It Could Be Time To Brush Up On International Business Law

Every day, goods and services are being sold across national borders. And just as businesses at home are subjected to a myriad of laws, regulations, restrictions and special agreements, so are businesses in the international market.

In fact, international business law is way more complex than domestic laws. While international business laws are presumed to be embraced by the latter (under the Doctrine of Incorporation adopted by most countries), there is a great possibility that a conflict would arise between the two laws.

International transactions are governed by such international business laws as unilateral measures (meaning nation or domestic laws), bilateral relationships (such as the Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement), multilateral arrangements (like the GATT and the WTO), and regional agreements (including NAFTA and MERCOSUR). The international businessman needs to arm himself with some basic knowledge of these laws in order to conduct his business in foreign countries.

Below are some tips to help you conduct research on international business laws that may be relevant to your enterprise:

Locate Relevant Treaties

Most international business laws are based on treaties. So the first step in researching relevant international business laws is to locate these treaties.

Many international organizations that focus on trade and international business transactions provide useful resources in addition to the full text of international agreements. Alternatively, you can also try searching US governmental agencies that assist companies with import and export ventures.

If you dont the names of these governmental agencies or you dont know where to find their websites, you can start by consulting online guides that contain links to these sites. Pages that contain a list of links are particularly useful for someone who is very new to international business law.

Where to Find Full-Text of International Agreements

The information you will find from the resources given above are often very basic. Most of the time, they contain information on how one particular international business law is applied. If you want to get a copy of the full text of the international agreement on which the guide is based on, then you need to find sites that contain collections of the international business law provisions.

Here are some sites that you can start with:

* Lex Mercatoria

* Trade and Commercial Relations

* Texts of Trade Agreements

* Trade and Related Agreements

* Private International Law Database

* UN Treaty Collection

Find Specific International Business Law

Aside from the above resources, you can also narrow your search down to a specific trading agreement. There are many organizations or secretariats that keep websites aimed at providing information on particular international business laws. Some of these sites are the following:

* Andean Community

* CARICOM

* European Free Trade Association

International Business Development With an Easy 5 Step International Marketing Plan

So you want to get more international clients, and realize that you need to do some international marketing. But you are not quite sure what to do.

Well let’s have a look at the different areas of international marketing. Companies often go through these steps one after the other, but not always. You could start an export business for example without going through the first step of Domestic Marketing.

Each step clearly explains:

where your company is selling, and

what product you are selling.

You will see very clearly where your company’s business requirements are today with regards to International Marketing. This will also give you a better understanding of what your next step is towards getting more international clients.

1 – Domestic Marketing

First of all there is Domestic Marketing. This is where most companies start. This is the marketing you do for your local market in your own country. There are no international links in this business.

Your Company:

A domestic company, buying and selling its products within one country.

Your Product:

Is a domestic product for the domestic market.

2 – Export Marketing

This is often the second step towards International Marketing. If this is effectively a company’s second step to International Marketing, the company needs to spend a little time and effort on the foreign market research and analyzing all client feedback during this phase.

Your Company:

Sells the same product for his domestic market to a few other foreign markets. There is no effort to adapt the product to the foreign market’s needs. The company remains centered on its domestic market, with minimum cross cultural marketing efforts.

Your Product:

Is a domestic product for a foreign market.

3 – International Marketing

This is a vital stage for the company. The company will have to adapt to the market on several levels. There is often a real learning curve to adapt your products, marketing and sales to foreign markets.

The good news is that most of the skills your company will acquire to adapt to one market will be used again for all of the other countries you want to target.

Your Company:

Is now adapting its marketing, communication and products to the foreign market. At this stage in International Marketing the company is only dealing with a 1 or 2 countries.

Your Product:

Becomes one foreign product for one foreign country.

4 – Multinational Marketing

This is the fourth step. It is a logical extension of International Marketing. This is a term that might be a bit obsolete today, with the internet. It seems to be used more for the large established companies.

Your Company:

Now sells to many foreign countries. And the company now has the skills to go into more countries and will naturally tend to expand into the neighboring countries.

Your Product:

Becomes one foreign product for one wider foreign region covering a group of countries.

5 – Global Marketing

This is the last phase in International Marketing. There are few companies involved. They are the companies with brand names known worldwide.

Your Company:

Operates in such a large number of countries, you could almost say it sells its products worldwide.

Your Product:

The company will naturally move towards cutting costs and will aim to find one product for all countries. In Global Marketing the product will not be created for the domestic market and sold abroad, as in Export Marketing. In Global Marketing one product is created to satisfy the needs of all markets – all foreign countries and your domestic market.

Where Is Your International Marketing Today?

