Developing a business includes searching for new markets. Any developing company passes through these inevitable stages:

• Discovery of a sector in its national market (of a separate country).
• Expansion of the market share covering the potential of the business or its market capacity.

A firm in the 2nd stage of development has to read what goes on in the market of other countries. Start-up companies entering the market with a wonderful product won’t necessarily be successful if the market is already filled with competitive goods. We can take the example of Microsoft, Intel, and Cisco in defining your own market. You can enter various markets in the United States, from beer production, setting up a brand of restaurants, or shirt fabrication.

One way or another, entering the international arena is inevitable. Competing in these markets require rational strategy and convincing tactics. The sooner you act, the better chance you have at succeeding on the international stage.

But why do we need to enter the U.S. market? May it be better starting from some small country first? – That is exactly the main mistake! The cost of goods preparation for sale in a new country is approximately equal. Time investment for entering a new market is approximately equal as well. However, the difference in market potential and feedback is very lopsided toward large markets such as the USA. If you manage to occupy 50% of the market of Albania, for example, from the point of view of your profit it will be dozens of times less than entering 0.0005% of the US market.

The primary issue in market penetration is the capacity and saturation of the market. One thing can be stated as far as the capacity of American market is concerned – it is the largest in the world. That is why it is assumed that the most prospective market are American consumers.

The first thing that we hear in discussions about the start of sales in the United States is: “No one is waiting for us there! The shelves are over-laden with everything in any American store”. That is a fact. However, if you consider Chinese goods today, you would not have thought that they could enter America twenty years ago. Nowadays every store has Chinese goods where they make the major part of the whole selection. American manufacturers have lost a significant market sector and were obliged to shift the production work to China! Today, nobody in the USA is surprised at a “Made in China” label- and ironically, “Made in USA” labels are surprising to see today. The same was happening 30 years ago with Japanese automobiles and electronics – the present leaders of American market. You can also add the hundreds of Russian and Ukrainian computer companies with millions of turnovers in the American market.

The next concern that we hear from our clients is: “We are late. Chinese are not to be outrun already. Add in the hardworking Japanese and we have nothing to offer! Where shall we go now…” But the market is growing – faster, slower… but it is growing. The demands are growing as well – new properties, decrease in prices, etc.

The possibility of your goods entering the American market is within the realm of objective reality, and any success should not be considered a “miracle”. The real question that should be asked is “How can we make it?”

In fact, the selection of products from American stores (large food stores, for example) are much inferior compared to Russian goods. The competition in our home, Russia, may be ten times harsher than the competition in the United States. We should not be afraid of the American market.

Everyone has heard the X Company invested 10 million dollars into promotion of their goods in the USA, and Y Company invested 15 million. We do not have that much money, and even if we have it, we might as well bow out since it is not wise to do those ridiculous things… Well and good. We got interested and decided to find out how the money was spent by Y Company.

Looking closely, we discover that Y company actually invested 7 million dollars, not the reported 15 million dollars. The figure is just for advertisement, and it looks better in press releases. In addition, a prominent American lawyer with tons of experience was involved in the matter. The firm was paying him 450 dollars per hour, 40 hours a week, during 8 months of work. Thus, he was paid $630,000. “Wow!”, said our American colleagues-lawyers. What did he do to earn that amount? Perhaps he is one of the great gurus of American business? Not quite as it turned out to be. He may have properly made all the relevant documents, maybe a list which ran around two pages long. From our consultation with our lawyers, the majority of the documents on the list turned out to be the typical papers and other documents only took … 20 hours. That is, within 2.5 days.

Maybe the lawyer has a great network in the industry? The answer is both yes and no. That is, he did have connections, but to develop a marketing strategy he advised to engage the most famous consulting company, which developed a brilliant package of documents within two and a half months, revealing the slightest details and all there is to know about the American market and cobwebs of marketing. The work of this consulting team cost a mere 1.4 million dollars. That was such a heavy work for the money. Right? However, someone shared that the basic point of that document was … “Advertising – is the engine of commerce”.

Then, a famous PR-company was hired to develop an advertising campaign, which made another set of documents for 420 thousand dollars: “Advertising strategy for promotion of X goods to the market of North America”. That is, with that kind of advertising cost, the results should have been in the bag. However, what did the great advertisers actually suggest? The first 200 pages of the document were telling who the consumer was, what he read, what he watched, which places he visited, etc. The conclusion was as follows: It is necessary to install 20 billboards ($40,000 each), to decorate 350 bus stops downtown with beautiful posters, order advertisements in 8 major magazines and 11 newspapers in 3 months. The total amount for the orders is a mere 2.6 million dollars.

An office in the 5th Avenue in New York which opened with a 14 person staff to strengthen the image of the company – a move that eventually consumed the balance amount. The result? A major trading network decided to purchase the well-known goods of the Y Company for the amount of … $20,000. The mountain has brought forth a mouse. During half a year after the advertising campaign, the “well advertised brand” did not bring a one-tenth share of what was spent.

How did the story end? When the company president came in despair, he talked to his old school mate, who had lived in America for over 20 years. After that he disbanded the 5th Avenue office. He thanked the lawyer for the selfless labor and hired one (!) professional sales manager, who within 3 months set the right sales network for those goods, and the sales amounted to millions of dollars a month. At present, 7 persons are working in the office. Thus, the old Lenin motto “Personnel define everything!” is working brilliantly, even in the US market.

Strictly speaking, this is what the marketing strategy of our company is all about. We do not hire world famous consulting companies; do not use even more famous PR-companies. We do not install billboards around the city or do not open offices which cost $100,000 per month.

We just hire one person, a practitioner, who is very aware of a particular market and knows how to organize the sale of this type of goods in the USA. We ask him to bring a small plan for the interview – 2 pages maximum: how he is going to organize the sales system in the USA.

The main job of our company for promoting goods and services in American markets comes in two forms:

• Selection of “right” experts.
• Provision of all the necessary tools for these experts to promote the goods (attorneys, licenses, web site, advertising materials, goods samples, etc.).

Therefore, we do not spend your money on studies of marketing strategies, development of PR-campaigns, and presentations for thousands of money wasters. We just organize a system of your goods sales in the USA, and advise you on what is needed to get the job done.

We earn from sales. When an operating sales system of your goods and services in the USA is built-up – it means that both you and we have profit. That is why we are interested in setting up sales of your company’s goods and services in the USA.

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