The last few years settled an argument: a first conversation does not need a flight. Buyers take video calls from vendors on other continents without a second thought, and a good remote programme can open a market from a single office. What those years did not change is what happens after the first conversation, and that is where presence still earns its cost.
What went remote, and what did not
Discovery went remote. Demos went remote. Pricing conversations mostly did. The stages that stubbornly did not are the ones built on trust rather than information: the site visit, the dinner with the sponsor, the quiet conversation with the person who will have to live with the decision, the handshake that says the vendor is real.
In some markets those stages are the sale. Relationship-led sectors, family-owned enterprises, public bodies, and most of the Middle East and much of Asia will progress a vendor only so far on a screen. The deal stalls at a stage that nobody can quite name, and the pipeline report shows it as "awaiting decision" for a year.
The three jobs of a person in market
- To be seen. Showing up at the industry dinner, the regulator's briefing, the trade association's breakfast. Presence is a signal that the company is committed to the market, and buyers read it as one.
- To hear what is not said on calls. The real objection, the internal politics, the competitor who was in the building last week. In-market people hear it in corridors; remote teams read about it in the lost-deal review.
- To move the deal through the trust stage. The visit, the reference lunch, the executive introduction. The person on the ground does not replace the closer; they get the closer into the room the closer could not have reached.
What it does not require
It does not require an office, a local entity, a hiring plan or a year of lead time. Most companies discover the need for presence in month four of a market entry, when the remote programme has produced conversations that will not convert, and the choice they face is between a local hire they cannot yet justify and a market they are about to abandon.
There is a third option, which is to put an experienced, senior sales professional into the market on demand, for the duration of the stage that needs them. That is what our feet on the ground practice is for. It is not a sales agency; it is a person who carries your card, works to your brief, and is there because a specific set of deals needs someone in the room.
Remote work made the first conversation cheap. It made the trusted conversation more valuable, because fewer vendors bother to have it.
How to decide whether a market needs it
Three questions, asked at the end of the first quarter in a market:
- Are conversations stalling at the same stage, and is that stage one where trust rather than information is the blocker?
- Do the buyers in this market expect to meet a vendor before a decision of this size? Local advisers and existing customers will tell you honestly.
- Is there a cluster of live opportunities in one city or region, enough to justify a person for a quarter?
Three yeses mean presence will pay for itself. Three noes mean the remote programme should keep running and the money is better spent on research. One or two is a judgement, and it is the one we spend the most time on with clients at day ninety.
Presence as a stage, not a strategy
The companies that use in-market presence well treat it as a stage in the engagement rather than a permanent commitment. Open remotely, qualify remotely, put someone in market when the deals need it, and decide about an office only when the revenue has made the decision for you. That order costs less, proves more, and leaves the company with a market it understands rather than a lease it regrets.