By looking at where your companies markets and products are today you can identify the type of International Marketing you should be using. You can then move towards your next step in International Marketing. These steps logically follow one after the other for brick and mortar companies and the majority of todays e-businesses.

The internet makes international business development easier today than ever before. Remember, simply having a website online will not make your company global. You will have to work at it a little. You will need to apply the right international marketing for your business’ current market and product range.

Your company will get more and more international clients as it moves through the different marketing stages. The whole notion of global business become more accessible for everyone.

The Three Factors in Finding the Right Marketing Mix for Your International Business Expansion

There are 3 factors in finding the right marketing mix for expanding your international business

It is possible to get international clients with strong internet marketing. It is even possible to develop your international business through internet marketing.

There is one condition though. You will need to find the right marketing mix to use your internet marketing in your foreign target markets.

You will not be able to rely on a simple website or simplified internet marketing strategy. This may work to some extent, and it may work in your domestic market.

If you are serious about developing your international business you will need to add a little bit more marketing skills to the mix.

Three Factors To Find The Right Marketing Mix

In order to develop your sales in your foreign markets a variety of marketing techniques come into play. Here are the different factors involved:

Different Internet Marketing Channels

Your foreign market may well use the internet differently than your domestic market. You will need to test that and identify the channels that work best for both of you.
If you have a variety of different communication channels you will be able to play on them, and incite your foreign readers to interact with you.
You will be able to compare results and get to know your foreign markets better.

Your internet marketing needs to be good. It also needs to be varied. The different means of communication using the internet include: emails, websites, ezines, podcasts, blogs, and forums.
Different Traditional Marketing Channels

Increases proximity
Increases trust
Like other clients, they need many marketing touches before buying
Offline marketing may be the only way to get international sales

Chances are internet marketing alone will not give you the best results. As soon as you have collected enough foreign market information from your internet marketing, you should invest in a little traditional marketing. The different channels of traditional communication include: direct mail, radio, television, magazines, flyers, posters, billboards and event marketing.
Various Cultural Marketing Skills

International communication – which begins the step of adapting your own communication for international audiences, and can include all aspects of international communication.
Multicultural communication – where your communication speaks effectively across a wide scope of cultures, used on your international website for example
Cross cultural communication – where you target your communication to one particular culture, for effective target marketing for example.

International sales involves cross cultural communication. For more international sales you will need to have effective international communication. This involves the following:

If you integrate good cultural marketing practices throughout your international internet marketing you will increase your international sales.

Integrated Marketing Strategy

All of these factors need to come into play at some stage of your international internet marketing.

The extra effort is well worth it. Not only will you increase your international sales potential, but you will also be able to create a powerful international lead generation tool.

Using different marketing channels will make it easy to create an integrated marketing platform in your target markets.

One of the main benefits of an integrated marketing platform is stimulating feedback.
The more feedback you can get from your foreign markets the more valuable foreign market knowledge you will have.
And the more foreign market knowledge you acquire, the better you will be able to market your products to your foreign markets.

Including an integrated marketing strategy makes sense for any international business development.

Finding The Right Marketing Mix

The success of your international marketing strategy relies on your finding the right marketing mix. You will need to tweak your marketing mix, stimulate foreign market feedback and re-adjust your marketing mix again, until you create real communication with your foreign markets.

The right marketing mix for your particular markets gives you the right communication tools to get international clients.

Are you committed to speeding up your international sales cycles?

Learn how to combine cross-cultural marketing tools and international sales strategies for faster sales.

Join us on the International Sales Road Map

Would you like to develop your international business?
Are you a beginner at international sales and marketing?

Read the Beginners Guide Discover Your International Business.

Find the Right Definition for Trust When Developing Your International Business

When developing your international business, one of your first challenges will be creating trust with your foreign prospects. You may not recognize this as a challenge. You probably do a great job in creating trust with your current customers.

But there is a big difference. Your definition of trust will be different to your prospect’s definition of trust if he lives in a different country.

I had a very inspiring conversation with Liz Strauss on the use and misuse of translation online. Liz is the best person I know capable of inspiring interaction on her blog. She also knows a thing or two on the differences in the interpretation of the meaning of trust.

One of the things you are confronted with when you live in different countries, is different interpretation for a few common words. You may be able to translate them, but they have totally different guide books on how to apply them in different cultures. Nothing you can learn in a book can teach you everything.

Some of the words are always a challenge to apply and identify an accurate meaning:

Politeness
Friendship
Trust

Every time you change country the interpretation for these words changes. If you stay in a foreign country long enough you will pick up the new definition.

But one of these words, trust, is an essential part of developing your business.

So what do you do if you want to create an international business but cannot learn by traveling yet?

This is a question you need to ask yourself right from the start. In international business developing trust is critical to your success.

Luckily trust is often easier to create than you think.

