Strategies for International Sales

Most American sellers blow international deals and never realize why. Selling globally? Then stop acting like your buyers are all in Texas. You can’t sell in London like you sell in New York. You can’t treat an Australian prospect like a buyer in Dallas. You can't copy and paste your pitch deck and expect it to land the same way in Frankfurt, Stockholm, or Auckland. You have to adjust. Here’s some of what I’ve learned working deals and coaching teams across the US, UK, EMEA, Australia, and New Zealand: UK buyers Understated. Formal. Less impressed by hype, more impressed by preparation. They value credibility over charisma. You’re not building rapport with banter. You’re building it by showing up sharp and informed. Germany Process-oriented. Detail-heavy. Timelines matter. Precision matters. If you’re winging it or vague, you’ve already lost. France Strong opinions. Expect pushback. Don’t mistake it for rudeness. It’s how they test if you actually believe in what you’re selling. Scandinavia Consensus-driven. Modest. Trust is earned over time, not on the first call. They don’t like pressure. They do like transparency. Australia Casual, but don’t mistake that for soft. They are direct and allergic to bullsh^t. You oversell, you lose them. Be straight. Be real. No fluff. New Zealand Low ego. High skepticism. They will fact-check you and spot a fake a mile away. Quiet confidence works. Swagger doesn’t. American sellers are often too loud, too fast, too eager. Adjust your style or get left wondering why your international pipeline is full of polite no-shows. I've made all of these mistakes in my prospecting and pitching so hopefully you don't have to.

Shipping costs can drain your margins. But most businesses make the same 3 mistakes. They don't negotiate. They don’t optimize packaging. And they don’t plan for zones. Here’s a quick checklist to get your shipping expenses under control: → Negotiate carrier rates. Most carriers are flexible, especially if you're shipping in bulk. Even small discounts compound over time. → Downsize your packaging. Shipping a 5 lb. product in a 15 lb. box? You’re wasting money on dimensional weight fees. Right-size your packaging to reduce costs. → Leverage regional carriers. Big names aren't always the cheapest. Regional carriers often offer lower rates for short-distance zones. → Optimize your shipping zones. Distribution centers close to your key markets save time and reduce costs. Every mile adds up. → Invest in automation tools. Platforms that compare rates and manage shipments in real-time pay for themselves quickly. Shipping isn’t just a cost—it’s a controllable variable. Small adjustments here = big savings later. Where do you see the biggest gaps in your shipping strategy?

Co-sell = Marketplace When I first joined AWS, nearly 4 years ago, I treated co-sell and Marketplace as two separate GTM activities. My partners were mostly engaged in trying to win the hearts and minds of AWS sellers and customers. Some were active in Marketplace, but some were just getting started. During my time working with those partners, all got a Marketplace listing, but not all invested as heavily in Marketplace as they did in co-sell. That is changing. Now, co-sell is Marketplace and vice versa. And you need to weave the two strategies together. In my 4th installment of co-sell best practices, I'm going to scratch the surface of how to weave these two strategies together. 1. Your listing strategy defines your co-sell motion. More and more, what you list and how customers try and buy defines how you should build your cloud co-sell strategy. Product led growth, free trials, paygo offerings and other listing strategies will determine how a cloud provider, like AWS, can drive sales with you. This may mean innovating in new sales motions, but marketplace is a new sales motion, so lean into some of the amazing benefits of this channel and innovate. 2. Focus on lighthouse wins. Sales is storytelling. I recently joined a Sales training with an ISV partner and they led with a seller talking about a joint opportunity that grew on the Marketplace. If marketplace is new for you or your buyers, find those first wins and shout them from the rooftops. 3. Be a winner. AWS has tons of data that sales through our marketplace are bigger and faster than direct deals. If you aren't seeing those results, then you have some work to do to be a leader. I know I want to win and I bet you do too. And if you aren't measuring time to close, deal size and other KPIs related to your Marketplace strategy, then you won't know how you stack up and won't be able to sell this up to your C-suite and Board. 4. Talk marketplace early and often in your sales cycle. I've seen a lot of talk lately about layering in AWS Marketplace into MEDDIC sales methodology and I love it. I love it, because partners should be built into your sales methodology as a forcing function. I've seen partners force cloud and marketplace qualifying questions into their sales stages. Your sellers should know which cloud and what procurement method early in the cycle to bring all that we have to bear into your deal. Don't wait until the end of the cycle. No one likes surprises in late stage deals. 5. Train your sellers. Maybe not all of them at first, but the ones you know can get it. Train them on the benefits of Marketplace for customers, for cloud sellers and for your company. Ride shotgun on their deals and nudge them to talk about cloud and marketplace early. And for pete's sake, put an incentive in place to drive marketplace wins quickly! There is a lot more I can say on Marketplace. For next time. What are some of your keys to winning in Marketplace? #AWS #Marketplace #cosell

