Nigeria Choosing a New Market - Global Sales Mentor | Zach Selch

5 May 2020 · 3 min

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2:51

In this brief talk recorded in Abuja, Nigeria, Zach Selch warns that the single biggest and most expensive mistake companies make when expanding internationally is entering the wrong market. He argues that the root cause is often a flawed market‑selection methodology rather than a lack of information. Selch highlights how firms frequently rely on consultants, sales managers, or diplomats whose expertise is limited to a single country, leading them to choose markets based on personal experience or language skills rather than strategic fit. He illustrates this with examples—a sales manager hired for three years as a waitress in Italy being sent to Italy, and a diplomat with a decade in Denmark steering a company toward Denmark. Selch stresses that proper market selection should start with an analysis of where the company’s unique benefits meet real buyer demand, not where a decision‑maker has personal ties. He concludes with a call‑to‑action, inviting viewers to contact his team for professional help in growing international sales.

Chapters

I'm in a market in Nigeria. Abuja. And we have a lot of markets to choose from. Everybody can choose from lots of different markets to go into. The single biggest mistake I see people make is if they go into the wrong market. And I'm not going to talk to you about how to choose the right market today. That's a subject for another couple of videos. What I'm going to talk about is the methodology we sometimes use for choosing the markets we go into. And I think that's, that's where the mistake starts from. And you— I cannot overemphasize how much of a problem it is when you go into the wrong market, how expensive it is to you, and how difficult it is to fix later. That's probably the single biggest problem I see people— the single biggest mistake that I see people make is going into the wrong market, and it's probably the single most expensive problem to fix later on. So what do I mean by the wrong methodology? Who is helping you decide what market you go into and what's their motivation? How do they get compensated? Very often we deal with consultants who have a focus on one market, who their whole work experience has been in South America, has been in France, has been in Italy, etc. Or we hire somebody with a single market experience. I know a company just recently I was talking to—
In Brooklyn.
Where the sales manager, the international sales manager, was hired because she had spent 3 years as a waitress in Italy. So she had some, a little bit of sales experience, she spoke Italian, and she had international experience in one country, and, and that was the person they chose. So obviously, what market is she going to go into? Italy. That's where she speaks the language. That's what she knows. Okay, and I'm not attacking her, but I'm just saying the methodology that sometimes we use. Or very often we talk to a diplomat who spent 10 years in Denmark, so we go into the Danish market. Or we, we talk to somebody who focuses on Japan, we end up going into the Japanese market. Choosing the right market is such an important issue that what we have to do is look at it from a perspective of what benefits do we bring to the market, who buys what we need, and where in the world can we find a lot of people who need what we have, okay? And that's the most important thing. 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.