International Market Entry Strategy
We help companies design and implement an international market entry strategy, so that they can scale internationally and amplify their impact in the world.
We help companies to scale internationally by supporting them in three key areas of their business:
10x Strategy
for many companies this is a robust international market entry strategy that is ten times better than their current best thinking
10x Momentum
in other words moving 10x faster into international markets than your current pace
10x Cashflow
cash in the bank is increasing by at least 10% year on year
To get those results, there are three big levers you can pull…
The first lever is Critical Thinking which includes:
- Developing an expanded vision - big picture thinking, rather than a “nickel and dime” picture of what you want to achieve.
- Pursuing deep insights - into the opportunities, threats, strengths, weaknesses and barriers to entry in the countries you’re hoping to enter. Understanding the size and dynamics of each market, who your ideal clients and competitors are and how to appeal and deal with them, appreciating the nuances of each culture and what that means for your team as you begin to work there.
- Getting a robust grip on reality - developing certainty that you can deliver on the vision you’ve developed and that your company is set up to do it.
To get those results, there are three big levers you can pull…
The first lever is Critical Thinking which includes:
- Developing an expanded vision - big picture thinking, rather than a “nickel and dime” picture of what you want to achieve.
- Pursuing deep insights - into the opportunities, threats, strengths, weaknesses and barriers to entry in the countries you’re hoping to enter. Understanding the size and dynamics of each market, who your ideal clients and competitors are and how to appeal and deal with them, appreciating the nuances of each culture and what that means for your team as you begin to work there.
- Getting a robust grip on reality - developing certainty that you can deliver on the vision you’ve developed and that your company is set up to do it.
The second lever is the ability to make Definite Decisions - high-quality choices which you make and adhere to. This is enhanced by:
- Having uncompromising objectives - clear, achievable goals that take you beyond your comfort zone. Without these, you won’t take the risks that you need to take to be internationally successful.
- Knowing your numbers - to make high-quality decisions you need to be across and in control of all the numbers in your business. This includes financial numbers and marketing data.
- Creating a powerful plan - a step-by-step plan which sets out who must do what, by when, to make your vision a reality.
And finally, to get things moving, you’ll need Extraordinary Execution - you must consistently carry out your strategy to a very high standard.
Extraordinary Execution becomes much easier when you have:
- Super systems - across all areas of the company, so that the founders can stop working 80 hours a week and start getting maximum leverage from their time.
- A top team - who are 100% on board with your ‘global vision’ for the company. Ideally, they’ll also have at least 90% of the skills needed to make the vision reality, and be willing to put in 120% effort to get results.
- Active accountability - external observers who give objective feedback, encouragement and counsel on your plans and on progress. We believe that to a large extent, environment dictates performance.
Executive Advisory Program
The Executive Advisory Program (EAP) is our flagship offering in the international market entry strategy space.
It is designed for companies turning over $2M+ and enables us to work with your team across a number of areas, to give you the tools to realise your global vision with minimum stress and maximum impact.
We start with a four-month engagement, as in our experience this is the minimum amount of time that you need to get results. Each month we meet twice to work on the areas that you have identified as priorities, including:
- an hands-on, ‘doing’ workshop, to give you the tools that you need to go global and,
- a 1:1 mastermind session to review your financial dashboard, problem solve, track progress and celebrate wins.
In between workshops, you can reach out to us for support,
whenever you need it.
Our Advisors
Meet our team of trusted international strategy experts
Our Clients
What our clients say
I’ve spent a lot of time this week checking in on my clients and colleagues – hours spent in Zoom and on phone calls. Pretty much all anyone can talk about is COVID-19 and what it’s likely to mean for their company.
Naturally, the news isn’t great, and whatever you think of the various measures that have been put in place around the world, it’s clear that the economic impact of shutdowns and self-isolation will be significant. But that doesn’t have to mean that it’s all doom and gloom.
As I’ve talked to dozens of people over the last few days, I’ve identified several ways in which people are responding to the crisis.
The Blindsided
Some companies that haven’t taken the COVID-19 threat seriously until this week, have only one or two revenue streams, and rely on public gatherings and events for turnover have been blindsided.
These folks are panicking as income drops sharply and fixed costs remain stable. They haven’t made preparations and don’t have strategies in place to replace revenue and reduce costs. Blindsided companies are not a happy place to be just now.