Primary Factors In Creating Trust

To build trust in different cultures you need optimize two things:

Clarity
Consistency

This is simple enough. The hitch is that you must do both of these throughout absolutely everything you do.

Strive for clarity and consistency in all your communications and all your actions. And then review everything. Is there anything that is not clear and consistent?

A lack in these two factors is the first place where you lose trust. You will often lose trust from lack of clarity and consistency immediately and without any tell-tale sign. This means you may not even be aware of losing trust.

Other Trust Tools

I’ve just finished a two and a half month long series of cross-cultural communication web tools on Get International Clients. This series identifies specific cultural preferences for dozens of web tools.

For example, how you highlight your guarantee depends on the culture you are targeting. With so many North American internet marketers it is easy to see the type of guarantee that stimulates trust in these cultures.

But a French marketer would not use the same type of guarantee in the same way. Of course French people also need to have certain buttons pushed to incite trust. It’s just that the buttons are just slightly different, placed differently, and highlighted differently. The priority of how to hit all the emotional buttons is also different.

The way you communicate with your prospects can also create trust. Here are some things you can provide to help build trust:

International Case Studies, or Success Stories
Regular and consistent communication: newsletters, ezines or blogs
Glossary

The Perfect Trust Tool

There is no perfect trust tool you can learn about and use in all situations. The cross-cultural web tools are based on the five different recognized cultural behaviors. Countries can be rated or compared in these different scales.

Unfortunately my experience does not prove that you can use a cookie cutter tool for effective cross-cultural communication. This is why I do not advise you to sit down and compare ratings per cultural behavior and simply put all of the tools in place on your website.

You need to adapt these web tools with your specific and unique market. The web tools are a good guideline. But your market might have other overriding cultural differences, barriers or opportunities.

Find The Right Definition For Trust

Creating trust is often a very delicate balance. Especially when you are trying to create trust between two different cultures.

Here is how you I think you should go about finding trust-building web communication for different cultures:

Concentrate primarily on clarity and consistency in your communication and your actions
Get to know your international clients, go out of your way to communicate with them
Then slowly tweak how you highlight the different web tools appropriate for the country you are targeting
Consistently reach out to your international audience and evaluate your communications

Are you committed to speeding up your international sales cycles?

Learn how to combine cross-cultural marketing tools and international sales strategies for faster sales.

Join us on the International Sales Road Map

Would you like to develop your international business?
Are you a beginner at international sales and marketing?
Read the Beginners Guide Discover Your International Business

Cindy King is a Cross-Cultural eMarketer & International Sales Specialist, aligning businesses with different cultures. She has over 25 years field experience in international business development and helps mid-sized business owners create international business development strategies that shorten time to profitability.

International Business Online – 3 Types of Cultural Communication Gets You More International Sales

You can’t learn to ride a bike without… well, a bike. Can you?

International business involves cross cultural communication. It is the inherent nature of the business.

To develop good cross cultural communication skills you need foreign communication exposure. With people. Live.

Cultural skills are fairly easy to develop. But you can’t pick them up reading books. You need hands on practice. Most people only need the desire to communicate with other cultures and some practice to put them on the right track.

But good cross cultural communication skills are not easy to develop if you are an online business without much direct contact with your foreign clients.

If all the cross cultural communication you are getting is through emails or order requests, this is how you are going to pick up the skills. There is simply not enough cultural interaction to actually learn with.

But what can you do if you want to get more international sales? Is there anything you can do to help your online business communicate better with your international prospects and clients?

Well you still need to learn from exposure. But you can laser focus your efforts and make progress.

First, you need to identify the three basic components of cultural communication:

International Communication

International Communication can include all aspects of international communication.

But online, it all begins with adapting your own communication for international audiences.

Make the effort to adapt your all of your communication to speak to all international visitors as well as your domestic market.

Simply make a concentrated effort not to cut out your international visitors by ignoring them.

International communication at this level is more about awareness and being universally polite in written communication. It is is the small details.

Multicultural Communication

Multicultural Communication is when your communication speaks effectively across a wide scope of cultures.

For example you can use International English to target the international English-speaking world.

Multicultural Communication may not be the best solution for your domestic market. Your domestic market might have a very strong sales message that would be weakened by communication aimed at multicultural markets.

You may or may not decide on creating two specific communication strategies: one for your domestic market and one for a wide international market.

This is often obvious to implement in non-English speaking countries. Their local communication in their native language, and their international communication in English for wide multicultural audiences.

It can be an interesting option for American companies, for example, to use International English for a wide international marketing campaign.

This could be an initial option. But this needs to be evaluated carefully. Most international marketing is aimed at specific cultures and countries once the markets are identified.

