The first opportunity to expand our business overseas happened by accident, following a chance 15-minute meeting. It led to a partnership that was far bigger than anything we’d ever looked at in the UK. From that point on I realised there’s opportunity everywhere, you just need to know where to look for it.
We are now active in 30 countries and have physical teams operating in the US, UK, France, Germany and Australia.
As a leader you’re there to have the vision and unlock the right doors. But the reality is that successful international expansion comes down to other people in the business. When you launch in a new market, it’s the closest thing you’ll have to a startup within the organisation. You’re almost starting from scratch. That means focusing your time and attention on making sure the team has all the talent and knowledge in the market to be able to grow quickly and operate independently.
Knowing when and where to launch
Our early expansion strategy was fairly organic in that it was led largely either by gut instinct or by our customers. As we’ve grown we’ve taken a much more measured approach; we want to know that our expansion strategy works before we invest locally.
Remember to have fun and stop to smell the roses along the way
We carry out market-sizing exercises to ensure we’re focusing on the countries that we feel will give us the greatest opportunity. We’re bigger than we used to be, but we still have to be selective. It’s not feasible to launch in 10 new countries tomorrow. It’s a case of picking the ones that we think we have a right to win in, but also the ones where the size of the reward is big enough.
My advice is: focus your efforts in the right places and allow yourself to be led by data and local insights. This is the only way to gain a balanced view of where the market opportunity is and what the customer wants.
Getting to know the market
Our first expansion was in the US. I would email people telling them I’d be in New York and only actually go ahead with the trip if I managed to book meetings in. We had very little money at the time so I was taking the cheapest flights and staying in awful hotels, but I was out there getting to know the culture and learning about the nuances between the UK and US markets.
As a leader, if you want to be successful somewhere, spend time immersing yourself in that market. Accept that you know nothing and leave your ego at home. People often fail to do this. They assume they can lift and shift what they’re doing at one location and it’s going to magically work in another.
Before selling any kind of offering, focus on building relationships. When I travel to a new place, I like to meet people who may not have anything to offer from a business or customer perspective, but who still have valuable insights to share.
Take as much time as you need to really know the market. Before we launched in France, Germany and Australia, we’d already been working in those countries for several years to get a feel for it.
Protecting company culture
Maintaining a cohesive company culture is challenging when you start expanding. It’s easy to get lazy so consistency is key. Like a garden, you’ve got to water and nurture it.
As we’ve opened more international locations, we’ve tried to retain a set of common values and ways of working. Key to this is hiring the right people. We initially hired someone locally to lead our New York office who knew very little about our culture and business. It didn’t work out. We ended up moving one of our UK employees to the US instead. That enabled us to take our culture to the States and build the business there the way that we wanted to.
You’re going to need to have some patience
As a founder, CEO or senior leader, when you are travelling to different locations, so much of your time will be taken up by customer meetings but you need to spend time with your team too. Be present, share your knowledge and listen to any concerns they may have.
Mentoring programs and weekly company calls offer regular touchpoints, but there is only so much that can be done virtually. We have an annual in-person gathering called SoPost Week, where we bring the entire company to the UK. I think this has the most positive impact on our culture out of everything we do.
Trusting the process
One of our most successful market expansions took a lot longer than some of the others. When there are delays it can be easy to lose motivation and you may want to pull the plug on the whole operation. You’re going to need to have some patience.
You’re also going to need to trust the people you’ve tasked with launching that market. Investing time upfront to make sure you understand your pricing and positioning in the country will give you that confidence.
As a leader, expanding overseas can be a really hard slog. There are multiple 4am wake up calls and it can be exhausting trying to keep on top of everything back home when you’re constantly in different time zones. Remember to have fun and try to stop and smell the roses along the way.
