The authors of this article are:
o Bob Spence Director of International Business Development for C4DI.
o Kasia Łanucha Cambridge University lecturer and communication specialist.
o Kaja Szczygieł International business development lead at the Warsaw US Embassy.
If you are involved in International business development then these articles are aimed at supporting you create the right sales skills to create revenue.
This content will be edited into a comprehensive ePublication for release later in 2021. Each of these individual articles is designed to support CEE business succeed in the English-speaking western economies. It is aimed especially to those CEE businesses that are focusing on making SaaS sales to UK and US decision makers. Read How To Sell SaaS Across Cultures Part 1 and Part 2.
Kasia: We discuss the impact of sales methodology and national culture on business development from a ‘CEE to Western perspective’. The culture models of Geert Hofstede, known for his pioneering research on cross-cultural thinking, will be a reference point although we will refer to other thinkers throughout the series.
Kaja: In the last article there was one cultural dimension that seems exceptionally relevant for the context of building business relationships. Hofstede defined it as; ‘uncertainty-avoidance’ and CEE culture scored extremely high with this feature with an average of 93. The description was:
Countries exhibiting high uncertainty-avoidance maintain rigid codes of belief and behaviour. As a stereotype they are typically intolerant of unorthodox behaviour and ideas. In these cultures, there is an emotional need for rules even if the rules never seem to work. Time is money and people have an inner urge to be busy and work hard. In this environment precision and punctuality are the norm and innovation may be resisted with security as an important element in individual motivation.
Bob: The UK culture as a direct stereotype comparison scores 35 using this measurement.
First reflection:
In pure business development terms, the outcome of these measurements can be this outcome. During an initial meeting between a CEE lead and a UK lead it is possible the business content discussed, may not be detail-oriented. (The end goal will still be clear). However, it is the detail of how this goal is to be achieved that will be light in content. This is hard to grasp initially. In the meeting, it will sound like the destination is clear but the journey to get there is unclear. The job of the sales professional in most instances is to map the journey and sell the benefit of that journey. (ROI).
Kaja: A consequence of this is that the actual buying process is likely to be fluid and flexible. The reason for this is so that the UK lead can respond to the changing procurement environment which will be altered by the new information that the CEE lead is sharing. On that basis, UK planning horizons will also tend to be shorter as they will change from meeting-to-meeting based on new information given and evaluated.
Bob: Reporting back from the UK the content of such a meeting is very difficult. Many CRM systems are unable to map the stage that the sale is at based on vagueness. The text box is often full of notes that read like a casual conversation took place that has no high-quality content or actions to follow up.
Second reflection:
In this context, it might be a consideration that a CEE business development professional might tend to be more rigid when it comes to ‘doing business etiquette’. There could be an expectation that a sales meeting has to follow a particular order and end up with a tangible result. Business within this context tends to be more serious and small talk is often cut down or avoided. (‘We need to get down to business’). In general, there is a risk that friendliness can be interpreted as a lack of professionalism. There is a time for it, but only after the ‘big talk’.
Kasia: In my experiences, small talk delivers a number of steps within the relation building process. It is a key part of communication and in a previous BLOG Bob Spence refers to ‘small talk’ being the ‘big talk’.
Bob: In this historical narrative ‘relationship-marketing’ was not the solution to sales and business development on its own. We now introduce the perceived value of persistence. ‘Relationship-marketing’ did not consider the importance of reinforcing the resilience of the sales professional. The reason that resilience is important to this approach is that it requires patience on behalf of the sales management and the sales professional. As a sales professional, you would need to; ‘kiss a lot of frogs to find a prince’. From the mid 1950’s we have the thinking around developing the ‘mental conditioning’ of sales professionals. Those actively involved in business development will hear variations of the word ‘no’ more often in a few months than people in other occupations do within an entire lifetime.
Kaja: So, the concern is that when the sales professional starts to lose the initial excitement and enthusiasm for what they are communicating then the potential sales prospect will respond in kind. (You need that spark of excitement to attract attention and especially now in our era of short attention spans).
With that in mind, significant efforts were made in the delivery of short-lived motivation sessions. This concept then moved beyond the idea of a 'pep-talk' to the ongoing development of the mental state of sales professionals. This journey led to the various ‘neuro’ branded concepts. All of them are designed to deliver positive self-reinforcement to the sales professional with the goal of encouraging resilience. Most buyers will have an expectation that the sales professional will be enthusiastic about their company, offer and role in the process.
What role does persistence play in selling SaaS today? Does persistence have a consistent value in the interaction between CEE sales culture and UK and US buying culture? (Do you have a self-measurement that can recognise when your persistence deteriorates the likelihood of you doing business)?
Third reflection:
In the UK generally, the USA super-guru approach to the selling mindset is not so widely embraced as it appears to be in some areas across the CEE right now.
Bob: That may be in part to British business culture looking at some US methods askew. It has been described as ‘fortune cookie wisdom’ on one level but on another level, it is a truth as ‘giving up’ does not help the sales professional. However, being resilient without the ability to change course is a major risk. An outcome of this could be trying to develop a key relationship too quickly, following up a contact to forcibly and not recognising that there is no deal to be done at this time, regardless of persisting with your compelling arguments.
Our next article?
Kaja: This engages with sales models from the late 1950s into the early 1960s and includes selling language that we will recognise today. Some of this sales language was designed for B-2-C transactions and none of it was designed for SaaS. If you are using them today there is a high likelihood you are trying to sell oranges with a sales pitch designed for apples!
Spence, Łanucha and Szczygieł © 2021