Why One Playbook Fails In A Global Market

In this episode, we sit down with global sales leader Alexander Distadio to break down one of the biggest myths in international growth: the belief that one playbook can scale everywhere. From Brazil to New York to Europe, Alexander shares why leaders must rethink how they build teams, shape culture, and design GTM strategies when entering new markets.

We dig into the realities of global expansion—why attitude often outperforms experience, why culture can’t be copy-pasted, and how leaders can equip teams with the autonomy and trust they need to succeed in diverse environments. If you're responsible for global sales, leadership, or market expansion, this episode will reshape how you think about building and scaling teams across borders.

Join us weekly as we dig into the real stories behind work culture transformation.

Not theory. Not fluff. Just honest conversations with leaders and innovators who've been in the trenches.

Transcript

Local Leadership Beats One-Size-Fits-All

Speaker 0:00

You need a local leadership. And the local leadership, the regional leadership, they are much more prepared than me to translate the voice of the customer, the situation of that specific country, how clients are buying. Many times the ideal customer profile is different region by region. So points like this, the leader needs to understand. Because, for example, if you focus, if you define only one ideal customer per customer profile, globally, probably you're gonna make a mistake.

Speaker 2 0:38

At Elements of Culture, we sit down with experts in leadership and team building to explore the DNA that drives a thriving organization.

Speaker 3 0:46

Hello, everyone, and welcome to Elements of Culture. My name is Taryn, and I'm joined with my co-host Julie. And today we are so excited. We are talking with Alexander D'Estadio. He's the global VP of Business Development at Dock Here. Welcome to Elements of Culture, Alexander. We're glad to have you.

Speaker 1:06

Thank you for having me.

Speaker 3 1:12

We're so excited to talk with you in just our brief conversation. You have such a global background, very versed in different cultures and leading sales teams and navigating corporate culture when it comes to global territories and the different details of that. So we're excited to kind of dig into that in our conversation today. But before we do so, would you help tell our listeners and those that are watching what where is your background? Where did you start? What's kind of led you to where you're at today?

Alexander’s Global Journey In Sales

Speaker 1:46

Nice, good question to start. As you can see in my face, I'm not a young person, right? So I have a lot of capitals in my book. I started my journey over 20 years ago in Brazil. Part of my family is from Brazil, but the DNA of my family is from Italy, right? And now I live in New Jersey, uh, 40 minutes to Mahana. Uh, the place that we uh we move the world, right? So the business are here, and I'm very happy to live here in the United States. But my DNA is from uh Brazil and Italy. Uh I started my journey in Brazil after I moved for sales position in Latin America, South America. Uh, we focus on Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, Chile. And uh I got a promotion a time ago to help uh my company in Canada and also in the United States. And after a good job working with American people here, or not only American people, but people based in the United States selling to Americans, uh, the company decided to expatriate myself. So I moved my family from Sao Paulo City to New York, and uh for a while I drove uh business for Americas. And after I moved for a global role because of my uh my experience, because I'm able to talk multiple languages, and I had a mission to drive uh global businesses. Uh today I'm DoCare, as you said. It is uh a great company. The company uh just turned five years, weeks ago. Uh it is a company innovating a lot in the healthcare space. But my experience is in sales for tech companies. I've worked for Microsoft, for Oracle, for Tabula, and now EdoCare.

Speaker 3 3:59

Beautiful. Wow, I can see that you you bring such a wide variety of experiences. And I think that, you know, I would imagine that all of your colleagues and leaders that you've worked with have been thrilled to have you on the team because someone who's very multi-cultured like that is rare. Um and I think that you can also bring a unique experience. Um, you know, you said Microsoft, you were there at Microsoft, Tabula, Oracle, you know, these are all well-known big companies. Um, what what would you say like you have learned? Now, Microsoft's an American company, right? Um, you know, what would you say? How has your journey, your experience, how has that evolved? How what has that taught you um to where you're at today with the global position?

