XpandEast

Hit aggressive growth targets, increasing MRR by 25%, and optimizing your GTM strategy for long-term success.—all within the first 90 days.

09/01/2026

$2,000. That is the minimum you are "burning" every month on rubbish data.

Most sales leaders in Southeast Asia are accidentally building a "Spam Cannon." They buy expensive lists, spam 50,000 prospects, and wonder why their inbox is silent.

40% of your data is expired (prospects moved, wrong WhatsApp numbers).
90% of "Legacy" companies (Mining, Construction, Manufacturing) are invisible on LinkedIn.
100% of cold emails in Indonesia/Malaysia are treated as "transactional junk.

We’ve sent 5 Million+ DMs this year by avoiding the cold email trap and using Waterfall Enrichment.
In our latest masterclass, we show you how to use Clay to:
Find the "Un-findable": Accessing the 60,000+ construction companies in Jakarta that LinkedIn doesn't even know exist.
Stop the Credit Burn: How to query 12+ data providers only when needed to keep costs under $0.04 per lead.
The "Pertamina" Method: Using AI to find specific project leads for instant rapport (e.g., "I saw you led the Pertamina project in...").
Stop being a spammer. Start being a GTM strategist.
Watch the full hands-on breakdown here: 👉 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbpZLI5RB-o&t=1501s

07/01/2026

We found this prompt from Clay.
Curious to see how it performs in real workflows.

This isn’t about trying new tools.
It’s about improving daily sales ops.

We’ll apply it to:
how accounts are filtered,
how data is reviewed,
and how rep time is used.

Hope this gives teams a practical starting point to test AI in real workflows.

03/01/2026

THE MOST powerful words in B2B sales?

You.
Your.
Your team.

Especially in SEA.

C-level buyers don’t react to features.
They react to responsibility.

Average message:
“Companies improve efficiency with this workflow.”

What leaders actually hear:
“Not my problem yet.”

Stronger message:
“You’ll help your team move faster with this workflow.”

One small word change.
Much clearer ownership.

If your message sounds generic,
it feels optional.

And optional deals don’t close.

02/01/2026

“How’ve you been?”

It sounds casual.
But in Southeast Asia, it’s strategic.

Most buyers here are taught to be:
polite, calm, and non-confrontational.

So when a cold call starts with:
“Can I have a minute?”

The default answer is a polite no.

Not because they’re not interested.
Because saying “no” directly feels uncomfortable.

“How’ve you been?” breaks that pattern.

It’s not a sales question.
It’s a human one.

The buyer pauses.
They stop following a script.
They respond honestly, even if just for a moment.

Gong Labs found:
This opener is 6.6x more likely to book a meeting.

Why it fits SEA culture:
• It lowers hierarchy because sounds peer-to-peer
• It avoids pressure, no immediate ask
• It respects face because no forced rejection
• It invites warmth, not confrontation

But context matters.

In SEA, this works only when paired with respect:
right tone,
right timing,
no rush.

Pattern interrupt doesn’t mean being bold.
It means being considerate and real.

Try it on your next call.
Not to push.
Just to open the door.

01/01/2026

If you’re reviewing your GTM stack this year, start here.

We looked at which GTM tools SEA leaders say matter most in 2025, and which ones they’re still testing, and a clear split shows up between tools that already support daily ex*****on and those that remain experimental, especially across newer AI use cases.

The takeaway isn’t to add more tools, but to separate what’s already proven in real workflows from what still needs confidence before wider adoption.

2025 feels less like the year of “new GTM tech,” and more like the year of better judgment.

Sharing this as a quick snapshot for SEA leaders planning their GTM priorities in 2026.

31/12/2025

Did we finish Q4 or did Q4 finish us?

28/12/2025

One GTM motion cannot survive five SEA markets.

Southeast Asia is not one market.
Each country has different buyer habits, trust signals, and buying paths.

What can be copied is not the market,
it is your winning structure.

This is what Saleh Nabil, Founder of XpandEast, captured perfectly in a recent post:
“Pick one beachhead market first, win there, then clone the channels, language, and partner model next door.”

Meaning:

Don’t expand by guessing in five countries at once.
Expand by exporting what already works.

Build one real GTM engine in one country:
• your real ICP
• your real objections
• your real buying path
• your real conversion flow

Once that engine works, you don’t rebuild in the next country
you port the engine, and only translate the interface:
• channels
• language
• local partners
• local buyer habits

Same engine.
Different roads.

