This week on SalesTV.live we sit down with Eliana Medeiros to delve into a transformative approach to sales: creating a pipeline of skilled sellers, not just opportunities. Discover why nurturing individual salespeople matters more than filling a funnel and learn actionable strategies for developing a robust team. Eliana shares insights from luxury design, revealing how top brands craft client experiences that captivate high-value prospects. Tune in for practical examples and a fresh perspective on focusing on the individual to elevate your sales success.

Facts, the latest thinking, chat, and banter about the world of sales.

Come and join us for some lively discussion and debate.

This week's Guest was -

• Eliana Medeiros, luxury brand expert

This week's Host was -

• Helga Saraiva-Stewart, Founder of SalesShaker

Transcript of SalesTV.live Early Edition 2024-11-05

Helga Saraiva-Stewart [00:00:01]:

And go. Go. Go. Good morning to you folks, joining us at sales TV live today. What a beautiful day. Raining in Portugal, gray skies, but our hearts are so warm because we are welcoming today, Eliana Medeiros. I am so excited to have you here. I am your host, as you know, Helga Stryboschwort, founder of Lead Results.

Helga Saraiva-Stewart [00:00:30]:

Missing Andy and Alex and the team so much. I'm gonna be with you guys in 2 weeks' time, so brace yourself, London. I'll be there. In the meantime, we have an amazing conversation with Eliana today. The show is called build a pipeline of sellers not just opportunities. So, Eliana, kick us in. Let us know. Give us a little bit of of your background.

Helga Saraiva-Stewart [00:00:57]:

Share with you some of your amazing experience.

Eliana Medeiros [00:01:01]:

Okay. So a little bit about myself. My background is actually in luxury. I've worked most of my life in luxury. I started as a team working for, an Italian family with an Italian company, a, artisanal luxury, brand. So that's really my experience. I love working with all other types of industries and companies, but I have to say luxury is just something I absolutely love. I fully understand.

Eliana Medeiros [00:01:33]:

I'm someone that loves beauty because I think a misunderstanding of luxury is people just think about the price At its best, it has nothing to do with the price, but with our human pursuit of beauty and excellence and enhancement. So that's a little bit of my background, and I worked with everything. I worked in private chats for many years with the leader, where I was responsible for customer experience. I was also responsible for customer service, human resources, which is a little people think, oh, that's off. Not really if you think about it because customer experience in luxury has a lot to do with employee experience. Your employees or your team members are the first ones that to buy the product, which links to our talk today and what we're going to be talking about.

Helga Saraiva-Stewart [00:02:27]:

I mean, do you see what I mean? Do I so so exactly. So this, kicks you know, join us really nicely to this, topic of building a pipeline of resellers because, you know, I'm a true believer that one of the ways one of the three ways of us standing out in the markets today as sellers is with the way that we sell. So help us from this time. What is this pipeline of sellers?

Eliana Medeiros [00:02:56]:

Really, the concept of a pipeline of sellers is just having a structured, really active network of not only team members, but partners, because what we think about, especially in luxury, is everyone is an ambassador and a representation of the brand. Because in luxury, everything that is sold in luxury, people can buy it cheaper. Really, if you think about it, a handbag, literally, if you go for function, a plastic bag will do the trick. Right? So you have to put something there. And for that, you need to have everybody engaged on it. So you work with your team, your teams, every team member, and that is very common in luxury companies. There's a lot of training. Think about Tiffany.

Eliana Medeiros [00:03:51]:

I'm sorry. I'm gonna use a lot of examples because

Helga Saraiva-Stewart [00:03:53]:

I think it's just

Eliana Medeiros [00:03:54]:

so much easier to understand. And, Tiffany, people spend hours training how to do the bow on the boxes. The same at, Cartier. You literally spend hours. Why? Because you're selling magic. You're selling an illusion of beauty and perfection. So you we do a lot of training in house, then you have the partners. The partners, everybody that you work with, ideally, are an extension.

Eliana Medeiros [00:04:21]:

They can also sell. If people see the passion that they have with you and your product, even though they're only suppliers or other type of partners that you have, it's also a plus. You gain a lot of customers and prospects from it. They will give you insight because they love you and they get it, what you're trying to do. So there's also a lot of investment in training. I'm going to give you an example. At Natchez, for example, we used to travel to 1,000 plus airports. Imagine.

