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If you do not have established relationships with the supplier (manufacturer) / buyer certain goods or services, or your existing supplier / buyer does not meet your business needs, LCM GROUP employees, who speak several foreign languages, will select the best counterparty for import or export for you, conduct pre-contract negotiations on your behalf in order to obtain the optimal commercial offer from the supplier / buyer and prepare the basis for concluding a foreign economic contract.
These services are provided within the framework of contractual relations. The interaction is carried out as follows:
- You decide on the characteristics of the product whose supplier you need to find. The product must be described in such a way that specialists have a clear opportunity to identify it during the search process. Additionally, the client can provide characteristics of the potential supplier (company size, productivity, age of the company, whether the supplier should be a manufacturer of the product). It is mandatory to define the search region. It may refer to a specific country or group of countries. The more specifically the initial task is formulated, the more likely the success of finding a supplier.
- Before starting work, specialists logistics company LCM GROUP analyzes the reality of implementing the client’s task.
- The search for foreign suppliers is carried out with the involvement of agents international holding LCM GROUP in various countries, as well as using open and closed databases. Usually specialists find several suppliers of the desired product. To determine the compliance of the supplier and the product with the characteristics declared by the client, foreign trade specialists conduct preliminary negotiations with representatives of the supplier’s company, as a result of which an idea is formed about the supplier and possible commercial terms of cooperation with him.
- If necessary, it is also possible to collect information about the supplier from third sources in order to verify its reliability and business reputation on the market, as well as qualitative analysis terms of cooperation that the supplier offers you and comparing them with the conditions of alternative counterparties. We recommend checking at all stages of work, especially before signing the first foreign economic contract and transferring funds to the account of the foreign supplier.
Your pleasure from foreign economic activities is our pleasant concern!
The first question that arises for companies planning international expansion is: where and how to look for business contacts abroad? The founder and head of NeuVenture Global in Germany, Inna Armstrong, shared her thoughts on this topic.
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Stages of export development
1. Market selection
By what criteria does your company choose target market? When we ask this question, we get very different answers:
- We have already worked with local partners or been on business trips to a certain country; we have an understanding of how business is conducted there.
- A large number of requests from a particular country.
- The assumption is that this particular market is promising.
All these justifications are quite understandable. Depending on the specifics of the business, when choosing a market, you need to rely on 2 main strategies:
- If you are a manufacturer of goods or services, you can collect statistics through desk research, using HS codes of products, making requests on sources such as trademap.org, Eurostat Statistical Office European Union, United Nations Commodity Trade Statistics Database, World Trade Organization Trade Profiles, FITA and International Directory of Trade and Professional Associations.
- If you have innovative products, then you should collect information using a different strategy - first-hand information from your potential partners or clients. You can put together a list research institutes in the target country and contact them regarding interest in cooperation.
2. Determining the target audience
For some companies, a direct sales strategy works, for others it is easier to go through an indirect export strategy, finding 1-2 potential partners. If, for example, we take, say, for developers of mobile offers or software, you can look for direct customers by sending commercial offers companies directly, or find potential partners to get into the pool of their subcontractors. When there are projects that are relevant to you, they will call you and ask you to set your price.
If, for example, you are a furniture manufacturer, then you should think about how best to enter the market: look for large distributors, in this case the sales cycle will most likely be longer than entering small internet or Retail Stores with an invitation to cooperation. From practice, in the latter case, price offers will play an important role. It will be very important to clearly highlight your competitive advantages. Another option that few people know about is participation in tenders in the EU. You may not win the bid the first few times, but this is a good chance to get noticed.
3. Areas and methods of searching for information
To search for information in a new market, you can use both paid and free platforms. The latter, for example, include LinedIn, Xing, Viadeo, Switchboard Yellow Pages, Europages or Kompass (a business directory containing information on more than two million companies from 70 countries).
4. Distribution of the search scope in the company
You can search on your own or hire specialists. At the same time, specialists can manually select potential partners through the above resources or purchase contacts from paid databases for further development. For example, if you are purchasing a database of more than a thousand potential partners in the segment art materials(look for suppliers in EU countries), you should approximately understand that up to 20-25% of contacts will not always be targeted, and the first step in developing the database by your outsourced employees will be its qualification and further updating. From our experience, as a rule, it follows that the sample from the paid base represents approximately 1235 contacts falling under the segment, of which 239 are manually qualified as potential, 39 are selected as the highest priority, of which 7 have the maximum number of products on request. After studying it, it turns out that 6 companies purchase products from the 7th, which is the main supplier on the market. Bingo!
