EXPANDING YOUR SOFTWARE SERVICES BUSINESS into THE US MARKET
David Williams David Williams

EXPANDING YOUR SOFTWARE SERVICES BUSINESS into THE US MARKET

EXPANDING YOUR SOFTWARE SERVICES BUSINESS “INTO THE US MARKET”

So, you have developed your Software and services in your home country, UK, France, China, Australia etc. and now you are ready to go to the biggest market in the world the United States of America. How do you start? Here are some initial considerations. Things you need to consider.

Firstly, the sheer size of total Software Services in the US market is $429.59 billion so you need to be clear about who your customer is and how they buy. Secondly even if English is your first language, or if you are a fluent English speaker, the American market is a very different culture than any other country in the world.

Somebody recently gave me an analogy to explain selling and working in the US compared to other countries / cultures. They compared the US Culture to a Pear and outside the US as a Coconut. In the US we are soft on the outside, but you really have to get through the soft exterior and get to the pip if you want to sell or establish a real relationship. For people coming into the US marketplace, they can find this off putting as people are being nice and friendly and they may not say what they feel e.g. “call me back in 6 months when we are looking at our budget for next year” but in reality people are just been polite and letting the person down nicely. Whereas, the coconut will just say no, I am not interested, and you have to break down the hard shell which may take a while and can be a long drawn-out procurement process, but when you eventually get in, its soft on the inside.

Whether this analogy resonates or not, bottom line is the cultures are different. The recommendations below are intended to help speed up the start-up of your US entity. They are lessons learnt from practical experience and mistakes made and are not always intuitive to people. But if not followed they can stall the take of your US business, firing staff and and having to start a search again (which is a killer for a small company that is very reliant on a small team early on), delaying contract negotiation, establishing good credit in the US, not attracting the right talent and worst of all a failed business launch. Each lesson can be dealt with by reaching out toan individual CPA firm, Attorney, Bank's and or a Sales / Marketing Consultant what I give is that information all in one place.

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