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You don’t have to fear expansion. If you’re ready to commit to an overseas launch, here are just eight things you should do when opening your doors in a foreign country.
1. Decide Where To Go
Don’t just point to a random spot on the globe and decide to invade their territory. Put serious research into figuring out where you can affordably set up shop and where your products or services have the most cross-cultural appeal. Expanding your business internationally should be a logical step, not a strange one.
2. Understand Local Culture and Customs
This is critical for everything from advertising to holding international conferences. If you don’t know how to behave in front of potential investors, they won’t care about your pitch. If you don’t know how the locals will respond to your commercials, you might not incentivize them enough to buy.
3. Speak Their Lingo
You don’t necessarily have to speak their language, not if you have a translator, but you should understand what they mean when they say certain phrases or have certain attitudes. For example, “let’s make a deal” might not be a genuine offer in some countries; it might be just a casual expression of interest.
4. Establish a Headquarters
Ideally, this will be somewhere centrally located in the area you’re targeting as a business. You want to be able to keep a finger on the pulse of the market when you fly in for meetings and updates. Keep in mind, however, that your factories and processing plants don’t have to be built in the same districts as your overseas offices.
5. Hire Local Talent
At some point you’ll have to go back home and leave your new branch to fend for itself, but this departure will be much less nerve-wracking when you know you have genuine talent running things in your absence. Don’t leave your business in the hands of anyone who won’t treat it like their own. The right employees will be skilled, loyal and hard-working.
6. Compare Yourself to the Competition
Where have they expanded in recent years? What plan did they follow? How did it work out for them? Their successes can be your successes, but their failures can be your successes too. For example, if they made a mistake that tanked their sales, you can easily sidestep it and do something different with your own brand.
7. Learn From the Best
Find someone in the business world who has done what you want to do. Figure out how they did it, how long it took and what they wish they would’ve done differently. Bob Bratt on Tumblr has some philosophies to share with aspiring businessmen, and you can find others too. Anyone who works in or for international companies will have strong insight for you.
8. Have Extra Money Set Aside
Don’t expect to be an overnight success in new, uncharted territory. It’s much more likely that you’ll struggle for awhile before breaking even and then turning a profit, so you’ll need to support your business financially during its weaker moments. Make sure you have the funds to do so.
These are just eight tips for expanding your business overseas. It’s a risky venture, but it can also be a wildly successful one, so good luck!