In all our "implementation" projects there are always 3 lines of work that usually run in parallel and on a constant basis:
- Strategy + plan: Analysis and prioritisation: Together with the management team focused on business development, we analyse the current situation, prioritise objectives (markets+customer profile), define "commercial discourse"/"value proposition", "buyer persona/team" and action plan depending on the budget we have (offline+online).
- Search and contact of potential customers: contact until we find the right people and search for next steps and relevant information about our opportunity or lack of it (timing and reasons), looking to visit and bid to sell.
- Field work: Visits to generate relationships and opportunities, then sales and re-sales.
It goes without saying that through work you learn, and with what you learn, you improve.
Although we may not like it, not selling also teaches us. If we learn why we don't sell, we will be able to adapt ourselves to succeed in doing so. Or, on the contrary, we can make the decision to stop trying to sell in that market/niche. If the business opportunity is not as immediate as we thought, stopping investing money, effort and enthusiasm will be key to achieving successful internationalisation.
In fact in our projects, which in many cases are product launches, or entry into new markets/sectors, where the company that hires us has had no previous experience, it is key to be quick in assessing the real opportunity on the ground, to know that it can be done, but also to know how much it costs us to get it done, in many cases costing more than we initially thought.
In the last 4 weeks, as almost always, we have spent a lot of time on the ground on our projects. Opening clients, building relationships, making sales, for the companies that hire us:
- Morocco: visiting more than 25 potential customers in the water and industry sector in the Moroccan market and closing agreements with two representatives and a distributor.
- UK: maintaining current customers and opening new ones, for a company in the textile sector on the one hand and with automotive components on the other.
- Germany: opening new customers in a new niche for a customer of security-related products.
- Spain: where we have recently had many projects opening up markets for companies mainly related to Industry 4.0 and additive technologies.
- France: where we have been working for years in multiple sectors currently including Railway, Electronics and Food.
- Colombia: with Hand Tools.
In addition to all our work of continuous telephone contact that helps us to have a thermometer of the market and customers: Czech Republic, Turkey, Russia, USA, Tunisia, Algeria, Oman, Arabia, Qatar, Chile, Mexico, Poland,....
Results are achieved by working on the ground, from strategy to action, and thanks to action, to sales and re-sales.
And always as a team. We cannot sell without a well-made and competitive product and we cannot re-sell without a company culture that is open to change and to the changing and varying needs of the different markets.
