Sales with no hesitation can be listed among the major drivers of revenue especially when we are talking about expanding business to new markets. Before I jump into specifics let me describe what I mean here by "Sales". As a professional network here we are used to this term, we know that sales is not just a process of handing over a product or service in exchange for a reward, we use this term for a complex set of activities that lead to the actual selling of a product or service. And to narrow the subject even further I'm going to speak about B2B sales only.
The process of selling products anywhere in the world and China is no exception is hugely dependent on the product itself. We can not easily generalize ad sales with heavy machinery. However, I'll try to pinpoint some common ideas that shape B2B sales in China. It's not a straight-to-action guideline, however, I believe most of my connections here may find it useful. Now, having said the disclaimer let's move on to the subject.
Let me start with outbound sales first. I am a strong outbound believer, and in China I can't stress the importance of proper outbound sales enough. You've probably heard something like "Deals are closed between people, not companies". This is obviously true but deals closed in China are a bit beyond what we imagine here. Personal relationships are extremely important. They even have a special word for it - 关系 （Guangxi) which can be translated simply as "relations'' but in real life means "connections" or even "social ties" among people. Microsoft was among the first ones to find that key when they penetrated the market and even wrote a book about it - Guanxi (The Art of Relationships): Microsoft, China, and Bill Gates's Plan to Win the Road Ahead. Trust plays one of the most important roles in closing a deal in the region. Although it's important to make sure clients trust your product, it's crucial that they trust your people. Building such trust should be one's main priority in launching sales in China. Face-to-face meetings were inevitable for a successful salesperson just a few years ago but online social channels make it possible to build such relationships remotely nowadays. I'm not saying personal offline meetings are useless, they are very effective indeed, and anyone should implement them. Another thing that changed a bit is the time frames of building such ‘connections’. It used to be years and decades in some cases and now it can be done within weeks and months. One of the major issues foreign companies face entering the market is the trust issue. Unknown or even well-known but foreign organizations are in a weaker position than their local counterparts. Thus, your and your sales‘ first priorities when entering the market are building trust and becoming "local". Keeping localization and marketing apart, speaking sales only, and building a local sales team and processes is a must. I'm also a strong believer that the sales team should be represented by locals. Don't get me wrong, foreigners integrated well enough, fluent in Mandarin can do sales quite efficiently, and I did it myself. But it's pretty hard to compete with locals who have been building such "social ties" all their lives, not to mention that hiring such a foreigner would be much harder than hiring a local. An ideal local candidate would be the one with already built "connections" within your industry, with a WeChat account full of decision makers for the product you are selling. Once you've built a team even if it's just a single account executive you can start hiring and training "newbies". Hiring such a person for a foreign company may sound like a mission impossible and it is but you can use external help and realize that the task is more than doable especially nowadays. (I posted earlier about the current labor market situation earlier) And certainly, feel free to contact me if you need help in acquiring such a team.
Now moving to the sales processes, although main sales principles work in China the same way they do in any other place on the planet, you will have to adapt to the local realities. I'll talk a bit about it further in the text but just remember to be flexible here.
Inbound sales might look like an obvious way to launch sales but remember the "trust issue" I mentioned above. Setting up a proper campaign to start receiving relevant leads is a massive trick you may need some time to perfect. Certainly, as well as any other activity it would be dependent on your product specifics. The market itself is huge and targeting the right audience with tools unfamiliar to your team is a hell of a task. Taking into account all those peculiarities I would suggest relying on outbound sales first while you explore inbound opportunities. However, if you manage to crack it at some point, the reward is absolutely worth it. I'll dig deeper into inbound and marketing separately later. For now, let's imagine you cracked the marketing part and suddenly your sales team starts receiving leads. Get ready to handle them. Those leads won't be occasional, your team will need to process them all the time so get ready for it. I would suggest dedicated local SDRs otherwise you will have to sacrifice your outbound for the sake of inbound operations. Although e-mail is quite an obvious way of communicating, in reality, your team will most likely use it only for intros and legal subjects. Even SDRs would have to process leads via WeChat, QQ, and other channels. And here comes a moment most neglect in the beginning letting their team communicate with leads through their personal accounts. The problem here is that the number of leads they will have to process will make a total mess of your team and quite soon you will realize you have no idea how many leads they process, what the CR is, and so on. Moreover, WeChat may limit their activity as well and you just won't be able to process leads losing potential revenue. Another downside is that a personal account decreases trust, some would hesitate to add an unfamiliar private person to their personal network. Thus, you should get ready not only people-wise but tech-wise as well. There are multiple options to do that but what I would suggest is setting up a WeChat business account for receiving leads and assigning leads among your SDRs who would have access there. Moreover, you would also be able to sync that account data with your CRM or BI to track the activity properly. Don't rush into inbound, start exploring it and get your infrastructure ready first, but also don't just do outbound, be ready to scale that up.