Microsoft’s wake-up call to Sales Harry Stebbings shared in a tweet today the reality of sales in 2025: “Microsoft’s layoffs weren’t a ‘replaced by AI’ story; they were a ‘replaced by better people’ story.” Facts… Microsoft (and many other companies) can’t afford sending generalist sales reps to get deals done. Especially big deals. Doesn’t work. They kept the solution engineers who knew the product inside and out, and partnered with strategic sales professionals. This isn’t about technology taking your job. It’s about your job evolving faster than you are. Too many AE’s get blindsided because they thought showing up with a feature dump and a smile would still work. That approach now carries massive risk. High chance of no deal, and if you do win, it’s probably a tiny one with a high probability of churn. Not likely you’ll achieve your quota that way. The AEs who survived operate differently - They stopped slinging software and started studying their prospects & customers business. The markets they play in. The ones still standing are: • Reading customer 10-Ks and earnings calls (not relying on legacy CRM notes) • Understanding business constraints, not just pain points • Engaging with the entire team of stakeholders-business group, operations teams, and executives - not just their primary contact • Partnering with SEs as strategic advisors, not just demo drivers. Sales is the “why”and “why now” - in business terms SEs show the “how it’s done” - in business terms • Speaking ROI and business outcomes, not feeds and speeds Here’s where AI plays a key role. Top AEs leverage technology to: • Analyze customer financials faster than ever • Prepare for calls with deeper insights • Research stakeholder backgrounds and priorities • Generate business case scenarios based on customer and market data • Free up time for the high-value conversations that matter Sales leaders are using these tools to: • Identify which AEs are engaging strategically vs. just staying busy. • Lead scoring and routing • Automating low-value tasks • Team composition That visibility is the foundation for optimizing GTM. Provides opportunities to coach and help mitigate risks. Transforms savvy managers into strategic leaders. (Follow Kyle Norton and Kevin "KD" Dorsey - bosses on how to leverage AI). Your job isn’t safe if you’re still operating like it’s 2019. But it’s (more) secure if you’re willing to become what customers actually need: A business advisor who happens to sell software, not a software seller who happens to know some business. The generalist spray-and-pray approach just got expensive. Microsoft proved that. The question isn’t whether this shift is coming to your company. The question is: Are you ready? What did I miss? What are you seeing in your market? Are the fundamentals of selling really changing this fast?

If you’re trying to sell your product globally, a “global positioning strategy” is (most likely) NOT going to work. *Even if the product remains the same in each region. Why? Even when you put aside the cultural nuances (language, how business is done, etc.), the functional context alone is often different enough to warrant completely new messaging. We’re talking: Different problems. Different alternatives. Sometimes even different use cases. Take Stripe Payments for example: 🇺🇸 In the US, Stripe was positioned for developers to accept payments online.

 Their enemy? Clunky gateways like Authorize.net. The problem? This took weeks to setup and were difficult to meet PCI compliance. 🇮🇳 In India, the problem wasn’t legacy software, it was fragmentation. Merchants had to patch together Razorpay, Paytm, PhonePe, and UPI. So Stripe had to frame their value differently: ”handling all these payment tools in one integration.” 🇩🇪 In Germany, they had another completely different problem: dealing with SEPA Direct Debit. Existing bank integrations were super slow and reliant on the banks. So Stripe had to use this completely unique reference point to explain their solution. — To make any real progress with new geographic audiences, Stripe couldn’t just translate their US homepage — they had to reframe their positioning. 
 And this isn’t just semantics or translation. It’s unique positioning & messaging rooted in local context. If they used the same framing that they used in the US, it’s likely that it would not have resonated. Keep this in mind when considering international expansion. And remember: When you have different use case framings ,different alternatives, and different problems... ...it likely means you need to have unique positioning strategies (value arguments) to handle the fragmentation.