Speaker 4:53

Yeah, I believe that sales is much more about uh people and process than product, right? So, first of all, I'm a people first manager. Of course, revenue counts a lot. We need it to be data-driven, we needed to have our dashboards. Um, but I believe more important than uh keeping the revenue as the most important KPI, we needed to drive people to reach the revenue, right? And if you provide support, if you provide coach, if you provide uh all the help the people need, respecting the place they are, different countries, different cultures, they will perform well and the revenue is consequence.

Inclusion, Flexibility, And Global Hours

Speaker 1 5:44

Yeah, uh Alexandra, I love that. Um I think one of the things me and Tara are really passionate about is the international scope of business. And so one of the, you know, when during COVID, one of the great things that came out of COVID was that we became smaller as a world. And I think businesses started to understand that um in such a great capacity. And so, as you're managing and helping lead people, you know, internationally, multiple teams, different countries, different nationalities, talk to me a little bit about some of the things that make a great leader lead those teams well by and also being inclusive of them, not just having a team somewhere in the other side of the country and we talk about them, but how do you bring those people in to be a part of the business and leading them well and making sure that the communications are going well, especially for I think Americans? Like Americans are just oblivious sometimes, you know, to the things of international scope, whether it be holidays, culture, um, lifestyle, all those things. And so how do you help lead your American team to help understand those international teams and how do you incorporate those international teams into the companies to make sure they feel inclusive?

COVID’s Lessons And Tech Tradeoffs

Speaker 7:02

First of all, I believe that the leader needs to drive the organization. I know my responsibility, right? But it's not because I'm the most important person in my department that I'm not able to listen to people. I believe, I believe that people in UK, people in Germany, people in Brazil, people in Australia, yesterday I had a meeting with my client in New Zealand, right? And I was in a call 11 p.m. in New York. Why? Why? Because I had team members based in India and it was 8 30 a.m. for them, but it was 2 30, I think, or 3 p.m. for my partner in New Zealand, right? If I wanted to close, if I wanted to demonstrate, if I wanted to lead by example, I needed to make my flexibility, right? I needed to be flexible, I needed to adapt myself to the globe. You said about COVID. Um there are many lessons about COVID, in my opinion. One it is, for example, now we have a podcast and we are online, we are talking. I'm from my home in New Jersey, and you are in all the places. We are live, we are talking, discussing, creating uh content for other leaders, other sales people, and it is the big lesson from COVID. Another one, it is, in my opinion, uh that time, that hard time, um made people to understand how to have more accountability, right? Because people working from home like a surprise, created a big effort in organizations, right? And everyone had the time to learn together. So I see big benefits that we are getting advantages right now because of the the the COVID time. At the same time, at the same time, because we have new technologies, we saw uh numbers, public numbers of Zoom of uh companies working with this kind of solution during that time. Uh with new platforms, with new technologies, we see that created a negative impact in terms of people or workforce, right? So there are companies with layoffs today because we have more technology. And uh the the recap of everything is the same. When you have a crisis, when you have a problem, at the same time you have an opportunity, right? And that case, that critical moment for everyone created a big opportunity for the tech industry. But now we have the consequences of that. So layoffice, now we have AI, we have uh people being replaced by AI. But as a seller, I believe that the human touch is fundamental. Is fundamental. I I don't believe, I don't believe in robots, I don't believe in machines closing deals, the same deals that we close in person. Right.

Speaker 3 10:39

Yeah, we we've seen such a shift, um, Alexander, with AI, with technology, things have changed so much in the last few years. And and with that, I want to ask you, as you lead teams and in different nations, um, as you're the global VP of business development, I'm curious, has your playbook, you know, you said you're a people manager. So, you know, in sales, you still the the people element of it is so valuable. Um, and so looking at how things have changed, has your playbook specifically changed with your sales team, uh, with technology? Because, you know, our meetings have changed, our sales meetings, like you said, technology, we're doing the podcast. What has changed for your teams and how do you how do you rewrite maybe some of the playbook, but then also be flexible along the way so that you are really driving performance and revenue?

