutely, it is very important to “live” Aveda, because this is a company which, so to say… “rejects undesired organisms “
therefore a too, cold, a too professional, approach with the client, would not allow to engage a certain type of interactive mechanisms… such as those of interpersonal relationships…
Let’s go back to your story…. Levi’s… at Levi’s there was in the market when you were there, a severe tension and a strong competition…how did you live such a difficult moment in that industry?
Well, the difficult moment, which I believe always exists in business … and I do not mean for Levi’s, I mean in general…is that of going to market, with rules which are strictly “ commercial”…
For a long time.. I believe that the simple financial discount has been considered as one of the most negative levers, for those who operate in the markets… because very often, the real , implicit values of a brand, are not revealed, not exposed
Listen… all these experiences, Tissot, L’Oreal, Levi’s…. have you always been affectionate to the brand and company you were working with? How important was the emotional and the relational aspects?
Absolutely yes… I have always feel affectionate and close to the brand I work for...and I believe that any job you have needs to make you feel part of the brand and feel affection for it..
because the values of a brand and those for the company you work for, are the most important ones for a manager… I have to say that by working with multinational companies,
and more specifically with Aveda which is part of the Estee Lauder group… worldwide leader in selective perfumery, with 19 brands to date… I was saying, that interpersonal relationship are of paramount importance…
So the human relationship is extremely important for you…. Before you showed me in your office, pictures of you people at Aveda, gathering once or more a year, and spend time together… how are these relations important to you?..
relations which I believe get stronger and stronger…
They are essentials, they are values that live, and maybe it is for this reason that there has been a happy liaison between Aveda and Estee Lauder, (because Aveda is the only brand of the group to be distributed at professional level…)
But anyway, I was saying that these values are fundamental… just to give you an example, every two years at Aveda there is an event that gathers over 7.000 people working with Aveda ( Clients, hairdressers etc..)
and it is a 3 day reunion, during which they cover every aspect of life and business
So it is important to gather together?
So, according to you, what is the risk of not having a human contact in a way…?
Well, the risk of not having human contact is to become just a number for the company you work for…. The human contact creates and generates an incredibly important “ trait d’union”… a melting pot
Well, just to mention an example….getting into the offices this morning we bumped into Eleonora and Evelina, two girls of your team,
and the feeling here, the atmosphere, is relaxed… easy, not tense, they are nice… and anyone can tell immediately that there is a favorable place to work…
The atmosphere and mood are paramount.. when you work…
They are good aren’t they??
I know they are here in the studio watching us so maybe they’ll blush…! So we can confirm they are good…
Of course.. I absolutely hereby confirm they are good…