Because inventory causes exponential pain with multiple warehouses... This infographics shows how to manage inventory in this context: ➡️ Centralize Inventory Visibility ↳ Issue: not knowing inventory levels across locations can lead to overstock in one warehouse and stockouts in another ↳ Action: Implement an inventory management system/ ERP that shows real-time inventory positions for all warehouses in one snapshot ➡️ Classify Products and Prioritize ↳ Why: Not all SKUs deserve the same treatment; some are high-value, others are seasonal ↳ Action: Use ABC analysis to rank products by focusing on A-items for tighter control ➡️ Define Replenishment Rules by Warehouse ↳ Why: Different warehouses cater to different regions or demand patterns. One-size-fits-all reorder points (ROP) won’t cut it ↳ Action: Tailor ROP, safety stock, and min-max levels by location. Consider lead times from central distribution centers or suppliers for each site ➡️ Breakdown Forecast by Warehouse ↳ Why: Each warehouse faces unique market dynamics ↳ Action: Generate warehouse-level forecasts, combining local sales trends with broader S&OP inputs ➡️ Plan Transfers Strategically ↳ Why: Sometimes it’s of lower cost or faster to transfer stock than reordering from suppliers ↳ Action: Set up a transfer framework; regularly review surplus vs. deficit at each location. Automate triggers for transfer orders when it’s cost-effective. ➡️ Monitor KPIs Proactively ↳ Why: Multi-warehouse complexity can hide inefficiencies when not tracking the right metrics ↳ Action: Track fill rate, inventory turnover, stock aging, and transfer costs at each site. ➡️ Plan Direct Dispatches & Save Costs ↳ Why: Dispatch directly from the plant to save logistics costs ↳ Action: Prepare daily dispatch plans targeting direct replenishment from the plant and use these warehouses for milk runs for distributors Any others to add?

Hey there! 👋 Let's talk about something that's probably keeping you up at night - inventory management. I see so many amazing e-commerce businesses treating their inventory like a coin flip, and honestly, it breaks my heart because I know how much potential they're leaving on the table. 💔 Just last quarter, I had the pleasure of working with a fantastic client who was juggling inventory chaos across multiple channels. Sound familiar? We're talking disconnected systems, endless spreadsheets, and that exhausting cycle of putting out fires instead of actually growing the business. Here's the beautiful thing - the fix didn't require rocket science, but wow, did it change everything! ✨ We set up real-time inventory syncing that actually works. Now when something sells on Amazon, their Shopify store knows about it instantly. When wholesale orders come flooding in, their direct-to-consumer channel automatically adjusts. It's like magic, but better because it's real! We also implemented smart reorder points with safety stock buffers - no more playing the "will we run out?" guessing game. Plus, we strategically positioned their inventory in modern fulfillment centers to create a distribution network that just flows. The transformation was incredible: no more awkward conversations with customers about delays, no more sitting on piles of inventory in one location while being sold out everywhere else. The numbers speak for themselves - 98% order fulfillment with 25% lower carrying costs! 🎉 That's what happens when you stop treating each channel like a separate business and start thinking like the unified operation you really are. At the end of the day, your customers want their stuff fast and hassle-free. They don't care about your backend systems - they just want that seamless experience every single time. I'm curious - what's your biggest multi-channel inventory headache right now? Let's chat about it! #EcommerceSolutions #LogisticsExcellence

Recently, I had the opportunity to share my learnings and insights from "Launching Products Globally" with an amazing audience at Plug and Play Tech Center with the presence of global audience including entrepreneurs from HKSTP - Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation. Here are a few learnings and insights from the evening: 1) You need to "localize" your product & go-to-market strategy: This doesn't only mean just translating or localizing your product. It's a lot more than that. You need to localize your "go-to-market" motion as well. You may have product-market-fit (PMF) locally, in the first country/region you launched, but that doesn't mean you can take the same product and go-to-market strategy to launch in a new country/region. As an example at Fitbit, we learned how the French think about fitness (they count walking to a restaurant to get a glass of wine as their "fitness") is very different than how Americans define workout and fitness. So all our marketing and go-to-market strategies had to align with the way locals will see benefits in our products. 2) Having boots on the ground is essential for successful global expansion: You need to have boots on the ground who truly understand the nuances of how to go-to-market, how to sell, and how to deliver your value proposition to customers in different regions. There are a lot of nuances of how to do business locally that will take outsiders to any market a long time to learn. At Cleo, where we had global customers like Salesforce, Redbull, Pepsi, and Uber, we had to have local health Guides to deliver our services with an intimate understanding of customers needs and approaches in that region. 3) Understanding local, cultural, and social aspects is critical to a global expansion success: Even though at the surface things may seem similar in each region, there are a lot of nuances that make your go-to-market strategy and the way you deliver your services resonate with the local customers or not. At Teladoc, we've learned that people in different countries think about their mental health and how to get support for that "very differently" than each other. Huge thank you to my hosts Rahim Amidi, Dr. Yahya Tabesh, Amir Amidi, Ahmadreza Masrour, and Akvile Gustaite, and HKSTP leaders, Albert Wong & Pheona Kan, who are interested in continuing these conversations. It was awesome to meet great entrepreneurs and see old friends: Reza Moghtaderi Esfahani, Daniel Lo, Houman Homayoun, Wayne Chang, Golnaz (Naz) Moeini. #product #gotomarket #globallaunch #globalbusiness