Inside Sales At Enterprise Scale

Adapting GTM To Regional Realities

Onboarding And Pace Vary By Country

Speaker 11:40

I believe that during the COVID phase, um, we converted big enterprise organizations in inside sales, right? Because everyone working from home before COVID, many people were going to clients to meet in person. That situation provocated a movement in our industry. So everyone with the mission to sell from home. So an enterprise guy, an enterprise seller, uh, that person was converted in an inside sales person, and it created more uh more movement, more volume, more scale, and companies at that time they needed more control, and new platforms were created, new dashboards were created. So, for example, today I have dashboards, I see every single person in my team, I see the performance of these people. I'm not talking about inside sales or S B. My DNA is from S B, what helps me a lot. But enterprise people closing deals, I know exactly how many calls they have, how many meetings they have, what is the conversion rate, how many deals they are closing, how many deals I have live. And part of that, in the past we had reports, that's true, but now we have reports in real time because the momentum of COVID. So uh the automation was was so important. And when you sell about different people in different countries, and it is related to the GTM, to the motion, the sales motion, right? As global leader, I've learned that what I apply in the United States many times, I cannot replicate in Europe. I cannot replicate in Brazil, in South America, in Asia, right? You needed to understand the customer behavior. Many times it's important to have global teams, but sometimes you needed to have an American person selling to the American audience because that person knows exactly how to approach the consumer. Uh if it is a B2B relationship, you have more uh traction to connect the dots. That's my opinion. I'm not saying that a person like me from Brazil cannot sell in the United States, right? Because I'm here selling for global, driving people, but we needed to be able to listen from American what is the market saying about you, about your product, about your packaging, about your pricing. And I need to do the same with my team in UK, with my team in Germany, with my team in India, with my team in other places. And we need to adjust the playbook. The basics of the playbook normally is the same. Okay, the playbook normally includes three pillars um um acquisition, onboarding, this part is critical, and scale. I'm talking about growth. Okay. But how to how to onboard new clients depends. It's country by country, it's future. There are places you can force the client a little bit more, you can provocate a little bit more. There are places if you push the client, they don't understand very well. So you needed to respect their timing, you needed to respect their speeds, you needed to have more coordination to define the next steps, what's next. Uh, that's my my opinion. And I believe I'm doing well.

Put Sales At The Start Of Product

Speaker 1 15:43

Alexandra, I know I love what you said because uh these conversations have come up recently with some other leaders as well. And one of the things Tieron and I were discussing, I had spent the first half of the year overseas, and I've noticed a lot of companies doing their go-to-market strategies the same, but it doesn't work because they have a lack of understanding of the people. Even basic things like marketing and advertising. Um, they were trying to incorporate the same concept, just swap out people, but it doesn't work because culturally it's it means different things. And I was saying, I was like, this is why everyone's confused. That's why no one's buying this product because they don't understand this. But as an American, I'm watching this commercial and I understand what's happening and what they're trying to do, but I could tell from the people around me they didn't. Um, what is what do companies need to do? Like, because it seems like they're not bringing enough international um people to the table to have this discussion. And so we're funneling millions of dollars into things that are gonna fail. And there's probably someone in the pipeline or in your international team somewhere that knows it's gonna fail, um, but just probably doesn't have a voice in expressing that. So, what what do companies need to be doing to be prepared to go to market in these um international countries? And it could be even a Latin American country trying to come into the US or coming to Southeast Asia. So I'm not just talking about the US in general, but I'm just talking in general. When these companies want to go global, where are you seeing the mistakes?

