How to use buyer enablement to launch in EMEA
One of the biggest traps for a CEO or CRO expanding into a new territory is to believe that product-market-fit in one country automatically transfers to another.
You’ll hear stories of failed launches into a new geography - “for some reason our message just isn’t landing.”
I’ve been part of two companies that have experienced this - one a SaaS product and one a consulting firm, where we really struggled again and again to build a successful business in new European countries.
Why doesn’t product-market-fit translate to new countries?
There are a few reasons why your product-market-fit won’t immediately translate to a new market:
Language - if you are a US CEO or CRO opening up in EMEA, then language has to be a big consideration. UK and Ireland are no problem, and the Nordics and BeneLux region are not so much of a problem either, but as soon as you start selling into France, Spain, Italy, or the biggest market - Germany, it is not enough to find people that speak English.
The majority of your potential users, administrators and technical support teams will not comfortably speak English, certainly it is not their first language - and therefore your documentation, your events, your contracts, your support teams will need to be in local language.
Without it - you just feel - distant.
Culture - EMEA is not one country. Europe is not one country. Even in many cases each country is not one country (Germany for example contains regions with different languages, cultures and public holidays).
Your HR collaboration platform might be flying off the virtual shelves in the US, but the way that workers and management interact with each other in each European country is very different.
You’ll want to go back to testing the market to understand if the business problem you fixed in the domestic market even exists in each new market.
Regulation - each European country is also subject to both EU regulations, and their own.
For example, GDPR regulates how companies process and control personal data that their website of application captures - placing responsibility on companies to only collect what is necessary and to give data subjects the right to find out what data is held and to have it deleted.
In Germany, Workers’ Councils are employee groups that have a say in what processes and systems are implemented that affect employees and the data their employers hold on them. If you don’t have the Worker’s Council on board your “committed” deal can be delayed or destroyed.
Understanding how your product might be affected by these local regulations and embracing them can influence your timeline substantially.
Team - when launching in EMEA a US company will typically bring over an experienced US sales leader as an EMEA GM. They will likely be based in London or Dublin, and bring over a core team of initial AEs, a Sales Engineer, and maybe an onboarding specialist or CSM.
Around this core team the GM can start to build out a local team, hiring in for language and location to support customers in the target markets, but you are unlikely to hire a local sales engineer in each country, and even if you did, they just wont have the depth of experience of your tenured US sales engineer.
How can buyer enablement tools help
Across these four challenges of language, culture, regulation and team you have a single Sales Engineer - who is no doubt very experienced with your product, but who doesn’t have the experience of the local language, culture and regulations - and they are just one person.
They can’t be in ten meetings at once, and when they are in those meetings, they struggle to build the rapport and trusted relationship that they did back in the US.
So you’ll want to figure out a way that you can scale your experts into new languages and cultures.
Side note: I remember when I led the EMEA sales team for a US consulting firm, we were in Stockholm to meet with Workday and talk about our plans for expanding in the Nordic region. “That’s all very exciting,” said the Swedish RVP, “but the reality is, after this meeting you will jump on the Arlanda Express back to the airport and we won’t see you for another three months.”
It was a vivid reminder to look at international growth from the perspective of your customers and partners.
Here’s five steps to using your buyer enablement tools to scale across Europe:
Audit your current buyer enablement tools
Create a list of the current buyer enablement tools that are working for you in your domestic market.
What do you have that is focused on top of the funnel problem identification?
Do you have maturity assessments, healthchecks, current state diagnostics?
Assess the gaps in culture and regulation
Consider the countries that you wish to open up in, and for each buyer enablement tool assess what might be different given the local culture and local regulations.
Are there different roles in this country’s buying group?
Are there different stages of a buying process in this country?
Are there different data security considerations that buyers focus on?
Are there different legal terms important to this country?
Are there cultural differences in contract length or pricing?
A good way of getting this qualitative information is to look for a happy US customer that has global offices in the country you want to sell in.
Ask them if they will introduce you for a relaxed conversation with their local colleagues, maybe over a meal, where you can really understand what is different in this market with respect to your category - cultural, regulatory, pricing.
Translate your buyer enablement tools and output reports
To help your potential buyers to internalise your buyer enablement tools and to share it internally you will need to translate them.
This doesn’t have to mean creating an entirely new tool, as the buyer enablement platform will allow a buyer to select their preferred language at the start and then guide them through a translated version of the assessment.
You can also create a translated version of the output report, also built off the same assessment.
Align your sales engineer with the local AE (or any team member with local language) and evolve the questions, answer options, and output report to take into account everything you have learned.
Having created your translated version, validate with your current customer’s local team.
Does it pass the buyer enablement test:
Is it easy to use? - translations make sense and only ask for readily available information.
Is it relevant? - the output is relevant to the local market
Is it useful? - the output helps the buyers with their buying process
Is it credible? - the output feels local, feels trustworthy - not a translated US report
Test and scale
If you are opening up in a new country you will have a local language AE. Use this AE to test your new buyer enablement tool with their early prospects.
If you’ve followed the process, you should now have a ‘digital’ sales engineer that your buyers can engage with to help guide them through the early stages of identifying a meaningful problem, exploring potential solutions and gathering their requirements.
As buyers travel through their process either to closed won or closed lost - speak with them and understand how your local language tool helped them (or did not) and use this feedback to improve your tool.
Promote your new local language tools through multiple channels:
Local website - if you have a translated website or landing page make sure your local enablement tools are visible.
Local partners - if you are signing up consulting, reseller or technology partners locally, make sure they have access to and have been enabled on your local tool.
Local events - as you attend local tradeshows or organise your own events run your tool in kiosk mode to provide valuable insight to potential buyers
Local SDRs/AEs - demonstrate to your local SDRs and AEs how using this tool can give them a local sales engineer in their pocket - useful for their outreach on email, social or phone.
Coach your AEs through how to consult their prospects through the output and when to bring your real sales engineer into the conversation.
Go local, go fast
So there you have a proven process to scaling up your technical expertise in local regions, as you expand your TAM and tackle a new geography.
And if you need any help defining your EMEA buyer enablement tools I’m happy to help.
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