How to establish business with foreign partners. From searching for business contacts abroad - to a deal

Most modern companies sooner or later face the problem of expanding their sales markets, for which the management comes to the decision to search for partners abroad. Foreign suppliers can help expand the business, open a new direction, a foreign investor can help implement a startup and develop an already successful business, a wholesale buyer from another state will assist 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.

In case of successful completion of all these stages, 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 start the process of finding a partner from abroad, you have to prepare responsibly for this, because success in achieving your goals will largely depend on preliminary preparation. At this stage, it will be necessary to collect information, evaluate supply and demand in the segment of potential partners. In addition, presentation documents will need to be prepared, moreover, in the language of a potential partner, or at least in English.

After that, 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 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 is well known. But Xing.de is a portal that is actively used by partners who speak German. Given that German, in terms of the number of Europeans speaking it, ranks first in the EU, this network contains a huge number of potential partners. Recently, a b2b platform has gained great popularity among Russian-speaking businessmen who want to find partners in other countries, the features of working with 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 messengers or the already listed professional networks. At the same time, the main thing is to correctly present your company - 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, prepare a presentation in which to 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 who will be interested in your offer in the partner 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 the negotiation and signing of an agreement, and this stage is probably the most difficult, more difficult than the search for a potential partner. After all, your goal is to sign a long-term agreement that will be most beneficial for you, while your partner’s desires are exactly the opposite. Business negotiations are a whole art and much will depend on the ability to understand someone else's mentality. Some prefer quick negotiations, others slow and thoughtful, and 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. That is why the platform became so popular immediately after its launch. After all, each stage of the search for partners from other countries is much easier here. All companies that offer partnerships are grouped by country of placement, as well as business sectors, for ease of search, which saves a lot of time. In addition, the user of the platform can create their own proposal for cooperation and will search for it, which is much more efficient.

For serious users of the platform, there is a BIS-agent service. In a nutshell, this is outsourcing of the partner search service, that is, placing this mission on the shoulders of the platform employees. All you need to do is create a request to search for a foreign partner, indicating the features that are important to you. Employees themselves will select the best cooperation options for you from companies from more than 4 dozen countries around the world. You will have to choose the best proposals in your opinion, negotiate and conclude an agreement.

When developing your business, you often have to interact not only with compatriots, but also with foreign suppliers, investors and business partners

Friendship of peoples: how to find a foreign business partner

Developing your business, you often have to interact not only with compatriots, but also with foreign suppliers, investors and business partners. The leaders of successful Russian companies shared their experience - where to look and how to build relationships.

Alexandra Khlopushina, co-founder of EnjoyMe

Almost from the beginning, our company's goal was to become a major wholesale supplier of designer gifts, accessories and home products. Since we are based in London, the first suppliers of EnjoyMe were only English companies. At some point, we started working with a major carrier, figured out the intricacies of customs clearance and began to develop our wholesale sales. The suppliers were small design studios and several fairly large local companies: Luckies, Black + Blum, Suck UK, Thabto. The following year, a couple of good mid-sized European brands were added. It was not difficult to negotiate - at that time we did not enter into exclusive contracts, but simply did what we loved.

One day I saw Joseph Joseph Nest bowls and fell in love with the brand at first sight. Then I decided that these products should appear in our store, and I wrote them a letter. In response, I received a questionnaire and was a little surprised - it turned out that making a regular order is not so easy, the company must be sure that their product is sold in a decent place. Our EnjoyMe, unfortunately, was not suitable for this, but we did not give up. In three months, we created a platform (www.famouskitchen.ru) specifically for kitchen accessories and contacted Joseph Joseph again. They were surprised that someone created a website just to sell products of their brand, and allowed us to make the first order as a simple wholesale buyer. Their representatives came to Moscow and we needed to show EnjoyMe in the best light. For this we had only 10 days - we organized meetings with all potentially interesting chain stores and major customers, and held a series of successful negotiations. This helped in further development, but Joseph Joseph chose another distributor - a large company that has been working with tableware for more than 10 years. This first small defeat forced us to make a powerful leap forward.

