In the same year as our company’s centenary, we are celebrating 25 years since the creation of the Business segment, when more than 500 salespeople were recruited through a totally innovative selection and training process. Even today, many of them are still part of the staff not only in the sales departments, but also in other areas of the company, contributing the value and customer knowledge acquired through their years of experience. This is the story of how selection and training can transform a business model to excellence. This is the story of the ‘Plan Pivot’ through the testimonies of some of its protagonists.
April 1999: A unique opportunity at the dawn of the new millennium
The year was 1999. The euro was beginning to circulate, Michael Jordan was saying goodbye to the courts (for good), and Aznar was re-elected President of Spain. The General Telecommunications Law opened a new chapter in the history of communications, while series such as ‘7 vidas’ or ‘¿Quién quiere ser millonario?’ conquered the screens. In this context of changes and opportunities, a group of young people, just out of university, were preparing to take a decisive step in their lives.
Mayca, Olga, Javier, Jero, Raquel, Quique and María, each with their own dreams and ambitions, shared the same concern: a job that would allow them to develop professionally and build their future.
Like every weekend, the salmon-coloured pages of the newspapers are filled with job advertisements that people mark by framing them with pens to reply to by ordinary mail during the week (those pre-LinkedIn times!). And then something catches the eye of our protagonists. It’s a somewhat mysterious advert in which Telefónica is looking for young graduates to join its staff, simply send your application to a post office box along with your CV. There are no requirements other than being a graduate, regardless of speciality, and being interested in the commercial world.
Olga didn’t waste a second, although she was working, she had always visualised herself in a big company and this was her chance. She didn’t hesitate and after a few days they asked her for an interview and indicated that she would continue. Maria, attracted by the possibility of travelling, also applied. Javier, recently hired as a financier, saw this opportunity as a new challenge. And so, one by one, the young people passed through the various stages of the selection process, coordinated by the consultancy firm Krea, from among more than ten thousand candidates throughout Spain.
The interviews were different from anything they had experienced before. Instead of conventional questions, they were given challenges and simulated situations.
‘In one of the sessions they made you sell something’ – recalls Raquel – ’And I remembered when I was little, that I loved to accompany my father, who was a jeweller and a craftsman, and I often went to private homes, and I loved to see how he sold a piece of jewellery. Something that is not easy at all because it is not something you need as such. And when they told me, sell me something, whatever you want, and I said, I’ll sell you this ring’.
Session after session, it seemed like a video game in which you were passing screens, without thinking beyond the naivety of youth, as Quique told me: ‘They asked me, ’What do you think about joining Telefónica and going to Segovia for induction? ‘To which I replied ‘I know that with Telefónica all the customers will open the door for me, I will have an important opportunity, and if Telefónica tells me that tomorrow I have to be in Segovia, then tomorrow I’ll go to Segovia… and then they said to me “You’re already in Segovia”. Of course, I was a bit paralysed and the only thing I could do was to say ‘I think they eat well’, and that was my entry into Telefónica’.
It didn’t seem like a big deal. If they were interested, they would call you. Maybe it was your father who took the message, because at that time your only point of contact was the landline at home. Other times, they would give you the news live and direct. Javier recalls the moment: ‘From the first moment you could see that it was something different, that it was a strong bet, and that it was a unique moment. But it’s true that we didn’t know what it was going to mean for the future’.
The venues for the training
Segovia and Barcelona were the stages chosen to forge the future of hundreds of young talents. After passing the first stages of the selection process, Telefónica’s aspiring sales representatives were immersed in an intense and transforming experience. Isolated in hotels, far from their homes, they faced intensive training designed to mould the best salespeople in the country. The rules were clear: three weeks of intensive training, far from any distractions. An explosive cocktail of theory classes, sales simulations and continuous assessments. The objective was twofold: to acquire the necessary technical knowledge and to develop the soft skills needed to succeed in the competitive world of sales.
Thus, our protagonists arrived at their respective hotels with a suitcase of clothes and an enquiring mind. The lucky ones, those in the first week, had a single room. Those in the second week had to choose a roommate. I didn’t want to ask where those in the third week slept, but one thing is clear: you have to be very sure of the method if you put a group of 100 or 200 young people between 20 and 30 years old in a hotel 24×7, with the aim of selecting the best ones to create a new corporate culture and train them for their future.