5. Search strategies
In any endeavor, the main thing is strategy. By developing business both domestically and internationally foreign market, you can use 2 main strategies: you search or you are found. We have already looked at where you can look for business contacts abroad on your own or with the help of specialists, let’s see how you can attract the attention of foreign partners to your project.
- Firstly, these are profiles and groups in professional and social networks in a foreign language (, .
How to bring a Western, foreign partner to an MLM company or business on the Internet? What are foreign partners willing to do? For what reason, and why can Russian-speaking Internet entrepreneurs not invite foreigners to MLM? How to properly attract foreigners?
Good day, dear blog reader, Natalia Butenko is in touch with you. Today in this article, under the “” section, I will describe the technology for correctly inviting foreign partners into business. All the subtleties and nuances that need to be done, and what not to do, when inviting a foreign partner to MLM. Each of the recommendations listed below will help you work effectively and have good results.
In the question "How to find a foreign business partner?" there are many nuances. And so that all your activities bring the desired result. You need to know how to work correctly, to know where Western networkers sit. You need to take into account both their psychology of building a business on the Internet, and what they respond well to, and what they won’t even look at.
Today in 2017, it is very difficult to bring a Western partner into the team for several reasons.
- The Western partner follows authority, and he listens only to those who have already distinguished themselves in the MLM business.
- First of all, it always goes to the person, and not to the business.
- Foreign partners will never go to the first and unfamiliar friend from Skype.
- Or someone who doesn’t understand well how a business is built and doesn’t know what or how to do it.
For most RuNet networkers, Skype is the main platform for team building.
But is Skype really that good? And in general, is Skype suitable for working in the West?
Let's look at the facts
Fact No. 1
In order for your work on Skype to be effective even on the Runet, you must somehow find and add people to your contacts who are interested in making money and working online. That is .
Moreover, in most cases, even if you find such people and add them to your contacts, you will immediately be bombarded with their proposals and projects. Because everyone already has their own project and more than one, and they are also looking for partners, but for their own companies, which means no one needs your business.
Fact No2
Skype for foreigners is a means for communication, but not for building a business.
Fact No. 3
Ability to recruit. If you have no marketing experience and are not a particularly gifted speaker, then no matter how great of a business you run, it will be difficult for you to invite a paid partner to your company via Skype.
Well, now let's move to the west
And let's look at 2 questions.
1. For what reason and why can’t ours lasso foreigners into MLM?
2. How can you properly attract foreigners, even without knowledge of English?
Reason No1
Many networkers work in American groups on Facebook, LinkedIn, FutureNet, and other social networks, scattering Ref links directly to the company itself. But a foreign partner does not understand this approach to business.
In the bourgeoisie, every Internet entrepreneur knows the saying “Money in your email list base” or “Money in your email list base”.
Foreigners know that starting a business online is the biggest mistake. And even with such a small American conversion of 4%, they have not yet come up with another way to turn an unknown subscriber into a paid partner, even in the USA. And they always work only according to this principle.
Reason No2
They are used to seeing a capture page and a series of emails. If they don't see what they expect, they leave immediately. They cannot be led into business right away; they need to be given a magnet for their subscription.
Moreover, in 2016 they started giving something worthwhile as a gift for a subscription, and not some cheap pdf. And now it has become even tougher. In order for a foreigner to sign up for a subscription, today you must already give him at least some .
What should you do and what should you not do?
You need to have your own capture page, made according to the following requirements:
1. The information on the page should be short and strictly to the point.
2. All information should fit into 2-4 sentences, and only two questions should be considered:
A. Problem.
B. Solving the problem.
Example:
“You don’t know where to get tons of free traffic for your products or services? Here we have it, 200,000 clicks on your video for free.”
3. The background of the page should be strict. (it's better not to use it at all, music video background).
4. You can use a short video on the page, but only to the point. That is, the video should only be about what you write about. They need to see what they read about.
