We landed meetings. Dozens of them. Mid-market and enterprise CISOs across EMEA. The pitch landed. The calls went well. Everyone nodded. And then, nothing.
No follow-ups. No POCs. No feedback.
Just silence.
We didn’t lose to competitors. We lost to no decision. Here’s what we got wrong.
We assumed interest = intent.
European buyers listen. They’re polite. They’ll ask sharp questions and thank you for the deck. But if your value isn’t urgent, you’re not getting time on their roadmap.
We didn’t localise the pain.
Our use case was clear in the US. In EMEA? Regulatory pressure was different. Procurement cycles were slower. And the internal politics around tooling were more rigid. We pitched the same story everywhere and wondered why no one moved.
We had no on-the-ground follow-through.
Calls were in English. Docs were in English. Reps were remote. There was no champion pushing internally, no local SE to unblock the next step, no one to grind the internal process. We assumed a great call would carry the deal. It didn’t.
We lacked EMEA-specific proof.
Our case studies were too far removed. Buyers didn’t see themselves in the win. They saw risk.
What we should’ve done:
— Start with 5 accounts in one country, not 50 across 12
— Build one great regional case study before trying to scale
— Align the sales motion with how they buy, not how we sell
— And qualify for urgency, not just curiosity
50 meetings and no POCs sounds like failure.
It wasn’t.
It was a lesson: international interest is cheap.
Execution is what gets the deal.
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