Direct sales for regional expansion

Last article we talked about generic alternatives to approach new regions – direct sales and sales channels. Let’s consider direct sales options in detail now.

When should you consider direct sales?

  • Your product costs less then 500 USD -> Go to online sales and marketing!
  • Your product costs over 500 000 USD
  • You offer services, projects, or highly customized products

We will talk about the last two options today. Expensive products, probably customized with a long sales cycle, with deep technical discussions before the deal, limited target audience in the country, and, what a bit of luck – worldwide as well. This means you may and probably should target your clients directly and know each of them.

How can you do direct sales abroad? Quick overview of options with – pros and contras:

OPTION 1. Translate the web-site and wait leads

Pros:

  • In many cases, this is a must to do. You need to speak to your audience in their language. Literally.
  • Not so expensive, if you won’t go into “bring your website to the first position everywhere in the world” from SEO “gurus”. Oh, yes – and don’t do Google translate, at least proofread with native, otherwise text looks weird and funny.

Contras:

  • This won’t bring leads. Many passive ways of direct marketing and sales, might bring you some occasional requests, maybe even 1-2-3 sales. But this won’t be consistent, regular, or somehow prognoses.

OPTION 2. EXHIBIT

 Pros:

  • You may be lucky and get right visitor, speaking English or eager to communicate via interpreter
  • You explore the market. Actually, fairs are a good way of market research – you may talk to the competitors, see the attendance, may even generate some prospects. But visit! No necessary to waste the budget for exhibiting.

Contras:

  • Expensive – stand space, construction, travel expenses!
  • Distract a lot of resources: your time, company team time, budget, etc.
  • No guarantees for prospects at all.

OPTION 3. HIRE a one-man-show “AGENT” from the vertical to work on %

 Pros:

  • We all love to believe in fairytales;
  • Nice to identify, to get in touch and to stay in contact with such people in any case – you might be lucky, they may remember about your product when time comes,

Realty:

  • To gain the customer you need to do dedicated and regular efforts – it is called the sales process and this is a full-time job!
  • If you agree with some agent to work for free for you – it is not his Job, which feeds him. This means an “agent” will be concentrated on other things to get a regular income and pay his bills. But hardly on half a year investing his family budget on your valuable and very perspective project, with all the respect.
  • You rely on promises and hopes and lose time.

OPTION 4. Open a BRANCH

 Pros:

  • The good and professional way
  • Make sense to consider when you are sure about the region and sales are already in process on a regular basis

Contras:

  • Very expensive
  • Very risky
  • Very time-consuming
  • Hard to opt-out

OPTION 5. Sell directly from HOME

Pros:

  • Easy in terms of organization;

Contras:

  • Better to hire local or natives from the region;
  • Travel expenses will be very high;
  • Networking in many regions requires an instant reaction. “Let’s meet for coffee with our boss tonight” – say your biggest prospect.  How will you get to Dubai from NY immediately? The chance is not taken.  

Well, that’s probably it? Know another way – share with us in the comments below. Actually there is one more option, I have not mentioned – the service that GloBAS International worked out during 20 years of expertise. We call it – Sales As A Service. You get a dedicated, trained and integrated into your team – sales representative in the region on a contract basis. Plus Senior manager at the market, plus direct phone line and office to share. We do all the daily jobs and communications which normally the branch does at 1/5th of the cost of the smallest branch. Contact us to discuss at contact@globasinternational.com

Are you still hesitating about which sales approach to use for your company’s global expansion? Let’s discuss it in an online call.