The Fearful
I’ve spoken to leaders this week, mainly in the FMCG and F&B sectors who are fearful. On the whole, their supplies haven’t yet been disrupted and customer demand is still strong, but they are worried about what’s coming next.
One thing that struck me about the The Fearful is that some have allowed their fear to cloud their thinking and paralyse their decision-making. Instead of trying to counter a drop-off in demand in the traditional channels, they’re just bunkering down, cutting costs and taking a ‘wait and see’ approach.
While I’m a big fan of cost control, there are real risks associated with going into survival mode. You lose momentum and that can make it hard to maintain rhythm within the team, which can affect profitablility, even in good times.
It’s a little like jungle warfare. When the enemy is after you, can either come up with a strategy to counter-attack, or you can dig a hole, cover yourself up and hope they don’t find you. Although it’s scarier, I personally prefer the counter-attack approach to the “run and hide” approach, because it gives you the opportunity to take back control of the situation.
The Prepared
The Strategists
The Strategists are my favourite category in this bunch. They acknowledge that there is a crisis on the way, but rather than let it freak them out, they approach it as an opportunity rather than a threat.
I ran a workshop for clients yesterday whose main form of marketing is trade shows. They’ve had to cancel all their plans to exhibit at shows across the globe … and to be frank, I was holding my breath hoping that they weren’t going to tell me that no shows spelt disaster for the brand.
But these guys have the right mindset. Together we identified the cancellation of trade shows as an opportunity to rework their entire marketing strategy and develop a targeted digital plan – something they’ve been meaning to tackle for a long time and have never gotten around to, because they’re always travelling. With six exhibitions off the table and $250,000 that would have been spent on exhibiting in the bank, this company has more than enough resources to put together a kick-ass digital strategy that, if done right will let them reach many more people than they could ever hope to reach at trade shows. They’ve also identified an opportunity to acquire a competitor, opening the door to increased market share and a big revenue jump over the next 12 months.
Another company I’m working with has an Internet of Things device that records temperature. To date it’s been used to track temperatures inside refrigerated units, but the founders have spotted an opportunity to pivot the application of the device so that it monitors the temperatures of human beings in public places – something that is hugely relevant just now.
The Jubilant
Purveyors of wine online, masks, hand sanitiser and loo paper comprise some of The Jubilant – these companies are raking in it as people panic buy and stock up on essentials for a possible stint in self-isolation. While that’s going on, I’m hoping The Jubilant also remember to plan for the calm after the storm, when people realise that they bought waaaay to much toilet paper and won’t need to shop for it again until 2024.
Which type of company are you? How are you dealing with the global health crisis?
More than a decade ago, I made an international business mistake, which cost me dearly. I want to tell you about it.
I was initially so embarrassed that I couldn’t talk about how I’d stuffed up. But with hindsight, I realise how much that mistake taught me, and I’d like to share the story with you. I hope that it will help you to avoid your own international business stuff-ups.
The story
After a stint in North Africa in my twenties, I decided to start an import business. I have a soft spot for the beautiful artisanal products that Morocco makes – shoes, bags, lamps, inlaid woodwork, pottery and the like – none of which you could buy in Australia back then. My plan was to bring Moroccan products to Australia and sell them there. Simple, right? I speak both French and Arabic and have friends and contacts in Morocco, so it seemed like a logical plan … what could go wrong?
I did a little research, but I had virtually zero business experience and I wasn’t too sure what I needed to cover. So, I decided that the best thing would be to go to Morocco, choose some products, ship them to Australia and then work out how to distribute them. As it turns out, this was my first big mistake.
I got on a plane and off I went. Things went well at first – I amassed a collection of truly beautiful objects from several cities in Morocco, which I was sure people in Australia would love. I opened a bank account in Rabat. I also found a shipping company that was willing to ship my cargo home. So far so good.
But then …
And then things got bad…
I had no idea that getting a foreign shipment through Customs in Australia could be such a nightmare. My shipment contained items made from wood, leather and raffia. They’d been packed in newspaper and wooden crates, and it turned out that this broke pretty much every rule imaginable. My shipment had to be x-rayed and fumigated, as well as inspected, all of which cost me a packet, and by the time I’d added up the costs of getting the products to Australia, I realised that I’d probably wiped out any profit that I might make selling them.