Cross Cultural Communication

Cross Cultural Communication is about targeting your communication to one particular culture.

This step in international communication requires more specific market knowledge. Your message is totally adapted to one specific cultural environment.

It can be used for effective target marketing in a specific country or ethnic group for example.

The bad news for online businesses is that you really do need some cultural exposure to get it right.

The good news?

Online businesses have the advantage of being able to test, track and analyze statistics. This will help in tweaking cross cultural communication.

If you have identified a country with a large enough market, creating cross cultural communication and working extensively with the statistics will probably be worth the time and effort.

Build On International Exposure

By focusing on each of the three types of cultural communication, you will be able to identify what you are currently doing. You will see where you need to improve international communication.

Use any contact with your international prospects and clients to see what you can do to improve the area you are weakest at.

The more exposure you get with your international markets, the more you will see how you need to adapt your communication. And practice is all it takes.

Your cultural communication skills will improve with time. And before you know it your skills will become as automatic as knowing how to ride a bike.

Are you committed to speeding up your international sales cycles?

Learn how to combine cross-cultural marketing tools and international sales strategies for faster sales.

Join us on the International Sales Road Map

Would you like to develop your international business?
Are you a beginner at international sales and marketing?
Read the Beginners Guide Discover Your International Business

Multicultural Marketing – 3 Easy Steps to Attract International Business Through Your Website

Your online business can have global visibility. But is your message getting across to different cultures as you expect it? Are you able to adapt quickly to global market opportunities you see pop up? Or would you like to know how to quickly target different international audiences, with little investment on your part?

With a little thought and some careful preparation you can have an effective international presence through your current local business. Sure, language skills can help you open doors. But careful consideration to different cultures can give you a great advantage.

Get more business from non-native English speakers

Today there are more non-native English speakers in the global web market than there are native English speakers. And the e-businesses in many foreign language countries is expanding rapidly.

Today you need to know if your sales message is getting through to everyone, everywhere they have a market. You need to nurture communication with each specific cultural market.

A lot of foreigners do speak English. But most don’t. And the people who do speak English as a second language, do not have the same level of understanding as native English speakers do. The problem is your international readers have different levels of English language skills.

Language is only part of the complexity in multicultural communication. There are also the whole set of cultural differences in mindset, in habits, and in other aspects of communication as a whole. Miscommunication in some form or other happens very easily. Sometimes without either parties realizing they are not of the same understanding.

Written English also has its pitfalls in cross-cultural communication. Of course people have more time to understand when reading. But the person writing can’t tell the effect his writing is having on the reader. Is the reader understanding what the writer intended in the first place? Is he even interested?

Step 1 – Internationalize Your English

Avoiding miscommunication requires constant awareness at all stages of communication. The process is fairly easy:

1. Acknowledge constant risk of miscommunication

- Be prepared to be patient and forgiving.

2. Clear communication

- Use plain English; avoid slang and local or national expressions
- Give clear explanations.
- Always go through processes slowly, methodically, logically.
- Give full explanations; don’t assume everyone does things like you do
- Speak slightly above your listener’s level of English.

3. Stay calm – Question your own communication first.

- If your gut reaction is to respond aggressively, keep this in check and respond slowly.
- Do not jump to conclusions quickly.

4. Listen actively to everything.

- Adjust your communication accordingly

The most difficult part is in the beginning, in training yourself to keep this open mindset constantly.

Practice brings you enriching experiences. The more practice you have in becoming familiar with communicating with other cultures, the better you become at establishing and maintaining effective communication cross-culturally.

The first two steps of this process can be applied directly to your written communication. Don’t forget to be even more patient and to communicate clearly when you do get feedback from your readers. And listen attentively to what your readers have to say.

By paying close attention and adjusting your written communication to your readers’ responses you will get your message across better. Your communication with your international clients and prospects will evolve and you will become more familiar with how your business is perceived abroad. You will be in a better position to take advantage of global business opportunities.

Step 2 – Create Localized Websites In English

Developing an international company can be made in steps.Once you get to know your different international markets, you can develop localized websites for individual countries. Cultural differences in non-native English speaking countries are often strong enough to merit adapting your English language website to each country.

This would also give you the time to get to know your particular marketing strengths in each country before investing in full blown multilingual sales and marketing efforts…and making mistakes.

An English language website targeted for the specific needs of each different culture will bring you better results than one main website in your home territory serving the world. What is considered polite in one country can be offensive in another. What is considered normal sales practices in one culture can come across as a very aggressive intrusion by another culture.

The best way to quickly grasp what makes your international clients tick, is to be interested in them. Have a look at some of their local websites. Don’t worry about not understanding them. Just notice how different they look in general. How do the graphics affect you? If there is any audio online, what is the general sound? Try to identify different tastes.