As I've mentioned above certain sales rules and strategies work in China as well as anywhere else but some of your developed ones are to be adapted. Sales management is one of them. Most likely people you hire have worked in a completely different environment before. For instance, basic office check-ins and outs are usually made with a fingerprint or nowadays employees download corporate apps for check-ins which track their GPS location and allows them to check in within the app and checks out automatically once one leaves the building. They are also used to working extra hours and days with rare extra benefits for it as well as constant written reports and so on. The software they use to communicate within the company or keep track of sales activity is nothing like what you are probably using. But do you need to create a copycat local working environment for your team in China? In my opinion, absolutely not! Being quick and efficient while entering the market is one of the major factors forming the expansion outcome. As a foreign employer, you are lucky to implement your unique management frameworks to get the best of two worlds. Perfecting a sales team management in China will definitely take some time but with the correct approach one can do it quite fast. First, your local sales team will obviously need some training. In case you have managed to hire the ideal one I described before then focus your training mainly on integrating the person into your current sales processes, guide them through the CRM and task managers you are using and don't forget product training. I would also avoid insisting on using your current sales patterns in the region. Listen to what your team says here, if you hired well, they should be more knowledgeable here so listen and learn and then create a symbiosis of your sales practices with local ones. Give them some freedom but also keep them on track. They are used to working under pressure so release it for them a bit. Just a simple flexible choice to start the job at 9 a.m. or 10 a.m. already means the world. In my experience, the more freedom one gives salespeople in China the more loyal and efficient they become. However, giving it all at once will just ruin your team before your first local sale. Start slowly and see the progress.
Let me know if you want to know more!
The process of selling products anywhere in the world and China is no exception is hugely dependent on the product itself. We can not easily generalize ad sales with heavy machinery. However, I'll try to pinpoint some common ideas that shape B2B sales in China. It's not a straight-to-action guideline, however, I believe most of my connections here may find it useful. Now, having said the disclaimer let's move on to the subject.
Let me start with outbound sales first. I am a strong outbound believer, and in China I can't stress the importance of proper outbound sales enough. You've probably heard something like "Deals are closed between people, not companies". This is obviously true but deals closed in China are a bit beyond what we imagine here. Personal relationships are extremely important. They even have a special word for it - 关系 （Guangxi) which can be translated simply as "relations'' but in real life means "connections" or even "social ties" among people. Microsoft was among the first ones to find that key when they penetrated the market and even wrote a book about it - Guanxi (The Art of Relationships): Microsoft, China, and Bill Gates's Plan to Win the Road Ahead. Trust plays one of the most important roles in closing a deal in the region. Although it's important to make sure clients trust your product, it's crucial that they trust your people. Building such trust should be one's main priority in launching sales in China. Face-to-face meetings were inevitable for a successful salesperson just a few years ago but online social channels make it possible to build such relationships remotely nowadays. I'm not saying personal offline meetings are useless, they are very effective indeed, and anyone should implement them. Another thing that changed a bit is the time frames of building such ‘connections’. It used to be years and decades in some cases and now it can be done within weeks and months. One of the major issues foreign companies face entering the market is the trust issue. Unknown or even well-known but foreign organizations are in a weaker position than their local counterparts. Thus, your and your sales‘ first priorities when entering the market are building trust and becoming "local". Keeping localization and marketing apart, speaking sales only, and building a local sales team and processes is a must. I'm also a strong believer that the sales team should be represented by locals. Don't get me wrong, foreigners integrated well enough, fluent in Mandarin can do sales quite efficiently, and I did it myself. But it's pretty hard to compete with locals who have been building such "social ties" all their lives, not to mention that hiring such a foreigner would be much harder than hiring a local. An ideal local candidate would be the one with already built "connections" within your industry, with a WeChat account full of decision makers for the product you are selling. Once you've built a team even if it's just a single account executive you can start hiring and training "newbies". Hiring such a person for a foreign company may sound like a mission impossible and it is but you can use external help and realize that the task is more than doable especially nowadays. (I posted earlier about the current labor market situation earlier) And certainly, feel free to contact me if you need help in acquiring such a team.