Mayca, one of the participants, remembers the first day clearly: ‘We were given an ISDN manual, with the cover page reading “Integrated Services Intelligent Network”, and we were told we had an exam the next day. It was a shock, but also a motivation. We organised ourselves into study groups and supported each other. Luckily there were some engineers in the group and together we managed to do it.
The atmosphere was energetic. The days were filled with lectures, technical diagrams and group dynamics. The study hours were intense, but there was also room for fun. Playful activities were carefully designed to foster team spirit and create bonds between the participants. ‘It was like being on Big Brother, but in a corporate version,’ Quique jokes, ’everything was magnified, both your abilities and the relationships we established between us. It was very stressful, but also fun because we all had the same desire. María, another of the participants, recalls a rumour that spread among the candidates: ‘They said there was a mole among us, someone who evaluated everyone else. In the end, we discovered that it was a rumour that was repeated in all the groups’.
Training was not limited to technical knowledge. Skills such as persuasion, negotiation and objection management were worked on intensively. Role-play was the main tool to put what was learned into practice. Participants became expert salespeople, capable of closing any sale. And all from the experience with others, as Raquel points out, ‘It was inevitable to have that feeling of pride of belonging, surrounded by such capable people who supported you, challenged you and allowed you to learn’.
But it was not all rosy. The pressure was constant, and continuous evaluations marked the farewells and drop-outs of some of those initially selected. However, for those who persevered, the rewards were enormous. Telefónica was looking for a very specific profile: young, enthusiastic and disruptive salespeople, capable of revolutionising the SME market. And this programme was the perfect formula to find them.
And so, amidst the stress, fun and uncertainty, the young talents were forging their future. Three weeks later, they were leaving the hotel transformed. They had acquired technical knowledge, developed social skills and, most importantly, found a new purpose. They were Telefónica’s new salespeople, ready to conquer the market. ‘The only thing they didn’t prepare us for,’ recalls Jero, ’was how the SME customers reacted when we called them telling them we were from Telefónica and that we were coming to see them, because we were changing the rules of the game.
PIVOT (Programa de Incorporación de Vendedores a la Organización Telefónica) to the streets
After the intense training at the hotel, our protagonists faced the acid test: going out onto the street and applying everything they had learned. The protective bubble was burst and they were immersed in the reality of the market, an unknown and challenging terrain.
Raquel remembers clearly: ‘I will always remember, that I would go with my printed list of clients from district 006, where the telephone number and address appeared, and to the street. It was something they were looking for in the Pivot: courageous, restless, questioning things, go-getters… And that was the profile that was selected and strengthened with the plan. Everyone is the way they are, but in general we all had and have a specific profile, which you then manage and learn, but daring to enter is either you have it or it’s very difficult’.
Jero, for his part, laughs, recalling his first visits: ‘My first client was Metro Goldwyn Mayer – imagine that, even though it only had an ISDN line in an attic! And after that, a ‘Biological Association’ that when I went to visit them I couldn’t get there by car because it was in the middle of a pine forest, so I left the car and I, with my suit, my tie and my papers, walked over and the client attended me, in a stable, with his boots full of what I hoped was mud, milking a cow. That was my customer because they had three analogue lines on that farm…’.
And so, one by one, Plan Pivot’s sales reps were faced with crazy situations and a wide variety of customers, attacking that rediscovered SME segment. It was a completely different approach to customers from what had been done before. SMEs were not used to receiving visits from Telefónica sales representatives. It was a new world for them, and for the new sales people as well. ‘We broke a lot of ground,’ says Maria. “We literally got our hands dirty, we shared their problems and their joys. It was a transformative experience.
Teamwork was essential. The more experienced ones guided the novices, creating an atmosphere of collaboration and continuous learning. ‘Company culture is built through personal relationships,’ says Javier. And so, between customer visits, team meetings and celebrations of achievements, our protagonists forged their identity as Telefónica salespeople, feeling part of Telefónica itself.
