Which divi...

Question

Which divisions, regions, or business units may be more or most advantageous to sell for and why?

Former Employee · Accepted Answer

The previous answer is not valid and likely somebody from the London office. The London office has long been known to be very clicky and had great leadership but also not the easiest place to join and grow within. So, the London office came second in the mix after Tel Aviv and the third was NYC. The team in Europe was selling globally and spraying and preying for years across Europe and even into the US, making it a handicapped situation of sorts where they had weakened the image of the company for prospects already engaged within the US. Not an excuse, but the truth and the first two years of opening NYC, Hibob struggled, and then COVID hit and it was tough.

Having a no-limits approach before that did make things difficult for the first couple of leaders, and it was around the fall of 2020 and into the next year when the US market started getting its footing. Anybody who hasn't sold to global markets understands that you can't apply the same principles and GTM and think that you will find success because that happened to work in the region you live in. It's just not the case when it comes to culture, strategy, buyer journey expectations of sellers, etc.  For example, there is a massive difference in how reps are compensated on the base and variable by country and region, and I mean MASSIVE.

That difference will also impact how reps manage a deal cycle simply based on where their motivations are aligned and weighted. You can say that's not true, but it is unfortunately, and is something you have to recognize and consider when drafting comp plans, budgets, and market strategies. Anyway, they had a ton of success across Europe, and I mean completely outperformed the US, which was largely due to not having any leadership boots on the ground in the North American market. There was no operational infrastructure (i.e. HR personnel which might make sense at an HR company lol), customer success, RevOps, and so on; thus, relying entirely on the guidance of a series of leaders in over their heads.

So, yes EMEA has been ahead of the US market for a while, and yes there are new offices all over the world at Hibob now including Australia, Benelux, Dach, Nordics, etc. The common theme is that outside of Oceania, the other markets are pushing into specialization and hyper-segmentation to capture particular buckets of the addressable market that you can't necessarily engage at the scale and precision you want to achieve without doing so. I think they are trying to really expand in the hourly worker/frontline worker type of environment as well, which would align with their EMEA expansion thus far. So if it's intriguing to you to have a situation that has a lot of barriers to creative freedom as well as a much more limiting upside on your variable then yeah sure the EMEA side of things is ahead of where the US is, no doubt.

That being said, Hibob US has evolved significantly over the last 3 years and they happen to be in, you know, the largest economy in the world that they haven't come close to tapping into in the way they could and will if they play their cards right and patch up certain aspects of the product (I can dive into that if you want too) that is missing today and partially why they also have seen more limited growth in North America and missing the outsized targets that they expected to see from the region by now. It's really a bit about being out of touch and not seeing things as the buyer and market see it. The C-Suite should move to the US for 1-2 years if they really want to capture a piece of the market share required to become a Decacorn as they hope to become.

Back to your question. Regionally, outside of EMEA, it's more like working at a high-growth startup as opposed to working at an established public company as you might experience in EMEA. It's really going to come down to what you're looking for; but just to be clear, you can't just "choose" your region of choice as if it's like declaring your major in college or something. Another key thing to note is the CRO and CMO sit in the US as well, and that type of exposure is always a plus for a sales rep.

Current Employee · Answer

EMEA by a long shot. US is way behind.

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Anonymous Q&A

Which divisions, regions, or business units may be more or most advantageous to sell for and why?