4. It is necessary to use words such as: - “subscribe, take, find out, download, etc.” to encourage a person to take the target action
5. Confidentiality guarantee. That is, you must guarantee that this person’s data will not be transferred to anyone “Your privacy is save”
What should your email series be?
1. In the first letter, do not write anything about the company. All you have to do is get to know the subscriber and give the promised gift.
2. In order to be accepted as one of their own and not be suspected that you do not know the language well, the text of the letters must be written purely in English. Of course, a translator from google, etc. will not suit you for this. Otherwise they will not agree with you.
3. The company to which you invite a foreign partner must be.
4. Letters should be short and to the point. Maximum size Letters should be 5-7 paragraphs.
5. Do not use bold or multi-colored text in letters, as well as various pictures. Use black font on a white background with a font size of 14px.
Foreign professionals use exactly these parameters, and they are used to seeing this from their pros.
6. Look at Western leaders and do what they are used to seeing.
7. Send letters no more than every 2 days.
8. You can put your Ref link and invite to the company from the second letter.
9. Your link to the company should be placed in the middle and at the end of the letter with a call to action: Something like this:
10. If possible, use a short video in each letter,
urging you to watch it immediately.
How to start working effectively in the West?
If you want to start working with and transfer all your activities to the West, and have the desired result, then you need to do the following:
1. Find Western company with a finished series of letters. Which was written by their specialists for them.
2. Always try to collect a subscriber base only for yourself, and not for the company, to your email autoresponder.
3. If the company has a series of letters in their autoresponder, then copy their series of letters and send them out from your email autoresponder.
4. Do not violate the rules of confidentiality, and be careful with spam.
5. You cannot send spam to foreign partners. These comrades immediately complain.
6. spam is very serious and because of it you will be immediately removed from the service.
7. Services such as aweber, getresponse can easily block your database for spam. There were cases where bases of 100,000 people were blocked.
How effective are social networks for finding foreign partners?
If you are promoting something exclusive, then perhaps you have a small . But you shouldn’t expect great results from posting to American Fb groups if you are not unique in your offer.
This is where I will end this post. And I hope that, to find foreign partners, you will apply all these developments taken from their paid webinars, from leading US leaders.
Well, if you haven’t found a suitable company yet, then since 2012, we have everything you need.
AIOP has an excellent email sender, a ready-made series of letters, gift magnets, and of course high-converting capture pages, plus a great marketing plan.
By promoting the AIOP service, you can receive hundreds of payments in full depth and breadth, and a lot of bonuses so that you succeed.
Well, now you can enter your data, download bonuses, and
read the newsletter very carefully, then you will have partners and money
Majority modern companies sooner or later they face the problem of expanding their sales markets, for which the management comes to the decision of looking for partners abroad. Foreign suppliers can help expand a business, open a new direction, a foreign investor can help implement a startup and develop an already successful business, a wholesale buyer from another country will provide assistance with the promotion of goods in other countries.
In any of these cases, if you need a foreign partner, you will need to go through several mandatory steps:
- Find a potential partner;
- Establish a connection with him;
- Negotiate with him;
- Conclude a business agreement.
If all these stages are successfully completed, you can reap the fruits of your efforts in the future, because foreign partners are the right investment in the future development of your company.
How to look for a foreign partner?
Before you begin the process of finding a partner from abroad, you have to prepare for this responsibly, because it is from preliminary preparation Success in achieving your goals will largely depend. At this stage, it will be necessary to collect information, assess demand and supply in the segment of work of potential partners. In addition, you will need to prepare presentation documents, moreover, in the language of the potential partner or at least in English.
After this, you need to move on to the search process itself. The simplest and most obvious way today is to search for foreign partners on the Internet. To do this, you can use fairly well-known international communication portals - Facebook and Twitter, as well as professional networks - LinkedIn, Xing and others. Moreover, LinkedIn is better suited if you are looking for partners in English-speaking countries or companies in which English language know well. But Xing.de is a portal that is actively used by partners who own German language. Considering that German ranks first in the EU in terms of the number of Europeans who speak it, this network contains a huge number of potential partners. IN Lately The b2b platform has gained great popularity among Russian-speaking businessmen who want to find partners in other countries, the features of which will be discussed a little later.