The Cost Of Ignoring Market Feedback

Speaker 17:19

I will say something that will impact. Uh while I learned it. When we see uh a company as a company, right? We have the conception of the product. So it includes RD, engineers, product people. After you have a product marketing, creating packaging, uh pricing, etc., you have sales enablement preparing people, and you have sellers closing deals, right? So looking in theory, sales in is in the final of the line. What is the secret, in my opinion? Company, companies in general uh need to understand need to understand uh sales is not the final of the line. Sales is at the beginning. Because more important than understanding the reasons of success is you need to be able to understand the factors that are not bringing success for your company, for your journey. When you do that, when you prepare your team to go to the market to sell, having or not having success, and able to translate the market feedback into insights, you are gonna impact the product roadmap. So it is like uh customer-centric DNA. So for companies, companies needed to understand that the final off-the-line sales is the one of the most important components of this engine, right? So prepare sellers to sell and to get the voice of the customer and use that in favor of your business. That's it. That's my opinion. But if the company has a platform DNA and not a customer-cent food DNA, if the company has a leadership that is arrogant, they believe that they do very well because they are performing over 100% year over year, something like this, we have a problem. I will not I will not uh mention names, but I had a very bad experience in my career. A time ago, I was in an important company, right? And my team, my team was struggling, and I had people in different places, right? And my team was struggling. The reason, the competition, economy changes, market change, and I understood. And I was trying to translate the voice of the customer to my sales leadership team. But in the moment the company decided to uh put our organization to report it to a new leader, and this new leader was not talking bad about him, but about his method to drive people. He was into the box, right? Inside the box, right? And he was not happy with the results in the United States, and he was forcing my sellers in the United States to sell in the same way he was selling in Europe. But in Europe, we had only one or two competitors. In the United States, we had 12 competitors, and you know how the economy works in the United States. If you are not happy with the price at Walmart, you can cross the street, you go to Target, and they will cover the price, right? And if you get a coupon of discount and you get back to Walmart, you are gonna pay 25% of the initial price. I'm not American, but as I told you, as leader of global teams, I need to be able to learn. And the leader that we had that time, he was not able to learn that. He was forcing the company to push a go-to-market plan, to force the same playbooks. He was believing that that people I had needed more training. How can I explain? How can I explain a person from my team received two awards being top perform? And after a time, that person was not performing. How can I explain? That person is bad, that seller is not prepared, that seller needs more training, more coaching. Training is good for everyone, every time. But the company in general, the company needs to learn the voice of the customer. If the market is saying, hey, I need more flexibility, your terms and conditions are not good, you need to think about it. Otherwise, you're gonna lose market share. And that company, they had problems with market share. Right? Uh but uh things that can happen, and we needed to learn, and we needed to replicate what is good, and we needed to avoid what is not good.

Scaling Through Regional Pillars

Speaker 3 22:42

Well, thank you for sharing that example. I think that that's you know an unfortunate learning situation that the company had to go through, and it, you know, certainly reflected on your team. Um, and they, you know, were not performing as they once were. And so I think, you know, Alexander, you said it in the beginning. You have to see people first, um, and and not just the bottom line. And I think that companies that truly value the talent, uh, the people, both those that work for you and your customers, if you're seeing the customers, if you're understanding the market and the needs in the market, that's actually going to go much further than you think. And if as leaders and as companies, if you're thinking about global expansion, you have to have a perspective that is open to learning and giving room for others, other people.

Speaker 23:36

Exactly. Exactly. Exactly.

Speaker 3 23:40

Alexander, I want to ask you too, you know, you gave that example about the team in Australia that you were leading at the time. How do you find now where you're at? How do you effectively scale the team? Obviously, each, you know, area, each country is different. Like you said, maybe your strategy looks different to scale. And you don't have to give us exact examples, but um, or give us your strategy, but how does it vary from country to country? What are the things that that are differentiators that make you decide, okay, we have to make this change because of, you know, this is what we're experiencing with this particular market? How do you effectively scale when you're in multiple markets?

