Expanding a business is exciting, but it can also be scary and confusing.
How to accommodate the growing number of employees by renting more office space can be complicated enough, not to mention opening another office in another country or even on another continent.
But dealing with issues related to growth and expansion is a positive thing because it means that your business is doing well and that you can take the step of entering new markets to grow even further.
Are you considering expanding your business to another country? Congratulations! I hope you're willing to put in the work to approach this step in a smart way.
How to expand internationally
Fortunately, Capterra has a lot of experience with international expansion. Half of our users already access our English website from outside the US and Canada, and we recently launched our websites in Germany and France to better serve software buyers there.
To share some of our knowledge with our readers, I spoke to my colleagues at Capterra who have experience coaching sales and marketing teams as part of our B2B international expansion program.
Below we reveal a few basic business rules for successful international expansion.
5 Questions to Ask Yourself Before Expanding Internationally
Expanding a company internationally is a lot of work in itself and also means that your team will have more work to do in the future when new customers are acquired in different countries and time zones.
But successful expansion abroad also promises higher revenues, diverse revenue streams, a significant increase in global brand awareness, and exposure to international business technologies and practices.
However, anyone who tries to gain a foothold in new markets without a solid strategy risks being rejected there, having their brand name suffer lasting damage due to failed business deals and incurring enormous financial losses.
Before you decide to expand your company abroad, you should ask yourself a few specific questions to make sure you feel up to this big and exciting project.
1. What are the reasons for expanding your business?
You might roll your eyes at this question and answer something like, “more business and more money.”
Increasing returns are one of the main reasons for expanding into international markets, but those considering this step should not only have the dollar signs in mind.
Here are some factors to consider: Put aside the idea of cash flow for a moment and think about why you're targeting those markets and how your product can provide the most benefit to them.
Kelsey Walsh, Manager of Client Success at Capterra, helps B2B software companies expand their international reach every day and advises basing decisions on clear data.
Kelsey Walsh
Kelsey Walsh
Manager of Client Success at Capterra
"The first question we ask someone when it comes to international trade is whether they already have customers somewhere abroad."
As obvious as it may seem, anyone who has already made sales and gained customers in a particular country should aim for that country as their first destination. It is important to look at concrete data in order to make a responsible decision. Otherwise, you could just choose any destination on the world map with your eyes closed.
When narrowing down your options for international expansion, consider the following points:
Is there traffic on your website from outside Germany?
Is there also a demand for your product on the international market?
Does the demand you see in other countries justify the effort to expand there?
If you can provide good reasons for expanding abroad, apart from potential new sources of income, you will give your project a more solid foundation and also be aware of potential hurdles – before you actually stumble over them.
2. Do you have an international business plan?
Once you've figured out why you want to expand, it's time to figure out how you're going to put your plan into action.
Don’t forget – just because your company is successful in Germany doesn’t automatically mean it will thrive abroad.
Here are some factors to consider: Think of expansion as starting your business from scratch. Do research to find out how your business can function in a completely new environment.
Do you know the laws governing business activities in the country you plan to expand into? Do you know your local competitors and how you plan to outdo them? Do you have trusted business partners who form part of your supply chain?
Expansion to open up new markets is not a sure-fire success. Even if you know how to do business successfully in one country, that doesn't mean you have a complete overview of what's going on elsewhere.
3. Do you know anything about the culture of the country you want to expand into?
Once the essential aspects of business logistics have been clarified, one should begin to consider the potential buyers of the product.
Even if you believe you have the best sales team on this side of the Rhine, you should not rely on their sales techniques being able to be applied to every new market you want to enter.
Here are some factors to consider: Even though e-commerce makes it easy to sell to consumers around the world without ever leaving your home office, that doesn't mean business travel is out of the question. If you're serious about expanding into other countries, a quick visit to a local business to get a feel for how things work isn't a bad idea.
However, if the budget is not sufficient for a trip abroad, even small approaches to the other culture are helpful, for example learning a few sentences in the language of your future customers or a few regional expressions in order to be better received in the new market. It also helps to avoid cultural faux pas that even large companies have not been immune to when expanding into other countries.
At the very least, you should research very basic things, such as local customs and holidays, how long an average workday lasts, or what time the lunch break usually takes place.
Especially for B2B companies, it is essential to gain a strong understanding of the work culture of the country into which you want to expand your business.
For example, if your company is a software distributor looking to open new sales outlets in the Spanish market, your sales team should be aware that many companies in Spain close during August.
Even if you only intend to expand your business to another German-speaking country, this does not mean laos telegram data that your current marketing and advertising strategies will automatically be effective there.
Especially those who want to expand their business into a non-German-speaking country have a lot of work ahead of them.
These factors are important to consider: One of the best ways to reach customers outside of the German-speaking world is to create a website for that country — for example, a “.fr” domain for France.
capterra.fr
Capterra's French website ( capterra.fr ) makes it easier for French-speaking customers to browse our content and also increases our SEO ranking in France.
This is because search engines like Google tend to present search results and ads that are appropriate to the user's location and language preferences. So, if you sell software for creating electronic signatures, you can significantly increase your chances of getting traffic from French-speaking customers by advertising "logiciel de signature électronique" on your website.
However, translating your entire homepage can be quite time-consuming. It may be sufficient to create landing pages in the local language and invest in translations and PHP redirects for a small part of the content rather than for the entire website content.