Over the years, I have found that small businesses get confused and sometimes intimidated by their European distributors, which are trying to dissuade them from having direct contacts with the end-users. It’s a very common practice, as distributors are trying to protect their key clients relationships.
Are you hiring a professional out of corporate to join your fast-growing small business ? Are you a professional out of corporate considering working for a small business expanding rapidly in international markets?
Over the years, I have seen small businesses being blurred by the expression “it’s all about the contacts!”. And so they would think that they really needed to find the person who had all these contacts and by magic it would give them a lead way into a new country or a market. To be honest, it always rings alarm bells, when a customer comes to me and tells me if he/she is about to recruit a senior person based in Europe that has all the required contacts.
2020 is a funny year as we all know. And when it comes to successfully exporting for small businesses, I can confidently say that Europe should still be on your radar. The last six months have been extraordinary for some of our Australian customers. And some of them have encountered incredible success, mostly because they are reaping the benefits of their consistent hard work in the European market, making them a reliable supplier for European customers, even during unpredictable times.
We get asked a lot of questions about user manuals for the European market: " do we need to translate our manual in all these European languages?" ; "What needs to be in these manuals for us to make sure we comply with the European standards?" Just to name a few.
2020 is a funny year as we all know. And when it comes to successfully exporting for small businesses, I can confidently say that Europe should still be on your radar. The last six months have been extraordinary for some of our Australian customers. And some of them have encountered incredible success, mostly because they are reaping the benefits of their consistent hard work in the European market, making them a reliable supplier for European customers, even during unpredictable times.
There has not been a better time to sell smarter! This is my conclusion from the last months of being grounded in Australia and having my European team in lock-down for a couple of months, instead of visiting key European customers and partners throughout Europe.
There are two different levels of success in an overseas market, there’s a superficial level of success, initial leads, a few sales, a distributor has started selling in a given country for 50K$ of products. And on the other side of the scope, there is being truly successful in a market.
Now is the time to explore opportunities in the European market! With over 500 million consumers, Europe hosts a large number of multinationals hungry for technology and Australian innovation (Airbus, Sanofi, Bayer, Danone, Remondis, Daimler, Fiat…).
One of the reasons I love what I do at Exportia, is that I get to work on a daily basis with brilliant minds. Founders and CEOs of small companies (they are often both) are amazing to work with, they are passionate about their business. They inspire their team and they create a vision and direction for the business. This is why they often are the best person to articulate the sales pitch. They know precisely what problem their business is solving and they know what makes a person buy their product or solution.
