A few years ago, on a sunny Friday morning, I was scheduled to meet with the director of international sales for a medical equipment manufacturer. The meeting came about at the request of the president of the company, whom I met at a trade show in Canada. The purpose of my meeting with the Director of International Sales was to try to identify the reason behind the poor sales performance in the Middle East. As the company president summed it up by saying, “Our products are better than the competition, but the competition is doing much better in sales to that market. My IS manager attended trade shows in the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. Feedback from many Arab companies was positive but did not materialize in good sales or what can be considered a good starting relationship. We can use an outside opinion.”
Before the day of the meeting, I did some initial research on the medical company and sure enough, their products were of better quality than the competition and the price was competitive. The meeting took place in his conference room. Just the Director of International Sales, one of his associates and me.
From the beginning I felt some tension coming from the Director of IS. Why not? The meeting was called by the president of the company and the IS director probably felt that his leadership was in question and that he would be responding to a stranger who would inform his boss. To ease the tension, I opened the discussion by mentioning some of the admirable achievements he made in successfully building the international department and achieving notable sales in the European market. My source was a newspaper article I found during my initial research. This move turned out to be a great icebreaker and more. The more he talked about this topic, the more his facial features and way of speaking projected victory, achievement, confidence, and of course, kindness and openness. It worked and should always work. Reminding others of your previous successful accomplishments will not only empower them and show that you appreciate and trust them, but they will also be more open to listening to you and hearing what you have to say.
He began by talking about his operations in the Middle East, mentioning that his company had participated in two trade shows, one in Saudi Arabia and the other in the United Arab Emirates. During these trade shows, his products received positive feedback from many Arab businessmen, and shortly after returning to the US, he began corresponding with these prospective partners. It’s been 10 months and nothing has happened. His sales to the Middle East did not show a significant increase and negotiations did not develop into strong relationships. There are no agents or distributors. He continued to vent his frustrations and slowly went on to explain what he thought the problem was. For him, the problem was the Middle Eastern market and its corporate culture. He went on to say that it was easier to deal with the European market and establish partners.
After he had ample opportunity to describe the situation, it was my turn to ask a few questions and express my opinion. A few points came up during our discussion that indicate they didn’t do their homework before diving in. They did not do any research regarding the business culture of the Middle East market, so they were not aware of the do’s and don’ts and were not aware of the steps required to establish a good business relationship. Furthermore, the IS director approached his potential Arab partners with the same distribution agreement that he uses to deal with his European distributors. No effort was made to test its adequacy and reality for the new market. In short, there was no investigation and no plan.
It should not have used its success with the European market, and the relatively short time it took to achieve it, as a measurement tool for the Middle East operation. He had successfully dealt with the European market due to the fact that he had worked and lived in Europe for 5 years before joining the US medical equipment manufacturer. He knew the market, company culture, business circumstances and all the information necessary to succeed in doing business in Europe. Throughout the 5 years he spent in Europe, he gained the experience and knowledge that made him successful, but he couldn’t clearly see the perspective he gained from living there.
How could he miss that fact? It’s not entirely unusual to do that. Similarly, many companies when they go global forget that their products are entering a new market and it takes time for the sales volume to grow to the expected goal, just like when they started introducing their products in the local market! ! As a result of this “lost comparison”, companies sometimes set unreasonable conditions when dealing with their international agents, such as “high” minimum purchase requirements and “unrealistic” expected sales volume conditions. A foreign company buying products for the first time would prefer to order a small quantity to be used to test the acceptance of the product in the market. Companies that insist on a set minimum even with the first sale, which is in fact considered a test sample, are closing the door on foreign sales, let alone encouraging any potential partnership.
Knowing that the director of IS has his hands full managing successful sales in the European market, I suggested assigning the Middle East market territory to someone else who could devote all his energy and time to developing marketing plans, acquiring partnerships, and growing sales. sales. The IS director replied that he had already thought of that and handed me a copy of an advertisement he had placed in a local newspaper. The announcement said:
Middle East Sales Representative
Medical Equipment Manufacturer seeking an energetic professional person to assist the Director of International Sales in their Middle East operations. The successful candidate will be in charge of correspondence, distribution of company documentation and making calls abroad, mainly late at night. Experience in telemarketing and bilingual (Arabic and English) a plus.
Clearly the announcement echoed what I thought was wrong with their approach to the Middle East market. This ad was requesting an Administrative Assistant, not a Middle East Sales Representative. In fact, I have seen many companies run their international operations simply by asking someone to write a letter or send a fax. For these companies, interest in the global market will only grow if they first notice a result. However, no significant result will be obtained from such an approach, and therefore the correspondences of these companies go somewhere, but certainly not globally.
