Expanding your business: best practices
Through the years, I have worked with many companies who hired me with the purpose of expanding their business abroad. Some had sold punctually to a couple of foreign customers, others had never exported before. In all cases, it was absolutely necessary to leverage the market information along with the available contacts. In the recent years, social networks have helped in developing new markets, not only by connecting with new people, but also by attending networking events, publishing blog articles, promoting discussion groups, etc.
However, there is indeed a best practice with a specific order on how to expand any business abroad. It does not matter if you are located in Amsterdam, Milan, Sao Paulo, Barcelona or New York. In all cases you need to follow some steps:
1.-Prepare a market study: including the countries or geographical areas you are interested. The market study should contain at least:
A general overview of the targeted markets in relation to the products/service to be promoted, taking into account the industry leaders and associations as well as government institutions.
A SWOT analysis per country.
Channel information: if B2B you will need to see if there are or not potential partners/distributors; if you are B2C, you will need local agents or representatives available.
Competitors: including pricing, additional services, etc.
Filter of which countries should be targeting first in tiers.
2.-Prepare a market penetration plan for tier 1 and 2 countries.
3.-Prepare a proposal for a sales mission to meet with a list of potential partners/distributors/agents.
4.-Execute first sales mission and close firsts agreements.
During the 6 to 12 consecutive months after first sales mission is executed, new business should materialize, by following up with your partners on prospects, making sure you have a joint marketing plan and business plan with the partners/distributors, or in the case of local agents, then an annual objective must be agreed.
This simple 4 steps, though complex individually, will for sure generate profits in maximum one year time. You can do it on your own, or you can contact us and we will do the work for you. So you only need to do few meetings, provide some basic data and participate in the sales mission execution. We can even go one step further, and do everything for you, while we deliver first closed partnership agreements signed on your table. Just contact us via e-mail or phone and we will be happy to give you our first proposal.