That is how serious B2B SaaS teams scale in SEA
without burning pipeline and budget.

27/12/2025

For CTOs, the real concern was
choosing the wrong cloud partner could impact system stability, revenue, and customer trust.

When UCloud entered the Southeast Asia market, the challenge was not technology.
The product was strong. Performance was proven.

The real challenge was trust.

Cloud decisions carry real risk.
Downtime affects revenue.
Poor performance affects customers.
And the wrong choice often falls on the CTO.

At the same time, the market was crowded.
AWS and Google already dominated mindshare.
Cold emails blended into the noise, and generic pitches were ignored.

So the problem wasn’t awareness alone.
It was how to reduce perceived risk before asking for commitment.

The strategy focused on changing the conversation.

Instead of pushing features, the approach emphasized:
- Building credibility first through professional, contextual outreach

- Offering trials and POCs to let teams test performance themselves

- Using direct channels to shorten decision cycles and remove friction

By shifting from selling to validation, conversations moved forward more naturally.

The results reflected that shift:
42+ qualified meetings
$530K+ estimated pipeline value

This case shows a clear lesson for technical GTM:
CTOs don’t need louder pitches.
They need confidence that the decision won’t become a risk.

26/12/2025

Most people think B2B deals move slowly because “there are many stakeholders.”
But that’s not the real problem.

Deals slow down because buyers go through three quiet steps, and you only see one of them.

1) The Part You See

You join the call.
People smile, ask good questions, and agree with your points.

It feels like progress.
But this is only the visible part of the deal and it’s the smallest part.

2) The Part You Don’t See

After the meeting, your main contact must explain your value to other people inside the company.

But the message becomes:
- shorter
- simpler
- and sometimes not accurate

If your message is hard to repeat, the deal slows down or dies quietly.

3) The Fight Against “Doing Nothing”

Even if they like your product, you still need to beat:

- old tools
- old habits
- budget rules
- fear of change

Your biggest competitor is often the status quo, not another vendor.

Top teams focus on this:
Make your message easy to repeat, easy to share, and easy to defend.
Because the deal moves only when your story moves inside their company.

Want to improve how your message moves inside a buying team?
Drop PLAYBOOK and we’ll share the structure we use with SaaS clients.

25/12/2025

As you can see, the core issue was clear:
sales conversations often happened with people who couldn’t approve the deal.

For Shopify’s mid-market expansion in Southeast Asia, demand was not the issue.
Many brands were already selling online and using legacy platforms.

The challenge was accuracy and access.

Public data often showed false signals about which companies were real Shopify targets.

Agency partners sat between Shopify and brand owners, limiting direct conversations.
Public contact details usually connected sales teams to store admins or support teams, not decision makers.

This created a mismatch between sales effort and real buying power.

The solution was to change how accounts were selected and how conversations were started.

The strategy focused on:
- Using intent-based signals to identify brands ready to re-platform

- Building trust first before asking for meetings

- Reaching founders and P&L owners directly, instead of intermediaries

By removing noise early and focusing on decision-making access, conversations became more relevant.

The results reflected that shift:
21+ qualified meetings
$460K estimated pipeline value

This case highlights a common B2B lesson:
strong pipelines are built by improving focus and access, not by increasing outreach volume.

24/12/2025

In SEA, most buyers don’t ignore you because your product is bad.
They ignore you because they don’t trust strangers.

This market does not reward surprise messages.
It rewards familiarity.

People here want to know who you are
before they care about what you sell.

So when teams jump straight into outbound,
every message starts cold.

No background.
No signal.
No reason to feel safe engaging.

And silence becomes the default response.

This is why outreach alone struggles in SEA.
Not because the copy is wrong.
Not because the offer is weak.

But because trust was never built first.

Social selling exists to solve this exact problem.

It makes your name familiar before the message arrives.
It gives buyers context before the pitch.
It gives them something to judge before they reply.

So when outreach finally happens,
it doesn’t feel like an interruption.
It feels expected.

Without social selling, outreach asks for trust upfront.
With social selling, trust is already warming up.

That’s why in SEA, social selling is not a nice-to-have.
It’s not branding.
It’s not optional.

It’s the layer that makes outbound work at all.

22/12/2025

You feeling this Q4 chokehold too?😭

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