July 13, 2022
There are a number of differences between doing sales for a US-based company and doing sales for a company with its headquarters based outside the US. Here are the top 5 reasons it’s different to work for a global company.
1. You have colleagues around the world who bring a diversity of perspectives.
When you work at a global company, you’re working with global colleagues who bring a variety of perspectives. You can learn about new markets, new cultures, and new ways of doing business. Consider Cathy Slider, who lives in Kentucky and works for a Singaporean blockchain company. She has learned about Singapore culture from her job.
2. You have deep ownership and autonomy over the US market since you are the de facto expert on it.
As the only US employee or as one of only a few US employees, you will get to own the US market for your company. This leads to having more independence as you do your work. You won’t get a lot of questions or micromanagement from your colleagues in other countries. Others at the company will defer to you and trust what you do, which provides a great feeling of empowerment. If you want to do something, you can often just do it without having to ask.
3. You can have more work-life balance.
Because you don’t have colleagues on the same time zone in the US with you, you can more easily set your schedule according to what works best for you. You don’t have a string of meetings with colleagues throughout the day and don’t have to be available on Slack all day. This flexibility allows you to balance work and life, while also ensuring that you are most productive. This is beneficial for both you and the company.
4. You may have meetings at odd hours.
Because you’re in a different time zone from the rest of your team, you may need to have meetings early in the morning or late at night to accommodate time zone differences. For instance, India is 9.5 hours ahead of Eastern Time, so if you’re in the Eastern Time zone and working for an Indian company, you likely will need to have early morning meetings to accommodate your Indian colleagues.
5. You get to sell a product that’s new to the US.
Because the product you’re selling was built in another country, it’s new to the US. This has both upsides and downsides. On the upside, you get to build a new brand in the US and present an exciting new product to a market that may have never seen it before. You also may have less competition for your product than in densely-crowded industry spaces in the US. On the downside, customer education may be required, since US customers may not be familiar with the product. In addition, the company does not have name-brand recognition in the US, which means you’ll be fighting an uphill battle to get the attention of US customers. But the most important thing is whether the product is good, as David Reed, VP of sales at ReadMe, told Alariss during a podcast episode. If the product is good, you’ll be able to have strong sales growth.
If you want to work as a salesperson for a global company, sign up for our talent portal today. We can match you to exciting job opportunities as a US salesperson for a global company.
