To forge an international business, you must overcome various obstacles. There’s the initial idea, the funding, the tricky startup phase, the growth into a regional power, and then the complex move to cross-border operation. But since none of those achievements is ever guaranteed, you can’t rely on a prospective global move being simple (or even successful).

Consider that few businesses ever attempt it, and many fewer actually accomplish it in a sustainable fashion. It’s a daunting prospect. That said, if you’ve already started getting results in at least one additional country, why not see how far you can take your business? It may be tough, but it’s doable, particularly if you get your approach right.

How do you get your approach right? Well, one thing that’s essential is that you refrain from thinking globally. Instead of getting bigger, your focus needs to get smaller. Allow me to explain why this is, and what it means for the future of your business.

Overreaching is dangerous

Even one small step in a global expansion takes a lot of planning to be managed effectively. This is vital to note because it’s easy to get carried away with the potential of your business and to start looking past the roadblocks ahead of you. As noted, you’ve already made it to international business, and you know your operational model works. Why shouldn’t you be confident?

As a result, you might simply assume that everything ahead of you is smooth sailing (nothing you haven’t already dealt with). When you give all your attention to long-term goals, you leave yourself extremely vulnerable to making basic errors. What you need to do is lay out a path of modest steps, and take each step one at a time, never committing too much thought to the end goal.

Prospects need the personal approach

You’ve already had some success moving into a new country, but there’s every chance that your international move was into a country bordering (or similar to) your domestic market. Because of this, you might have treated the new market just like your original market and still been able to get results. This is anomalous on a global scale.

When you really start to look into different markets, thinking about them individually instead of collectively, you can see just how significantly customer requirements and expectations can differ. A polite message in one country could be considered an insult in another, for instance, and a product that captures the zeitgeist in one area might sink without trace in another.

Some of the world’s largest markets, like India, are so diverse that they also contain significant cultural differences from one region to the next, requiring even more detailed research and customization.

Only by thoroughly researching the culture of each new market can you understand how best to approach its average consumer. And with your company going global, the last thing you need is to see your reputation take a hit because of a cultural faux pas.

Your workers are mission-critical

How much crunch did it take to get where you are now? How many employees had to put in extra hours and neglect their personal lives to achieve international-level growth? While there’s nothing wrong with everyone working hard to grow a business, the grind catches up to you, and can only prove effective for so long.

There’s a quote that I think is relevant here, courtesy of entrepreneur Tom Shieh on the Marketing Speak podcast: “What got us here isn’t necessarily going to take us to the next level.” While you certainly need to preserve the qualities of your business that made it so popular, you don’t need to cling to your old ways of doing things — particularly when they aren’t sustainable.

Consequently, you must ensure that your employees (whether they’re domestic or overseas, because you’ll be hiring a lot of overseas workers and they’re just as important) are content in their positions, with suitable benefits and perks that make them brand advocates. You should be hiring for your weaknesses and investing in those employees so they’re even more valuable in the future, not thinking about the short term by expecting too much of them.

Efficiency is vital at the global level

Think about all the minor things that affect the day-to-day workings of a business: the procedures, protocols, routines and tools that add up to produce your regular output. When your head is in the clouds contemplating global dominance, those things might seem trivial — but they’re actually more important than ever when you reach that level.

Why? Because a minor efficiency improvement might not mean much for a small business, but when it’s deployed for a global business, it can save a lot of time and money. Suppose there was a way to automate one of the daily tasks assigned to almost every employee you have, for instance: something that saved the average worker 30 minutes each month could add up to a huge sum each year, making it a matter of priority.

What’s more, your underlying system needs to be as easy to use as possible if it’s going to be rolled out to workers who live in different countries and speak different languages. Strive for absolute minimalism, cutting down on confusion, tweaking themes to suit regional needs, and ensuring that the onboarding process is as easy as possible.

You don’t create a global business by thinking globally. You do it by thinking locally, then applying that formula to every distinct region. Treating the world as a singular market is one of the biggest mistakes you can make — think small if you want to succeed.

The post Why international businesses need to think small to go global appeared first on Trade Ready.

In some places, the local distributor or sales office had marketing responsibilities, while in others the responsibility rested with the headquarters’ marketing department. There was lots of confusion about who should be doing what, and lots of wasted resources. It was very disjointed and hard for marketing staff to manage, not to mention inefficient and far from optimized.

It’s like adding rooms onto a house every time there’s a new family member instead of working from a master plan. Your marketing framework needs to be both sustainable – a program your current and future resources can maintain AND scalable – a program that still works as you continue to expand in new and current markets. Without a framework, the marketing house eventually crumbles… along with the company.

What this company needs is a framework for their international marketing that can grow with them in both new and existing markets.

One of the biggest choices that a company should make is: centralized or decentralized marketing. Here’s how to decide which one best fits your company:

Centralized approach to international marketing

In a centralized marketing program, the marketing team at headquarters makes most of the marketing decisions and they plan and execute most marketing programs. This approach
makes the most sense when: 

• Your marketing department is highly competent and has experience working with international markets
• You can find country experts to help your marketing team localize materials to the right levels
• You sell most of your products through direct exporting or your own in-country subsidiaries
• Your marketing materials require little or no localization. This is the case for highly globalized markets, like scientific products or certain types of software
• Your product and company carries a positive Country of Origin Effect. For instance, German engineered products have a positive COE for quality and longevity.

If your approach is centralized, then you’ll want to focus on developing in-house marketing capabilities and scalable processes. This will ensure you have much more control over the marketing and sales cycle, and should be used to your company’s advantage (shortening sales cycles and increasing win rates). Manage the marketing talent carefully and hire great professionals.

Centralized marketing can be a slower growth path, so be sure to remove any growth barriers.

Travel costs can be heavy, so combine trips and eliminate any unnecessary travel. Lastly, be sure to have a strong communication channel between marketing and sales staff who are directly interacting with the market and product development.

Decentralized approach to international marketing

In a decentralized marketing program, marketing functions and decision-making are primarily pushed out into the field. You may have a small army of independent distributors or representatives.

Another option is to rely on your own local in-country sales offices. This approach works best when:

• Your products are in heavily regulated industries
• Your products need to be significantly localized in order to sell them in other markets
• There is a strong market bias toward local language and local sales connections
• There is a strong NEGATIVE Country of Origin Effect
• Your company’s marketing is not highly trained and has very limited resources

The focus of a decentralized approach is to support and motivate the local marketing staff and representatives. Marketing materials are often produced as a template that a local marketer or representative can use as a starting point for localization and translation. If this is your approach, then developing and maintaining close working relationships with the in-country reps and marketing staff is KEY to your success.

Decentralized marketing gives up some control over how your brand is represented.

There are risks related to corruption, so be upfront about what you can and cannot accept under the laws of your home country.

Localized marketing and reps can cost upwards of 25-30 percent of the total product price, so the supporting marketing department back at headquarters must run very lean in terms of staff and budget.

The reason for choosing a single approach is this: if you do both, then you are paying to manage a program centrally but not getting the benefits of control or efficiency. If you essentially do neither (rare, but I’ve seen it), then you undercut your abilities to reach your markets.

I hope you found this article helpful. For more information about international marketing, please visit: The International Entrepreneur Website.

The post Two approaches to smarter international marketing: Centralized vs. Decentralized appeared first on Trade Ready.