Beyond that, I believe that Europe’s (particularly Britain’s) negative cultural attitude towards sales is a major inhibitor to building tech champions on the same scale as the US or China. In my thirteen years of working in the UK, I’ve learnt that in British culture sales and selling is viewed negatively.
The linked HBR article talks about self-promotion not sales. That seems quite different to me. And speaking from Cloudflare’s perspective our London-based EMEA sales team has been spectacularly effective.
Early in Eigen’s history there were many London-based employees who prioritised technological purity over commercial success; it was almost fatal for us. However hard it is, the UK needs to transform its cultural attitude to sales.
I think that’s a leadership issue not about “London”. The team we built in London was/is all about commercial success.
The linked HBR article talks about self-promotion not sales. That seems quite different to me. And speaking from Cloudflare’s perspective our London-based EMEA sales team has been spectacularly effective.
Early in Eigen’s history there were many London-based employees who prioritised technological purity over commercial success; it was almost fatal for us. However hard it is, the UK needs to transform its cultural attitude to sales.
I think that’s a leadership issue not about “London”. The team we built in London was/is all about commercial success.