We began to work with chain stores using the brand name, but supplied them with fewer products from suppliers, honing our skills in working with large customers and building our company with a full-fledged wholesale department. A year passed, we got stronger, and suddenly a call came from Joseph Joseph - the distributor they had chosen did not live up to expectations. Then we were asked to meet again. The company was impressed with how we had grown, and we moved into negotiations for exclusive distribution for a year. Several more companies from the market of tableware fought for this right, but by some happy coincidence they chose us. This brand has become a ticket to big business. After we kept Joseph Joseph for a year and then two, other big companies started coming to us. When we proved that we are coping with the Russian market, it became easier to negotiate.

Alexander Platonov, founder and CEO of Passion Fruit

Here are some tips:

If you need a specific company, you need to identify the key decision makers in that business. Find them on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc. Most foreign managers are active in social networks in one way or another. Follow them, see what they tweet, who they follow, like their posts, comment, ask questions on posts. If you are original, they will notice you, and you can gently approach them. If a person has 5000 followers, a hundred likes and fifty comments for each post, analyze who and whose posts this person retweets or shares the most. You can always find a way to reach out to who is the opinion leader for that person. And already through it to get acquainted with those who you need.

Try to get acquainted immediately with one of the star foreign entrepreneurs. It may seem impossible, but not so long ago, Richard Branson offered an entrepreneur with the best idea to pitch a project in front of him in person on his own island, and then take part in the largest US trade show, CES, for free.

Another way to find a partner is to have a well-known US news resource write about you, which is read by the one you need. For example, TechCrunch editor Mike Butcher enjoys writing about Russian startups. He even composed the perfect letter he would like to see.

After selling the business in Russia, I had two opposite tasks. On the one hand, I wanted to invest part of my money in some foreign project from the real sector of the economy. On the other hand, he wanted to attract foreign investment in his new Internet project. Joint investments reduce the risk of each of the partners, well, I just wanted to attract Western money - here is a different approach and standards. I had to study, strain my head, improve my English, train a pitch about the project. However, as is often the case, the investor found himself in a circle of friends. I just went to my American acquaintances, whom I knew on Facebook, through conferences and personal contacts, talked about an interesting project, and asked my friends to help find investments. Instead, one of my friends offered to join the project. As a result, I got not just an investment, but an excellent partner. I myself invested in a construction project in San Francisco - also on the advice of friends. True, I hired a lawyer and conducted mini-investigations. I looked at whether there were conflicts or litigation around these people, how they went through the years of the crisis of 2008-2009. Since all information is open in the US, you can open all cases for all companies with which potential partners are connected, and then sit down and study them.

Veronika Taraba, Deputy General Director of CROC

Chance helped us. When we decided to go beyond Russia, there was a feeling (based on pre-sale attempts) that we were more interested not in the Old World or Eastern Europe, but in the neighborhood on the other side, where there are more dynamic markets. We already had experience of working with Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, we wanted to go further. Nobody was specifically looking for. One of our managers was contacted by a supplier of specialized IT solutions for a company that was bought in Turkey by a CROC customer. This supplier was talking to us about some joint business of theirs, and it was he who introduced us to an IT company that was also working with this client and was looking for opportunities to grow faster. It was the Turkish system integrator NGN, a company with five years of experience. We studied the market (demand in the computing outsourcing market, its dynamics and specifics in Turkey), the capabilities and features of the Turkish company (finance, personnel, clients, vendors). We talked with their key vendors and customers, understood the needs of their customers in Turkey and beyond, made a business plan for the construction of a data center and entered into partnerships.

Inna Alekseeva, co-founder and CEO of PR partner

At some point, we saw that our clients had requests for PR support abroad. In addition, many of our employees spoke about the desire to do an internship in another country, as is done in large network agencies. Since the market is very competitive, we had to keep the bar - we began to look for a partner abroad. We have opened The Holmes Report global rating, where the largest PR agencies of the world are represented - we started with them. Then we had only 25 people working, and the turnover was a little less than $ 2 million. Most of them did not answer us at all - we wrote a hundred letters, and 20 answers came, mostly with a refusal, which said that the companies already have partners in Russia. Then we started writing to international associations of PR agencies. The situation was about the same - a lot of failures, but there were still responses. We went to meetings with Global Alliance and IPRN. We filled out a questionnaire, provided references from clients and employees, and provided financial statements for the last two years. When we joined the IPRN, the Global Alliance found out about it and refused us, although it was not initially stipulated that one cannot be a member of two associations at once. It was frustrating as we spent a lot of money and time.