Be interested in reading about anything from that particular culture. Ask questions. Keep an open mind. Show your interest. And then listen to any feedback you have from your clients.

Before long you will see recurring questions. You may even be able to identify misunderstandings as they arise. Return to your website and try to answer these questions simply and clearly.

Adapt each localized English language website for your message to be understood as best as possible by your native readers. This will limit the risk of cultural misinterpretation as much as possible.

Your sales message may not be as strong as if it were in the reader’s native language. But it is often easier and quicker to adapt your English language website to the cultural specificities of your local target market. Your adapted, localized English language website will also convey a stronger message than a bad translation.

This process will also give you credibility within each different cultural group. People often do web search first in their own country search engines. People are not stupid. It will be hard to hide the fact you are a foreign company. But they will recognize your willingness to make an effort in understanding them and appreciate you for it.

Step 3 – Multilingual Websites

Of course, with a little bit of effort you will develop your market in each individual country. You will begin to understand any differences in buying habits, tastes, difficulties. At this stage you will ask yourself if you could get more business with a website in your readers’ native language.

Going through the first two processes of making your website Non Native English Speaker friendly and localized will save you a lot of time when it comes to the writing of your website into different materials. You will probably understand how the differences in your markets will require material specifically written for each market. You will be able to evaluate whether you can get away with simple translations of your current website and sales materials or not.

Part English – Part Multilingual

Depending on your particular market you may decide to translate parts of your website, all of it, or only translate parts of specific local marketing campaigns.

There are various tactics companies use. The choice really depends on your market. Two of the options are:

- Keep your main localized website in English and have a direct sales page online in the local language, with email campaigns in local languages
- A specific area of your localized website in local languages to provide key information to y
our international clients in their own language.

Thought should be given to strengthen you cross-cultural communication at its weakest points.

Fully Multilingual Presence

Localized websites in solely in native languages are ideal for international business. They are the longest program to implement, and carry the highest risk of making your company look bad. The reason is because translations do not do the job. Full cultural customization comes with an intimate understanding of the local market for your products and services.

The writing of a website for a different culture and in a different language needs to be written by someone with all three of the following criteria:

- Intimate local market knowledge, to be able to write to the target audience
- Understanding for both cultures, to understand the differences in messages to be delivered and change them when appropriate.
- Native speaker

Having your website written by someone who meets all three of these qualifications will give you a good website. The trouble is it will take you time to find the right person for the job. And you need to find a different person to write your website for each different language.

To give all of your readers a great multilingual experience and ensure your company’s superior international presence, you also need someone to coordinate the writing of all websites. This person will cover branding issues, and consistency. Simple things such as specific industry vocabulary need to be coordinated throughout all languages.

A fully integrated multicultural strategy is a great benefit to international business. It will also keep you from cultural blunders.

Global Market Communication Takes Time And Practice

Don’t let your own lack of language skills stop you. It is more about building relationships.

Show your willingness to do business internationally. Listen attentively to any feedback you get. Your product or service may have a brand new market in a different cultural environment. You may need to adapt your services or your product.

With increased multicultural marketing experience you will develop new opportunities in unthought-of places.

Are you committed to speeding up your international sales cycles?

Learn how to combine cross-cultural marketing tools and international sales strategies for faster sales.

Join us on the International Sales Road Map.

Would you like to develop your international business?
Are you a beginner at international sales and marketing?
Read the Beginners Guide Discover Your International Business.

What Website Do You Need to Open for International Business

There are many basic sales principals that you use for your domestic market that also apply to international markets. These principals can help you when planning for your international business expansion.

Your website is an important platform for your business communication. Ideally it is designed to communicate effectively with your market. It is designed to do something specific for your business in your domestic market.

So what happens when you want to open your business up to other markets in other cultures?

Your communication will change.

But what about its platform…your website?

Internationalize Or Go International

How do you decide whether to internationalize your website or to create an international website?

If you are currently just starting to target foreign markets, one of your first questions will be about your website. At least it should be. There are two very common scenarios:

Many small companies assume the website they use for their domestic markets will work well with their English speaking international markets. They fail to realize their website may actually be sabotaging their international communication.
Many companies also assume they do not need to adapt their online communication until they are actually ready for a website in a foreign language.

This means that very few companies actually ask themselves the real question:

Do we need to internationalize our current website or do we need to create a separate website totally dedicated to our international market?

There are two main factors you need to look into before you are able to answer this question:

Is your current website dependent on a culturally specific message? Is your website already in English?
Are you almost ready to launch a localized website? That is, a website dedicated to one country?

Your answers to these two questions will influence your international website.

Too Culturally Specific

This can be a delicate decision. Your main website must continue to sell to your domestic market. There are some basic steps you can take to make your website more international-friendly. These basic steps rarely influence your communication with your domestic market. They rely on sound internet marketing practices.