The third stage will be establishing contact with a foreign partner. This can be done via e-mail, Skype, mobile instant messengers or the already listed professional networks. At the same time, the main thing is to present your company correctly - to show your idea, direction of activity, the advantages of your proposal for cooperation, as well as the benefits that the partner will receive. To do this, you should prepare a presentation in which you indicate:
- The uniqueness of your company and its competitive advantages;
- Which of these unique features may be of interest to a foreign partner;
- Outline the target audience that will be interested in your offer in your partner’s country.
At this stage, the main thing is to convey to the partner why cooperation with your company will be beneficial for him.
The last stage is negotiations and signing of an agreement and, probably, this stage is the most difficult, more difficult than searching for a potential partner. After all, your goal is to sign a long-term agreement that will be as beneficial to you as possible, while your partner’s desires are exactly the opposite. Business meeting– this is an entire art and a lot will depend on the ability to understand someone else’s mentality. Some prefer quick negotiations, others prefer slow and thoughtful negotiations; in addition, each culture has its own formalities that must be respected during negotiations.
Features of interaction with the site
Naturally, the whole process of finding a partner takes a lot of effort, time, and sometimes nerves. This is why the platform became so popular immediately after its opening. After all, every stage of finding partners from other countries is much simpler here. For ease of search, all companies offering partnerships are grouped by country of location, as well as business sectors, which significantly saves time. In addition, the platform user can create his own proposal for cooperation and they will search for it, which is much more effective.
For serious users of the platform there is a BIS-agent service. In a nutshell, this is outsourcing the partner search service, that is, placing this mission on the shoulders of platform employees. You only need to create a request to search for a foreign partner, indicating the features that are important to you. The staff will choose you best options cooperation from companies from more than 4 dozen countries around the world. All you have to do is choose the best offers in your opinion, negotiate and conclude an agreement.
For many companies, in the short or long term, the topic of bringing their company to the global market or working with foreign business partners. Business partners are needed to start an enterprise, open a new direction, promote your own products or develop a project.
If you want to start a business (project) in a foreign market, then after you have decided on a new market, you will need to find a potential business partner in this market, establish contact with him, build relationships and negotiate before the transaction. New, business connections is an investment in the future of your company and its development.
When searching for business partners, company executives and top managers face difficulties associated with:
- with a lack of understanding of the most effective and less costly methods for finding potential business contacts abroad or improper use of these techniques;
- with the absence of a structured communication algorithm for building relationships with a business partner in order to conclude a deal on mutual favorable conditions;
- with difficulties in communication associated with the specifics of communication with representatives of another culture, as well as language barrier;
- with the lack of a qualified team of specialists to conduct negotiations in order to achieve the most favorable terms of cooperation.
However, no matter which strategy you choose, you will need to pay attention to five main steps. We recommend that you initially use some kind of step-by-step algorithm. This algorithm is a generalizing model of the actions necessary to achieve set goals through coordination and optimal distribution and planning of the entire process.
A step-by-step algorithm for working with business partners abroad: from search to transaction
1. Planning and preparation.
At this stage, you select a foreign market and collect the information you need to assess supply and demand in the segment you need. You will need to answer the questions: who are you looking for; why are you looking for them; and how you will search for them (choose sources of information and search strategies). Next, based on your idea of the desired segment, prepare presentation materials in a foreign language, in which you do not forget to pay attention to the positioning of our company in the international market. You also need to realistically assess what tools and knowledge you lack. It is imperative to appoint a person in charge who will oversee the entire process of working on the project.
2 Search for business partners.
At this stage, you already have information about the resources with which you will search and you have a search plan.You can search on your own: on the Internet (online) or by calling potential partners by phone or visiting exhibitions (offline), or you can attract qualified specialists to search.
Search offline
Your project can be presented by taking part or visiting international exhibition, where during a personal meeting it is convenient to conduct preliminary negotiations and exchange experiences. Also at exhibitions you can see the development trends of the product group that interests you. Other important sources may be networking (forums, congresses), internships, business missions or assistance from various government agencies, associations, or contacting a consulting company in the country with business partners you want to work with.Involving a consulting company in searching for partners has certain advantages:
- most quick way searching for business contacts;
- the possibility of using specialists who know the language and specifics of searching for business contacts well and can establish contacts in accordance with local business culture norms.
- you can receive qualified advice regarding positioning and presentation;
- increases the level of trust in your company on the part of the counterparty;
- you don’t need to go anywhere - all your issues in the country will be resolved for you.