Eliana Medeiros [00:04:53]:

Wow. In some of these airports, we would fly once, you know, a year or once every decade. So what we did was for that, one of the things that I built was a welcome kit for them where we would send, at the times at the beginning was still the DVD, but we would send a package with the DVD with who are we and what did we mean, you know, and with little things that we had on board and kind of the experience. Because if you don't come from that environment, you don't understand. What you see is, oh, rich people, and this is why they do it. But, no, at the core, again, I go back. It's not about having money. It's about really looking for beautifying your life, having a better experience within your life.

Eliana Medeiros [00:05:42]:

Uh-uh. I just love

Helga Saraiva-Stewart [00:05:44]:

I I just love the way that you talk because it resonates with me so much, you know, that our buyers, they have so much choice out there, And it's really not that difficult nowadays to for competitors to eventually, you know, copy our features of products and services or even improve on the and offer more competitive prices. Absolutely. The experience of buying from us and how we even facilitate the buying process, how we understand our customer our customer's world. Because when I when I think about these retail luxury experience, I feel like the brand knows me. That's why I pick them. They're not trying to sell to everyone. They know me very well, and they know how I I want to feel and what I aspire and wish for. Why do you think that's important to to build, sellers at that level?

Eliana Medeiros [00:06:50]:

It's crucial. Again, if normally, the issue that you have and that I I seem to find with people is they look for being so you're so like the others, and you're usually so focused on because you're so like the others, you end up having to compete on price. Mhmm. That's right. Hardly have any differentiation. And look, if you don't have any differentiation, why should I pay more? So that's where it doesn't make sense to pay more. I'm gonna go for the cheapest because I get the same result, and I'm not losing money. So the difference comes from the excellence you can provide.

Eliana Medeiros [00:07:29]:

How do you differentiate yourself? Because once you are in the I call it the the in the middle. Once you're in that in the middle, there's nothing for you. But if you're able to go to the extremes, and the extremes can be you can either decide we're gonna be the cheapest. Right? Yeah. Think Lidl, think Aldi. I mean, that's the aim. Right? You're gonna get great quality at this price.

Helga Saraiva-Stewart [00:07:53]:

Yeah.

Eliana Medeiros [00:07:54]:

Nobody can beat us on this. Or and that is so hard because they have money to sell in volume. They're already big enough that they make their money anyway. But for most businesses, that's not the case. We live in an economy, a global economy economy that is based on small and midsize businesses. Right? So you have to think, how am I going to differentiate? And when you're going to differentiate, you need to get the people that understand that differentiation. Let me give you another example.

Helga Saraiva-Stewart [00:08:24]:

Please.

Eliana Medeiros [00:08:25]:

So I work with this client, and they had opened a regional, store, with the brand. And they were struggling a little bit with sales and getting people inside the door. And a simple thing that I said was just I mean, you are you have an amazing store in a residential commercial area. It doesn't get better than that because you have people that live here, and but you also have businesses. So people other people will come. Every time that you you probably, by this point, already know who lives here, because they come and walk their dogs and you see them parking and going into the building, and they were like, yes. We do. So my question is, why haven't you gone on outside every time you see those customers? Wave at them, introduce yourself, and give them a a sample or invite them to come in.

Helga Saraiva-Stewart [00:09:17]:

Mhmm. Mhmm.

Eliana Medeiros [00:09:18]:

But but you need to have this kind of people that understand the power of this. Because a lot in luxury is about relationship, exactly what you said. I remember you. You're not just a number. Right? And I think I told you this when our first conversation where I had so many clients, but when they would call me, they wouldn't even introduce themselves. They'd be like, oh, Ileana, you know, like, I knew them. And, really, it was because every time I interacted with them, I made a point of reminding of the last interaction, asking something about the kids, if they had kids, if the last trip was great or not, if they'd managed to close the deal, if they were foodies, did they eat something that they loved, you know, while they were there? And if they could teach me something, people love to share independence of how much money they have. They'd be like, oh, I tried this and I tried that and I had this.

Eliana Medeiros [00:10:18]:

So, I mean and I didn't I don't drink alcoholic drinks, but I would talk about wines. I say, oh, but is it good? And why is it good? And why is it different than than the other one? And they would explain and they say, well, but we know you only drink Coca Cola. Yeah. So you build that relationship by caring. And here's the thing about human and behavioral science. If you care about me, I will care about you because you value me. And I'm gonna spend the money anyway, so might as well that I go to a place where I know I'm special. And this is universal.

