Churchill the Patron Saint of International Sales - Global Sales Mentor | Zach Selch

13 Jun 2020 · 2 min

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2:13

In this monologue, Zach Selch likens Winston Churchill to a patron saint for international sales managers, emphasizing the need for relentless willpower to drive cross‑border growth. He outlines the typical enthusiasm companies show when deciding to expand internationally, followed by the harsh reality of regulatory hurdles, manufacturing adjustments, packaging changes, and other operational challenges. Selch claims that, across his career, the companies he has helped have collectively added about $500 million in enterprise value by building robust international sales organizations, despite many wanting to abandon the effort midway. He concludes with a persuasive call to action, urging listeners to contact his firm when they are ready to grow their international sales.

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I've always had a huge affinity for Churchill, and this might trivialize the whole thing possibly, but I sort of see him as a patron saint of international sales managers. This man essentially held together the coalition, mobilized the British people to stand up and fight against the Nazis, fight against the Axis, and get things moving and save the 20th century to some extent. And I find that as an international sales manager, you need by force of will to keep people moving and keep pushing to get the company to do what they want to do and move forward towards growing international sales. What typically happens with every company that decides to grow their international sales, they say, yeah, let's grow our international sales. This is fantastic. This is the best way to increase the value of the company. We're going to double the value of the company and IPO or sell the company. And everybody gets excited. And then they realize how much hard work it is. And they realize that, Ooh, I didn't realize it was so much hard work. No, let's stop. We can't do this. Right? And you as the international sales manager are the driving force to say, look, right now we're sweating a little, we're working hard, this is a little bit unpleasant, we're doing regulatory issues, we're increasing our manufacturing, we're hiring manufacturing workers, we're changing the packaging. I understand that, but in the end we have to push forward. And I can tell you I'll tell you, over the years, companies I've worked with have added about $500 million in aggregate to the value of the company through building up their international sales organizations. And every one of them probably wanted to stop in the middle and felt it was too much work. And they were all happy that we pushed through. But it's force of will that you have to push through, and you have to convince people that they just have to keep going. Remember, when you're ready to grow your international sales, reach out to us. We can help. When you decide it's time to grow your international sales, call us.