Export Part 4: The Right Market Partner

This is the 4th Part of a 5 Part Export Series

Everyone has received that email right? The one from a person in a foreign country that would like to buy your products but do not have the money yet and would for you to send them a few products so they can see if they can sell it? We get calls from our clients all of the time from people in that exact situation and sadly 8 times out of 10 these “cold calls” are either not true clients or are not in the right industry.  So how do you stop this?

Well past looking up their website (if they have one) or calling them back on the phone (a huge NO) it is pretty easy to find someone to interview them and here are three resources to do it;

1. Call/Email the US Commercial Office in that country as ask for a reference. It might take you a few days to get a response but if the email looks worth it to you this is a good method. Send all of the information you have on the prospective buyer and wait.  These people know their stuff and can figure out quickly it is real export prospect or not.
2. Call/Email the (Insert your Country)/ Chamber of Commerce that is based in that country. For US Companies it is usually AMCHAM Mexico City or AMCHAM Chile etc. If the company is reputable they have the resources to continue the export sales process.
3. Email the local Chamber of Commerce and Industry for that country. Most countries outside of the US all companies must register with the local chamber of commerce and industry to do business both exporting and importing.  These chambers (for the most part) want their companies to do business, especially with US companies so they are more than likely going to want to help, sometimes they will do it for free others might have a small fee.  It’s better than shipping your export product overseas to never see it again.

So back to the question we have of finding out the right market partner for your business. Before you read any further get ready to right down a few things.  On one piece of paper, on one side write how you currently sell in the local (country) market, if it is through sales agents, distributors, reps, or direct.  On the other side of the paper write how you would like to sell in the best case scenario.  Do you want to change your business model to just sell to distribution and get away from direct sales, do you mind making less profit, do you want to increase your margin and sell directly?

Why would we ask you to do that? Well because that is exactly what we want on paper from you before we even start working with you on export markets.  On paper you need both the way you currently sell and the ideal export sales partner you want because each market is different overseas.

Each overseas export market might have 27 different provinces and selling in the north might be completely different than selling in the south (or East and West) so knowing what works and what doesn’t work is where we can help.

Just filling out a questionnaire gives our team a good idea of what you are looking for and where best you can fit. Also writing down the Right Partner for your export activity gives you something to reflect on and change. Let us say you currently sell by distributor, but our research comes back and says that selling in X market you will need to start with a market rep, well congratulations you are now increasing your sales channels that we talked about in the last article.

So today before you send us an email asking for our Target Markets program (you really should it’s pretty detailed and a wealth of information) write down your current sales model and your dream sales model, think about it for a minute, send us an email about the Target Markets program and let’s get to exporting your products overseas.