I am sure I can help, I have lived and sold in all three markets, but I don't get the question.ย Can you explain more what you are looking for?
Salespreuner
Big Shot
1
Regional Sales Director
Glad. Thanks . So if you're selling to either of these markets, what differentiates you from rest of your competitors while you approach prospects in these regions
Is it just Prospecting approachOr demo meeting dealing or what else?
Given that cultural differentiation is done
TheJoker
Fire Starter
2
VP of Sales
The biggest difference is going to be your GTM.ย Selling in the US is predominantly direct with some partners for fulfillment and systems integration if needed.ย Let's say 90% direct.ย This is because the US market is homogenous, so it can be done.
The biggest single difference; EMEA and APAC are mostly channel-led.ย Different cultures, languages, currencies, regulations, business practices make direct business very hard.
My experience says less than 30% direct in EMEA and less than 20% direct in APAC.ย Obviously, this depends on product and company, but in general, this has been my experience.ย In APAC, I only ever sell indirectly.
This can be a single tier or a two-tier channel model, with resellers and distributors and SI's and GSi's and consultants and referral partners.ย This is going to be a big help with prospecting and networking. Partners will have their in-house accounts; they will have access to target accounts and have local relationships.ย Value-added resellers and distributors can be enabled to do discovery and demos.ย In some cases, if your enablement is good, they will open and close deals without you.ย ย
Where you are engaging with the end-user, there will be a lot of confusion for your SDRs and AE's.ย Especially in APAC, but also parts of eastern Europe and MEA.ย No one will speak,ย you will be asking questions in silence,ย ย demos will get no feedback, your request to fix next steps at the end of a meeting will be ignored.ย Natural language tools, transcription tools, AI parsers all fail in the onslaught ofย
heavyย accents and weirdness that they haven't been trained on.ย Partners can help you navigate this, and so can some training.ย A good start for APAC is 'The Accidental Business Nomad', an awesome and funny book about an American coming to Asia to set up call centers.ย The cold-calling stories alone are worth the read.ย Outsourcing the SDR function can help in the short term while hiring your local team because they already know all the cultural traps.
Sorry, it was long-winded.ย It's a simple question with a complex answer, and that the above just scratches the surface.
Salespreuner
Big Shot
1
Regional Sales Director
Please dont be sorry. It was an eye opener with 360ยฐ clarity!
Absolutely ๐ฏ. Can agree with it all. Thanks again!!
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