The question is just how different are the cultures you want to market to internationally. Most people answer this based on gut feelings. These gut feelings often lead you astray.

The best way to look at this is to do a cultural behavioral comparison between your domestic market and the specific foreign markets you want to target.

Different cultures need to be reassured in different ways.

A cultural behavioral analysis will show you these different needs. There are a few web communication tools you use to respond to these needs. The idea is to see if the tools you need to use on your website to communicate better with your foreign markets actually deter your domestic market. Just how much will these changes affect your primary customer base. You have three solutions:

You don’t really know where your foreign markets are and want to plan for the future – Internationalize your website minimally, evaluate your foreign markets and move onto localized websites as soon as you can.
You want to actively promote your products and services to a broad international audience – create a website for international clients in English.
Your website is not in English – you need to start with an international website in English.

Almost Ready For A Localized Website

If you are almost ready for a localized website, you may only decide to implement some small changes to your current website and concentrate on creating your localized website.

Once you have a few localized websites or sufficient international response you will want to look into an international website, or a global gateway

Internationalization Is Always Good

When you go about internationalizing your domestic website, you learn to acquire some good practices for future international websites.

You will see the value of consistency and clarity.
You will learn discipline in embedding text in images.
You will come to appreciate website templates.

In its basic format internationalization makes your website better for all of your visitors, domestic and international alike.

You can go beyond this. There are different degrees to which you can adapt your current website. The degree to which you internationalize your website depends on your communication needs.

How different is the communication with your domestic market compared to your foreign market?

You need to study the behavioral differences between your primary domestic market and your foreign target markets. This is an exercise you should do when starting your international business development.

The process of looking at your website from different cultural viewpoints will highlight the areas you will need to adapt as your international business grows. You will get insights into your future needs.

Internationalization with cultural behavioral comparisons gives you a good idea of when you will need localized websites as you expand.

Internationalization of your website is an ongoing process. You can start with the basic steps good for all of your audiences, and slowing implement culturally specific web tools.

An International Website

Sometimes it just makes sense to start with an international website. A website with a separate domain name and URL makes it easy to drive all international traffic through one online office. Here are some of the reasons you may want to start with an international website.

You need a different sales message to your international visitors
Your website is not in English to start with

Different Message

If your domestic website uses a very specific localized vocabulary you will probably want to look at creating a separate website.
If your sales pitch is also very localized, or your foreign visitors respond to different sales arguments.

English Is Still Universal

Companies with domestic websites that are not in English will often find it easier to start off with an international website. This has been the situation for some time and is unlikely to change in the near future.

Of course, there are instances where an English language website is not obligatory. If you already have sales in one particular foreign country it makes sense to start there.

Adjust Along The Way

Companies can be in many different situations. The main point to remember is:

any communication with your international markets influences your website.

You will have to decide on the best online platform for your business requirements. Some companies have more options than others. This is the movement most companies look at:

from a domestic website
to an internationalized domestic website
to an optional international website
to one localized website
to several localized websites
to a global website – if you have an international website this could slowly become a global website once you start other localized websites.

Along this process you will learn more about marketing your products and services to your foreign markets. You will adjust your communication along the way. You will want your website to be a good platform for your communication and the changes you will need.

The sooner you become aware of good website practices for inter
national businesses, the more time and money you will save your company.

Are you committed to speeding up your international sales cycles?

Learn how to combine cross-cultural marketing tools and international sales strategies for faster sales.

Join us on the International Sales Road Map

Would you like to develop your international business?
Are you a beginner at international sales and marketing?
Read the Beginners Guide Discover Your International Business

Small Business Action Plan for First Time International Business Development

Adapting your business to a foreign country’s culture, is not an easy process the first time you try. You will not be able to anticipate the stumbling blocks that would not happen ‘back hone’. More importantly you will not know what you need to do to adapt yourself to the new challenges and tasks at hand. You will need to develop a Small Business Action Plan for your first effort with International Business Development.

Are you a small business and want to develop your international business?
Do you have a limited budget to develop your international sales?
Do you already have domestic clients but are just starting to reach out to international clients?

There are numerous strategies that exist to get you more international clients. A lot depends on your business and your commitment.
Here is an action plan to start your first international business development strategy:

1. Internationalize your website

It is important to make sure your website is not pushing your international visitors away from you. Bad or non-existent cross cultural communication can easily do this.

You can create a website specifically targeting an international audience, in your language. This is a business decision and will depend on the nature of your business and your clients. Companies in non-English speaking countries will often create an English language website specifically to target their international markets.

