Play where the puck will be!
One of the many quotes from Wayne Gretzky is “Don’t play where the puck is. Play where the puck is going to be.” Simple but game-changing.
Having spent a good portion of my youth playing ice-hockey I can still relate to that – on the ice and off the ice. When catching a ball our instincts guide our hand to where that ball will end up, and not to rush to where it is at the moment. And every 8-year-old knows how to nudge the parents to have the ice-cream shop accidentally being on the way.
In the business world we occasionally have the tendency to over-complicate things. Huge investments in time and money goes into market data, printing on 327 pages what is happening today. Then we hire futurists and install predictive analytic tools (which then show us what we want to see…). Now we know everything, job done. And next year we conduct a research to learn why we missed our goals.
How about making more use of our senses, human intelligence and experiences to map out where we should play next?
If you are the Connor McDavid in your industry, you can probably out-play your competitors and run your business very successfully at all times (sorry for the next hockey link here). But how about trying to be more a Leon Draisaitl of the business world? Always having open ears and eyes - carefully observing what goes around us (near and far) - use all our senses, talents and experiences - and being ready for what could happen next. Then act quickly and with confidence. Or we directly initiate the play ourselves – then we are even better prepared.
I guess Red Bull didn’t have a predictive model saying that building an ice slope in cities and letting skaters rush down would be a business booster, or that a man jumping out of a balloon and down 39 kilometers would. Operators who invested purely into the once highly used and trending telco bridges (remember those days with the dial-in numbers?) mostly do not exist anymore.
Human behavior can hardly be squeezed into predictive AI models. Customers often surprise us and break out of the well-designed “buyer’s journey” (how dare they…). But our experiences, open-mindedness and human intelligence can sometimes do wonders. And from time to time, if we want to know the road ahead let’s just ask those coming back. Add then market research (which indeed is a very valuable piece of the puzzle and should not be neglected) and predictive scenarios into the mix – and we play where the puck is going to be.
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Think for the (really) long run.
Can cutting down 10 thousand big beautiful trees on a regular basis be reasonable and sustainable? Considering each tree needs up to 400 years to grow – why would you be chopping those? In fact this is done in Japan every 20 years. But hold your horses, do not judge!
Ise Jingu is one of Japan’s most sacred shrines. It was first built over 2500 years ago, made from Hinoki wood (a Japanese cypress) whereof 10.000 trees are needed for the build. Every 20 years the shrine is entirely torn down and rebuilt from fresh timber. It is largely constructed using the art of Kigumi, a method of joining wood pieces together without tools and nails.
Now why would you destroy an entire shrine so often? Hinoki wood can last hundreds of years.
The rebuild is part of the Shikinen Sengu ritual. The main purpose is to hand over the skills and expertise to the next
generation, ensuring accurate reproduction for many more centuries to come. And it also symbolizes the cyclical
nature of death and renewal.
Think about the Pantheon in Rome: a masterpiece of architecture, built almost 2000 years ago. And until today it remains mysterious how it was made back then. Those skills and secrets were unfortunately not handed over to the following generations.
So, smart move by the Japanese, right?
But how about sustainability? Isn’t environmental care a major topic of our time?
After every disassembly of the Ise shrine the woods are recycled and used in many other areas, often for other shrines. Through that a once freshly cut tree remains in shining use for hundreds of years (some for even more than 1.000 years).
On top of that, new Hinoki seeds are planted after each rebuild of the shrine. Thus, new beautiful trees immediately start their growth journey for a rebuild in about 400 years. Now, that is what I would call smart just-in-time-production and sustainability…
It can be valuable to think about the long-term effects of our actions. And to plan not only for the short-term effects for us and our business today, but also about what is still to come (an example is reactive short-termism vs long-term business growth in many of today’s marketing organizations).
PS: Be honest - did you judge after reading my first two sentences?
In our today’s world of short attention spans, news hysteria and click-obsession – we sometimes have a
tendency for pre-mature judgement. Even in times of information floods and rapid changes it might occasionally be a good
idea to let others speak out, to look at what is hidden behind headlines, to investigate backgrounds, and to allow that
our opinions get challenged (and sometimes even busted). And adding a bit of thinking might also be handy at times.
Maybe this takes a minute more, but we might end up with better judgements. And even if not, the process of studying
and thinking can also be valuable in the long run and help us to grow.
