Is Coaching the New Frontier of B2B Sales Mastery?

Greg Getty loves his spreadsheets. Spending twelve years within sales teams, he routinely hit his targets by staying disciplined and organized compared to his colleagues. It wasn’t surprising that he rose up the ranks within several tech firms and found himself as the VP of Sales and, when the company expanded overseas, his role went global. It was at this point where something went wrong.

Case study summary here

Singapore’s 2018 Budget includes a new Enterprise Development Grant (EDG) designed to help firms internationalise. This is welcome news, but with today’s growing climate of global protectionism and fragmentation, it will take more than grants and tax breaks to help firms navigate overseas expansion in this post-globalisation era.

The Year of the Dog begins this week which means, among other things, this is the season when western companies fall over themselves by slapping zodiac animals on their products in hopes of appealing to Chinese consumers. Gucci dog purse, anyone? At the same time, digital payments in China continue to accelerate. Last year, the Chinese New Year tradition of ‘hong bao’ – where cash-filled red envelopes are given as gifts – saw 46 billion electronic transfers. Yes, billion.

Overseas business deals are part of the global landscape but often bring serious unintended disruption. Just ask Cardiff City, where foreign investment caused their soccer team to turn from blue to red. What happened in this Welsh town is a story about the challenges of investing abroad as well as the growing trend of Asian investment finding its way west.

How do you find sales people when the APAC region is so competitive? Is it a mistake to bring in your sales team from another country? How important is it to hire local? In this podcast, Kyle Hegarty, from Leadership Nomad answers the most pressing sales team questions when it comes to growing across Asia.

Congratulations! You’ve just been promoted. The company wants to take all that great work you’ve done with your team and repeat the success at the global level. You’ve got good instincts, you’re a “people person” and have a proven track record of getting results.

Selling across cultures requires a revised set of sales skills. Traditional sales processes including sales stages and how pipelines are measured may need to be reconsidered and adjusted. Sales methodologies – your approach and philosophy to working with prospects and clients – also may need to be adjusted based on different markets around the world.

Published in the Straights Times, this article explores the key lessons learned from global companies struggling to adapt in this new power-sharing environment.

This is Part 1 of a 2-part Globig Podcast Series about sales strategy and what you need to know about the Asia Pacific market. Globig’s guest is Kyle Hegarty.

One of the quintessential Disney rides from several of their parks is “It’s a small world.” As Disney continues its expansion overseas with new theme parks, movies, educational programs and all-other-things Disney, the company continues to provide a great on-going case study for how brands wrestle with the challenges of a world packed with different local and regional preferences and tastes. In many cases, it turns out it’s not such a small world after all.

Companies both large and small have global footprints in ways few imagined even one or two decades ago. While the geopolitical conversations across the world today are shifting towards what Singapore Finance Minister Heng Swee Keat called a more “inward-looking mood,” with Brexit and Trump’s populism, the business environment continues to globalize. Many businesses need to be global in both operations and mindsets in order to stay ahead of the competition and even survive.

In their attempt to break into the Chinese market, Victoria’s Secret seems to have been caught with their pants down. Their most recent fashion show in Paris last December was intended to win over Chinese shoppers as the company is in the process of opening their first stores on the mainland. But critics saw things differently. The Global Times called Victoria’s Secret “the latest international brand to rub Chinese consumers the wrong way with ill-conceived Chinese-inspired elements in its designs.”

For most of his big assignments away from Head Quarters (HQ), Leroy Chiao says communicating back to the main office back in Texas was one of his biggest challenges. He specialized in leading elite teams and they worked in remote locations far, far away from their organization’s hub. Communication was tough. The team back home didn’t always seem to understand the local environment where Chiao and his team had been sent.

Angela Merkel really doesn’t like Multiculturalism. As far back in 2010 she declared the idea a failure. Ever since, she’s argued against it. “Multiculturalism leads to parallel societies, and therefore multiculturalism remains a grand delusion,” she’s said in her direct, German way.

Congratulations! You’ve just been promoted. The company wants to take all that great work you’ve done with your team and repeat the success at the global level. You’ve got good instincts, you’re a ‘people person’ and have a proven track record of getting results.

A frazzled commuter talks into her headset during her morning commute. Her colleague on the other side of the world is standing outside a bar, desperately trying to hide the fact that he’s had a few cocktails. It’s 9pm where he is and he’s wobbling around the sidewalk keeping a respectful distance from the other people on phones doing the same thing. These two are waiting for their partner in London who’s running late from a lunch meeting.

Leaders of foreign companies are sweating more than usual here in equatorial Singapore. The country’s Ministry of Manpower (M.O.M.) has been turning up the heat, demanding firms massively increase their local hires for senior management positions. Regulations are coming, they warn. More foreign hires will no longer be allowed.

I once sat through a lecture where the teacher explained that people only retain about 20% of what they hear from a class. I can’t remember the rest of his talk, so his story checks out. One of the biggest headaches sales leaders face is how to get sales training to stick with their sales reps. After making real investments in sales training, it’s frustrating to watch 80% of the material vanish after your team walks out of the classroom.

Here in Singapore, you often hear these comments from business leaders: “I walked on to my sales floor and could hear crickets chirping.” Or, “I thought I was in the accounting department it was so quiet.” Whatever the remark, the point is the same: A noiseless sales team means people aren’t selling. You don’t need a fancy business degree to know this means trouble.

Companies with sales teams both big and small should have a sales methodology – a system sales reps follow in order to win deals. There’s a lot of options out there. Some of the bigger, more widely used, methodologies include SPIN Selling, Bosworth’s Solution Selling, Miller-Heiman’s Conceptual Selling, or Sandler.

Years ago I found myself having drinks with former President of a large Hollywood movie studio. I was way out of my league and did what you’d expect, I drank too much and pitched him a movie idea that was partially made up on the spot. I wanted to bring the biggest names in Hollywood, China and Bollywood together in one epic global romantic comedy designed to appeal to billions of moviegoers around the world.

Are you a moron or is your extended family a bunch of idiots? It turns out insults can tell a lot about where people come from. And, believe it or not, global insult patterns can be applied towards strengthening multi-national teams and even deciding what to sell and where to sell it. Really.