My mistake
- I did not have a plan.
- I did not research the market for the product – I had no idea whether anyone in Australia apart from me wanted what I was importing, or what they would be prepared to pay for the products.
- I did not work out whether I was able to make a profit selling the items I had imported.
- I had no idea how much it would cost me to source my products and get them to market.
- I had no clue about supply chains or any idea of how to find an agent.
- I did not have a distribution network for selling my product at home.
Fast forward to 2017 and I’ve realised, that although my stuff-up was embarrassing and costly and fatal to the business that I wanted to create, it was hardly unique. My business probably would have succeeded, if I’d had a strategy and a clear idea of what I needed as I moved forward.
And the story is the same for many people. There are lots of small businesses that either want to grow internationally and never do, or try expanding internationally and fail. That’s because, though it’s tough to admit, when you start an international business for the first time, you have no experience and often no idea what you are doing. And unless your team understands how international business works or you find someone to teach you what to do, your only other option is to learn by trial and error … and that’s a way that is too hard, too expensive and too personally stressful for most people.
The take-away here is this: there are huge opportunities on offer for small companies to grow internationally and there’s never been a better time to “go global”, but it’s much, much easier to do, and far more likely to succeed if you start with a strategy and a clear idea of what you’ll need as you move forward.
It’s that time of the week again … blog time. This week, I’m concluding my three-part blog on why expanding into international markets isn’t a crazy idea.
In Part One, we looked at key global trends which make now the best time in history to enter international markets.
In Part Two, I outlined the three big challenges that I believe all companies face when they expand outside their national borders.
In Part Three, I want to highlight seven questions that I believe every entrepreneur and company must be able to answer before they can hope to successfully expand into new international markets. So, let’s get started.
If you prefer to watch rather than read, check out the keynote that I gave at GrowthCon in Sydney a few weeks ago.
Seven Questions to Answer Before You Get Started
1. Is our company ready to enter a new market?
This deceptively simple question covers a bunch of stuff. For instance, do you know why you want to expand into a new market or markets? Is it to develop new products? Is it to capture a greater share of the market? Is it simply to generate more revenue? Are you doing it because your home market is saturated and this is the only way in which you can scale your business further?
You need to know what you hope to achieve by expanding outside your domestic market.
You also need to know why you’re going to succeed in your new market. Of course, your product or service is great … but why is it going to work especially well in the particular market that you’re targeting? What is it that’s going to make your product or service competitive?
Do you know how much its going to cost you to expand? And have you calculated whether the business can you afford it? This is another rookie error that people often make – they don’t factor in all the costs that could crop up as they carry out an international expansion and they get blindsided by unexpected expenses.
Does your team really have the skills to operate internationally? This might not be a big deal if you are considering expanding to a country and is culturally similar and has the same language as your country. But what if you’re a US company going to China? Is there someone on your team who speaks Mandarin (or Cantonese for Southern China) and understands Chinese culture? If your staff don’t have the right skills, what will you do about that?
To summarise, your first big challenge is making sure that your company is actually ready to internationalise.
2. Are we confident that we have chosen the right market?
If you just look at the map of the world and stick a pin in it, you could wind up anywhere.
If you’re an English company, how do you know whether you go next door to a small market, like Ireland, which is very similar to England but has a tiny scope, or a gigantic market like India, which has massive scope but a totally different business environment? If you don’t know the answer, then you’re not ready to expand.
3. Are we sure that our product or service is right for the target market?
This question seems like no-brainer, but let me give you an example or two of why it’s important.
If you export to the Middle East, there are regulations around food products and meat products must be halal. This means (amongst other things) that no pork can be in meat products destined for many Middle Eastern countries. There’s no point thinking “we have these great new bacon-flavoured corn chips that would do really well in Saudi Arabia’s booming convenience food market” … even though Saudi Arabia is a market with 30 million people in it, if the regulations say “no pork, no bacon flavour”, then your offering is not going to work in that market.
Or perhaps you sell high-end home decoration services which start at USD$25,000. It’s probably not the most efficient strategy trying to sell these into a market where 87% of consumers earn less than USD$10 a day.
