The world of hydraulics is not the simplest world. Broad expertise is a huge asset in this field of business and the only way to achieve needed expertise is to study, learn, and be curious. Our personnel has to know our products and the environments where they are used. That’s why our salespersons go through an orientation period.
The name of the guy in the picture below is Samuli. You may recognize him because we made a social media post about him during the last spring. Samuli started in the Dynaset Sales team in March 2020 but he had already some experience with Dynaset. That’s because he was a summer helper during 2019’s summer.
Now he works as a technical salesperson and he is responsible for the sales areas of Australia and New Zealand. On top of that, he also does customer acquisition from Great Britain and Ireland. However, like all of Dynaset employees, he started from the production line. In other words, he worked as an assembler for his first working month.
Working in a factory wasn’t a problem because Samuli was used to physical work. At the factory, there are many different product lines, and during the first month, he spent a short period in each of them.
– I started from the HPW [pump] line. You could say that every day I was getting introduced with a new product. Dynaset product line-up is so comprehensive that the orientation period was quite intense, Samuli tells.
As a business student, the technical side was something new. Samuli has studied business last nine years and at the moment he is studying business and project management in Tampere University of Applied Sciences. But, which were the things of the orientation program which stuck into Samuli’s mind?
– The variety of products and level of assembling. There are many things that have to be done before the product is ready for the customer. For example, especially the bigger HPW-pump models’ assembling has many things that you have to remember, Samuli summarizes.
When we are writing this, Samuli has worked as a salesperson for three months. But, what were you thinking during the orientation period?
– I wanted to get to the office as soon as possible. The desire was overwhelming. The orientation gave me a possibility to scratch the surface. There are so many products that it is basically impossible to know everything about every single product after one month. The learning curve is just that steep. There were things that I did during the first month that I couldn’t bind into the big picture back then. But during the past three months, I’ve had many light-bulb moments. Especially the valve production line was quite challenging during the orientation period but when I started to sell equipment that required special valves, many of the things that I had wondered did suddenly make sense, Samuli tells.
Learning everything in one month is basically impossible and that’s why we have to ask what Samuli has learned after the orientation period?
– I’ve learned many technical terms in English and also in Finnish. Also, I’ve learned a lot about hydraulics because Dynaset also has a nonstop education program about hydraulics. What comes to the area of sales expertise, the slowness of the sales process has been a surprise, Samuli tells.
I’ve learned many technical terms in English and also in Finnish. Also, I’ve learned a lot about hydraulics because Dynaset also has a nonstop education program about hydraulics
Samuli Vornanen, Technical Sales at Dynaset
The orientation period has given the basic foundation to the expertise of Dynaset personnel. On one hand, the program gives a huge amount of technical knowledge. On the other hand, it is much easier to go and ask things from the production workers when you know them. The period works like a glue that keeps the Dynaset team together.
Ongoing Learning Assures Expertise
As a cherry on the cake, the non-stop Dynaset education program makes learning a continuous process. Dynaset executive vice president Anni Karppinen summarizes the Dynaset learning culture:
– The higher level of expertise means that every single member of the Dynaset team can do his or hers job better. We don’t require knowledge in the field of hydraulics when we recruit personnel. Instead, we offer our own education program to our personnel. It is everyone’s advantage that the personnel at every level of the company has a high level of expertise because that way mistakes and other errors in our operations are caught before the products leave our factory. In other words, the customer benefits from the education programs because the programs make our products better.
It is everyone’s advantage that the personnel at every level of the company has a high level of expertise because that way mistakes and other errors in our operations are caught before the products leave our factory.
Anni Karppinen, Executive Vice President of Dynaset