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I work remotely for a US startup. I am in the field as BizDev minion.

I have a senior colleague who travels all around. I don't report to him, but senior management contacts him all the time for our region. My collegue, on the other hand, always involves me EXCEPT when somebody from the US is availably, then he forgets I exist.

I talk to customers on a daily basis. However, when senior managers talk to my customers they don't involve me, and they don't let me know what's going on. And my colleague says "oh, but you were busy, right?".

I had embarassing conversations like "did your company talk to my colleague X?" "no, this is the first time we ever talk". Indeed, some VP, US based, did contact a company I had planned to visit, without telling me.

I am at the point where I have to beg to be involved in certain conversations with customers. I might do the first contact, but once senior management gets involved I lose visibility. I want to grow into a key role for my region, but the lack of involvement worries me. How do I get senior management to include me when dealing with customers in my region? More broadly, how do I convince a senior manager to give me more consideration? I can't really order somebody to pay me attention and "respect me"...

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    Could this be more of a general communication problem than just getting involved? Isn't there a place where you can look up information such as wether a company had an important talk with a customer? I'm guessing you could ask senior information for some feedback if the information in a conversation is important and from there get more involved.
    – everyone
    Aug 3, 2017 at 13:07

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You need to talk to them and ask. Express your concerns and your desire to be a key part of that region's business. Mention your available to support them whenever they need you to and be sure they have your contact info on hand.

You won't know the "why" until you ask. It could be as simple as out of sight out of mind, or it could be they favor US over the other group, or even they are prejudice, or it could simply be legacy procedure being blindly followed before your region was established etc... Ask professionally and be willing to over communicate and be overly available if needed to make up for the regional distance gap. Once they come to rely on you it will be easier, but to start with you are carving a place for yourself in the process and you will likely need to go the extra mile to prove your worth in this particular place/position.

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