6 Tips How Foreigners Can Scale Their Business to US Market
It is not easy to scale a business to the US market when you are a foreigner, but it is not impossible.
Actually, if you’ve got great ideas and big dreams, that’s half of the battle.
The rest comes from action, experience, and plenty of insights from people who have done it before you.
And that is the reason why I am sharing the lessons that Latvian businessman Mārtiņš Lasmanis, who has successfully scaled his 12-Million-Dollar-Per-Year business to the USA, shared in one of the business seminars.
So, here are his 6 tips for any foreigner who wants to survive and thrive in the highly competitive USA market.
Tip #1 — Try it Locally First
The dream of operating a business in the USA seems like it is hundreds of kilometers away. This distance has been and will be covered by many entrepreneurs from every country imaginable. But before you do it too, you needs preparation.
That’s why Mārtiņš suggests testing out your business in your own country first, and if it works, then it is worth considering scaling it to the USA.
By using this approach, you will protect yourself from huge risks and spending. Also, by the time you feel confident about entering the US market, your business will be advanced enough to shine, which gives you higher odds of surviving the competitive business environment.
Tip #2 — Hire the Right People
As long as you are not pursuing a solopreneur career, you will have to hire people who work with you. Whether it is paid employees or your partners that you build your business with, you will work with other individuals.
And that’s why you want to have people that you can trust. You want them to be responsible and ready to grow together with your business. You want people who are not only full of ideas and talents but also have great people skills. It is less about experience or expertise, but more about the person’s character.
Beware of hiring the wrong people because you do not want to wake up every morning knowing that it is another day of arguments and frustrations. With people like that, you will start hating not only them but also your business.
Tip #3 — Watch Your Spending
Once you try out your idea locally and start generating revenue, the real game begins.
The challenge is not about making money, but more about keeping it.
So, once you see the first amount of money rolling into your business, do not start buying Bentleys and Rolexes. Instead, reinvest that money back into your business. Stay humble and be frugal with your spending.
If you do that, you will grow your business and save up plenty of capital that will help you take bigger risks, which eventually leads to new opportunities and higher profits. Once you have done that, only then can you think about what color Ferrari you want.
Tip #4 — Make it Sustainable
For you to thrive in the fast-paced USA market, you must have a sustainable business. Your company has to have a top-tier product/service, automated systems, great leadership, regular customers, and a huge amount of capital that can help you survive many setbacks.
Once your business has these things checked out, you are ready to scale your business to the US market. Because now you have what it takes to invest a great amount of time and capital into the process, which leads us to the next tip, and that is…
Tip #5 — Use Venture Funds
If you are not familiar with venture funds, that is the place you go to when you have a great business but need additional money to expand. So, you talk with plenty of serious men and women about it in hopes that they will like your business. If they do, they give you an X amount of money for shared ownership of your company.
And if you do decide to look for additional investment into your company, then you will want to take advantage of the next tip…
Tip #6 — Don’t Give Up
While pitching your business to venture funds, most of the time you will be rejected. But never lose hope because, as Mārtiņš shares his personal business story, he says that it took him 400 meetings to get 3 investors.
For you to understand, each meeting is from 30 minutes to 1 hour long. That means he spent approximately 200–400 hours talking to investors to get 3 yeses.
All it took was 0.75% of investors to say yes to be able to raise capital and start operating in the US market.
The moral is that small numbers indeed make significant changes. It really takes one YES from the right person to change your life, but the journey that it takes to get to it is demanding.
Summary
It is great that someone with massive experience in entrepreneurship shares his lessons on how to scale a business to the US market.
Knowing the lessons is not enough, but the 6 tips shared are essential to understand where to begin and how to navigate further.
It starts with trying out your business idea locally because, in many cases, if it does not work in your area, it will most likely flop in the US market.
Once it has worked out locally, you can begin scaling your business so it can generate more revenue. When you do that, hiring the right people is essential for financial and personal growth. You do not want to work with people who are not on the same wavelength as you.
When the business is bringing in consistent revenue in your area and you have great people by your side, it is time to prepare for the big leap. To do that, you have to stay humble and watch your spending. Reinvest the profits into your business and grow your capital to a comfortable stage.
So, now you have a solid business with working systems, you have a great team behind it, and the capital is growing. You can begin to enter the “big league.” But before you do that, you must be ready for the worst, so make your business as sustainable as you possibly can.
Once you have done that, you plan the transition into the US market, but depending on your business, you might lack capital. A great way to generate more of it is to utilize venture funds.
Go out there and pitch your business like your life depends on it. And do not give up. Remember that the majority will say no. There will be times when you want to call it quits, but do not stop. All it takes is 1–3 people to say yes to achieve your “American Dream.”
Afterwords
Now that you know 6 tips on how to scale your business to the US market, it is up to you to go out there and put in the work.
You know why you are doing it better than anyone else.
The closer you get to your goal, the more motivated you get.
Start rolling your business snowball and let the hill of consistency do the rest.
Hopefully, you found this helpful.
In the future I will write about these topics:
· How to sell your business and cash out a large check
· Most expensive mistakes when building a 200M business
· How to create buyers and operate
If you want to stay up to date with my posting, make sure to come back for more, and for more business, marketing and copywriting knowledge you are welcome to subscribe to my weekly newsletter!
Thank you for reading.
–Eddie
