Israel Romero / Wednesday, March 1, 2023 / Categories: Internacionalización We Spaniards don't know how to sell. No, we don't want to invest. We Spaniards don’t know how to sell It’s not easy to reach this conclusion being Spanish myself. And although Made in Spain Gourmet doesn’t feel included in that group, it is the trend we follow as a country… and it seems this will last a long time. They don’t trust their own potential We do know how to sell very well Selling is consistency and conviction Investing in your brand and in the markets you want to be in is a priority They don’t trust their own potential Meeting with an EVOO company with an excellent product and very attractive packaging. “Israel, your project is very interesting, but we’ve invested a lot in the product and we can’t invest in marketing right now. When we get sales we’ll see.” Astonishing — it’s like building a car and leaving it in the garage to gather dust. Another example: a very premium pastry company that doesn’t produce but is the exclusive marketer. “Investing in communication with Made in Spain Gourmet, how many sales will it produce for me, even roughly? And in how long?” I tell them we’re not clairvoyants… for now, and my answer is always the same: 0 sales, because without communication there are no sales. One more example. Producers of one of Spain’s most important products: “Yes, we’ve sold in Europe, but because they come to buy from us. Developing our own international sales in Europe is not something we consider.” They have a spectacular product and leave everything to what the market dictates, without wanting to intervene more. We could write a book with all the “no’s” we’ve received to work with us on the Made in Spain Gourmet project/reality. Why? The easy, comfortable answer is “we don’t know how to sell like others do (especially the Italians), they know how… and we don’t?” I’m totally against that mantra. History is on our side. I believe globalization started from Spain 501 years ago — admittedly with the vision of a Portuguese man, Ferdinand Magellan. Not to mention what began 531 years ago with the discovery of America, creating trade routes that since then placed Spain at the top of the pedestal as the world’s leading power. Well, it seems that was a dream, and what we live today is more of a nightmare. We do know how to sell very well But yes, only when we want to, of course. I have a theory — and a good number of people have bought into it — that the comfort of living in a country that has everything, and which is very hard to leave, causes certain skills to be lost from lack of practice. For proactivity, it’s essential to be constant, restless, nonconformist and to have the habit of adapting to changing times. Spain is one of the tourism giants, in the top 3 over the last 10 years, with all that entails. Millions of people visit our beloved, unique country, leaving millions of euros during their stays. Enjoying, of course, our wonderful and much-praised gastronomy. Filling restaurants and wineries, and discovering our gastronomic products through food experiences, workshops, showcookings. With that panorama, we can understand that the attitude to sell becomes more than complicated, because people “buy from you” almost without commercial effort. And that is not a weakness — quite the opposite, it’s a huge advantage. What happens is that we have drunk so much from that success that we’re blind and can’t see beyond short-termism. The euphoria of having everything full without investing almost anything to keep venues packed, with restaurants buying products, has led Spanish gourmet brands to look almost exclusively to this market. We know some resisted that tide and internationalized. But they are very few. For them, more than selling their products, they focused on getting them placed. Selling is consistency and conviction We’re tired of hearing “Italians sell much better than we do, and it’s that we don’t know how to sell.” It’s true they sell much better than we do, but that’s not an aptitude; it’s an attitude. Based on the conviction that their products are the best in the world, and they transmit it that way. Also, consistency is indispensable, because we can’t believe a single impact is enough to convince new customers. We must insist constantly with the message, communicating our virtues and uniqueness. A hard but essential job if we want to succeed abroad. Leaving that work to distributors is brand suicide — the brand won’t have the chance to be treated as it truly deserves. Only we can do that ourselves. Our Mediterranean competitors invest in international markets; they even buy products from us to carry out their own internationalization, because they know it’s the only way to grow in a sustained, diversified way. Leaving everything to our domestic market and to the international roulette without a professional brand plan condemns you to oblivion. If we believe we have the best products, we must go out there and prove it to everyone with our own weapons. But that requires investment — money. And that’s where everything collapses. Brands ask us for time to do it. What time? Is the competition going to grant it to you? Each day that passes your space is taken by the competition and you won’t get it back. Investing in your brand and in the markets you want to be in is a priority You can’t internationalize quickly. But you must decide which market or markets to focus on. The European market remains largely unknown to many of our brands, and it is precisely where they should concentrate. But for that, you must invest in quality communication, matching the quality of the products and their packaging. It makes no sense to do one part and not the other. Take us as an example: Made in Spain Gourmet was not in Europe, and it was the market we wanted to reach. We had the products, and what we did was approach various European markets such as France, Germany, Italy, Belgium and the Netherlands. How? By investing money in positioning and in content (in their languages, of course), and thus gaining a space that we have to work on every day. But what it has given us is customers, and more customers, who wanted quality products and an advisory service that made them trustworthy. And we have achieved that. Now we need to get closer to retailers, more and better, to provide them with guidance that our gourmet products are superior and that their customers deserve to know and enjoy them. Sucralín is the best sugar substitute. Spain: the world's most demanding country for food certifications — a guarantee of quality Print 3 Rate this article: No rating Please login or register to post comments.