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Go Global! …or maybe not?
Going global sounds exciting to many ears. You started your business, accomplished some nice successes, expanded,
and now? ‘Conquer the world’ is the magic phrase. Why limit yourself to one or few territories when they sky is
the limit?
Going worldwide does offer great potential indeed – if you are prepared and ready. And if you understand the
pitfalls, surprises, and hidden gems. And be aware that just adding two countries could be equally challenging as going
fully global. In this article I share some thoughts about internationalizing a go-to-market approach and forming a global
marketing organization.
0. The Challenges
Have you ever tried to expand your business into new countries? Or, have you ever felt that you cannot really track the
impact of your go-to-market approach across all your countries?
Many companies start their business in one country, sooner or later become successful and grow, and then go for expansion
into new territories. We then typically see one of those two scenarios being done:
- What worked in the home country is simply copied into other countries; or
- Tiny country teams are built to explore the regional specifics, and then start some local marketing. Then scaling is maybe planned for later.
Both options can be really risky.
#1 (central enforcement) usually fails as a) markets and cultures are different, and b) human nature forms resistance to
most remote top-down enforcements. You end up with local teams fighting against headquarters and vice versa, instead of
conquering the market.
#2 (island approach) fails because a) you end up with a lot of double-work and very little impact, and b) the company
strategy is not executed locally at all. Here you end up losing your company’s success DNA when entering that
country, and your are not able to replicate what made you successful in the first place.
When going global – or even just entering one new country – you often face headwinds like: cultural
differences, a mismatch between global strategy and local realities, and often heavy push backs by local teams. And this
usually leads to re-invented wheels, many fragmented small campaigns with very little return, and no genuine tracking of
the value from your marketing initiatives.
Also, when growing and expanding internationally, this often leads to more and bigger teams – which are then working
in isolated silos. Someone creating a bit of content here, someone else making a media plan there, then the country
saying “it doesn’t work here”, everything is re-done locally, and then – when you perhaps generated
a few leads – nobody really knows what is happening with those. Waste of money, lack of transparency, frustrated
teams, and missed business targets are then the natural results.
The good news is: this can all be solved. I have been forming and leading multiple global teams over the years.
We were building marketing supply chains which followed the global strategy and were aligned with business targets. We
created packaged GTM systems. At the same time we fully involved the countries – which led to real local buy-in and
to less re-inventions, also we established true best practice sharing, and overall a more efficient and effective
marketing model. This also includes a solid and honest tracking of successes as well as key learnings – in order to
know where you need to improve. All that leads to more pipeline, to lower costs, happier teams, real collaboration instead
of working in silos - and ultimately to more revenue and profit.
Let's break it down.
1. Global Offering
Not all products or services work in all cultures, surroundings, and climate zones. The potential for selling icemakers
in northern Alaska might be limited, e.g., but for most offerings there is a space in many geographies. You just need to
be ready to adapt and be conscious of cultural differences.
And do not over-cluster. E.g. there is no "one Asia", there are many different countries - each with their
culture, values, and buying behaviors. Be conscious of the product-market-fit.
Also, watch out for the typical sceptics: “my market is totally different”, “our people don’t want
that”, “this never worked”… Listen with an open mind, but don’t let those block you. As long
as you market to humans and not crocodiles, the possibilities are infinite.
2. International Go-to-Market
The GTM approach needs some more careful brain work. Every market, every culture, every person is different. Conduct
proper market analysis, define your target groups and audiences. But do not over-engineer! Nobody can market to 193
different personas (which were often made up artificially in silos anyway). Carefully define what is the global
corporate core, and what are the flexible modifications. For example, if women in rural Chinese villages buy their
shampoo mostly as soap from travelling food sellers, consider that as channel and use their advocacy. For setting up a GTM
model, make sure to have a local flavor but do not lose your corporate identity.
How about developing a model for ‘mass-localization’? You can develop a global offering, positioning,
messaging, and sales model – but in a ‘programmatic approach’. This means, e.g., define 80% as the
global core and make it easy for the local teams to adjust the remaining 20%. Make sure to give them digestible
ingredients, a cookbook, and proper support.
