Blank

Often, even medium size businesses are very hesitant to expand into the international economy. And without careful preparation...they are right to be cautious. The terrain looks unfamiliar as well as the markets, marketing strategies, competitors, language, food, ways of closing a deal, or even the way you greet a possible business partner or the way you hand over your business card. So many unfamiliar things! You just don’t want to add the anxiety of not knowing what is going on or what is being said. Is it worth the trouble or not? Is the risk matched by the potential?

But like most challenges you have faced in your home market....with effort and flexibility, you can win. While it is true that doing business internationally has its own set of ladders to climb (and snakes to skid down), there are countless rewards in a world market that is exploding in demand for imaginative and innovative products. If the rewards were not there, nobody would risk doing it and every day we see new small and medium firms taking the leap...because that is where the growth is.

OK...swallow hard and let’s start to look. How then can you leverage the skills you clearly have in your home market into becoming a savvy businessman in the international scene? Here are a few steps:

1. Lift Your Head, Look at your immediate world. Start at home. Talk to that cleaner with the funny accent or the IT Specialist next door (probably from a BRIC country). He or she may have had a much bigger job in the home country and already have ideas about where you could fit in. Ask some of your colleagues at work how people do business in countries of their origin. Check Governments web site for trade initiatives or feed back from your Trade Commissioners. Read about international events. Begin to see possibilities in these emerging global trends. Don’t just read the business news, Current events can forecast the economic future for products and services. Food shortages, water management, green initiatives...and on and on. Looking for ideas in all the right places!

2. Identify the opportunities you are seeing in the emerging global trends that are relevant to your line of business. As you open yourself to global opportunities, you start to see how your company can be a player. Write down these opportunities as well as the areas in the world where there could be tremendous advantage for your company. Bing “Abracadabra” and see what happens. Look at national “yellow pages” on the internet and locate companion businesses in growth economies. Introduce your self by the Internet...go on...take a risk.

3. Identify the areas in your business where you think you have a competitive advantage over other companies in the areas of the world you have identified. Sometimes, you just focus on only one finished product and the processes that contribute to this particular product. Sometimes, when you look at the needs in other parts of the world, you might find that processes you have are perfect for another application are might make a partner in that country more productive or cost effective and more profitable. These services are just as marketable as the products you sell. Think sideways. Think laterally.

4. Once you have some ideas, bounce these ideas off those who are already working in the selected growth countries you have identified as possible areas of business. Ask these people for ideas and comments. Ask people you know who had been in those countries even if they are not business people. Ask your colleagues who may have families still there to check things out for you informally. Don’t forget embassies of these countries. They are there to drum up business for their countries so they are always prepared to share information.

5. Look for visiting trade delegations from target countries. They are looking for business. This is where you can root out possible niches and partners.

5. Go to you target countries as a tourist. Often, you see with different eyes when you go as a tourist. Go with a tour group. You will be privy to a lots of their comments and observations on the place. Read the local paper or trade magazines and see what opportunities jump to mind. Explore the place.

6. Get a bit into their traditions and culture. Knowing the people gives you deeper insights as to their preferences, their work habits, their attitudes and ways of doing things. If they strongly respect older people, send older colleagues to negotiate. If they have no facility in the language you normally use for business, learn or have one of your colleagues who is fluent in the language to be with you. If not, get a translator.

7. Get to know the businesses in the country operating in your area of competence. E-mail them before you leave home. Explain your interest and you activities/products/services. Know everything you can about these companies. Meet with them and see what partnerships are possible. Sometimes, it is better to get a local partner to do all the work that needs to be done locally to win contracts or sell your services and products.

8. Just do it. Don’t wait until you have a fully substantiated treatise before you start. Doing it will give you the experience and training you need to be sharper in other circumstances. It will refine your sense for doing business with another culture not familiar to you.

How to Build a Stronger Customer Base in Tough Times

Wow, it's tough out there! As competition for reluctant shoppers' dollars (or rupees or euros or whatever) gets more global and intense, you need more than ever to concentrate on your relationship with your customers to make it deeper and broader, to move from one of the pack to the go-to-gang for your product or service. Now is the time to dig further ...READ ON

Develop a Top Selling Product or Service

The magic idea! The perfect mousetrap! The killer app! The frog to prince fairy dust! How many entrepreneurs and businesses spend millions just to get a hold of an idea for a service or product that will earn them millions if not gazillions of dollars? Where is the Aladdin's lamp with the three-wish genie just waiting for us! Don't hold your breath...READ ON