Eliana Medeiros [00:10:56]:

Look. I worked with the richest people in the world, as you know, Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, etcetera. And what was common to them is the saying that is common to people that I meet where when I go to the little store here in my house in Portugal across the street, everybody just wants to be seen for who they are. It's not if they have a lot of money or no money. It's just you as an individual. Do you value me? Am I worth it? So that's the kind of people that you need to have.

Helga Saraiva-Stewart [00:11:29]:

I I you know, one of the things that I find the hardest to work with when I'm working with corporates and business owners is I I invariably find that most they have a lot of information about their Yeah. Customers, you know, kind of the the market data per se. But they have even more information about themselves and their business and the quantitative side of their business and how they're performing with their customers. So this information tends to be very quantitative. Mhmm. But I find that there's so much qualitative information missing about our customers and our potential customers. And I I very much find that that's what makes that's what actually helps build relationship capital. Mhmm.

Helga Saraiva-Stewart [00:12:22]:

So if I can yes. I I know on average how much you might spend on x y zed a year, but what problems are you trying to overcome? You know, what trends are impacting you and your team or or your clients, right, your clients' clients? This type of you know, what results are you trying to achieve? So this this type of information is very much lacking in, I find, just from my personal experience, in organizations today, likewise, I find that the organizations that are most successful across the globe, they have a lot of this information. They thrive. They they build their business upon their knowledge, the the qualitative and the quantitative knowledge of their customers and clients. So, you know, if we were to drive, if we were to hire talent, and create a pipeline of sellers who can engage at this level and obviously aligned with the leadership and the culture of their organization. How do we go about building this army of amazing sellers that are linked to excellence? How can we do that? How can organizations out there and the leaders listening here do that?

Eliana Medeiros [00:13:45]:

Yeah. I would say it all starts with companies need to have a clear idea of who they are, what their brand represents, because that's the first point of then hiring the right people. Because let's be honest, once you have a big organization, once it's small, it's quite easy to get everybody on board and align. Once it gets bigger because you're hiring all the time and filling in gaps, what tends to happen is there's a loss of sight. Great companies don't do that. Mhmm. They usually are very focused on the recruitment. I was with Hannah, which is the, human resources, person for Apple.

Eliana Medeiros [00:14:34]:

And you meet Anna. I mean, she didn't even need to tell me that she worked for a big company. She's a star, naturally. So you see that the recruitment is really well thought of because she's brilliant. She's just a perfect Apple ambassador, and she never pushes the brand. But just how she behaves, how how she communicates, you know it's someone special. But you need to have that idea, vision, very clear of who you are. Because then what happens is you just hire.

Eliana Medeiros [00:15:09]:

And when you just hire, you're gonna get a lot of people. And I'm sorry. I'm usually quite frank at this. Most people I'm sorry. They just want to get on with it and do it. If you want excellence, you want people that are really committed, that want to do it, not because of the company, but because of themselves. They want to bring their full talent. They wanna see how much am I going to take from this experience, right, for me.

Eliana Medeiros [00:15:39]:

And, obviously, it will it will go to the company. I always say this. I don't have an issue when people say, oh, I really focus on driven, but they don't talk about the company. If they're really focused and driven and they're committed and they're aligned in values with the company, they're going to deliver for the company because it becomes a relationship where the two things are just a match. How how do you there?

Helga Saraiva-Stewart [00:16:06]:

How how do you think things get lost? Oh, so easy. Organizations?

Eliana Medeiros [00:16:11]:

That is so easy. It starts in leadership itself. And I can say this again because I have been in boards and I'm part of the c suite suite c suite. And, I mean, at the highest level, if you don't if you have a leader that's just focused on the numbers and short term

Helga Saraiva-Stewart [00:16:32]:

Yeah.

Eliana Medeiros [00:16:33]:

Again, great luxury companies tend to last a long time. You know? I will give you an example. There is this Italian company, Santa Maria de Novella, this brand. It's a brand. It exists for 800 years. Can you imagine a brand that exists for 800 years?

Helga Saraiva-Stewart [00:16:56]:

Wow.

Eliana Medeiros [00:16:57]:

I

Helga Saraiva-Stewart [00:16:57]:

love the name as well.

Eliana Medeiros [00:16:58]:

Right? And it was created by monks. I mean, Catherine de' Medici has a perfume. She's she asked them to do the perfume for her wedding. They still sell it today.

Helga Saraiva-Stewart [00:17:10]:

Wow.

