Field Notes from the Last Mile & Crisis Economies

This article originally appeared on my Substack. For those who prefer to listen on their commute, or want a high-leverage overview without reading the full text, I have generated this quick, conversational podcast overview via Google NotebookLM. Enjoy the listen! Key Takeaways From This Episode: * The Trap of Executive Ego: Why forcing your field team to chaperone you or wait at bus stations kills...

This article originally appeared on my Substack. For those who prefer to listen on their commute, or want a high-leverage overview without reading the full text, I have generated this quick, conversational podcast overview via Google NotebookLM. Enjoy the listen! *** ### Episode Overview In B2B sales and field distribution, the temptation for managers is to rescue struggling team members, step in...

This article originally appeared on my Substack. For those who prefer to listen on their commute, or want a high-leverage overview without reading the full text, I have generated this quick, conversational podcast overview via Google NotebookLM. Enjoy the listen! *** ### Episode Overview In B2B distribution and last-mile operations, corporate logic dictates centralized control: strict national tem...

In last-mile B2B sales, corporate spreadsheets tell us that referral programs require financial incentives: structured commission percentages, cash bonuses, and transactional loops to motivate customer advocacy. But what happens when you attempt to scale a transactional model in a tight-knit rural community, and your best customer looks you in the eye and says: *“I do not need money. I only have o...

This article originally appeared on my LinkedIn. For those who prefer to listen on their commute, or want a high-leverage overview without reading the full text, I have generated this quick, frictionless conversational podcast via Google NotebookLM. Enjoy the listen! *** The best sales representative is rarely your best sales manager. Leadership is not a louder version of sales. It is something qu...

In 2017, I traveled deep into the mist-covered mountains of Shan North to rescue a failing sales territory. We had closed exactly one deal in two months. I sat down with that single customer to offer him a generous referral commission. He refused the money. But what he did next , shouting from his balcony to the villagers walking by and closed our entire monthly sales quota in a single afternoon....

This article originally appeared on my LinkedIn. For those who prefer to listen on their commute, or want a high-leverage overview without reading the full text, I have generated this quick, frictionless conversational podcast via Google NotebookLM. Enjoy the listen! *** Brilliant sales engineers often fail for one simple reason: they sell like engineers. They focus on technical specifications, to...

Have you ever cared so much about someone’s success that you accidentally suffocated it? In sales leadership, our instinct is to step in. When a rep freezes on a closing question, we want to take the wheel. We want to save the transaction. But I learned a hard lesson in a small farming village outside Meiktila: if you save the transaction, you might lose the chance for your rep to find their wings...

When 98 percent of your sales are done through consignment, you are not running a distribution business. You are running a storage service that holds all the risk while your cash flow bleeds to death. In this episode, we unpack the high-stakes operational and psychological shift of moving a last-mile team in Myanmar from credit dependency to a 90 percent cash-down model. Key Field Insights Covered...

I'm Sai , pivoting from a high-flying corporate liquor executive in Myanmar to last-mile purpose. In this debut episode, we explore the raw friction that sparks transition: how a single headline shattered corporate insulation, and why standard Western playbooks fail when motorbikes hit the mud in rural Myanmar. * Voiced/narrated via NotebookLM for accessibility. Lived and written as 100% true, fir...