When you’re deciding it’s time to scale to a new country, the tactics that you used to become successful at home may not work as well as you hope when you’re abroad. You had a lot of things at home that worked in your favour but you won’t necessarily have these when reaching out to customers in other countries. In your own country, you speak the local language, you know the local market, you have local contacts as well as local clients and your salespeople are native to the region and integrated into the process. However, this will count for very little in a foreign market. 

Choosing the right territory

The first thing you’ll need to know is which market you want to target. Choosing the right territory to scale into can be a defining factor in whether you are successful or not. 

In this regards, you may want to start by looking at neighbouring countries. If you both have similar wealth, then you may also have similar markets. Never assume this though, always research a market thoroughly. You’ll almost always share a time zone with your nearest neighbour and in some cases will share a common language. Unless the language is exactly the same though, it is always wise to hire a translator. Nuance can easily be misunderstood so this is a safer way of doing things. If your translator is a native of the country you’re planning to scale to though, that is the ideal scenario. 

Attend trade fairs

Another tactic when reaching out to companies in another country would be to attend trade fairs and international conferences. An in-person appearance at these events will get a good reception, allow you to gauge the market, see who your competitors are and directly introduce you to potential prospects or partners. This is time consuming though and if you’re after a faster market entry, you may need to look at other methods of getting in front of the people you need to speak to. 

Scale fully

Probably the last thing you should do is scale fully before being established in the market. Committing resources in terms of time, money and staff to a venture that is not guaranteed is particularly risky and in some cases can be fatal for the business.         

SDR as a Service: a safe option

A much safer and indeed more sensible option would be to avail of Aexus’ SDRaaS (Sales Development Representative as a Service). Not only do these SDRs speak the local language and understand the culture, but they also get the business nuances of the market and know how to get things done. On top of this, they work in the market every day, so already have a list of contacts that means they can rapidly identify genuine prospects for your product or service. Also, if you want to, you can even use our SDRs to test out the market’s appetite for your product, regardless of where you’re scaling to as we have operations in Europe, the Americas or the Asia Pacific (APAC) region. 

Finally, with no long term contracts, you have the flexibility to scale up or down as you wish and should you want to terminate the service, there are no lengthy exit clauses. All of this provides you with a low risk, high benefit service that will help you get your business up and running in a new territory as quickly as possible.

To find out more, get in touch. We’re always happy to jump on a call.