Apr 05 2009
USA Export: How to Get Started?
Do you plan to increase your company’s sales by exporting your products?
Before you commit to exporting, consider several key factors to make your USA export strategy more successful.
First, do you have enough financial and human resources to support your exporting effort? Exporting can become a burden on a company unprepared for the extra work. Will you handle the responsibility yourself, or hire an expert to do the job? If you hire an international sales manager, this person’s salary combined with the travel expenses to reach foreign destinations, will immediately reduce your company’s financial resources.
Does your international expert already speak foreign languages, so they can communicate directly with foreign prospects and clients? If not, your USA export plan should call for an investment of time and money in language classes or training materials.
Once your communication issues are resolved, you can translate all your documentation into the appropriate foreign languages. Your company’s instruction manuals, safety and technical data sheets, labels, packaging and marketing literature must be easy for your clients and prospects to understand. If you can’t translate these in-house, you’ll need to budget for a translating service. On top of that, most of your products will need to bear a variety of unique markings to enter the different foreign markets, just like products that enter the US.
One of the most important USA export decisions you’ll make, will be which foreign markets you’ll tackle first. Since the world entered the global market years ago, we’ve repeatedly heard about huge opportunities in China. But language differences aside, the Chinese market is very different than our domestic US market. There are many more barriers to entry. So as a final suggestion, it might make more sense to look to Europe as your point of entry. American business culture is much more similar to European, than to Chinese business culture.
On the USA export blog, we post information to help you understand more about the ‘ins and outs’ of exporting. We hope we’ll be able to answer most of your questions in our blog posts. But if there’s anything else you’d like to know about USA export, export management or distribution please leave a comment here or contact us.