Diagnose The Why Behind Numbers

Hire For Attitude And Filter Insights

Speaker 24:27

As I told you, normally I like to have like a team lead, a person with more experience in different regions, right? It facilitates my job a lot. Okay, I don't believe in a global leader without pillars. When you have a big team, for example, um in other companies I had 70 people reporting to me. It's impossible to me to drive 70 people, to provide attention for 70 people. Okay, as leader, we needed to provide time for everyone, right? And I was doing my best to organize my schedule, at least on Sakwatter, to have an individual conversation for uh with different people of my team. But you need you need a local leadership. And the local leadership, the regional leadership, they they are much more prepared than me to translate the voice of the customer, uh, the economy, the situation of that specific country, how clients are buying. Many times the ideal customer profile is different region by region, right? There are places you, for example, there are places you have more mid-market clients, there are places you have more enterprise companies, there are places that SMBs is stronger. So points like this the leader needs to understand. Because, for example, if you focus, if you define only one IDL customer profile globally, probably you're gonna make a mistake, and uh it's not good. But you need to have voices, regional voices. I don't believe that I know everything from US, Brazil, UK, Germany. I I don't know. I don't know. My job is to facilitate my team to reach the goals that we have. Okay, and when we talk about people, we need to talk about accountability. But it's hard to have accountability if people are not prepared. It includes they needed to have training, they need to know exactly the differential of your product, they need to have a vision about the competitive landscape, they needed to have objections handling tree, you know? You need to provide everything that your team needs to have to perform well. And it's not about execution and done. The execution never ends. So if you're not performing in that specific market, what is the main point? Is there a regional problem? It is a global problem. It is because your team has new members that are new people on boarding, what is the real problem? Or, as I told before, that is an outstanding seller, performing very well in the past, but not performing well right now. You need to translate. I love numbers, I'm a data-driven person, but more than numbers, you needed to understand the reasons of the numbers. It's simple to take a look on the dashboard and to see, hey, I had 20 deals closed at this quarter, but why? More than the what, you need to understand the whys. For good and for bad.

Speaker 3 28:04

Yeah, understand this, understanding the story, right? Letting the data tell the story, I think, within the organization. You said something that I feel like was very key as a leader. Your job is a facilitator. And I can't say, Alexander, that I've heard many leaders say that. Um, because as a facilitator, you're not trying to get to the top. You're trying to bring everybody together and win together. And I think that that's a very unique um choice of words, of facilitator as a leader. I think that you have to facilitate telling the story. You're facilitating, you know, through the pillars that you have and the people on the ground locally. I think that that's so good. Um, and just helps paint a picture of a leadership style that you're invested to grow together, um, even globally. Um, Alexander, you have, you know, quite a background. You've had many experiences in different cultures, you know, where you're born and raised, where you've lived. And so you bring all of those different things to the table. Now, you may have had some folks along the journey professionally that have given you tips, advice, things like that as you have grown in your career. Before we wrap up today's conversation about your global perspective and leading teams well, is there any advice that people have given you along the journey that has kind of helped steer you along a good path, or maybe advice that you could give to other leaders that are wanting to uh maybe venture out into doing more global expansions within their organizations? What kind of advice could you leave with people today?

Speaker 29:51

Um as I focus on people because people move the ball, my advice it is how. For attitude. Okay? Attitude first. Many times that person, that candidate, they don't have all the skills that you are looking for, but they have attitude. The world is very complex today. The global economy is changing a lot. When you have a person with attitude, the chance of having this person to take care of the relationship end-to-end. It includes from the lead generation to the upsell, you have a big chance of doing well. So attitude is fundamental for me. I love when I have an interview with a person and this person is creating a surprise for me. Right? That are people don't like. But a time ago, for example, I joined in a call with a new candidate, and he joined with a presentation showing me what is wrong in my company. It's curious, right? So people with attitude can bring value. Feedback is fundamental, right? What I needed to have, it is I need to have the ability to translate. Because many times when we promote this movement internally, many people bring in the voice of the customer or getting marketing sites for us. As leader, we needed to filter. Right? We need to double check. We need to deep dive. We need to understand the whys more than the what's. And after that filtering, we needed to coordinate with the leadership the the next step. But attitude is fundamental for me.

Speaker 3 32:05

That's so good. Yeah, focusing on that attitude.

Speaker 32:09

I prefer to hold people than to push people. Okay.

Speaker 3 32:14

So good. Well, Alexander, thank you so much for your time today and just sharing your experiences, your leadership, and and what's worked well along your career. Certainly brought um some fun conversations and just a different perspective with your experience. So thank you so much for joining us for this conversation.

Closing Thanks And Takeaways

Speaker 32:34

Thank you. Appreciate it, Julian and Tarin. Thank you so much.