How Tech in Asia runs a million-dollar sales and marketing team

Marketing team (from left): Louisa Chiew, Alan Seng, Clare Hoang, Renhao Wong, Hui Min Cheong.

Whenever I enjoy the office air-conditioning or sip wine after work hours, I’m reminded that somebody worked their asses off so we can pay for these things.

And then I’m thankful for Tech in Asia’s sales and marketing team. See, while we journalists get a tiny bit of fame or infamy for our articles – someone else has to schmooze with clients, write proposals, and optimize sales funnels.

And sometimes, they secure deals from the same companies that we journalists openly flog. Not easy, I tell you.

While they do their jobs without public recognition, it’s high time they get the attention they deserve. At a recent workshop held in Tech in Asia’s Singapore office, the sales and marketing team gave a sneak peek behind how it gets things done.

A long, patient process

A recap: Tech in Asia’s lifeblood is its three conferences held in Singapore, Tokyo, and Jakarta. Sponsorships and ticket sales are our main revenue sources. The planning and legwork to grow these two income streams start as long as a year earlier.

Marketing-wise, the team is split by channels: a social media team (Renhao and Alan) thinks up the next punny post, a content marketer (Louisa) drives ticket sales by writing articles related to our events, while an SEO specialist will look at how we can rank on top in the search results. Orchestrating all this Hui Min Cheong, who has to stay on top of the latest numbers.

“My daily routine consists of refreshing Eventbrite, looking at Google Analytics, working with designers to create marketing collaterals, and looking for new ideas we can expand our marketing mix,” she says.

Bizdev team (from left): Reynold Kwok, Cheryl Lim, Jacob Chee, Valeri Inting, Nathan Ng.

For the business development team, which spans Singapore, Tokyo, and Jakarta, it’s a whole lot of drinking, getting drunk, and closing deals. Nathan Ng, vice-president of operations, says that his team does sales rather than secure partnerships, which is different from how large companies typically define it.

Another difference: while many sales teams are individualistic in that everyone has their own KPIs, resulting in a cutthroat and secretive atmosphere, Tech in Asia’s sales department collaborates on everything.

“It’s complete and absolute transparency,” says bizdev exec Valeri Inting. “Like if we set up meetings, we have a common calendar where everyone can see who people are meeting at any point in time. If we screw up, like if I send the wrong email to the wrong client with the wrong name and wrong logo, I will not bury it.”

At Tech in Asia, the sales cycle consists of finding leads, sending proposals, negotiating, closing the deal, and maintaining relationships. It’s no wonder you see them zipping in and out of the office all the time, attending meetings and networking events. The process of getting sponsors to part with money is long.

“Education is a huge part of our work. So we take multiple meetings, coffee chat, sometimes even drinking with them. We educate them on what we have in our inventory,” says Nathan.

Sometimes, clients don’t understand the need to get a booth at our conferences. “So what we do is we send them free tickets, and say to them: ‘come on down, take a look at our conference. See what’s happening.’ Then when they come down, they look at the booth, they’ll say, ‘hey it’s actually not a bad idea to have a booth.'”

Deals can close in as little as one week – or take as long as one-and-a-half years. For one client, they had to send in six proposals before getting their first dollar. Figuring out which clients are a worthwhile chase is crucial to the job.

COO Andrew Wang quips: “I wouldn’t get Durex into our conference. Unless there’s a Durex VC.”

Building sandcastles

While the events business has been around for ages, the sales and marketing team is open to experimentation, with no hard and fast rules. Alan Seng, our social media executive, says he works with the editorial and community outreach team to come up with new segments and ideas.

“Social media is very dynamic. It’s like building a sandcastle on the sea shore. The waves keep hitting you. But you just have to find ways to build a new sandcastle.”

With business development, experimentation is also the name of the game. Since Tech in Asia’s inventory is highly customizable to each client (we sometimes do white label events for them), no single approach works every time.

While the team sets a rule of sending a proposal to clients within 48 hours of a meeting to show sincerity and urgency, every exec on the team has a unique approach.

Andrew, for example, gets straight to the point, while Nathan acts as the nicest and most accommodating guy on the team. Shintaro Hari in Japan, meanwhile, did something no one else in the company has done before – he sent a birthday card to a client that had not agreed to any deal. He eventually secured it.

“It’s not like selling a washing machine or a cleaner. All of our deals are customizable,” adds Andrew.

While these approaches have worked for Tech in Asia, helping it secure millions in sales, we’re evolving too.

For example, we’re hiring a leads generation specialist to generate potential new business which the rest of the team can pursue.

We’re also expanding the range of content we’ll feature at our conferences to appeal to a wider audience in the tech industry.

Of course, there’s no certainty these moves will work. But you can count on us to keep building sandcastles.