Hector Montalvo, managing director of London-based marketing and sales firm Source Marketing Direct, was invited to speak at an international sales conference held in Lisbon on Saturday 24th August.
The sales conference, which boasted over 100 attendees from across Europe and the USA, was held at the 5-Star Myriad by SANA Hotels. The Myriad is located in eastern Lisbon, in the Parque das Nações district, alongside of the River Tagues. Held at the Crystal Myriad Centre, Myriad’s purpose built events and meetings complex, which is accessed by a bridge from the main hotel. The Crystal Centre has 7 rooms on the ground floor, 3 boardrooms, and 3 additional meeting rooms overlooking the river.
Hector Montalvo of Source Marketing Direct said: “The conference was excellent – I gained some valuable information from the other keynote speakers and make some interesting contacts with entrepreneurs from across Europe.” Hector Montalvo is an experienced public speaker; earlier this month Montalvo was selected to speak at a Business Development Event in London, and prior to that he hosted an entrepreneurship seminar in June and quality control meetings in both Manchester and London this May.
A successful owner of several businesses, Hector Montalvo’s subject at the international sales conference was entrepreneurship. Based in London, Source Marketing Direct has also opened branches in Hampshire, Scotland, Bedfordshire, the Midlands and the North East. Every year since 2009, Hector Montalvo has been awarded by suppliers for his outstanding achievement in driving sales, quality control and organisational growth.
Despite Portugal’s recent economic difficulties – the economy shrank by over 3% in 2012 and is expected to contract by a further 2.3% this year – Hector Montalvo of Source Marketing Direct believes that now is the best time to start fostering entrepreneurial talent in the country. “The only way for the country to grow itself out of recession is through the development of small businesses. Small businesses create jobs, which enables more consumer spending; through competition they drive the standard and quality of goods upwards, which makes a country more competitive in the export market,” says Hector Montalvo, managing director of Source Marketing Direct. However, Montalvo considers the biggest barrier to successful business growth is mindset: “I find that in a lot of Western countries – and I include the USA and UK in this statement – there is a sense of entitlement. Through conferences such as these, we are trying to change the mentality from ‘what is the government doing to help me?’ to ‘what am I doing to change my situation?’ This is why I am so passionate about public speaking; I want to empower people with the information they need to create their own future.”
Established in London since 2008, Source Marketing Direct is one of the UK’s fastest-growing direct sales and marketing SMEs.
This picture was put up on the big screen at this event to illustrate how close so many people get to achieving their goal but give up. Hector Montalvo went through the common negatives that we deal with in the industry and expressed the importance staying focused and to persist through all obstacles and challenges. What we are aiming for is closer than we think!