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If your business has been successful so far and you’ve seen growth in your own country, there’s a good chance that you will also be able to grow your operation in other parts of the world too, and if that’s the case, you’ll want to move fast and corner the market before one of your competitors gets in first.
I won’t lie, it’ll be hard work, and you might experience some setbacks along the way, but if you really want it and you work hard, you can take your business global and do so successfully. Here are some quick tips to help you do just that:
Choose the Right Markets
The planet is huge. There are 195 countries in the world. That means there are 195 opportunities to grow your business. Of course. You probably won’t be able to expand into all of them, so how do you choose the right markets for you?
A lot of businesses expand by choosing markets that it will be easy for them to get into because they are close, they have a mutual language in common, or they have similar cultures. This, of course, can be a good strategy, but so can selling to countries that are further away because there is likely to be less international competition. Of course, there is no right or wrong here, and it would be wise to look at as many markets as possible, to see how much competition you’ll have and how well your products are likely to go down before you make the leap.
Choose Your Structure
What works for your business domestically might not work for you when you’re trading internationally, so you really do need to, if possible, spend some time in your chosen market, seeing how things work there, and perhaps partnering with a local company, who can help you get the structure of your business right. You will need to do this in every country you trade in – there really is no one size fits all when it comes to global business.
Read Up on the Local Rules
You will also need to bone up on the rules of engagement in every country you expand into. Local laws surrounding everything from paying taxes to advertising can be wildly different, and if you get it wrong, you could find yourself in very hot water. That’s why I always suggest hiring an international expansion consulting firm to help you get to grips with the need to know stuff.
Hire Someone to Handle Shipping and Fulfilment Locally
It might be easy to set up a global website and sort out shipping from your home country via shippingcontainersvictoria.com.au, but what happens at the other end? Obviously, you can’t be in several places at once, which means that you need to find and hire reliable staff to take care of shipping and fulfillment at the other end. This doesn’t just mean hiring someone to transport your goods, but it also means having someone available to take business calls, pick, pack and ship goods, process payments and provide customer service. If you can’t do this yourself, hiring a good recruitment company to do it for you should be possible in most cases, and is certainly advisable.
Target Your Marketing Locally
You may have created a killer marketing campaign at home, and you might be thinking that with a simple translation, you’ll be able to use it in every country you expand into. However, this probably won’t be the case. You see, it’s not just languages that are different from place to place, it’s cultures too and because marketing has to be culturally relevant and easy to understand, what works in Arizona might be completely incomprehensible in Austria. Luckily, this is something that can be easily remedied by hiring local marketing agencies to come up with something fresh and new for their country.
Get Introductions
Once you’ve sorted out the basics of taking your business global, think about any global companies you currently work with and get in touch with them to see if they can introduce you to the people in charge of their companies overseas. This is one of the easiest ways to find new clients in other countries because you already have a proven track record of working for the same organization and this breeds confidence.
Have you taken your business global? How did you achieve your aim? Do you have any useful tips that haven’t been covered here?
