Preparation For International Sales

Are there any changes you need to make before you start to sell to international markets.

If you are currently selling to a market you are familiar with, you will need to make some adjustments when you first start selling to international clients.

Schedule More “Listening” Time

You see, the sales pitch that works for your market at home, will probably not work well abroad. And if even if it does, you will need to increase the “listening” time prior to giving your sales pitch.

Before you can sell to your new international clients you need to listen to them. And cross-cultural communication barriers may make this step a little slow at first.

But without this extra “listening” time, you could make a few international sales and think that your marketing is fine for this new market, when in fact, it is not all that great.

What does this mean? You need to talk to your international clients. Get to know them. Find out what their problems are. And, why these are problems.

Brainstorm The Benefits Of Your Product

Does this mean you should forget about your sales pitch?

No. But there one exercise you should do before you call your international clients.

Brainstorm a list of all of the benefits of your product.

• Start with the features. List all of them.
• For each feature, put at least one benefit
• For each benefit, try to come up with a deeper benefit
• Identify who these benefits may appeal to
• Identify any triggers or personality traits for these people
• Keep this information with you

Find All Types Of Benefits

What types of benefits should you note? All of them:

• Technical
• Financial
• Process related
• General appeal
• Specific to the environment, or in any other way

This is, in fact, the first step to creating your international sales cheat sheet.

Update Your Information

Keep this list of benefits near you whenever you communicate with your new international market.

• As you make your phone calls with your international prospects and clients.
• When you write to them
• When they provide feedback in any form

And the next step is important:

• Ask questions, communicate in a way to stimulate feedback on your questions.

As you ask questions, you will build up your international market intelligence to help you craft the best sales communication for your new international audience.

What type of questions to ask?  Questions that will help you understand your international clients better, such as:

• What are you interested in?
• Why is this important to you?
• Are you more interested in the money you can save, or in increased productivity?

You should focus on asking questions to get to know your international clients, and not automatically fall into your standard sales pitch.

And remember to listen to everything your international clients tell you.  Even the smallest bit of information can in fact lead to you understanding a major trigger for more international sales in that market.  But you may miss it, unless you make an effort to understand everything.

Start Your International Sales Cheat Sheet

Review your list of benefits with the information you get back from your international clients.  And adjust your communication to respond to each markets specific needs, concerns and problems.

After a few phone calls for example, you should have the beginning of your International Sales Cheat Sheet.  This is a short guideline that gives you the best responses to key sales questions for each foreign market.

An International Sales Cheat Sheet is a valuable tool for all companies.  It helps you to identify the international markets available for your business.

More From Cindy

Interested in reading more on my personal opinions and experiences on how to connect with international markets?

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Read The Whole Story

This is part of the Core Business Guide 6 Run Your International Sales Strategy Be sure to check out the other elements you need to run your international sales strategy

Need Help?

Need instructions?

• Instructions on how to use Your International Sales Road Map

Need to see where this fits in?

• A complete list of current Core Business Guides & Sub Guides for Your International Sales Road Map.

Still confused? Review your answers in the first Core Business Guide

• Core Business Guide 1 - Discover Your International Business

Simply click on one of the 8 different color coded boxes immediately below to access other core business guides.

Cindy King is a Cross-Cultural Marketer and International Sales Specialist, with over 25 years field experience in international business development. Learn how you can get more international sales