How to get executive buy-in when taking a tech company globally
It’s no doubt that obtaining executive buy-in is really hard, but also essential in executing a successful international strategy.
Why is it so hard? Well, to begin with international expansion is a long-term effort that requires enormous commitment and coordination. There are usually slow gains at first, making it a challenge to show progress and impact in the early days. For companies dipping their toes in international, this is also an effort that requires an enormous amount of internal education and advocacy. Most importantly, there is no one size fits all model, and any new market expansion strategy will require constant iteration and tweaking to get it right.
So how are others experiencing this challenge? What impacts it and, most importantly, how do you deal with it? We’ve taken the insights from our expert community and broken it down into three key pieces of advice:
Identify Sponsors early on and bring them close to strategy: anyone working with International Expansion has experienced the excitement that going global generates across the organization. This is true on the surface, but when it gets down to setting specific KPIs across different teams, they can very easily conflict with other priorities and get neglected. Getting executive buy-in requires the engagement of sponsors across different functions who can advocate for international as well as you. But how to do this effectively? Our International Masterminds recommend leading with a service mindset by solving someone else’s problem first, planting the seeds for a global outlook and making people think globally through light-weight actions that can enable them. If you lead a sales team, one tangible example is to provide the sales team with localized marketing collateral to explore a new market even before the product and the strategy are fully flashed-out for that particular geo. Another example is to align your success with that of others, helping others meet their goals through your initiatives. Make it simple and approachable and build trust with peers.
Lead with data and a compelling narrative: So much of the work of International Expansion leaders revolves around educating internal stakeholders about the complexity of taking a company globally. Many executives tend to think that international is a single bucket or even 3-4 regional buckets when in fact it can represent over 100 distinct ones operationally. To make conversations tangible, expansion leaders should bring their data toolkit to the table, with relevant acquisition, revenue and market data that can lead towards a rational and logical conversation on market prioritization and resource allocation. However, data on its own sometimes is not sufficient and we have often found ourselves having to overcome market biases that some executives have. To that end, besides the data it's also crucial to nail down the narrative and bring qualitative facts from the ground that can be shared with the Executive team for their understanding of a particular geo. Partnering up with regional leaders or local market experts can prove extremely helpful to drive home the argument of where, when and how much to invest in each market.
Manage by influence instead of control: We've often found that a command-and-control mentality doesn't work as effectively when running international expansion. If you can instead be super charming and build a brand internally that makes people wanna work with you, you should have a better and more sustainable outcome. Our International Masterminds have done this by running several internal roadshows, getting the team's brand out there and ensuring the international aspiration is highlighted in company-wide conferences that can elevate the discussion of international.
International Mastermind is a community of International Expansion leaders across different functions in tech companies such as Shopify, Atlassian, Spotify, Reddit, Hubspot, Zoom and many others. If you're interested in applying, please reach out at www.internationalmastermind.co