July 25, 2022
When a US-based country manager is working for a global company, their employer might not understand how the US sales process works, so it’s important to communicate well with them. Here’s how a US-based country manager can communicate the sales process to their global company.
1. Be patient when speaking with your company.
It’s important for a US-based country manager to start with the assumption that their company wants to do sales in the US but probably does not know how to best do that. To that end, the US-based country manager should exercise patience when speaking with their company. The US-based country manager should also focus on educating their team about what they’re doing.
2. Explain that sales requires experimentation.
Especially for early-stage companies or companies in up-and-coming industries, the country manager should explain to the company that sales often requires experimentation to determine what works best. What form of outreach best works for prospects? How do you close the deal? The US-based country manager should explain to the company that it can take some time to see their sales process take effect.
Companies may expect immediate sales, but this is often hard to achieve. The country manager needs to explain this to their company. The country manager should also set expectations early on that it takes time to develop an effective sales process.
3. Tell your company when you need additional resources.
The US-based country manager should be comfortable telling their company when they need additional resources to support their efforts. Additional resources can include both more employees and sales software. Hiring more employees might be a harder sell to the company because it’s expensive. But a request for sales software can be easier since it costs less.
4. Provide more details around your sales process.
The US-based country manager should lean on the side of providing more details as opposed to less details around their process so that the company can understand what is going on behind the scenes with the sales process. These learnings can be helpful if the company has country managers in other countries who are seeking to improve their processes.
Providing more details to your company will also ensure that your company will have clarity that the country manager in the US is working hard, has a plan, and is doing what they can. As a country manager, especially if you’re having a hard time closing sales early on, you want your company to know that you’re committed to what you’re doing. Hopefully your company will not be doubting your commitment to the role. However, given that it’s harder for them to have oversight over your work due to them being in a different time zone and continent, you don’t want them to doubt your work ethic and commitment to your job.
5. Seek out best practices from the company’s existing experiences.
The US-based country manager should seek out the best practices and learnings that they can acquire from the company’s sales experiences in its home country or other countries. One of the advantages of joining as a country manager is that the company most likely has a sales process that is hopefully working in at least the company’s home country, if not other countries as well. The company may not initially offer up its best practices for product marketing and selling, but they likely have this information easily available if you ask for it. As such, you should feel comfortable asking for best practices that the company has learned in different countries. Relatedly, you should also tell the company that you’d like to meet the sales team in the home country and country managers for the company in other countries, if applicable. It’s very unlikely that the company is trying to hide these conversations from you, but the company may forget to facilitate them, especially if the company is a startup.
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