Eliana Medeiros [00:17:11]:

Think about it. 1,000, what, 500, 300, something like that. Not even sure. But it's still sold today.

Helga Saraiva-Stewart [00:17:17]:

Beautiful.

Eliana Medeiros [00:17:19]:

So you work on something that you're gonna build long term. And for that, it starts on vision and leadership. And this is why people sometimes think of great leadership as nice to have. No. Great leadership is the beginning of something great for the business in terms of profitability, revenue, credibility. Then you go for recruitment. Mhmm. Once you recruit, training is everything.

Eliana Medeiros [00:17:47]:

Because as soon as people come in, you have to there's a saying where people say you have to when a calf is born, you breathe into them so that they get attached to you. Well, that's the onboarding. A great onboarding will do that. You know? People just think, oh my god. I've arrived.

Helga Saraiva-Stewart [00:18:08]:

Okay. People, listen. We have got some new best practices here for you and newcomers. You know, onboarding, breathing to them. I love that. You know, I'm never gonna forget this now, Eliana. This is Yeah.

Eliana Medeiros [00:18:21]:

But it's so important. And I go to I go to big companies, and some of them don't even have onboarding or have a unofficial onboarding. How can you do that? You're allowing anyone to say who your brand is. No. You're probably allowing somebody that doesn't even get it that's inside your structure telling the new one, oh, this is how it is. You don't want that. So, again, I like to always pick the Ritz because the Ritz Carlton, great hotel brands come and go, but the Ritz is always the one that when people select, they're always on the top. Right? They're always on the top all these years, and you now have Rosewood, 6 Senses, all of those amazing play brands hotel brands.

Eliana Medeiros [00:19:05]:

But when the clients are ranking, the the Ritz hotels always end up being at the top. Amazing. So at the Ritz, one of the things that the CEO when he was CEO, mister Hertz used to do was, mister Schulz used to do was really go to the locations and as much as possible, and he would always meet the new people. Again, if a CEO if I am starting to work in a place and a CEO comes to talk to me

Helga Saraiva-Stewart [00:19:38]:

Yeah.

Eliana Medeiros [00:19:39]:

I know it's something.

Helga Saraiva-Stewart [00:19:40]:

Yeah. For sure.

Eliana Medeiros [00:19:41]:

And this is underestimated. I remember every and I always do that when I'm working with teams and we're hiring. Once we select the the people, the first thing I ensure is that I have an individual conversation with the with the person where I reinforce the characteristics that made them they met that made them part of the team, that made us hire them. And I will always say, you are already excellent. That's why you're here. Now the only thing you need to do is to keep that and to learn more and to be the best version you want to be of that excellence. We will give you the tools. Yeah.

Eliana Medeiros [00:20:20]:

We'll support you. It's your opportunity. I mean, people just blossom with this because you're already giving them the framework. You're setting them at a high state, and then they just have to go. But, again, you need to recruit the right people. The the wrong people don't even get it. Right? I had people telling me, yeah, but I'm not gonna do more work. Well, I'm not talking about you doing more work per se.

Eliana Medeiros [00:20:44]:

I'm just saying work with excellence. Bring the excellence you already have.

Helga Saraiva-Stewart [00:20:51]:

I I my my pet hate word is mediocracy. It it always has been. And so, you know, when I am surrounded by people like yourself, you just you just feel different. You know? You feel so empowered and confident and assertive, direct to the point when you're talking when you're starting sales conversations. Right? And and people feel engaged by your knowledge of them and by your focus in them. This type of client centric value based approach to selling is really what's building these lasting relationships, but also, you know, eating away from the competition. Right? You drop the ball, and the barbarians at the gate are will get you. Right? Completely.

Helga Saraiva-Stewart [00:21:45]:

They will. They will. So, Eliana, we're kinda driving to the final few minutes, and I really want to, pick your brain Yeah. On how luxury designs customer experiences to engage with their top clients and prospects and grow business and sales. Can you help us with kind of giving some exam? Maybe we could copy some of them.

Eliana Medeiros [00:22:14]:

Yeah. I mean, so let me start with this. There's a lot of companies that are not luxury that follow the luxury brand values. And if you don't know, go and Google up because it's worth it, and you will get all those insights. If not, I'd also be delighted to share because I have a book that I've written for my classes, but it's not for sale. I actually have it here. Show us. Which is this one.

Eliana Medeiros [00:22:43]:

Oh, oh, upside down. Upside down. Upside down. Sorry? Like this?

