Daniel Washington
Friday, August 2, 2024
Why do businesses expand? Entrepreneurs in general would agree that the primary goal is capitalizing on new opportunities. The local market, where you are based, may have a number of limitations. There may be a lack of interest in your product or service, or it could simply be a lack of the target demographic.
For this reason, businesses choose to expand, and after a certain point, going international is the most logical step. However, the challenges that come from doing business in a new country are many and daunting.
It’s certainly not for entrepreneurs who want to take it easy. Did you know that American entrepreneurs make more than 405 million long-distance business trips every year?
In this article, let us look at three ways to deal with the most common problems when going international.
1. Culture, Language, and Trust
On the surface level, doing business seems to focus mainly on sales and the processes it involves. But, that’s not the whole picture. Companies that have found much success internationally often talk about the importance of “communication” and “understanding clients.”
While it’s easy to be dismissive of such advice because it sounds like the usual corporate jargon, it works. Clients, at the end of the day, are people who have valid aspirations, fears, and concerns. While your approach to assuring customers in your home country might be familiar to you the same approach may simply have no effect internationally.
You can’t employ a cookie-cutter solution to break barriers of culture and language in order to build trust. So, what do you do? Well, Erin Meyer who spent over sixteen years studying cultural differences in the context of organizations developed a culture map. Her findings are particularly useful in terms of what style of communication works in different parts of the world. Whether to be direct or indirect, how negative feedback is to be given, and more.
With such insight, business operations with native staff can be far more productive and easier for you to manage.
2. Handling Sales in a New Country
Dealing with teams comprising native staff is but one dimension when expanding. You will also run into many challenges in terms of handling sales and marketing your product or service. While you can find a lot of advice and information online about the actual sales processes, the technicalities are a different ball game.
Local regulations can be extremely confusing if you are a foreign business and ensuring that you aren’t breaking any laws can be super stressful. Going online might not give you the information you need and local authorities might take their time in getting you the help you need.
In countries like Italy, your business's financial statements need to be maintained for ten years and they can be quite strict about this. If you don’t know what you are doing in terms of record keeping, it can become scary, quickly.
This is one of the few areas where it makes sense to find a partner who can help you with any troubles you face. For SaaS companies going global, PayPro Global recommends looking for solutions that take care of compliance and risk management, sales tax, invoicing, international payments, and more.
3. Learn About Adoption Curves
A common headache that entrepreneurs experience happens when a successful product in one location fails to take off elsewhere. You might have seen a lot of success in New York, but when you try to release the same product in Berlin, it falls flat. Well, if that’s what’s happening to you, then Everett Roger’s ‘diffusion of innovations theory’ might help.
You might want to conduct some solid market research in order to identify as many key influencers who become early adopters. You might have to hold demos and live workshops to really showcase the benefits of what you are selling.
If you are dealing with a ‘laggard’ group or society in the context of Roger’s theory, then heavy discounts help. You could also offer extended warranties and good customer support to sort of minimize the risk that comes with trying out a new product.
Such tactics may not be required in societies with a lot of innovator and early adopter groups, but they can make a big difference elsewhere. This is why market research is so important. It ensures that when you sell your product internationally, you know how to approach every angle.
To wrap things up, dealing with challenges is part of being an entrepreneur. If you are looking for stability and safety, being an employee is a perfectly valid path.
However, as a business owner, rather than letting yourself be overwhelmed and frustrated, try to approach problems as a challenge to overcome. The good news is that with every bit of experience you gain, it definitely gets easier.
