Domestic success is enough for many companies but then there are those that might have an even larger market outside of their country. There have been extremely successful companies that have flopped overseas due to lack of planning or simply thinking their product/service was needed in that location. Everything can be different in another country from business practices to what type of advertising converts. There are certain things that can help improve the odds of being a success internationally but they are going to cost money. The following are things that are great to invest in when trying to make the leap to an international business success.
Interpretation Services
Finding the right phone interpretation service is important as some cultures like doing business on the phone rather than by email. Usually the phone is more efficient and more can be discussed in a shorter time. Obviously it will make sense to learn the basics of the language in the country you are expanding to but you do not want terms to get lost in translation. A person who speaks the language attending the meeting is great if they are at a high enough level. This can make it difficult with the language barrier to create personal rapport so the work done for these clients needs to build that rapport with high quality work being delivered on time.
Digital Marketing
The process of digital marketing can be difficult in a new location as every culture appreciates different types of marketing with some loving shock marketing and others loving quality content marketing. Climbing up the search engines in your new location can be costly if you have never marketed there before. Hiring people who speak very specific languages like that of Hungarian can be more expensive to have content created than that of English as it is a unique dialect. Bringing the company to the top of the search engines can help boost the likelihood of success as consumers rarely go passed the first page of search results.
Outsourced Talent
Excelling both domestically and abroad can be aided by outsourcing certain departments or jobs. This can help a company save money during this transition and put the money to use in a better way elsewhere. Things like data mining and pulling contact information for potential clients are great examples of this. Letting certain people in the company work remotely can be a huge advantage as this eliminates the need to train a new person that might not even work out long term.
Hiring Someone Who Knows The Culture
Hiring a person that knows the culture in the new place of business is important as they can educate you on certain intricacies of doing business there. If you already have someone on staff from that country or who has spent considerable time there, then you have a great fit. If you do not then you are going to have to find someone so reach out to current employees to see if they know anyone. They will not put their neck on the line for someone that they think is going to a do a subpar job.
Building an international juggernaut of a business is going to take time and hard work. Use the above tips to help that happen!
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