The world is becoming seemingly smaller by the day, with new technologies allowing us to make connections with just about anyone from anywhere on the planet. Globalization, as a topic, has been talked about endlessly, and everyone has been affected by its influence to a certain extent. As an entrepreneur, it’s implications have been enormous, however, I do not think that most entrepreneurs are taking adequate advantage of the tools that we have at our disposal today.

I believe taking your business global must be a integral strategy and should be adopted from the very beginning of your venture. Thinking about expanding overseas when you have X number of clients, or have $X in revenue, is putting yourself at a huge unnecessary disadvantage when compared to your competitors. Looking at business plans today, I am seeing an increasing trend in the way businesses are positioning themselves to facilitate overseas growth right from the get go. Here are some things you should be doing as well:

1. Similar Market Identification: Start looking for parallels in the type of markets that you serve locally in the regions that surround you. For example,being based out of Singapore, one can start looking at how one’s product/services can be promoted to huge markets like Indonesia, Malaysia & Thailand. Singapore is miniscule in size when compared to these countries. By focusing on these markets concurrently, you can achieve escape velocity at a much faster pace. Identify markets where your product/services can be marketed, without too many modifications, and start making inroads.

2. Leveraging on Social Networks: Linkedin, Facebook, Twitter and a bunch of localized social/business networks provide the ability to identify prospects in our highest priority overseas region. Start cultivating these relationships as soon as possible. It does not matter that you plan on entering the market 6 months later. By building relationships with these contacts, we position ourselves a lot better than someone who just drops by their office cold, without any history.

3. Conferences & Trade Shows: Search for events taking place in your niche, in the regions you have an interest in. These networking events provide qualified prospect lists of customers and vendors, that are potential partner material. Traveling and taking part in such events is expensive and time consuming. As a startup, with limited funds, make sure you do your research well on events you want to take part in. At such conferences, network extensively, not just a collecting name cards strategy, but actual connections with people. 5 meaningful connections are far greater than a 100 name cards.

4. Partnerships: When selecting partners in a new region, do your best to avoid any agreements that may get you locked in with exclusivity contracts etc. On the surface, these may appear to be ideal platforms to enter the market in, however, until you have a good working relationship established, do you best to keep things as open as possible.

These are just some initial steps to start thinking in the right direction on how to take your business global. Do you have any experiences regarding taking your business global? What were the challenges you faced? How did you overcome them? Look forward to hearing your thoughts.