Helga Saraiva-Stewart [00:22:48]:

Yeah. Oh, wait. No.

Eliana Medeiros [00:22:50]:

No. It was correct. Like this?

Helga Saraiva-Stewart [00:22:51]:

Oh my I'm seeing it, the luxury playbook. I'm seeing it, like, back to front.

Eliana Medeiros [00:22:58]:

Yeah. Probably because of the camera.

Helga Saraiva-Stewart [00:23:00]:

Yeah. I'm wondering if I can

Eliana Medeiros [00:23:02]:

And, really, what I have there is exactly what I explore is that, and I'm going to share with you. So you share with everyone one of my classes that

Helga Saraiva-Stewart [00:23:10]:

I do. Oh my gosh.

Eliana Medeiros [00:23:12]:

It's, in shorthand, it has kinda class on a podcast version in audio so you can listen, but very short. So think about it. Apple is Apple is not luxury, but uses all the codes of luxury to sell more. What do they do? In the stores, if you go in London I love the Regent, Street store. It is a perfect exam. There's so many people in that store, so many geniuses working in that store, and that store is always jam packed. So, really, the focus there is there's always someone available. That's the message, really.

Eliana Medeiros [00:23:50]:

If there or not is a different thing. But it always is about showing you there's always someone here for you. And people say, oh, that's a huge investment. Oh, by the price, then they can increase their margin. Because, again, value, if you have read influence, which I recommend to everyone to doctor Chaldine

Helga Saraiva-Stewart [00:24:10]:

know what you've

Eliana Medeiros [00:24:10]:

got. You know? Exactly. Value is perception.

Helga Saraiva-Stewart [00:24:14]:

Yes.

Eliana Medeiros [00:24:14]:

Give me something, and I will make the value for it. But I need information in queues. So Apple does it greatly. Universities like, Harvard and Yale, oh my god. They copy so many things from the luxury playbook. Scarcity, for example, the way that they have enough vacancies, but they reduce it so it becomes more desirable. And exclusive. And exclusive.

Eliana Medeiros [00:24:41]:

Because we all crave for the symbolism of being part of something special. Right. It's part of the human condition. So that's one another thing. And then what do we do in terms of selling? Normally, in luxury, what we want to tap into is desirability. Because desirability oh, so much better than loyalty and satisfaction. Because when I desire something, the price is just the mean to get to what I want.

Helga Saraiva-Stewart [00:25:11]:

How do I how do I build on desire?

Eliana Medeiros [00:25:14]:

Oh my god. Again, I go back to the

Helga Saraiva-Stewart [00:25:16]:

We need to read your book. I think that's it. I need to read that book. I need that book.

Eliana Medeiros [00:25:20]:

We need to see how

Helga Saraiva-Stewart [00:25:21]:

to get that book.

Eliana Medeiros [00:25:22]:

You, and I will send a few copies if you want to share with some of your readers. Definitely would be delighted.

Helga Saraiva-Stewart [00:25:28]:

Me. Oh, so listen. Can people reach out to you on LinkedIn?

Eliana Medeiros [00:25:33]:

Absolutely. Absolutely. I will be delighted. Again, I'm a huge fan of sharing the knowledge and as much impact as possible. So people should feel free. And I would be delighted to engage because I always like to learn with other people, and there's always different perceptions. It just makes you better.

Helga Saraiva-Stewart [00:25:53]:

And and we speak with you in English, in Portuguese. What other languages? And Spanish. And Spanish. Listen. Vallepreneurs, sales shakers out there joining us. I've got I've got to say bye. I mean, not 26 minutes are off. I'm I'm gone.

Helga Saraiva-Stewart [00:26:09]:

You know that, Eliana. You know that. Right? We're gonna have another event soon here in Portugal, and you are absolutely invited. So watch out, for more news on that on my LinkedIn page. But please please connect with Eliana on LinkedIn. She is a pot of luxury in herself, of Diorcia Diamond, and we loved having you here. Please come back and talk with us again, will you? Please.

Eliana Medeiros [00:26:37]:

I will. It was such a pleasure. Thank you so much, Helga, for making me feel so comfortable and for all the preparation and all the work that went into this. And also for today, for this opportunity, I'm so, so grateful. I really am.

Helga Saraiva-Stewart [00:26:51]:

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for joining us out there. We love you the most, and come watch us again next time. Until then, cheerio for now.

Eliana Medeiros [00:26:59]:

Thank you.

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