European Expansion Needs More Than a US Sales Playbook

00:00The opportunity to expand into Europe is huge for ambitious tech companies, but it's so easy to become unstuck when you get decisions around who you hire, which go to market strategy you use, which playbooks, which regions, and how you do it. And it's so easy if you've got blind spots to make those mistakes. By the end of this video, you'll have heard from six of the best tech leaders who've worked at companies like HubSpot, Mytel, Udemy, as well as businesses that have grown a size of Splunk. And we got them on the podcast to talk about their experience of breaking into EMEA, what they learned, the mistakes they made, and most importantly, what they would do differently with the benefit of hindsight. So if you are looking to expand into Europe, it's absolutely worth it. But don't do it until you watch this video. Enjoy. Why is this topic of expansion into the European market one that's interesting and fascinating for you?

01:01Looking at moving into Europe is both mechanically different in terms of structure, but you have to be prepared for a completely different experience when you actually, even if your model is successful, it's a totally different journey. So from a very high level, the US is fast success, high appetite for risk if there's innovation attached and is somewhat homogeneous because it really is a nation of states. Europe may look like that. It may have a single currency. It may have what may appear to be federal laws, but overarching ways of doing business. And it may look to be a single nowadays, but unfortunately, it's actually more of a continent of countries than, you know, the structure that the US has. So where wrong is they assume that they can land in one place, service the rest. see the fast growth that they might get if they've opened an office in New York or California or somewhere like this.

02:01And then they just, it doesn't materialize. Europe is the slow money. So Europe is the place where you have to build the trust. You have to build your brand, your name, you have to become, let's, I wouldn't say entrenched, but you have to be, you have to be sort of trusted by the companies that you're going to be selling to. And then you'll build what I look at as slow money. Positive of that though, is that slow money doesn't leave very quickly. So in the same way that moving to the US, you might achieve success very, very quickly. Those companies will be great. You'll be thrilled and you'll look to expand elsewhere. Those companies will equally turn away from you if someone else has a better offer and you have a much higher churn risk in that space. So to answer the question, very different, still very worthwhile movie to Europe. It's a slower continent for numerous reasons, cultural ways of working and indeed regulation as well. But just be prepared for a totally different

03:08Journey While the States is this collection of 50 states, they're all pretty similar and they all have, despite the odd legal difference here and there across states, for the most part, they're pretty consistent. Europe is a group of different countries with different cultural norms, with different ways of doing business, with different legal constraints, with different individual profiles like salespeople are very different and per country. it's conversations that I'm having is just setting the right expectation. Know that, yes, the systems and processes that you've rolled out in the States, for the most part, will transition pretty well across. And the different hubs, the inbound engine that worked really well in Boston translated really well across Europe. and the same with the sales process. But those cultural nuances are just something that you have to take head on. And now you can ignore them. And we probably did for a while in some countries, but we didn't accelerate as much as we wanted to in those countries, you know.

04:30And it wasn't until we took them head on that we got over those obstacles. We built trust with the market. And we were able to accelerate. A good example of this was Germany. A lot of discussions that we had in a typical sales process, we would speak about data security in a legal discussion that was kind of at the back end of the sales process. This didn't land too well with German prospects. They wanted to be very clear on what data security and what our stance on data security was within the business. and where we were with that, where we were headed with that and what our plan at that time was for GDPR. And it was really important to them. So we shifted that conversation that was at the back end of the sales process to the front end of the sales process. Yeah. And it changed everything. know, revenues increased by 15 to 20 percent in the following quarters. like just little small differences like that are just things that you can't avoid, but actually addressing them is like significant impact to the overall business.

05:49But in your presentation that you, that you built this pitch, what were the things that you highlighted about yourself that made you a good fit for the expansion into a mirror? One of the biggest things that I thought I would bring to like an EMEA sales org or could help enable was the Silicon Valley DNA and the sales chops that I had developed over the course of working with variety of companies in San Francisco. And I found that to be actually completely bull. When I got here in Dublin, I found some of the most talented salespeople I've ever worked with and that had the strongest fundamentals. And those were the things that I thought I was going to bring to a sales Okay. team in EMEA. So that was one that was definitely a mistaken assumption on my part. I think that the sales ecosystem in EMEA is just as strong. if not stronger than the US. And so that was definitely a surprise. think I do benefit compared to my peers in EMEA by being able to maybe connect in a different way with some of the leadership in the US.