Search online
We refer to online resourcefv as social media(Facebook and Twitter) and international professional networks such as LinkedIn, XING.com, Viadeo.For example, LinkedIn is the most popular professional network in the world. The best way searching for foreign business partners. LinkedIn can be extremely powerful, yet very few people know and use this marketing tool effectively.
There are many thematic business platforms, for example in Europe - Europages, Asia - Made Chine, Alibaba. Corporate exchanges also operate in EU countries as tools for finding partners.
The main advantage of using professional and social networks, as well as other Internet resources, is that your financial investment in finding foreign business contacts is zero.
3. Establishing contact and interaction with a potential partner.
This stage can occur through personal meetings, professional networks, social networks, Skype, email, or cold call. When contact is established, a presentation of your project is made. Important: clearly tell about yourself and your company, while attracting the interest of your interlocutor. Show your idea, direction of activity, proposal for cooperation and, of course, benefits for your partner.4. Presentation of the project.
At the preparation and planning stage, you have already prepared all the marketing material and presentation of your company (project), now your task is to correctly present yourself and your company to a new foreign partner.Work it out carefully for yourself once again. next questions:
- What is unique about your company/brand compared to your competitors in both the domestic and foreign markets?
- Which of these features might be most important to your potential foreign business partners?
- Which of these features are not inherent to your competitors or anyone else, but are important to yours? potential clients?
- What is the best way to present your project or company offer to your target audience in the country with which you are going to work?
- Who can help you translate your USP into foreign language language and adaptation of content to the mentality of a particular country?
And remember... That if your USP is not something that will bring tangible benefits to your potential partners or clients, then you can be sure that they will find someone who can satisfy their needs.
5. Negotiation process.
Not a little important factor In building business contacts, there are also negotiations. Your goal is a successful transaction and contract on the most favorable terms. And do not forget that you must plan ahead - since the partner will always be more loyal to consider the contact for the long term.Business communication is an art, and a lot depends on cross-cultural communication as you work in an international market.
It is worth remembering: “When you speak to a person in a language that he understands, you speak to his head. If you speak to a person in his native language, you speak to his heart.” - Nelson Mandela
Cultural differences and differences in mentality play an important role. For example, for negotiations in one country, time is money. In another country, on the contrary, slow negotiations are better, because make the other party more trustworthy. Culture also has a profound influence on people's behavior, the way they think and communicate. It also affects the negotiation process between representatives of different countries.
For example, when negotiating with the Germans: they work out their position very carefully in advance, and during negotiations they like to discuss issues sequentially, one after another. They, as a rule, enter into only those negotiations in which they reasonably see the possibility of finding a solution. Much attention is paid to diagrams, numbers and graphs.
While the Chinese usually clearly differentiate individual stages: initial clarification of positions, their discussion and The final stage. On initial stage Chinese great attention pay appearance partners, their behavior. Based on these characteristics, they determine the status of each of the participants, and then focus only on people with a higher status, both official and unofficial. 80% of the time is spent on building personal relationships, only at the end the conversation switches to a business direction.
Each culture has its own formalities that negotiators must respect. Therefore, before attending a business meeting with foreign partners, careful preparation is necessary. This will help you easily reach mutual understanding with people from other countries, build a strategy for cooperation with foreign partners, and may play an important role in concluding a profitable contract.
Therefore, in conclusion, I would like to say that the main secret of success is a clear, well-developed algorithm or strategy for working with foreign business partners: from search to transaction, with special attention paid to the peculiarities of the culture and specifics of doing business in the country of your potential business partner.
We talk about the topic in more detail in our webinar “Where and how to look for business partners in EU countries?”
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Inna Armstrong,
international business consultant, expert with 15 years of practical experience in international cooperation and negotiations with business partners in Germany and China. Founder and director of NueVenture Global, General Representative of the Soyuzconsult network of international experts in Germany. Leading expert of the portal "Russian Exporters". armstronginna.com neuventure-global.com |
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Daria Reker,
international business consultant with 13 years of practical experience, specialist in starting a company using the bootstrapping method, specialist in international sales and marketing. Member of the Association of Irish Consultants, owner of several businesses, General Representative of the Soyuzconsult network of international experts in Ireland. neuventure-global.com |
