Going Global in Business? Three Issues You’ll Need to Overcome
Taking your business global can massively increase your successes. Entering foreign markets means a much wider audience, there are more people to buy your products or services so a huge influx in profits. You have the opportunity to grow your business if that’s what you want to do, adding more departments and employees. However, if you’re running a home based company and want to keep it that way, it’s still perfectly possible since you can outsource and hire contractors and freelancers for the extra workload. This means it’s possible to go global no matter how big or small you are, and so it’s something to consider, regardless of what your online business does. However, there are some things that you’ll need to bear in mind when it comes to going global, it’s a massive undertaking and there will likely to be issues along the way that you’ll need to resolve. Here are some examples.
Communicating
One of the biggest difficulties you can face when selling overseas is the language barrier. Even if you’re multilingual, you’re never going to know every language in the countries you want to sell in meaning just conveying your message, sales pitch and everything else can be difficult enough. One thing you could do is consider using a document translation service. Companies can professionally translate things so that they make perfect sense and convey the message you’re trying to get across. It’s not always as simple as running a document through Google translate, chances are you’ll know this if you’ve ever read a document that’s been badly translated to English. Another option would be to hire an interpreter. If you’re a larger company you could take one on full time as an employee. If you’re a smaller business and/ or your workload is likely to fluctuate then look into hiring a freelancer. You could also opt for visual methods of communication, if for example you’re showing a product then a clear, high quality video of it in use will convey your message well. While English can be considered as a ‘global’ language, and you might get lucky by being able to speak to someone who can communicate in your language, only 20% of the world’s population actually speak it. So the language barrier is something you can’t afford to overlook.
Marketing
Marketing is a very tricky area, it’s closely linked with psychology, and so there’s more to it than simply translating an ad or marketing campaign into another language. A country’s culture and their values will massively depict what kinds of things they’re interested in buying, as well as the marketing techniques that will work on them. In some cases, an advert or strategy that’s funny or witty in your country can be nonsense or even offensive in others. To get around this, it’s important to enlist the help of a company that has experience marketing in the country you want to appeal to. They will know what kinds of things will and won’t work. What will be considered as offensive or crude, and what sort of techniques have been proven to be effective. Be sure to consider this when you’re going global, as business owners we know the importance of marketing so you don’t want to make a mistake here.
Shipping
Finally, if your business sells physical items then shipping them globally is something you will need to consider. If the items are very large or very fragile for example then you might need to rethink some materials. You will also need to check if the ingredients or materials in the items you’re selling are permitted in that country, some seemingly innocent things are banned in different countries so just because it’s legal where you live doesn’t mean it will be the case everywhere. If you’re a large company you could look into investing in your own fleet of ships, for small and medium sized businesses, a shipping company or even the postal service will be the way to go depending on what you’re selling and in what quantity. If you want to ship over bulk pallets of items for example, you could outsource to a fulfilment company who will have everything they need on hand to be able to lift, wrap, store and ship them for you. If you’re selling smaller items to individual customers, the postal service could be your best bet. You can arrange regular parcel collections from your home or workplace, so no need to stand in long queues at the post office every few days.
