by Becky DeStigter
 
January and February can be a good point in the year to re-evaluate your international marketing program. Are you reaching your sales potential? How much did your company's revenue grow compared with the competition? Do distributor discounts compensate for higher overall gross margin?
Here are aspects of your international marketing that should get at least a once a year review:
Ready for a New Market Entry Mode?
Most companies initially enter international markets using in-country distributors or representatives. The risk is low and allows the company to reach new markets without much knowledge or experience about selling into the new market. The trade-off is that distributors normally receive a healthy discount margin for their services.
As a company gains experience in a specific country, it may be advantageous to plan for transitioning to more direct selling and exports and save the discount margin.
If your company is already direct exporting, the next step in growth is usually to open an in-country company sales/operations office. This allows locally hired staff to sell and service your products, as well as to better capitalize on in-country knowledge that directly helps your company be more profitable.
There may be advantages in considering buying a smaller local competitor for their customer base, government connections and better local tax rates.
Each of these market-entry modes has an increased potential of profits than the mode before it, as well as higher risks.
Re-Evaluating International Distributor Performance
Since many companies grow internationally by local distributors or representatives, periodically it helps to review each distributor's performance. Is the distributor generating its own sales leads? Have sales been steadily increasing and keeping pace with industry growth? What is the cost of supporting that distributor from your home office with any training, marketing and communications? High maintenance, low result distributors should be put on notice.
For those distributors that vastly achieve beyond expectations, supporting and rewarding your stars should be a priority. Is there any way to expand a good distributor's reach? It is certainly worth consideration.
Where in the Sales Process are You Losing (Potential) International Clients?
Most products and services sales involve some sort of sales process. The idea is that a customer needs to know you and your product first, then decide they like you, and finally choose to trust you and your product to deliver at or above expectations. Every industry and product category has its own sales process. The way to know if your sales process is efficient is to compare what sales leads go into the sales process and how many turn into clients.
International sales add an extra layer of complexity to sales. First, there may be an added layer of an outside resource, the distributor. Are leads effectively going to the distributor and eventually turning into sales? Second, international sales may involve other languages and the risk of poor translation, which can delay a sale while trust is rebuilt. Third, non-verbal cultural cues can be misread and what seems to be an imminent sale may actually be no sale. Further time is wasted while a sales rep tries to continue a futile sales process. And finally, are international lessons learned being shared throughout the sales and marketing team so that experience can help move the sales process along more efficiently going forward?
To find issues in the sales process, it helps to follow the numbers: number of initial sales leads, number of leads qualified to become sales, length of time in process and various sales stages, and finally how many sales from the various sales staff and international sales channels.
  ( Vivian )17 Feb,2013

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