The Ins and Outs of Doing Business with International Clients

/in /by

StrategyDriven Marketing and Sales Article |International Clients|The Ins and Outs of Doing Business with International ClientsThe businesses that thrive in today’s economy are the ones that think globally from day one. Even if your company is just getting off the ground, it’s important to consider potential international clients early on in the process. After all, the world is becoming a smaller place every day, and businesses that aren’t prepared for this new reality will struggle to keep pace. If you already operate a business with domestic clients or intend to begin your business journey by focusing primarily on local consumers, now is the time to begin strategizing about how and when you might expand your reach internationally.

The world is full of opportunities for ambitious businesses willing to take risks, and operating as an export-driven company can help you grow exponentially faster than staying put. Doing business with international clients may initially seem challenging, but it can also be a rewarding experience if approached strategically. Keep reading to understand the ins and outs of doing business with international clients.

Conduct Market Research

Before diving headfirst into international business development, it’s a smart move to conduct some market research. Specifically, you’ll want to take a close look at the countries your company is likely to target and the strengths and weaknesses of your brand in those regions. It’s also a good idea to take a look at your competitors in the international market to see who stands out. By understanding the climate of the industry and the unique characteristics of customers in the areas you plan to target, you can more effectively create marketing strategies tailored to their needs.

Explore Your Existing Network

You may be able to find international clients through your existing network of contacts and connections. This can be a very cost-effective way to conduct business internationally, but you may need to partner with a third-party logistics company to handle the shipping and logistics side of things. That said, don’t overlook the value of forming partnerships with other businesses in your industry. This can give you an opportunity to expand your reach by collaborating with another company and exchanging goods or services with them. You can also consider forming partnerships with businesses in other countries that are conducting business in your industry. This can open up a lot of new opportunities, and you may even discover partners that can help you expand your business in the long term.

Adjusting The Way You Communicate

Communicating with your international clients is an important part of doing business with them, but it’s important to adjust the way you communicate. Keep in mind that different regions have different customs. The best way to handle this is to start out by asking your clients how they prefer to be communicated with. Once you’ve found the right approach for international clients, stick to it. It’s important to be consistent in the way you communicate. This way, your international customers won’t feel like they’re getting a different message each time they receive correspondence from you.

Invest In A Certified Translator

Even if you only plan to do business with one country, it’s a good idea to invest in a certified translator. This person will be able to accurately and appropriately communicate with your clients in their native language. Depending on the language, you may have to hire someone who is both a translator and a linguist. While it’s possible to use Google Translate or another free translation app, relying on these tools can often lead to inaccuracies and misunderstandings due to mistranslations, which may lead to unsatisfied customers and lost revenue. Having a certified translator can save you a lot of time and trouble.

Make Your Website Friendly For A Global Audience

Another important step in preparing to do business with international clients is making your website friendly for a global audience. One of the best ways to do this is to use clear, concise language that avoids jargon and contains no grammatical errors. In some cases, you may even want to avoid using acronyms or words that may have different meanings in other countries. For the best results, hire a professional copywriter and certified translator to help create your website content.


Find Common Ground

Understanding your international clients is critical to success, but it’s also important to find common ground with them in order to build strong relationships. To do this, you may want to focus on your client’s interests and passions. Doing so can help you find ways to connect with your clients on a personal level and create long-lasting business relationships.

Pay Attention To Cultural Details

Once you’ve begun communicating with your clients and are getting to know them better, it’s important to pay attention to cultural details. For example, some cultures are more direct than others, so it’s important to work within the parameters of your client’s preferences. Doing so can help you avoid overwhelming your clients and help them feel comfortable doing business with you.

Be Mindful Of Potential Misunderstandings

Misunderstandings are common when doing business with international clients, especially for businesses that are just starting to export. If there is something you don’t understand about your customers or their needs, it’s important that you ask questions so you can better understand them. You should also be sure to communicate as clearly as possible so that you don’t accidentally offend your customers.

Accommodate Time Differences

Finally, you should be aware of time differences when conducting business with international clients. This can help you avoid scheduling meetings at inopportune times. You may also want to consider hiring a virtual assistant who can help you stay on top of your scheduling and who can help you stay organized. This can make it easier to manage time zone differences and can also help you reduce the amount of time you spend on scheduling and administrative tasks.

Final Thoughts

The world is growing increasingly interconnected every day. It’s important to prepare your small business for this new reality by considering potential international clients early on in the process. While doing business internationally may seem challenging, it can also be a rewarding experience if you approach it strategically. Keep the tips outlined above in mind to help make the transition smoother for your business.

Tips for Running a Successful Exhibition Stand

/in /by

StrategyDriven Marketing and Sales Article |Successful Exhibition Stand|Tips for Running a Successful Exhibition StandRunning an exhibition stand is a key component to growing your brand – if done successfully! Not only does it help you reach a new audience, but it also helps keep your company at the forefront of your current customer’s minds as well as show people you are still relevant within the market. There are a number of exhibitions you can sign up for depending on your target audience, some are consumer-based, and some are business based. They also operate around the world, helping you reach new markets.