4. Do we know what customers in the target market really want?
It’s easy to assume that you know what customers want, right? You’ve been running a business in Australia for ten years… you know what customers want? Wrong. The problem is that your customers in the new market are often nothing like your customers in the domestic market. They may have totally different expectations about products and services and you cannot simply replicate what has worked at home and expect the same result. Before you get started you’ll need to research your potential clientele in the new market, find out who they are, what their preferences are and what they want.
The flip side of this challenge is to research the competition in the target market and work out whether you can do you what you plan to do better, or sell it for less. You may have the best product in the world, but if you go to a market that is heavily focussed on price, you might struggle to get enough market share to make your venture worthwhile, because your competition can perform almost as well as you can … for a lot less.
5. Are we equipped to deal with the cultural nuances of the target?
6. How does the regulatory framework of the business affect our business
Don’t forget to consider how the regulatory framework in the new market is going to affect your company and your business.
Bear in mind that you may need to consider things like company establishment in the target market, employment law, investment law, immigration regulations, how to go about repatriating capital, banking regulations and customs and quarantine rules. There are a bunch of regulatory frameworks that can make it easier or harder for you to do business in a new country and you need to consider potential regulatory challenges before you decide to move ahead.
7. Do we have have a cohesive strategy for market entry?
Lastly, have you created a cohesive strategy for going to market? If you’ve successfully answered the preceding six questions, have you sat down and worked out how you are going to translate those elements into a strategy with clear steps, milestones and performance indicators?
In short, if you’re going to capitalise on the opportunity to take your business overseas, don’t do it randomly. Don’t jump on a plane and go around the world having meetings and generating excitement and interest without having a strategy to back it up. Because, while it looks like fun, it uses up time, money and energy that would be better spent doing the planning process and then launching your venture in systematic fashion, a little later.
In last week’s post, Why Expanding into International Markets Is Not a Crazy Idea (Part 1), I talked about why I believe that there has never been a better time to take your business to the world. I also outlined a few of the key reasons that companies should be looking abroad and considering how they can get a slice of the global pie, rather than just focussing on getting a larger slice of a domestic market.
This week, in Part 2 of the post, I want to talk about the three key international expansion challenges that you’ll face, as soon as you get out of your comfort zone and into a new market.
If you prefer to watch rather than read, check out the keynote that I gave at GrowthCon in Sydney.
Three Big Challenges to International Expansion
1. Not Enough Commercial Intelligence
Companies often don’t have enough information about what is going on in their target market, so they are guessing rather than researching thoroughly and they don’t have much of a strategy. They see an opportunity which looks good and they believe that they can succeed, without doing the groundwork to make sure that this is actually the case. And frequently, it doesn’t work out.
If you haven’t thoroughly assessed and understood what is going on in your target market – what the conditions are, how your product or service is likely to be received, who the competition is – and formulated a plan for dealing with the challenges that are likely to arise – regulatory hurdles, cost overruns, delays, challenges with staffing – then you’re potentially heading into a world of commercial pain and personal stress.
2. Not Enough Cultural Awareness
3. Not Enough Contacts
Lastly, people often don’t have enough contacts. Operating in a new market is not like operating in your home market. You don’t have friends and connections from school and university. You don’t have existing clients who you can ask for referrals and you may not even be sure about where to start looking for help. Lack of contacts is a simple problem, but one which can dramatically affect the success of a business venture in a new country.
Stay tuned for the third and final part of this series. I’ll be talking about the seven questions that you need to be able to answer before you take your business to a new market. Meantime, if you have a question about international expansion, please connect with me on LinkedIn.
Is the World Really Your Oyster?
Stock market volatility, plummeting oil prices, China’s economy in crisis. The international stage is a pretty scary place these days, and businesses frequently perceive international markets as faraway, risky and full of unknowns. Why expand internationally?
It’s not just that international markets are foreign and scary, they can also be difficult to work in, which is probably one of the reasons that less than 10% Australian SMEs export or operate internationally.
Nonetheless, even though global markets are volatile and international business expansion is a challenge for most companies, I believe that there has never been a better time to take your business to the world.
In Part 1 of this three-part post I want to outline a few of the key reasons that companies should be looking abroad and considering how they can get a slice of the global pie, rather than just focussing on getting a larger slice of a domestic market. In Part 2, I’ll talk about the three key challenges that you’ll face, as soon as you get out of your comfort zone and into a new market. In Part 3, I’ll talk about the seven questions that I believe you must be able to answer before you get started on the internationalisation process.