07:20And maybe it's a confidence thing or just the way you would talk to someone. of your country with your background and experiences and probably a lot of shared connections and things of that Yeah. nature. Yeah. I think I do have maybe a slight advantage to some of my peers when it comes to connecting with people back in the US. Yeah. And that, again, was a part of the presentation. was like, I'm one of you and you can just transplant me into a me and I get it. I think again, there's nothing all that different about the sales cultures and DNA of Silicon Valley versus London or Dublin or Barcelona, for example. So let's get into the mistakes then. What's the f first mistake that people should be aware around reaching enterprise scale?

08:20Yep, the the the first mistake is the copy paste go to market. I think the biggest most holistic mistake of of all is copy paste go to market. And what I mean is that US companies they force those that mindset go to market strategy and tactics into and and the first place where American companies land is the UK, which is still fine because similarly The language, some of the culture, easy to land, easiest landing place. And that predominantly works. But then when you you so you take the US, you copy it into the UK, it works. You get some big deals we discussed later. And then you you move it to the next one, which is Germany, the biggest economy afterwards, and and then everything dies. Because you can't copy paste an American playbook with American culture and the American mindset into Germany. And when you start Trying to go into the Nordics and France and S you're all over the place, as you mentioned, if you hear the heroes, it doesn't it doesn't fly.

09:26It just doesn't fly. That's aware because cultural differences. the customer processes from from data residency that addressed differently. it's so many topics that one size does not fit all. That I think that's the first and foremost problem and mistake US company is doing. trying to cover pace that go to mar go to market strategy and mindset. and one of without mentioning specific companies names, I remember that in in one of the companies we had the new CRO came from the US and the top managers, the DMIA management, some of them went to meet him in in in the UK office. And then funny stuff I'm laughing because I have I have the visual and finally I was with him in the in the in the meeting room. And there was a very big map of of me and you were behind me and he said, What's your territory? And I I stood up, I want and I I showed him the pla he said, I didn't no, no, not ever what's yours? And I said, That that's mine. And he was like, Holy shit, how can it be? I said, You you copy paste your spin of control, you s you copy paste your your quota per person, you you copy paste different things that doesn't fit. some regions in Europe and just doesn't you didn't even get the feedback. And he was shocked. That was was fun funny moment. He was shocked. He was like, okay, that's that I understand. Thank you very much. so it's it's critical critical moment and understanding that those messaging and go to market needs to go both ways. So obviously you have the corporate needs, the corporate numbers, messages and play books and everything. But without proper understanding and customization, to align it to to customers, to partners, to the sales force, to the mentality, to so many different things, it won't scale it won't work.

11:26You you're gonna as you said, you're gonna hit the iceberg and you're gonna drown because until you realize what's happening, you're already down underwater. We just want to get a salesperson, you know, maybe find one in Dublin or maybe find one in London or maybe in Amsterdam. And then we'll, know, we'll build a team around them. Yeah. So like this idea of like hiring a single salesperson to break open a whole region or a whole continent. What's your Yeah. Perspective on Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's, it's such a funny one to start with, isn't it? Because that is often the assumption. If you're in the States and you think, right, we're going to open the UK, which is normally the landing position for obvious reasons. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure you've seen it and I've definitely seen it and corrected it a few times where they've just hired an AE and it's literally, sink or swim time. for that individual. So I think, I think that was one which really stood out to me as being just a mistake. I'm going to say it straight out there. I would advise anybody to absolutely avoid that at all costs. Okay. So here's why. Okay. You've got to put yourself in a position of that individual. All right. If particularly if it's a US company, even at series A, they're going to have, you know, 25 to 50 people already that will have some customers already.

12:58They'll have some kind of motion product market fit. And you have to put yourself in the mind of that AE who has probably think they've won the lottery by getting this amazing job should it happen. But then you sort of stop and think about, what does that mean for that, for that person? You sat there in probably your home office because you're not going to hire an office for one, eight, that's for sure. You're 5,000 miles away from all of your colleagues. And whilst we've all worked remotely and with US teams for a number of years, it's that sort of loneliness and kind of solo commando effort that really makes it really, really hard. So I actually saw it and walked into it where the company had done that before hiring me as a leader. And we just had to correct it immediately because Thank you. What tended to happen... I'd love to hear if this is the same as what you've seen is people would make a little bit of success. They get very, very excited, but then very, quickly they'd realize that they don't actually have that support day in day out. They don't really have the ability to replicate what's going on in the homeland. Okay. and. Yes. I appreciate things have got a bit easier with sales intelligence tools and all sorts of stuff right now, but it is so hard. to break a region as an AE. And I think I would always advise people to do it the other way around. Hire a leader. It doesn't have to be the most senior leader known to man, but hire a leader and then get that leader to build the team from underneath them. It tends to work so, so much better.