I just deleted 147 cold emails without reading them. Here’s what they all got wrong: Every morning, my inbox looks the same. A flood of pitches from people trying to sell me something. Most days, I just mass delete them. But this morning, I decided to actually read through them first. Within 5 minutes, I spotted a pattern. Everyone was making the exact same mistake. They were all trying to close the deal. ALL IN THE FIRST MESSAGE 🥵 Let me show you what I mean (with two small examples): APPROACH A: "The Wall of Text" Send 100 cold emails with full pitch, calendar link, and case studies. • 3 people open • 0 responses • 0 intros This looks exactly like the 147 emails I just deleted "Hi [Name], I noticed your company is scaling fast! We help companies like yours optimize their marketing stack through our proprietary AI technology. Our clients see 300% ROI within 90 days. Here's my Calendly link to book a 15-min chat: [LINK]. Looking forward to connecting! Best, [Name]" BORING!!! APPROACH B: "Micro Conversations" Same 100 prospects, broken down into micro-convo's. Email 1: "Do you know [mutual connection]?" • Send 100 • ~40 open • ~20 respond Email 2: "They mentioned you're scaling your marketing team. I'd love to connect about [specific thing]." • Send to 20 who responded • ~15 continue engaging Email 3: "Would you mind if they made an intro?" • Ask 15 engaged prospects • ~10 intros Final score: • Approach A: No intros • Approach B: 10 intros How to Apply These Lessons (Tactical Summary): 1. Focus on Micro-Conversations: Break your cold outreach into smaller, manageable steps. Build rapport before making any asks. 2. Personalize Everything: Reference mutual connections, specific company milestones, or shared interests in every message. 3. Play the Long Game: Aim for replies in the first message.. not conversions. If you’ve been struggling with cold outreach, you might just need a new approach. Give this one a try and lmk how it goes.

I am tired of hearing about sales and marketing alignment. It's an outdated narrative. Here's why: Consider this: Buyers are typically 57% to 80% of the way through their buying process (depending on which study you consult) before they even raise their hands to engage with sales. This statistic alone underscores a critical reality: The Silent Killer in Sales: Overestimating Salesperson Influence Many executive teams believe their sales heroes can close any deal, but here's the reality: Salespeople are closers, not magicians. 🪄 The concept of "alignment" implies separate entities that need to be brought together. In today's complex buying environment, this siloed approach is obsolete. Modern businesses require a seamlessly integrated revenue generation system where sales and marketing function as one cohesive unit. Strong marketing, clear value propositions, and a frictionless buying journey are crucial for success. Think of it like football - Sales is your star running back, but they need a solid offensive line (Marketing) to create opportunities long before the final play. Here's the shift we need: From siloed functions to a collaborative team environment: • Break down walls between Sales & Marketing • Work together on buyer personas, messaging, and content throughout the entire buying journey • Invest in both sides: Equip teams with necessary tools and shared metrics From "closing the deal" to "creating a winning customer experience": 👉🏽 Optimize the entire customer journey: Every touchpoint matters, especially early-stage interactions ️ 👉🏽 Focus on providing value from initial marketing outreach through to ongoing support The benefits of this integrated approach: 👉🏽 Shorter sales cycles: Well-nurtured leads convert faster 👉🏽Higher customer lifetime value: A seamless experience fosters loyalty 👉🏽 Boosted employee morale: When everyone's on the same team, magic happens Let's move beyond "alignment" and embrace true integration. Sales and Marketing are different positions on the same field, working in unison to drive revenue and achieve championship-level results in today's buyer-driven landscape. #sales #b2b #marketing #culture #customerexperience #leadership