Don’t Give Up Too Soon On Your International Business

By Cindy King  ·  19 Comments
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Are you giving up on your international business opportunities too soon?

It seems that there is never a week without an email from a reader asking for an international sales miracle.  It is like they are expecting a magic software to instantly create international sales for their business.

Now, I can teach you how to adapt your offer to fit into a different cultural market.  And I can share my simple 8-step process for developing your international business. This is what I do on Get International Clients.

But I cannot bring clients to you.  Yes, you can hire agents to do this job for you.  But if you want to develop an international business, you really need to do this work yourself.  This is all about your business.

Some of these emails show people who are about to give up.  They feel they have made an effort to get international sales.  This did not bring in any results and they want to give up.

The Steps To An International Business

The first question is: did they make the right effort?

Most international companies went through a series of steps before becoming “international”.  I have stopped counting the number of times I hear people say:

  • They have a website
  • They have a few international clients that come to them to buy from them
  • And they think they have an international business

Let’s put this straight.  To get international clients you must:

  • Communicate with them in a way that is adapted to their culture
  • Sell to them in a way that is adapted to their culture
  • And possibly have a product adapted to their culture

You start by adapting your marketing and sales for one product to one foreign country.  When you have done this for several products and to several countries, then you can consider your company and “international” company

A Process Of Learning To Adapt

The second question is: Are they giving themselves enough time to adapt personally to different ways of doing things.

I have to be honest with you.  Developing an international business can be difficult.  But the difficulty is in how you need to adapt yourself to respond to different cultures and different ways of doing things and doing business.

You acquire this through experience.  You need to start someplace.  When you first start learning how to do business in a different country you learn to:

  • Provide for flexibility
  • Predict areas of difficulty

These are personal international skills.  And it can be rough the first time around.  You can easily become frustrated and blame the “other” way of doing things.  But it is only really a question of you learning to adapt to working in this sort of an environment.  And this takes time.

Don’t Give Up Too Soon

These are the two main reasons why people start looking for miracles and want to give up.  And when they give up at this stage, it really is too soon.  You are giving up because:

  • You have not taken enough actions to give you results
  • You have not taken the time to learn the international skills you need

Sometimes you need to take a few extra steps before you can see where your international opportunities lie.  So ask yourself:

  • Whether you are taking the right steps to develop your international business
  • Whether you are giving yourself enough time to adapt

Don’t make the mistake of giving up too soon.
What do you think? Please leave your thoughts and comments below.

Photos from Shutterstock.

  Filed under: international sales skills

                


Cindy King