At the same time, we understood that we still needed a partner. Then we went the other way - we began to write blogs of heads of foreign agencies. So we got in touch with Andres Witterman, Vice President of Global Communications Agency LEWIS PR, and tried to build a dialogue. For example, he wrote a post about the market growing. We said: “Cool, the market is growing, and we know that LEWIS PR does not work in Russia yet. We would like to invite you to work with us. What do you think?". In the end, everything worked out. We transfer our clients to them, and they transfer theirs to us - now it is the third year of our joint work. We also send our employees on internships. They have already been in France, Australia, Germany, Great Britain. We're glad the blog method worked. Since then, I have been actively communicating with the heads of PR agencies around the world - mainly through social networks.

How to bring a Western, foreign partner to an MLM company or business on the Internet? What are foreign partners doing? For what reason, and why Russian-speaking Internet entrepreneurs, cannot invite foreigners to MLM? How to attract foreigners?

Good day dear blog reader, Natalia Butenko is in touch with you. Today in this article, under the heading "" I will describe the technology of correctly inviting foreign partners to 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 following recommendations will help you work efficiently and have a good result.

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 react well to, and what they won’t even look at.

Today in 2017, bringing a Western partner to the team is very difficult for several reasons.

The Western partner seeks authority, and he listens only to those who have already distinguished themselves somehow 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 comrade from Skype.
Or someone who does not understand how a business is built, and does not know what and how to do it.

For most Runet networkers, Skype is the main platform for building a team.

But is Skype really that good? And in general, is Skype suitable for working in the west?

Let's look at the facts

Fact #1

In order for your work in Skype to be effective even in Runet, you must somehow find and add people to your contacts who are interested in making money and working on the network. 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 and more than one project, and he is also looking for partners, but in his own companies, which means that no one needs your business.

Fact #2

Skype for foreigners is a tool for communication, but not for building a business.

Fact #3

Ability to recruit. If you have no marketing experience and you are not a particularly gifted speaker, no matter how great business you are in, it will be difficult for you to invite a paid partner to your company via Skype.

Well, now let's move to the west

Let's look at 2 questions.

1. For what reason, and why ours cannot lasso foreigners in MLM?
2. What is the right way to attract foreigners, even without knowing English?

Reason #1

Many networkers work on American groups on Facebook, LinkedIn, FutureNet, and other social networks, scattering Ref links immediately to the company itself. But, a foreign partner does not understand such an approach to business.

In the bourgeoisie, every Internet entrepreneur knows the saying "Money in your email base" or "Money in your email list base".

Foreigners know that starting a business online is the biggest mistake without it. And even with such a small American conversion as 4%, another way to turn an unknown subscriber into a paid partner has not yet been invented even in the USA. And they always work only on this principle.

Reason #2

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 directly to business, they need to be given a magnet for a subscription.

At what, since 2016, something worthwhile has already begun to be given as a gift for a subscription, and not some cheap pdf. And now it's even tougher. In order for a foreigner to subscribe to a subscription, today you must already give him at least some kind of .

What should be done and what should not be done?

You need to have your own capture page, made according to the following requirements:
1. Information on the page should be short and strictly to the point.
2. All information should fit in 2 4 sentences, and consider only two questions:

A. Problem.
B. Problem solving.

Example:

“You don’t know where to get tons of free traffic to your products or services? Here we have it, 200,000 clicks on your video for free.”

3. The background of the page must be strict. (better not to use at all, music video background).
4. You can use a short video on the page, but only on the case. That is, the video should be only about what you write about. They need to see what they read.
4. It is necessary to use words such as: - "subscribe, take away, find out, download, etc." to encourage a person to perform a targeted action
5. Guaranteed confidentiality. That is, you must guarantee that the data of this person will not be transferred to anyone "Your privacy is save"

What should be your series of letters?