You may decide to keep your main website targeted to your domestic clients. There are still ways to tweak your website, with very small touches, to give a better experience for your international readers. Have a translation tool on your website. The online translation tools are far from perfect but they do bring your clients that one extra step closer.

2. Research your international markets

International business development is all about you learning to adapt. Adapt your business, your products, your communication, and your sales pitches, to each country you market to.

How do you start if you do not have any contact with your foreign markets? Use everything you have available to you and slowly build up your foreign market research. The beginning usually requires the most effort. It does not take as long as you expect.

If you are just starting out check out all of the associations, official groups for all international data you can find. Use the phone extensively. Do some online research. The goal is to simply become familiar, and feel comfortable, with your market. This is the time to eliminate all culturally inappropriate businesses.
The research that you do at the same time as you are marketing to your audience gives you the best results, but don’t get stuck spending too much time here.

3. Track visitors and results; adjust your communication

This step is very important. The better your analysis is, the stronger your international business potential will be.

Tracking and testing are key marketing tools. Your international communication is a process of testing, adjusting, inciting feedback and learning more about your audience. You have to be sure that you establish measurable goals before you begin testing. You must have a tracking system in place for your goals. And you must also track the responses your communication is having on your international readers. Remember, you can’t manage what you can’t measure.

International business development is all about your capacity to adjust your business to the needs of people in another country. In order to make these adjustments and improvement you must know where you start and how to interpret results. You need precise things to measure.

4. Create a newsletter in English targeted for your international clients and distribute by email and on your website.

Internet marketing today is all about creating an online presence through content. Internet readers actively search for content. Your international readers are the same. One major benefit of publishing a newsletter is it provides a platform for consistency.

A newsletter helps you to stimulate market feedback, with links back to your website and other content provided through different media. Links to audio and video files, quizzes, surveys, free reports and other feedback generating tools published or advertised in your newsletter create reader interaction.

A regular newsletter targeted to a broad international audience will not be as powerful as content marketing targeted to one specific culture. But it is an easy and inexpensive way to start if you have no real idea where you want to market to.

5. Include tools to stimulate feedback

There are tools you can use to stimulate feedback. Quizzes, surveys, polls, questions, homework assignments, and contests are some tools you can use to stimulate feedback.

The key is to find out what your target readers want and need the most. As you learn more about your international prospects you will adjust your feedback tools and enticements.

You can grab hold of your readers by offering free or discounting items that are not information products, discounts available only to your readers. You will have a better response rate if you can identify what your readers really want.

You can encourage readers to participate with you feedback generating tools by offering them free white papers, case studies, reports, guides and other information useful to your readers. If your feedback enticements are information products, you have another platform to use in your internet marketing strategy.

A wise use of different media touches linked to your feedback stimulation tools strengthens your internet marketing. These tools will take some planning and strategy to put in place.

6. Track results and adjust your communication

This is a repetition of step 3. Tracking your results and analyzing your international responses is an ongoing process. International marketing is all about taking things one step and a time and making adjustments along the way.

The two processes of internet marketing and international marketing can be combined right here in the tracking and adjustment. This is also how you can learn about your foreign markets even if you live thousands of miles away and you don’t speak the language. This combination can be powerful at very first phase of your international business development.

Internet marketing is all about adjusting your message real time. It is about being present online in real time. If your communication is outdated no one will listen to you. You need to adapt to your foreign markets. When you start out, you do not know much about them. You must continually check and adjust your communication.

7. Identify a country to target specifically

You will get better results from your international communication if it is targeted to very specific markets.

This means you need to identify a country as a target to market specifically to; and there is no real way to choose which country you should start with other than saying the country with the best potential for real sales. There is no magical formula for choosing the first international target market that works across all industries. Find a country where you can reasonably expect a good client base.

There are obvious cultural obstacles for certain types of businesses. So check with all of the appropriate domestic authorities. They will have good insights into what goes on in other countries. Check with your countries embassy in the country concerned.

You can also base your decision solely on data: export data, industry revenue. You can also base your decision on where your competition is located or not located or if
they are considering entering into a market.

International business is all about changing your mindset. Choose a country and get started. The first learning curve is the hardest. So don’t be afraid, jump in and focus on the learning experience of getting to know your market in one foreign country.

8. Create either a blog or a country specific newsletter for that target country depending on your foreign market.

Now, once you have identified a specific country you want to target, you will need communication targeted to that culture. Custom content for one particular country, not old content repackaged.

A blog may be the easiest tool to get to know your target country. You can also do this with a newsletter published for one cultural audience. The important thing is to have customized content written for one cultural market.

There may be translation costs involved. A blog will probably cost you more than a simple monthly newsletter. But a newsletter can be repurposed into several different forms of customized content such as articles, emails.