Now moving to the sales processes, although main sales principles work in China the same way they do in any other place on the planet, you will have to adapt to the local realities. I'll talk a bit about it further in the text but just remember to be flexible here.
Inbound sales might look like an obvious way to launch sales but remember the "trust issue" I mentioned above. Setting up a proper campaign to start receiving relevant leads is a massive trick you may need some time to perfect. Certainly, as well as any other activity it would be dependent on your product specifics. The market itself is huge and targeting the right audience with tools unfamiliar to your team is a hell of a task. Taking into account all those peculiarities I would suggest relying on outbound sales first while you explore inbound opportunities. However, if you manage to crack it at some point, the reward is absolutely worth it. I'll dig deeper into inbound and marketing separately later. For now, let's imagine you cracked the marketing part and suddenly your sales team starts receiving leads. Get ready to handle them. Those leads won't be occasional, your team will need to process them all the time so get ready for it. I would suggest dedicated local SDRs otherwise you will have to sacrifice your outbound for the sake of inbound operations. Although e-mail is quite an obvious way of communicating, in reality, your team will most likely use it only for intros and legal subjects. Even SDRs would have to process leads via WeChat, QQ, and other channels. And here comes a moment most neglect in the beginning letting their team communicate with leads through their personal accounts. The problem here is that the number of leads they will have to process will make a total mess of your team and quite soon you will realize you have no idea how many leads they process, what the CR is, and so on. Moreover, WeChat may limit their activity as well and you just won't be able to process leads losing potential revenue. Another downside is that a personal account decreases trust, some would hesitate to add an unfamiliar private person to their personal network. Thus, you should get ready not only people-wise but tech-wise as well. There are multiple options to do that but what I would suggest is setting up a WeChat business account for receiving leads and assigning leads among your SDRs who would have access there. Moreover, you would also be able to sync that account data with your CRM or BI to track the activity properly. Don't rush into inbound, start exploring it and get your infrastructure ready first, but also don't just do outbound, be ready to scale that up.
As I've mentioned above certain sales rules and strategies work in China as well as anywhere else but some of your developed ones are to be adapted. Sales management is one of them. Most likely people you hire have worked in a completely different environment before. For instance, basic office check-ins and outs are usually made with a fingerprint or nowadays employees download corporate apps for check-ins which track their GPS location and allows them to check in within the app and checks out automatically once one leaves the building. They are also used to working extra hours and days with rare extra benefits for it as well as constant written reports and so on. The software they use to communicate within the company or keep track of sales activity is nothing like what you are probably using. But do you need to create a copycat local working environment for your team in China? In my opinion, absolutely not! Being quick and efficient while entering the market is one of the major factors forming the expansion outcome. As a foreign employer, you are lucky to implement your unique management frameworks to get the best of two worlds. Perfecting a sales team management in China will definitely take some time but with the correct approach one can do it quite fast. First, your local sales team will obviously need some training. In case you have managed to hire the ideal one I described before then focus your training mainly on integrating the person into your current sales processes, guide them through the CRM and task managers you are using and don't forget product training. I would also avoid insisting on using your current sales patterns in the region. Listen to what your team says here, if you hired well, they should be more knowledgeable here so listen and learn and then create a symbiosis of your sales practices with local ones. Give them some freedom but also keep them on track. They are used to working under pressure so release it for them a bit. Just a simple flexible choice to start the job at 9 a.m. or 10 a.m. already means the world. In my experience, the more freedom one gives salespeople in China the more loyal and efficient they become. However, giving it all at once will just ruin your team before your first local sale. Start slowly and see the progress.
Let me know if you want to know more!