And be aware that translation is not equal to localization! Consider local meanings of brand/product names, be
conscious of context and connotations, color schemes, imagery, channels, sales cycles, data privacy sensitivity, and many
more.
Some of the recommended centrally provided ingredients for your global meal are: market research, understandable
campaign briefing, pipeline gap analysis, audience definition, marketing assets, translation tools, one-click localization
options, rollout examples, central execution support, measurement templates (e.g. in your CRM), marketing automation setup
(parent campaigns), sales partner integration, sales readiness package, lead management system.
I have seen companies where 60% of marketing assets are hardly being used while countries were producing similar stuff in
parallel - this is simply a waste of budget. Lead attribution is often done differently from country to country - making
ROI calculations and analytics virtually impossible. Hit and hope is a widely used strategy - while mapping your target
customers and audiences to your touch point history and pipeline status can provide a much better compass for your
campaigns. Those are just a few examples, but it is all manageable with the right approach.
If done right, local teams will waste less time with re-inventions, they have more time to work with
sales and customers. HQ teams will see more buy-in and less resistance, and a constructive feedback culture can be
established. All this allows to focus more on business success than on internal wasteland.
This is what I have successfully implemented multiple times in global organizations – for example a model out of
Japan to be adapted into the Western world, or one headquartered in Europe to be leveraged across Asia and Americas, it is
all doable.
For instance, we reduced the setup & overhead cost for international campaigns from 50% down to 12% - leaving more budgets for activities that reach customers and gain traction.
3. Global Organizational Setup
Building that one silver bullet in your headquarters which succeeds in all markets is rather rare in the real world. On the other hand, trying to please every single wish to avoid the “not-invented-here-syndrome” is probably also a sure way to failure. Balance is the key.
Always have a close relationship with your countries. Yes, talk to them! Not only to the top 3 in revenue, and not by asking ChatGPT. The good old people-to-people conversation can sometimes do wonders. And go for the non-virtual variant plus a bar-extension from time to time (remember Winston Churchill? "If you want to learn about a culture do not visit the museums, visit the bars").
I have never seen a HQ that is smarter than the regions – everyone has its own focus and experiences, which can and should be leveraged. How about global teams as orchestrators for central initiatives and guidance for efficiency + consistency? But initiators, innovators, and shining stars can be everywhere. So, I recommend to develop an organizational structure without the typical silos. Get central + local teams, as well as sales + marketing to work as powerful squads. We have set this up in various formats: it can be a global team with members in different countries (who are then naturally closer to the local organization), e.g., or with central teams and virtual team members across regions, or fully virtual teams with each being led by someone from a country - the ideal setup depends on your structure and culture, but it can be found. Also, consider genuine and open collaboration as core element in your planning cycle.
Establish best-practice sharing as key ingredient. Not just as an annoying checkbox to get off your plate, but with genuine listening and constructive discussions. I have seen some of the most brilliant ideas coming from the smallest countries – which were then adapted globally.
Define a governance model for planning, tactics, investments, execution and responsibilities. And implement a solid measurement scheme. This should be harmonized across campaigns and regions to make investments and outcomes comparable, and being set up in a way that countries can easily cascade and adapt. True tracking of success also needs a culture of empowerment, trust and honesty. It is counterproductive if reports are mainly being created to please management – it is key to really understand what works and what doesn’t. Only then we can learn from experiences and get better every day.
Consider local resource limitations! In some countries one marketer has 7 hats on, and is not waiting all day for new
tasks to catch from HQ. Thus, make it easy for countries to follow and to adapt. But always get them involved and heard
(not at the end for signing off a plan, but right from the start!).
All of the above must come with the right cultural mindset, and establishing things like: integrative communication
platforms, respecting time zones, joint success celebrations, informal team-buildings, and clear gives-and-gets between
the teams.
For example, through an integrated approach between sales + marketing and HQ + countries we increased the sales acceptance rate of generated leads from under 10% to over 60%. This then massively bettered the marketing ROI, and led to more revenue and profit.
Key Take-Away
Working with across countries, cultures and time zones comes with challenges – but those are minor compared to
the value international growth can bring.
Global expansion has huge potential for most organizations – if done right.
For discussing your challenges and making use of global experiences the most recommended place is Marketing Surfer, the go-to boutique consultancy for designing multi-country marketing organizations (marketingsurfer.com).