If you prefer to watch rather than read, check out the keynote that I gave at GrowthCon.
The Moment is Now! Key Reasons to Internationalise
- Digital disruption (the ability to sell stuff on line)
- Cross-border data flows (the ability to move information around the world via the cloud)
- Increased investment in logistics and global supply chains, and
- The liberalisation of international finance and trade (removing trade barriers).
- global trade in goods will be valued at $US35 trillion, up from $US14 trillion in 2010, and
- global trade in services will double, reaching about US$1 trillion.
Emerging markets are increasingly contributing to booming international trade
Demographics are playing a key role in the expansion of global trade
The rising affluence and influence of middle-income countries is creating opportunities that we would not have imagined just five or ten years ago.
Higher tertiary education rates, relatively inexpensive travel and the rise of internet and smartphone penetration in emerging markets means that consumers are globally connected like never before. And because people are connected to global ideas and trends through technology, their tastes and spending patterns are changing. In 2018, the average 20 year-old in an emerging market wants the latest phone, car or designer handbag just as much as the 20 year-old New York, London or Sydney.
Technology is making it easier and cheaper than ever before to do business internationally
- The ability to video conference cheaply or for free has massively reduced the cost of working with people in other countries – it is no longer essential to travel to see clients or team members. For example, some of my team operate from Dubai and Riyadh and many of my clients are located interstate – we use Zoom, Skype and Google Hangouts all the time.
- Platforms like Upwork let companies source suppliers (VAs, designers, IT geeks) from other countries for comparatively little. And it lets professionals in other countries provide services competitively to places where services are expensive.
- Businesses can pay people in other markets or receive payment via PayPal, or through other electronic platforms for larger amounts of money. It’s fast, inexpensive and happens with a few mouse clicks. No more spending hours at the bank, standing in queues and filling in forms.
- Platforms like EBay and Alibaba allow you to sell to customers located pretty much to anywhere in the world.
In short, technology enables you to scale your business in ways that just weren’t possible a few years ago.
There’s another reason that now is a great time to internationalise … your competition is doing it. Chinese manufacturers and all those designers, coders and VAs in the Phillipines, Malaysia and Pakistan are part of that savvy demographic I was just talking about and they have the technology that I’ve just mentioned. They’re already operating internationally and in the long term that’s going to be a problem for companies who are not taking that step.
Stay tuned for Part 2, where I will talk about the three big challenges to internationalisation… Meantime, if you have a question about international expansion, please connect with me on LinkedIn.
1. Know why you are going
2. Sort out your strategy before you get in too deep
This one is key! To ensure that you’re not one of the companies that makes a dumb decision about where to expand to, work out why you are expanding and how the way in which you are expanding matches what you are trying to achieve.
3. Remember that international market entry will be a roller coaster
4. You can’t be half pregnant
5. Make sure that your domestic business is in order before you start
6. Go somewhere where you will get some wins in a reasonable timeframe
7. Don’t repeatedly recreate the wheel
8. Fail fast and use a process
9. Only enter one new international market on the ground at a time
10. Don’t try to “copy + paste” what you do at home
Re-wrapping products rarely works in international markets, because customer demographics, spending power, psychography and expectations vary enormously from one country to the next. Typically, you will need to localize your product or service to be a top player in the space.
Taking your business into new international markets is a risky and capital intensive strategy. Following these market best practices will minimize your risks and set your team up for success.
Latest Insights
Read the latest insights on international market entry from our #GoGlobal blog:
International Market Selection: Four Questions to Ask Yourself
“Because of the political, social and economic volatility that rocked the world in 2020, international market selection is more important than ever. So how do you get it right?
In a word, “research”. Choosing the right market isn’t rocket science. It takes some time and effort, but if you do your homework you’ll know that you’ve made the right decision when the time to choose comes. Here’s why.”
Choosing the Right Market: International Market Entry Barriers
In my previous posts on market selection, I’ve talked about some of the common pitfalls to avoid as you embark on the international market selection
Choosing the Right Market: Final Considerations
In this series on choosing the right international market in 2021, the year of volatility, we’ve looked at common pitfalls, questions to ask, and barriers