If your communication is directly targeting one specific culture, you will get better results than with you broad international targeting. Having custom content in either a blog or a newsletter reaching out to one foreign country is your first real presence in a foreign market. And you do not have to have offices there.

9. Track results and adjust your communication.

OK. So now you have a real presence in your target country. Guess what you next step is?
Stimulate and entice feedback. Track results. Adjust your communication to what you learn from your readers. Give them what they want to know. Test and start over again. You need to adjust your communication to the culture and market you want to create a business relationship with.
This is a learning process. It is critical to your international success.

Your Action Plan Continues

Identifying which products and services you want to sell to your foreign markets is yet another action plan. Use good internet marketing practices based on providing information in the above plan. This gives you the possibility of creating other information products as front end sales for your foreign market.

Once you can recognize the international expertise you have acquired through this process, you are well on your way to developing your business internationally. Use this action plan to continue to expand into other countries.

After you have adapted your business to one country’s culture, the process usually gets easier. You will be able to anticipate stumbling blocks more easily. But more importantly you will know how to adapt yourself much faster than the first time around.

Are you committed to speeding up your international sales cycles?

Learn how to combine cross-cultural marketing tools and international sales strategies for faster sales.

Join us on the International Sales Road Map

Would you like to develop your international business?
Are you a beginner at international sales and marketing?
Read the Beginners Guide Discover Your International Business

VH International Business Solutions, Inc. Marks a Major Company Milestone in 2009!

VH International Business Solutions Inc (<a rel=”nofollow” onclick=”javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackPageview', '/outgoing/article_exit_link']);” href=”http://www.ManhattanVirtualOffice.com”>www.ManhattanVirtualOffice.com</a>), proud of its success thanks Employees, Clients, Associates and Friends for their support on its 19th anniversary milestone.

VH International Business Solutions Inc, New York’s preferred executive office and voice mail provider, is celebrating its nineteenth anniversary in 2009.  With over 17 thousand clients since its launch nineteen years ago, VH International Business Solutions, Inc has become New York City’s destination for business professionals seeking a unique executive office organization.

“What started out 19 years ago as a basic virtual office support service has steadily grown into a business far exceeding anyone’s expectations,” said James Spence, VH International Business Solution’s vice president of operations.  “We are all very proud of this accomplishment and grateful to our clients and employees who helped get us here.”

VH International Business Solutions, Inc initially offered its services to the local market.  With the proliferation of consumer Internet access, the Company was the first in New York City to offer NYC virtual office services interactively via the World Wide Web. With this success, VH International Business Solutions established an instant business-to-business worldwide access to the New York market making available for the first time New York City virtual office services for organizations of all sizes, from the independent entrepreneur to enterprise-level Fortune 500 companies.

“Today VH International Business Solutions offers a comprehensive suite of executive office and business support services that can be tailor-made and bring about a meaningful difference for any company of any size in the world,” said Mr. Spence. “We pride ourselves on service that is reliable, efficient and competitively priced — all backed by our celebrated no-nonsense world class customer service. Our mission is to ensure our clients get the service they deserve and are entitled to.”

Added Mr. Spence, “During our 19-year life span, our focus on customer service has never wavered. We understand our client’s specific needs, there is no such thing as one solution for all. Because we offer client support staffed by seasoned professionals, whether you are an independent professional or a business, we have been able to deliver timely solutions again and again with a very satisfied customer rating.”

Continued Mr. Spence, “By being in touch with our client base, we have also been able to anticipate their needs and grow with their business. That’s one of the major reasons why we have been so successful. We very much look forward to the next 19 years.”

For additional information on VH International Business Solutions, visit <a rel=”nofollow” onclick=”javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackPageview', '/outgoing/article_exit_link']);” href=”http://www.ManhattanVirtualOffice.com”>www.ManhattanVirtualOffice.com</a>

ABOUT VH International Business Solutions, Inc
Conceived in 1987 and Incorporated in 1990, VH International Business Solutions is today an international provider of New York executive and staffed virtual office services. In the contiguous United States, we offer voice mail points of presence in ninety percent of the Country. Our suite of executive and office support services are not only comprehensive but can also be custom fit for any enterprise-level need. Our services include, but are not limited to New York based virtual and staffed office services, business meeting facilities, nationwide voice mail services, live answering services, New York State incorporation filing services and much more. In addition, VH International Business Solutions is focused on providing its clients with superior support service, which is backed by a seasoned group of professionals who understands the needs and issues of today’s business and employees. At VH International Business Solutions, you to get the attention you deserve. For more information, please visit <a rel=”nofollow” onclick=”javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackPageview', '/outgoing/article_exit_link']);” href=”http://www.ManhattanVirtualOffice.com”>www.ManhattanVirtualOffice.com</a>