The newspapers of the time reported the statements of the then director of the Business segment, Manuel Echanove, who pointed out that the results for the second half of 1999 had grown by almost 15%, largely due to the incorporation of these Pivot salespeople.
The big family: ‘I survived Pivot’99’.
‘Once Telefónica, Always Telefónica’. This phrase, so simple and yet so profound, sums up the spirit of our company and how it was experienced during those intense three weeks of selection and training. During that time, bonds were forged that transcended the workplace, friendships that would endure over time. The paths of each would take different directions, but the bond created in that hotel would be unbreakable. ‘It was three weeks stuck there, three kilometres from the nearest road. It was hard, but it also had its rewards,’ Quique confesses. ‘I was in a single room because the one I was going to be with failed, and I was very lucky that in the room opposite was the one who was going to be my wife. In fact, her roommate is the godmother of one of our daughters. That, those links, were also part of Plan Pivot’.
For María, Telefónica was much more than a job: ‘It was the start of a new life. It has given me friends forever and has allowed me to grow both personally and professionally’. And the fact is that, beyond numbers and objectives, Telefónica has always been a company with a strong human component. ‘Innovation has been around for 100 years and has a direct impact on the lives of the people who form part of this company’, says Mayca.
Jero puts it clearly: ‘I was a telephone operator before becoming a telephone operator, I gave up other jobs because I wanted to be part of this big family. In fact, one of the greatest joys that my mother had more than my father, who was a telephone operator, was that I was a telephone operator. And now that my son is studying telecommunications, nothing would make me more excited than to be able to belong to this family and see what the future holds for Telefónica’.
A small step for PIVOT, a big step for Telefónica
One million pesetas, an investment that in the long run turned out to be a seed from which a transformational project sprouted. PIVOT, the training programme that revolutionised the way Telefónica sold, left an indelible mark on the company and its employees. It was not just an onboarding process, it was a paradigm shift. It was a paradigm shift from a traditional sales model to a consultative one, where the salesperson became a trusted advisor to the customer. ‘It changed the engine while you were on the move,’ recalls Raquel. Continuous training was key to keep up to date in a constantly evolving sector.
Therefore, one of the pillars that underlined the PIVOT plan was the importance of teamwork. ‘Understanding which door to knock on within the company’, as Mayca says, was fundamental to offer a comprehensive service to the customer. From the generalist sales person to the technical specialist, everyone was a key part of a perfectly tuned machine. It wasn’t easy, but those first PIVOT participants became pioneers, agents of change. ‘After a while you realise that it was unique, it was pioneering,’ says Quique. That group of talented young people, with a hunger for knowledge and a desire to do things well, laid the foundations for a new business model.
The impact of this initiative is still felt today. ‘If we’ve been around for 100 years, it’s for a reason,’ Jero says. The company has evolved, but the spirit of PIVOT is still alive. Continuous training, teamwork and customer focus are core values that have become ingrained in Telefónica’s culture. ‘Specialist Sales is necessary because the generalist cannot cover all the knowledge’, says María. Specialisation is key to offering a quality service to customers, and it is essential that all teams work in a coordinated way to achieve common objectives. Javier, for his part, underlines this spirit of collaboration and continuous improvement: ‘There is no channel conflict, but rather teamwork that collaborates hand in hand to help the client’.
PIVOT was much more than a training programme. It was a transformative experience that left an indelible mark on the company, proving that investing in its employees is the best long-term investment. 25 years later, Telefónica continues to be a benchmark in innovation and talent. In the end, the success of a company lies in the people who make it up.
Special thanks to our protagonists and Pivots who have shared their stories with me: Javier Vizcaíno (SME Director Telefónica Empresas), Mayca Rebollo (Commercial Acceleration Director, Global B2B), Jerónimo Gallego (GGCC Sales and internal teacher), Raquel Lain (Sales Enablement and Demand Generation Manager in the Go to Market area, Telefónica Tech), Enrique García Sanchez (GGCC East, Telefónica Empresas), María Alonso (STAM Inditex, Telefónica Empresas) and Olga Leal (Priority Attention and Support, Telefónica Empresas).
