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Tuesday Brief

How to build enterprise pipeline in Australia and Southeast Asia this quarter

Each Tuesday we take one deal we are running in Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia or the Philippines and show what the buyer actually responded to: which channel reached them, the opening line that got a reply, who introduced us, and how many days it took to get the first meeting.

  • Tuesdays
  • Two minutes to read
  • From accounts we run this quarter

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Why the number is flat

Two routes to the same buyer

One asks a stranger for a meeting. The other gets you read first. The brief covers the second one, week by week.

Fig N.1Two routes reach the same enterprise buyer in APAC. The cold route fades out and ends at the RFP with price as the only lever. The local route gets the buyer reading a local advisor first and ends with your name in the requirements before procurement opens.
Same targetOne enterprise buyer in APAC
Cold route
  1. Same template, four countries
  2. Replies die by week three
  3. Buyer has never read you
  4. You arrive at the RFP
EndsPrice is the only lever left
Local route
  1. Local advisor publishes
  2. Buyer asks a question
  3. Working session booked
  4. You help write the brief
EndsNamed before procurement opens
  • More sendsSame committee compares the same template. Domain gets filtered.
  • One sponsorGood first call, no second sponsor. The deal stops quietly.
  • RFP onlyRequirements written around vendors the buyer already trusts.

What arrives

What one issue looks like

Here is a real issue from an Australian account, drawn block by block.

Fig N.2The account. An enterprise security vendor was selling to a retail bank in Melbourne. The head of security signs the deal, the fraud lead is the internal sponsor, and procurement controls the last step. The team had only reached procurement. What we found. The team placed 180 calls over three weeks and six were answered. Australian enterprise buyers route unknown numbers to voicemail, so more calls only made the number look worse. What we sent. A local advisor sent one message on LinkedIn instead. It referenced two open fraud analyst roles at the bank and offered a short session on what two comparable banks did instead of hiring. What happened. The fraud lead replied the next morning. Three days later the head of security joined the thread, and the first working session was booked nine days after the message went out. The footer. One line about the work we do, with a single link. It sits at the bottom so you can finish reading and ignore it.
Inbox
XpandEastTuesday 9:02 · 2 min read

Melbourne: 180 calls got six answers, so we stopped calling

The account

A security vendor was selling to a retail bank in Melbourne.

BuyerHead of security
SponsorFraud lead
GateProcurement
What we found

Calls were being placed, but almost nobody was answering them.

Calls placed in three weeks180
Calls answered6
What we sent

One message went out on LinkedIn instead, from a local advisor.

Local advisorMon 8:41

Your team posted two fraud analyst roles this month. Two banks here covered that work with tooling instead of headcount. Happy to show what they changed, 20 minutes.

What happened

The reply came the next morning and the meeting was booked in nine days.

Day 1Fraud lead replied
Day 4Head of security added
Day 9First working session booked
The footer

One line about what we do, with one link, at the bottom.

xpandeast.com
Fig N.2bWhich market should we open first? Average deal size, procurement length and how much of the sales cycle runs in English differ sharply across Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines. We show what each market cost in time and headcount on real engagements, so you can rank them instead of guessing. Why did this deal stall after a good first call? We walk through accounts that went quiet, name the stakeholder who was missing, and show the question that would have surfaced them on the first call. You get the wording, not a framework diagram. How do we reach the buyer before the RFP is written? What a local advisor publishes, which channel it goes on, and how long it takes before buyers start replying. Includes the posting cadence and the messages that generated inbound on live accounts. How do we get introduced instead of ignored? Most large deals in this region move through introductions and small industry groups. We show which groups exist in each market, who runs them, and what you have to contribute before an introduction is worth asking for.
One Tuesday issueEach issue answers one of these four questions.
  1. Question 01

    Which market should we open first?

    We compare deal size, procurement length and cost per market on live accounts.

  2. Question 02

    Why did this deal stall after a good first call?

    We name the stakeholder who was missing and the question that finds them.

  3. Question 03

    How do we reach the buyer before the RFP is written?

    We show what the advisor published, on which channel, and how often.

  4. Question 04

    How do we get introduced instead of ignored?

    We list the groups in each market, who runs them, and what to bring.

Where it comes from

Six markets we sell in every week

We cap the business at 13 active engagements, spread across these six markets. Each Tuesday issue reports on one of them.

Fig N.3We run engagements in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines. Each Tuesday, one of those accounts becomes the issue.
  1. AustraliaAccounts we sell into now
  2. New ZealandAccounts we sell into now
  3. SingaporeAccounts we sell into now
  4. MalaysiaAccounts we sell into now
  5. IndonesiaAccounts we sell into now
  6. PhilippinesAccounts we sell into now
  7. TuesdayOne issue, one accountThe problem, the message we sent, and what it changed

Who reads it

People who carry a number in Australia or Southeast Asia

If you do not own a quota, a territory or a market entry plan, most issues will not be useful to you, because every one of them assumes you have deals to move this quarter.

Roles
  • Heads of sales and revenue
  • Business development leads
  • Country and regional managers
  • Enterprise account executives
  • Founders selling into enterprise
Industries
  • Enterprise SaaS
  • Cloud and AI infrastructure
  • Cybersecurity
  • Fintech
  • MarTech

Roles and industries come from what subscribers tell us when they join. We never publish names or companies.

Past issues

Three recent issues

Each one covers a decision that changed how a team sold into a specific market.

Issue 042

Same flight, two different sales cycles

Singapore / Kuala LumpurTue 9:02

The two cities are 55 minutes apart. A Singapore buyer wants the efficiency case and the pricing answer by the second call. A Kuala Lumpur buyer wants to know who else in their industry already trusts you.

Split your ASEAN territory by buying behaviour, not by flight time, and write a separate first-call agenda for each city.

Issue 038

Why your Indonesia connect rate collapsed

IndonesiaTue 9:01

Cold numbers into Indonesia are now screened next to scam traffic, so connect rates fell without anything changing on your side. Head office reads it as low effort and asks for more dials.

Move first contact to the channel the buyer already answers, and report connect rate by channel so head office stops asking for volume.

Issue 031

Asking about pain on the first call costs you the deal

ASEANTue 9:03

In Germany, a buyer with no stated pain is a disqualification. In Southeast Asia, asking a senior buyer to describe their problems in the first meeting reads as prying, and you do not get a second one.

Open with what you saw at similar companies in their market and let them correct you. Their correction is the qualification signal.

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One account, one problem, and the exact wording that moved it. Written by the people running the engagement, not by a content team.

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