D
D

DollarBill

Director of Sales - Financial Services

Executive
Good Citizen
Contributor
+2

Selling to Canadian vs US enterprises

Hey savages, is there anything more challenging than selling to Canadian corporates?

Anyone else notice it's significantly harder to close deals with them vs US companies? Feels like Americans know the game, will play, negotiate and sign a contract. Canadians love a POC, declare a vendor of choice, request a  new 90 day sandbox, negotiate price, then push +2 quarters. 

I'm a Yankee but I don't think I'm showing any favoritism here. Would love for y'all to check my sanity. 

Cheers,
DB


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22 comments

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SirAlex
Valued Contributor
8
Account Executive
As a Canadian seller, what I’ve found is that Canadian companies are usually 2-3 years behind the US in terms of adopting new technologies. I sell SaaS here and the biggest challenge I have with the Canadian orgs is their resistance to change even after you’ve shown them pain, ROI, value etc. They just come back and say we good…
jefe
Arsonist
6
🍁
Canadian companies are slow to adopt, but very sticky so they stay longer - which kind of feeds into the first point.
braintank
Politicker
4
Enterprise Account Executive
It's the Maple syrup
Gasty
Notable Contributor
4
War Room Community Manager
Hazarding a guess: Divorce rate is lower in Canada, is it?
Sunbunny31
Politicker
5
Sr Sales Executive 🐰
I do love my Canadians, but they do take their time. They are masters of due diligence. The great thing is, once they've decided, they don't want to leave, which is what takes them so long.

Or maybe it's because it takes so long to lick the poutine off one's hands after lunch, they just take a while to get through business.
EscapeArtist
4
Enterprise Sales Director
Yes. As a Canadian - who probably should be American, most of the answers below are accurate, but only in part.

Together they are the whole truth. Most Canadians are cowards. And in business they move slow, as a result of how conservative they are, and tend to take much longer to make decisions. It’s sad.

Theyre terrified of change, terrified of adaption, and slow to make decisions. As salespeople we call it sticky or loyalty once they do make a decision and acquire a solution, but the fact is now they’re just stuck with this new status quo - sometimes for decades - terrified to move on to the next superior product or solution.

With Canadians, the key is to call them on their crap and challenge early. Literally ask the question “what are you afraid of” and expend energy moving them down the field. Many are movable. Move them. Many are not, too buried in their own fear. Burn those leads and move on.
Jbeans
Opinionated
2
Director of Sales
Cowards is harsh dude
EscapeArtist
2
Enterprise Sales Director
Not at all
CuriousFox
WR Officer
3
🦊
It's all frustrating
Gasty
Notable Contributor
3
War Room Community Manager
The trick is to get 1 customer onboard for 5 years rather than 5 customers for a year each. Good for bookings, bad for revenue.
StringerBell
Politicker
3
Account Executive
Is your pricing on USD or CAD? I’m Canadian and sell in USD and it’s caused me problems at times with Canadian organizations.
jefe
Arsonist
2
🍁
My last company sold in USD but would just switch the CAD (same numbers) as a negotiating tool if we liked the prospect.
TomRice
2
Head Of Sales
The everyday "citizens" are indeed more polite and less disruptive culturally...the answer to your question is rather multi-variant though depending on your GTM motion (who are you selling to / what are you selling to them / and how are you selling / lastly...where, but we already know that answer)...absent those specifics the only real dynamic that sticks out and is in fact broadly applicable is the culture...that polite and rather intentional approach to avoiding conflict and friction translates in the field to an environment that lacks the sort of change agent / champion we experience in the states who is willing to create friction, push and pull people around, and leverage influence (that was likely established in the first place through doing a lot of the first two) to get the organization aligned around a business outcome they feel passionate about.

I've led teams and have been intimately involved in getting deals done with the likes of Telus / Rogers / Bell / D2L / Softchoice / Longview / and about 20+ downmarket tech companies...the high end Telus' and Rogers of the world took about 9-12 months longer and 6-8 more people who had to "sign-off" than their counterparts (Comcast / ATT / Cox / Charter) took in the states...largely a bi-product of what I described above, or essentially, the process of capturing consensus. Best thing you can do with that....plan your work and work your plan accordingly and reflect it in your forecast as such... expectations around ramp to productivity top down in the CAN market selling into whitespace (e.g. have not previously been in the pipeline) should also be adjusted - and if it's not, the org is setting up an environment that will incentivize reps to create unnatural buying experiences for the customer you pursue....and your win rate will suffer over the long clip without fail.
thedue
Valued Contributor
1
VP of Sales
As a Canadian, selling into Canada and the US, here are some thoughts:
1 -Most CDN businesses are very risk averse, and look to our drunk Stars and Strips Uncle George for market, financial or leadership direction. This makes us small (33 million CDNs = about the size of California), and worried. Right now, interest rates and inflation are at all time highs…. Some
see opportunity, CDN business clutch their purse strings! Reference also we are a bunch of new CDNs, mostly immigrants, who are always assuming we must hold and save.
2- Many companies rely on the US. Many US companies who operate in Canada, don’t really rely on the revenue from Canada. Imagine Uber saying we must win California, on the global scale or scene. We are a rounding error, and as such, those US companies want their CDN businesses to contribute exponential to Income. Don’t even get started on currency! Selling here may save you a few points on your FTE, but they also bring in 70/80% less just due to currency.
3- The other procurement rigamarol like sandbox, POC are just tactics. The real reason they aren’t buying is because of something up above = waiting for budget or shoe to drop, buying time, worried the CDN outpost could be folded like a lawn chair. Big CDN companies are likely to do this to mid/small caps, but will never pull in out with a Google, Microsoft or other US titan. They practice on the small guy to get their procurement jollies!

I’ve been drunk on maple syrup since 1991, so I may be jaded.

signed, Canadian Bro (Corps hockey player, inbred, poutine loving pal)
antiASKHOLE
Tycoon
1
Bravado's Resident Asshole
one is sorry and the other isn't
Corpslovechild
Politicker
0
Inbound Sales Manager
Either way, the maple leads are an embracement of a franchise.
Jbeans
Opinionated
0
Director of Sales
I’m a Canadian - sold to the US and overseas - much easier in terms of up front negotiations / make much quicker decision vs now selling locally /in Canada.

However -I will say- Canadians are typically less likely to drop/vendor switch as we/they are Very discerning crowd but loyal if you do it right. Owning your mistakes and making amends I find easier here than before . I also found that breaking bread with potential clients is not really a thing in my industry - where as in the US /overseas it was much more about that. Could be the industry but this is just my two cents.
Denali
0
Business Development Manager
If you think Canada is tough, try Mexico... You have 6 guys on every call, they all have four names (three first names and one last name), and none of them are decision makers.
Angusmacg
Valued Contributor
0
Territory Account Mgr.
I found that Canadian companies much prefer dealing with other Canadian firms. When I asked about why they typically just say that even though pricing may be cheaper worrying about imports almost negates that issue.
Angusmacg
Valued Contributor
0
Territory Account Mgr.
On a different note I’ve found that working for a Canadian mgmt team in the US is not good. The Canadians tend not to understand the US Market and put in place policies that make no sense in the US Market
sora
Opinionated
0
RevOps Automation Consultant
Like what if you don't mind elaborating
Angusmacg
Valued Contributor
0
Territory Account Mgr.
They separated the Salesforce into 2 groups Transactional and Pretransactional. The industry has not seen a separation like that and then they were scrambling to try to determine metrics for Pretransactional

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