When running an exhibition stand, there are a number of things for you to consider. Below we look into several tips for running a successful exhibition stand.

Follow up with your customers

See every customer that you speak to at your stand as someone who you can sell your product to. Make sure you take as much information about them as possible and then follow up with them in the following days after the event. If they say yes, sign them up for your email marketing campaigns, and if you can, offer them a special discount as they visit you on your stand. Remember every customer will visit many stands at the exhibition. If you are not following up with them, it’s easy for them to forget about you.
Have merchandise to give out on the day


Reach out to a company like sugarcookiemarketing.com and have them design some merchandise that you can give out on the day. The type of merchandise you choose to give out is completely up to you – pens, hats, t-shirts, notebooks, tote bags – these are all good ways to help your potential customers remember you. Along with the merchandise, some companies choose to run a competition on the day. This is a great way to collect data from your customers who you can email and get in touch with after the event. It can also fall as part of your growth strategy when trying to improve your business.

Create an appealing stand

At the exhibition, you will be surrounded by other stands, many of whom could be your competitor. For these reasons, it’s important you make your stand, “stand” out from the crowd. Make it bright, appealing, and eye-catchy. You want everyone to notice it and approach you to ask about your company. If it’s boring and dull, people won’t take any notice of it, walking straight past. If you are unsure about how to design the stand yourself, you could use a freelancer from a company like People Per Hour or Fiver to design one for you. Make sure your stands can be reused, this way you can exhibit and use your designs for future exhibitions.

What tips do you have for running a successful exhibition stand? Are there any tips that we haven’t included that you think are very useful? Which of the points above do you most agree with? Let us know in the comment box below. We would love to hear from you.

The Best Strategies To Get Your Business Noticed

/in /by

StrategyDriven Marketing and Sales Article |Business Strategies|The Best Strategies To Get Your Business NoticedOne of the biggest challenges that businesses have is getting noticed, especially in today’s digital age. These days, businesses across the board have to compete with many companies online, and this can make it hard to stand out and get noticed. This is particularly true when you are a new or small business competing against much larger brands. So, what can be done about this? There are a few effective strategies to try that will help you to stand out, get noticed and start competing at a much higher level. Keep reading for a few of the best strategies to get your business noticed.

Market Research

First, you should use market research as a way to learn about the market and how you can differentiate yourself. Market research is a key stage when starting a business, but markets change, so it is helpful to carry out new market research every few years. This should help you to find a way to differentiate yourself while still appealing to your target market.

Find An Influencer

These days, one of the best ways to stand out and get noticed is with influencer marketing. Having someone with influence in your industry recommend your products/services will help you to reach a much larger audience. Plus, this is a highly effective way to instantly build credibility for your brand. Influencer marketing can take your business to new heights and help you to compete at a much higher level.


Manage Partnerships with PRM

One of the best ways to stand out and get noticed is to strike up partnerships with other businesses. This can help you to raise brand awareness, tap into new markets and build credibility. Partnerships can take your business to new levels of success, but they can also be hard to manage when you consider how many tasks are involved with each partnership, including onboarding, enablement, and commission repayments. This is why it is a smart idea to use a partner relationship management (PRM) solution that can make partnerships easy to manage; learn more from Workspan.

Create Engaging Content

Every brand is creating content as a way to get noticed online, but few are creating content that is actually engaging and valuable. This presents an opportunity for your brand, so you need to think about topic ideas that will engage your target market and either entertain or educate them. You then need to bring this content to life with multimedia, statistics, quotes, and interesting viewpoints that will actually get your business noticed online.

Raise Awareness In The Community

It is not just the internet that you should be focusing on, as you can also get noticed by raising awareness in the local community. There are many ways that this can be done, including hosting events, attending community events, getting involved with schools, raising money for charity, and networking with other business owners.

These are a few of the best strategies to use if you are looking to get your business noticed and want to stand out from the crowd.

4 Costly Inefficiencies In Your Sales Cycle

/in /by

StrategyDriven Marketing and Sales Article |Inefficiencies|4 Costly Inefficiencies In Your Sales CycleIn the world of sales, inefficiency can be just as detrimental to a company as incompetence. It wastes money and valuable resources, causes delays, and ultimately creates another hurdle between you and the customers that benefit from your product or service.

Before you go throwing more money or personnel to improve your sales cycle, it might be worth assessing every part of the process to pinpoint inefficiencies and redundancies that are bloating up your lead generation efforts.

What kind of inefficiencies often show up in the sales cycle? Here are 4 common ones and the solutions you can put in place to eliminate them.

No Departmental Cohesion

Having disparate departments in your organization can slow your sales cycles down significantly. In many companies, marketing, sales, support and customer service have no real synergy or communication between them, which makes lead hand-off incredibly clunky and confusing. Streamlining each department and creating an easy and efficient way for them to communicate and collaborate will speed up the sales cycle and also increase the retention and lifetime value of a customer. It could be as simple as making the teams work in the same office space, getting the heads of the departments to have more meetings, or creating a Slack channel for them to communicate.

