The 5 Essential Tips of Taking Your Business to a Different Country

As your business expands, looking overseas or over the border to another country's markets can be a really smart move. Expanding to a new country will give you a wealth of new customers and opportunities that can help you to further expand your business. In fact, your business might even become a new sensation, growing to be even more popular in this new location than it is at home. Before you get too excited and rush off to some foreign land, take a quick look at these 5 essential tips that can help you to establish an effective business in any new country. 

Know the Culture

Most firms know that there will be subtle differences in the way that they operate and what the expectations are when they start selling their goods in another country on a permanent basis. Culture plays an important role in both your product or service presentation and how you proceed as a business. If you don't have expertise with the target country's culture, don't be afraid to hire a local expert in order to get the knowledge that you need. One of the greatest examples of the power of culture was demonstrated by McDonalds. When this popular American restaurant moved to European countries, they received in immediate backlash because these people did not like the normal American diet and foods. Thus, McDonalds decided to adapt to the individual cultures, offering food and an atmosphere that corresponded with the different cultures, which created an enormous amount of success.

Understand the Language

Someone in your business in the United States should understand the language in the country that you intend to open in. Both your sales and support operations will require it. If you are not ready to hire people full-time, you can always outsource your customer support until you are. The important thing here is that catering to clients that are in another country will require a commitment to their language that goes beyond just the staff in that country. While it is true that most business people will speak English, you will need to be able to communicate with the basic workers as well as the public within the new country.

Know the Laws

Every country has different laws and tariffs that will impact your decision-making. Most of Latin American law for example is based on Roman Law, whereas US law is based upon British Law. If your sales person, therefore says something that is true about a competitor in the US, there is no penalty. If they do the same thing in Mexico, they can be sued for slander because under Mexican law, it does not matter if what you said is true or not. In Japan, if you compare your product with a competitor's, your company can face steep fines. Thus, before you expand to a new country, hire a business lawyer in this location that can help you to navigate around all of the different laws.

Know the exchange rate

Exchange rates fluctuate a great deal when world events occur. Some of the largest international companies have gotten burned in the past when they imported products and then had their currency slip to lower levels, eating their profit margin. Setting up a planning mechanism with the exchange rate in mind can therefore help you to avoid problems that have nothing to do with your business performance.

Develop a plan B and C

Sometimes, events happen that are out of your control. One of the largest American distributors of food products in Mexico had 32 of their delivery trucks destroyed by vandals while competing in a difficult market. Another American firm in Argentina routinely had its trucks hijacked. You also hear regular stories of companies' ships being hijacked by pirates. Events like this can raise your cost of doing business and eat into profitability in a large way. By working with trusted shipping partners, such as Alexander Bouri, as well as other professionals, you will be able to avoid many of these potential problems, though, it is always essential that you have backup plans that can help to protect your business from complete disaster.