Once again I boarded a dawn KTX today. At the Samkyung Education Center right next to Seoul Station, I sat down with Iljin Steel’s B2B sales team. Today’s topic: macro-environment analysis. In fact, these people weren’t after desk theory. One move on Trump’s tariff policy forces them to rewrite their quotes and rebuild their logic for client purchasing teams. They need an answer to “What should our sales change in this situation?” So for four full hours we traded questions
How do tariffs shake up our cost structure? What are our competitors in the US doing right now? How far will our customers’ customers (end users) accept price increases? What new “one-page logic” will our salespeople bring to the purchasing team? The macro environment is no longer “background”; it is sales strategy itself!! It’s been a while since four hours felt this short. Thanks to the sales leaders who wrestle with these questions on the front line. Today has two sessions, so I’m heading straight out.




24 Apr 2026
[ Instructor: John Kim ]