A lot can happen in a few months.

Starting as an Account Manager in the field of construction, with no previous experience from the field, can feel like a jump into cold water. Or, in my case, more like being thrown into a hole in the ice. But you know, us Finns consider that quite a good pastime!

Consequently, I’ve had to spend quite a lot of time outside my comfort zone in the past months. The first few months I literally felt as if my customers were speaking in a foreign language (I’m not even kidding). I think it was my third day on the job that I found myself using a diamond drill, with no clue whatsoever as to why it even exists in the first place. Thus, my message to you guys who are thinking of applying – Don’t worry if you don’t have experience from the industry. It might be a jump into cold water, but you will have all the support you need to paddle through, as long as you are curious and passionate to learn.

My first weeks consisted of product training, several van rides with experienced colleagues, a barbecue party at the office to kick off the autumn and a culture camp where we got to immerse ourselves into the Hilti culture. After spending three weeks at a basic training in Manchester, I already felt more comfortable with our products and services and was eager to get out into the field to work with my customers! To be honest, I still understand only a fraction of the products, applications and construction phases in general, but I’ve experienced amazing moments of success, especially when I’ve been able to recommend a product or a solution that has made my client’s job easier or faster. And I’ve learned that even though you’re sitting in the van alone, you always have a team around you eager to help with any weird question any time.

So, a lot can happen in a few months. You can learn to speak construction, develop a passion for the industry and make a ton of new friends! From now on, I will continue working with my customers, developing long-term relationships and striving to provide them with value adding products, services and solutions. Stay tuned for more moments to come!

Sincerely,
Sanna

1st Global Summit

What happens when you put 21 Outperformers in one classroom for a week? Super interesting discussions, lots of valuable feedback, hard work, diverse opinions and perspectives, tons of incredibly tight friendships and most of all, lots of fun!

At the start of November, Outperformers from all over the world travelled to the corporate headquarters in Schaan, Liechtenstein for a week long global summit. For many of us, it was the first opportunity to meet other trainees and to share our experiences so far in the program. For someone quite fresh like myself, it was inspiring to hear how my peers had developed in their different rotations. Moreover, the week included leadership training and tons of opportunities to discuss and interact with senior management – something that, in my opinion, really sets the program apart from many others. In order to not spoil the week for future Outperformers, I won’t elaborate on the content much further, but rather just show you a few photos!

Friends, hot chocolate and beautiful Zürich.

After an intense week at the global summit, our group headed off to Zürich to enjoy a weekend filled with good food, sights and time with each other. Now it’s back to business in snowy Finland, stay tuned for more!

Trainings

Coming from a business background, selling professional construction tools may feel a bit intimidating. To be honest, before I started in the job, my construction experience was limited to woodshop at school and building IKEA furniture. Needless to say, I didn’t first feel like the best person to advice people on which diamond drill or heavy breaker to purchase! Luckily, Hilti provides a lot (and I mean A LOT) of training for every new employee.

Last fall, I spent three separate weeks in our training center in Manchester gathering the basic knowledge needed to get a good start in the field. These three weeks were intense, including many practical lessons, which meant that I also learned a lot and was very eager to go to my first appointments to test my knowledge and skills. After the basic trainings were done, I was to practice the skills I had learned for around 6 monhts, before I would engage in a more advanced, trade specific training.

At the trade specific training, we took a deep dive into the building construction trade (in which I worked), looking at how buildings are built a well as what solutions we can offer to provide additional value, and of course spent a lot of time in the demo space using our products.

This training was a lot of fun, especially the day with our big ticket items such as the diamond drills, petrol saws and big breakers! This is how my feet looked after the training day! Sometimes you have to get a bit dirty, or more like soaked in concrete, on this job!

Even though we have these immense structured trainings at our training center in Manchester, we also do lots of trainings locally. When ever we launch new products, we have bigger trainings for all staff, but we also have trainings almost weekly with our team, focusing on one product, product line, or application. This really helps you learn on the job and ensures that you can always bring some value with you when you enter a jobsite!

All in all, don’t worry about the level of your industry experience, Hilti will ensure that you have all the tools to succeed!

Social project in Bosnia

I am at a loss of words to describe the experience we had in our second summit in Bosnia Herzegovina. We spent a week building houses for families in need in the area of Srebrenica. Although the history of the area is full of sorrow, the people we engaged with to build the house were amazing and brought me immense amounts of positive energy. Even with no common language, we developed strong relationships with the family moving into the house, as well as the local carpenters guiding us through the building project.

Together with our diverse group of Outperformers, it was an honor and privilege to engage in this project. At a loss of words, I will let the pictures below tell the story.

End of an era

The year in the field taught me much more about sales than any course at the business school. In fact, I believe that the opportunity to spend the first year in the heart of our business is one of the most valuable aspects of the Outperformer program. Sometimes, towards the end of the year, I had to remind myself of where I started to really grasp the magnitude of how much I had learned. After all, before starting at Hilti, my construction experience was pretty much limited to the assembling of IKEA tools. The year flew by very fast, but I think that I was able to build a solid understanding of what it means to work in the sales field internally, and of how we can best provide value for our customers externally. Whatever I find myself doing in the future, I strongly believe that this understanding will help me succeed.

The second year of the program consists of short projects, with the goal of gathering experience from and understanding of different functions at Hilti and of different markets globally. The first project is a 3-month operational project at home country HQ. For me, this meant the Finnish HQ at Vantaa (next year the HQ will relocate to Espoo). The goal of my project was to build a concrete roadmap for developing diversity and inclusion in the Finnish market organization.  At Hilti, diversity and inclusion is at the heart of our strategy, which made the project very interesting and business relevant. During the project, I interviewed dozens of people at Hilti all around Finland. Based on the interviews, I analyzed our strengths and development areas and made a suggestion of internal and external development practices. I presented the results of the project to our local leadership team, and concrete development steps were implemented based on my suggestions.

The second project is a 6-month strategic project at the regional HQ. For me, this means our regional HQ in Manchester. I started my current project here last week, in the Controlling team as part of our Finance function. But more of that later.