Curious what working in Sales & Business Development looks like at Klook? What are the biggest challenges? What makes the team excited? We spoke to three Klookers from the Business Development team in Thailand to find out! Who knows, maybe one day they’ll be your colleagues..?
Phakin Pattanavorameth,
Senior Business Development Manager
What is your role at Klook?
I look after the tours and activities team in Thailand. Our goal is to understand what kind of products people are looking for and make sure we can provide them from the supply side. Besides acquisition, we also have different programs that help our merchant partners improve on their products and consequently perform well on our platform.
These are our broader goals as a team. As a people manager, the most important thing to me is making sure that Klookers on my team enjoy their work, that they are happy here. Driving results and hitting targets is important, but helping people discover their full potential is even more crucial.
What is your favorite thing about your role?
Everything here is changing very quickly and whatever new things come our way, we have to be ready. You have a chance to take that opportunity and make it work.
I also appreciate that in Thailand, Business Development (BD) and Marketing work closely together to get the products that people want onto our platform. It’s a two-way collaboration. Sometimes we want to tap into a certain area and we bring the idea up to the Marketing team to see how we can tie it all together. Other times they tell us what kind of products we should pursue to meet the demand from the market.
What was your proudest moment working for Business Development Thailand?
For me, it’s always about seeing the project all the way through. Once you’ve been there from day one and you see it grow, it drives you as a person. I’m excited to be a part of that.
If someone is interested in getting a job in Business Development, what advice would you give them?
A background in sales or in account management with an element of acquisition would be a big plus. Most importantly, you need to be someone who is not afraid to make a cold call, meet with merchants and conduct negotiations.
What’s the biggest challenge when working in Business Development?
You need to be flexible. Today, you might focus on one thing, like tours. Then the lockdown happens in Thailand and the tour can’t run but we have an opportunity to do staycation packages instead. You need to be able to put one thing aside and pivot to something else and make it happen. And eventually, you might have to jump back to that original project.
Marisa Teeraratpol,
Senior Business Development Associate
What is your day to day like?
A typical week for me is 50% acquisition, 25% account management and 25% BD-marketing collaboration.
My key responsibility is on the supply side, mainly securing new partnerships and adding new activities to Klook. I also work with existing merchants to ensure we have the most optimized deals for our customers. In addition to that, I’m a part of a project called “Local for Local" which is an ongoing initiative to expand our local user base. My role is to coordinate between the Business Development Thailand team and the local Marketing team for all domestic marketing campaigns.
What attracted you to join Klook?
Klook’s potential as a company with a fast-growing user base, its global expansion and the product itself, which I can really relate to as a traveler. We are an important contributor in introducing the beauty of Thai tourism to international travelers.
What is your favorite thing about your role?
Opportunity to connect — getting to work with people from all kinds of industries. Klook is growing upwards and sideways so the types of product categories we’re tapping into are unbounded and so is our opportunity to work with different kinds of partners with different business backgrounds. That’s what makes it exciting.
If someone is interested in getting a job in Business Development, what advice would you give them?
My advice would be to hop on! I believe a BD role is a great place to start from early on in your career. The role comes with a mix of useful skillsets for whatever you want to pursue later on; there are people skills, negotiation skills, a little bit of data and a knack for practicing entrepreneurship as you get to take full ownership of your contribution, working with a quantifiable target with complete freedom on how you plan to achieve it.
What are you most excited about as you grow in your role at Klook?
Seeing new changes and where they will take us, especially with the challenges after COVID-19.
What’s your favorite Klook product in Thailand?
Tough one! I think the current one would be the staycation packages. I miss traveling so much and these are great deals to be shopping for after the extended period of lockdown. Many of the deals are Klook-exclusive and it’s just impressive how our team managed to add them to Klook right at the time when travel demand is back.
Pawinee Santichalanan,
Business Development Manager
What is your typical week like?
I normally take care of the tours in Thailand. However, with that being on hold right now, I’m helping with securing more partnerships for staycation packages as well as account management.
My typical week, in a nutshell, is a lot fun and a lot of challenges!
What attracted you to join Klook?
I was looking for a new challenge. Klook was something totally new on the technology travel scene and I was very drawn to that. I had worked for my previous company for over 10 years so joining Klook was a big step.
What is your favorite thing about your role?
Tackling new business challenges. For example, during the COVID-19 crisis, tours have been put on hold, but staycation packages emerged as an opportunity to grow the business, while also supporting the hotels through this hard time.
If someone is interested in getting a job in BD, what advice would you give them?
First of all, this is a challenging and fast-paced line of work so you need to ask yourself if you're looking for that type of work environment and are comfortable in it. You also need to be very adaptable. For example, I’ve been working on drastically different projects each quarter. The learning never stops.
The skills that would be very useful: negotiation skills, problem-solving skills and the ability to work under time pressure. If you bring that in, we can teach you the rest here and help you grow.
What are you most excited about as you grow in your role at Klook?
For me, it’s the learning community: I’m learning from my colleagues, from the senior management and we’re sharing best practices across other teams and locations too. You can learn every day. This is something I love.
What’s your favorite Klook product in Thailand?
I really like to expand local tourism. Normally, we do tours that focus on the inbound travelers, rather than domestic. I recently acquired a range of eco-tours that I hope will be popular with Thai travelers too.
Ready to join the team?
Posted by Klook Careers
