This Is How I Market Companies and Lead the Rimini Chapter

A LIFE IN COMMUNICATION AND MARKETING: SABRINA WEISSBACH, THE CITY'S BAA CHAPTER LEADER, TELLS ALL ABOUT IT

 
There is a common thread in Sabrina Weissbach's career: communication & marketing. She graduated from Bocconi in 1997 and later became head of the Rimini Chapter of the Bocconi Alumni Association (BAA). Sabrina has recently become a self-employed professional, by joining a consultancy, Geocomitalia, founded by some of her former classmates at Bocconi, which supports companies in the search for new customers. Before that, she spent fifteen years working at the communication and marketing function of FOM Industrie, a machine tool manufacturer.
 
➜ What does it mean taking care of business communication?
The machine tool industry is very much a male environment: in the company, there were only 18 women next to 500 male employees. But communication is a female thing and therefore, after an initial phase of mistrust, a relationship of great confidence and trust developed with my employer. Those were the years when the firm morphed from a family company into an industrial corporation aggressively pursuing internationalization. In ten years, employees and sales have practically doubled.
 
➜ A turning point for the company you worked for. What were the challenges of that job?
Establishing the Made in Italy brand in the engineering industry as competitive with the Made in Germany alternative: that was our challenge every day. Italy has companies of excellence in the metalworking industry, which are perhaps less known than those operating in fashion & luxury markets.
 
➜ What is effective communication made of?
It's based on consistency and content innovation. Today, information comes to us in large quantities from multiple sources. But it is what's novel that strikes us. What I've always been looking for is quality in content, rather than focusing on quantity. Content must be selected and oriented. Then, engagement activities are needed.
 
➜ In the end, marketing communication must drive sales.
And this is precisely what my professional life is a about: I am a communicator and a saleswoman. It's a combination that has evolved over the years. Today, traditional sales, where I show you a product and we sign a deal, don't exist anymore. What we have today is a journey that starts with deepening the knowledge of the customer, continues with a whole series of engagement events, and only at the final stage ends up with the sale.
 
➜ Your propensity to network with people has also led to your current role as Chapter Leader for the Rimini Area. What activities do you organize for BAA members?
Lately, many activities have been dedicated to careers and marketing, compared to finance-related issues that featured prominently in previous years. But not only that: in June we organized an event on energy efficiency, visited the Alberta Ferretti company as well as the rehab community of San Patrignano, and we did a seminar on personal coaching held by Ivano Scolieri. On September 8, we will organize an event to coincide with the Motorcycle Racing Grand Prix at the Misano Circuit.
 

by Andrea Celauro
Translated by Alex Foti