Flimsy Follow Up Efforts

If your team is putting thousands of dollars into campaigns to generate leads fast but not investing in rapid lead follow-up, you might as well be setting all that money on fire. In today’s world, leaving a lead hanging even for an hour could send that prospect straight to your competitors.

There has to be a clear system of lead follow-up in place to connect with the lead as soon as it shows up in your funnel. Some of the steps you can take are employing chatbots to start the communication so they don’t feel ignored, employing a call team, or investing in proposal software to more accurately track prospects. Following up faster also allows you to quickly rank leads by what they need and where they are in the decision making process. The path from researching a solution to choosing and purchasing the right now has lengthened significantly, and that requires more touch points and a more laser-targeted contact strategy.


Selling Without Understanding Motivation

The more targeted your sales efforts can be, the better. Gone are the days where spray-and-pray tactics of contacting people cold would lead to a sale. There are thousands of people you could be selling to, but in order to convert at a higher level, you need to have more clarity on the people who actually want to buy your product or service.

There are ways technology can be leveraged to pinpoint a motivated buyer and distinguish them from someone who is still in the looking and researching phase.

Predictive analytics tools collate and aggregate details like online purchases and buyer behavior in order to identify who is actually ready to take action.

For example, in real estate, you can identify someone who is thinking of selling their home with details like;

  • Renovating their home
  • Life changes like having a baby or their children going off to college
  • Getting pre-qualified for a mortgage
  • Looking up real estate agents in their area
  • Looking at listings on home listing sites like Zillow

Predictive analytics takes all these streams of information and then creates a score showing who is most likely to make a buying decision and the time frame. This makes your sales cycle more efficient because you can provide the lead nurture that person needs to make a decision.

An Overwhelmed Sales Team

If your salespeople are handling a myriad of tasks, it could be making your entire sales cycle less efficient. Imagine a salesperson spending their time researching leads, doing data entry and other admin tasks in addition to their prospecting efforts. It’s going to diminish the amount of time they spend in the best and highest use of their time, and your organization ends up paying more for that task than necessary – it’s both needlessly expensive and inefficient.

Instead of taking this approach, why not take those tasks away from your sales team, employ people who can focus on the admin side of things and let your salespeople do what they do best? It increases the amount of lead generation time and makes the process of nurturing these leads way better.

Dedicated research people mean the information the sales team gets is more accurate, and an admin team takes care of operations quickly, thus eliminating bottlenecks.

5 Tips to Attract More Clients to Your Dental Practice

/in /by

StrategyDriven Marketing and Sales Article |Attract clients to your dental practice|5 Tips to Attract More Clients to Your Dental PracticeDental practices are highly specialized service providers. The average person will not just stumble across your listing on Google and drive directly to your practice. While it might seem challenging, attracting clients to your dental practice doesn’t have to be as difficult as you think. There is a range of strategies you can put into place and tips you can follow to attract more potential clients and patients to your business effectively.

Use mailing lists

One of the best ways to attract more clients to your dental practice is to contact current and previous clients. This can be done by adding them to a mailing list and sending out regular newsletters, emails, or postcards. It might sound like a dated marketing tactic, but dentist marketing lists are incredibly effective for attracting new clients. Regularly communicating with previous clients and patients will remind them of your business and let them know about any new services or products available.

Run special offers

Another effective strategy to attract more clients to your dental practice is to run special offers. These can be anything from weekend-long deals to a free toothbrush with every check-up. By running special offers and promotions, you can let people know about your services while offering them a great value proposition. This will get people talking about your practice, and they may even share the offers and deals with friends and family members who might be interested in using your services. This can be a great way to build your client base and bring more traffic to your practice.

Be active in the local community.

Being active in the local community and getting involved in events and organizations in your area is a great way to attract more clients to your dental practice. This can be as simple as attending the upcoming community event in your neighborhood or hosting a booth at the local fair. It’s a great way to meet new people and introduce them to your business. You’ll want to make sure you have some free giveaways or samples that attendees can take home with them at the event. This is an excellent way to get your name out into the community and let people know about your dental practice.


Provide excellent service to increase word of mouth

Word of mouth is one of the most effective ways to grow your dental practice. The more satisfied your clients are with your services and their experience at your practice, the more likely they will share their experience with others and encourage them to come in for treatment. One way you can encourage satisfied and happy clients to spread the word about your business is to be sure to ask for feedback and reviews after each treatment. This can range from asking about their overall experience to their thoughts on the dental assistant and dentist who worked on them.

Network and collaborate with other providers

Another excellent way to attract more clients to your dental practice is to network and collaborate with other providers in your area. You can do this by partnering with other local businesses to offer special deals on combined services. You can also consider working with other providers to host community events and pop-up shops at local events and expos. This is a great way to get your name out in the community and let people know about your dental practice while also getting the chance to meet new people. Another strategy you can use to attract more clients to your dental practice is to partner with local universities and colleges to offer discounted services to students. This can be a great way to build your client base and get new customers into your practice while helping out students who may be looking for a discount.

Conclusion

Attracting new clients to your dental practice can be challenging. However, it’s important to remember that customers are drawn to both friendly and familiar businesses. To attract more clients, you need to be visible in the community and let new residents know they have a nearby dental practice that they can trust.