Grab

It is well known that Asia's food and beverage industry along with the cultural acceptance of virtual kitchens and food delivery is fast-paced -- the opportunities are endless. Being a key player in this industry, Grab is positioning itself to be the market leader in key cities in the Philippines through its delivery platforms -- GrabFood, Mart and Express.

Our sales team developed a 1-year strategy to accomplish 2 main goals:

1. Acquire a minimum of 330 new merchant-partners per month
2. Reach 80% merchant parity -- measured through the number of competitor merchants becoming exclusive partners, and non-delivery partners converting to new clients

We achieved the business development plan in the first half of the year but struggled to keep the momentum in the second half. By the fourth quarter, sales started to decline. My team implemented several measures to accelerate acquisition. This is how we not only hit targets but exceeded them.

I guided a remote team of 21 Business Development Officers, spread out across 7 cities and 6 regions, to acquire merchants and successfully accomplish targets in each city. These were my major tasks:

• Weekly team huddle and reporting for performance updates which promoted accountability per member and better monitoring of actual vs. target count
• Weekly discussions with Grab's Operation Heads to set expectations, challenges, help needed and next steps per city
• Training and onboarding of team members to acquaint them with the software we use such as Salesforce, Slack, Trello, and Google Suite
• Set up timelines and deliverables for upcoming projects such as growth in expansion areas, the introduction of new verticals in the platform (GrabFood and GrabMart), and initiatives to close the gap between Grab's parity with competitors

Prior to my management role, I was a Business Development Officer which allowed me to learn the sales systems of the company from the ground up. In this role, I was able to over exceed my targets which I shared with the rest of the team through the following best practices:

• Lead generation through fieldwork in areas with high foot traffic, searches on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram, and referrals from existing clients
• Smooth onboarding through platforms like Salesforce and Trello
• In-person meetings with potential merchants to cultivate a healthy and transparent relationship
• 80/20 rule: A portion of my efforts went into reliable lead generation and building a strong pipeline month on month which almost always resulted in a consistent and successful turnout of merchant acquisition

Sales strategy can be approached in many ways. To tackle the challenging second half of the year, I had to go outside our typical sales approach to overcome the last quarter.

• Pushed for promotions with our merchant-partners
• Offered exclusive deals to capture our competitors' audience which assisted in achieving the 80% merchant parity
• Utilized social media to open new marketing avenues like being active in Facebook food groups in order to engage with merchants in our target cities