14:42Things that I I have struggled with in my own career is when you kind of go, right, in in the US we have a CEO. a CRO, you know, we've got a sales le chief sales officer, chief marketing officer, chief product officer, and a and a chief exec. At that kind like forget about finance and HR and everything, everything else. That kind of very, very classic model is you then go, right, we're gonna expand into into UK, Europe, whatever. It's like we need a UK or European sales director or that will then report into the global chief sales officer. We'll get a marketing director for Europe and they'll report into the chief marketing officer. I and to me, that way madness lies. You are you are guaranteeing that there's going to be infighting about the wrong sort of stuff. And I've seen this happen. I've experienced this working in global teams myself. What you really need is is a is a senior per person leading the entire European organization who has got broad commercial and general management capability. that is a that that isn't a promoted sales director or a promoted marketing director who's suddenly got their hands around a lot of other stuff. You need a seasoned operator. I obviously come from a slightly biased place of like going, hey, it can be fractional, it could be a part time job or it can be an interim job. But it does it it doesn't necessarily have to be a full time job but somebody needs to say, look, I own sales marketing. Not product really, 'cause product is always going to be driven out of the States, but any localisation I own I also own customer success and I own channel partner delivery. They're probably the managing director of the limited organisation in the UK as well.

16:28You know, they are a company's house legal director of that entity. But they own all of these things and they report to the chief exec in the st in the States. So they could be CEO Europe, they could be Managing Director UK, job title doesn't matter. They report to the CEO, they report to the main man or woman in the in the States. Because there has to be a bit of tension between global North American sales, North American marketing, and European sales, European marketing. Yeah. And it can't be this is what worked for us, replicate it, lock stock and two smoking barrels. It's not going to work. There's got to be some level of local control. And in and and you can't have the even worse scenario of the person who's got the sales number reports to the CEO, but the person who owns marketing reports to the CMO. Because then there's gonna be a whole lot of infighting. Whereas if they all roll directly up to the CEO through one person who's controlling all of Europe, well, the guy who's controlling Europe can sort out any sales versus marketing infighting because they report to him or her. putting myself in that position. and then that person if if needs be, if there's if there's some tension happening with n US marketing, then they they've got big enough clout 'cause they're a peer to the CMO. the the CEO of Europe or the MD of Europe can then deal with that at at at at CEO level if that makes

17:52Sense. What's your favorite success story of someone who got that right that you worked with or what you were involved in directly? Yeah. So I think the nicest one is actually a recent one. And going back to that same example with an Australian company. So they approached Europe with the same mindset of must be somewhat like the US, you know, landing. the largest economy and we're going to do well, not realizing a lot of these challenges that we've spoken about. In their case, there are regulations, there are technically a telecommunications business. So there are challenges on that side, not for them at least too difficult to overcome. But after I think about a year and a bit of trying, there wasn't much traction in Europe basically, even though their product is phenomenal. where they've succeeded, where we've worked together to bring that success and they are successful now. They have one of the big four as a partner, excuse me, of the big four accounting firms which runs a consultancy practice in their business vertical.

18:58They have a number of partners in various countries. that they're borrowing reputation from and succeeding with really a pipeline that now sort of actually is beginning to rival other territories around the world. So why did that work? Well, a deep dive into what it is exactly that makes them better than the local providers that everyone's so stuck to in Europe. And then a deeper analysis of if no one knows you and you're not gonna blast marketing for two years, you know, and try and do it yourself. Who is the natural strategic organization to work with? And you need to look at that in three layers. So there are those that are going to help you deliver because you don't want to go and hire 100 people in Europe. There are those that are going to help you understand. sorry, those are going to help you deliver opportunities. So those are your introducing partners. And then those that will rub off their reputation that they worked very hard to build, which you don't have time or resources to do in order to validate you. So validation, pipeline generation and business, and then support for actual delivery. And that's a common model for companies that actually understand the European market, right?