1. In the first letter, do not write anything about the company. You only have to get to know the subscriber and give the promised gift.
2. In order to be accepted as one of your 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 won't follow you.
3. The company to which you invite a foreign partner must be.
4. Letters should be short and to the point. The maximum letter size should be 5-7 paragraphs.
5. Do not use bold or multi-colored text highlights in letters, as well as various pictures. Use a black font on a white background with a font size of 14px.
Foreign professionals use exactly these parameters, and they are used to seeing it from their pros.
6. Look at Western leaders and do what they are used to seeing.
7. Send letters no more than 2 days later.
8. You can put your Ref link and invite to the company from the second letter.
9. Put your company link in the middle and at the end of your call to action email: Like this:

10. If possible, use a short video in each letter,
with a call to see it immediately.

How to start working effectively for 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 a western company with a ready-made series of letters. Which is written by their experts for them.
2. Try to always collect a subscriber base only for yourself, and not for the company, on your email autoresponder.
3. If the company has a series of letters in their autoresponder, then copy their series of letters and send them from your email autoresponder.
4. Do not violate privacy rules, and be careful with spam.
5. Foreign partners are not allowed to send spam. These comrades immediately complain.
6. spam is very serious and because of it you will be immediately removed from the service.
7. Services like aweber, getresponse can easily block your database for spam. There were cases that blocked bases of 100,000 people.

How effective are social networks for finding foreign partners.

If you are promoting something exclusive, then you may have a small . But don't expect great results from posting to American Fb groups unless you're unique in your offering.

This is where I will end this post. And I hope that, in order to find foreign partners, you will apply all these developments taken from their paid webinars, from leading US leaders.

Well, if you have not found a suitable company yet, then since 2012, there is everything you need.
AIOP has a great email sender, pre-made email series, 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 to the 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 both partners and money

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The first question that arises for companies planning international expansion is: where and how to look for business contacts abroad? Inna Armstrong, the founder and head of NeuVenture Global in Germany, shared her thoughts on this topic.

Click to enlarge

Stages of formation of export

1. Market selection

What criteria does your company use to select a target market? When we ask this question, we get a variety of answers:

Have already worked with local partners or been on business trips in a certain country, there is an understanding of how business is done there.
A large number of requests from a particular country.
The assumption that this particular market is promising.

All these reasons are quite understandable. Depending on the specifics of the business, when choosing a market, it is necessary to rely on 2 main strategies:

If you are a manufacturer of goods or services, you can collect statistics through desk research using TN VED product codes by making inquiries on sources such as trademap.org, Eurostat European Union Statistics Office, United Nations Commodity Trade Statistics Database, World Trade Organization Trade Profiles , FITA and an international directory of trade and professional associations.
If you have innovative products, then the collection of information should be carried out using a different strategy - first-hand from your potential partners or customers. You can collect a list of research institutes in the target country and contact them if you are interested in collaborating.

2. Definition of the target audience

For some companies, a direct sales strategy works, for others it is easier to enter through an indirect export strategy, having found 1-2 potential partners. If, for example, we take, say, for developers of mobile offers or software, you can search for direct customers by sending commercial offers to companies directly, or find potential partners to get into the pool of their subcontractors. When there are projects that are relevant to you, you will be called and offered 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 is likely to be longer than entering small online or retail stores with an invitation to cooperate. From practice, in the latter case, the price offer 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 tender the first few times, but this is a good chance to get noticed.

3. Areas and methods of information search

To search for information in the 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 scope of search in the company

You can search on your own or involve 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 art materials segment (look for suppliers in EU countries), you should roughly understand that up to 20-25% of contacts will not always be targeted, and the first step in developing the database by your outsourcing employees will be its qualification and further updating. From our experience, it usually follows that the sample for the paid base is approximately 1235 contacts that fall 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 items on demand. After elaboration, 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 undertaking, the main thing is the strategy. Developing business both in the domestic and foreign markets, you can use 2 main strategies: you seek or you are found. Where you can look for business contacts abroad on your own or with the help of specialists, we have already considered, 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 (, .