When Burak Neslitürk from Qualified ONE invited me to his webinar to talk about my recent book Going Global on a Shoestring, more than 200 people signed up for the event.

International business development in the software industry is a niche subject. Attracting 200 attendees proves that scaling software-based business models internationally is not a walk in the park. While global expansion is on the top of the agenda for most software executives, the challenges are plenty.

We have, therefore, decided to prepare and deliver a series of one-hour webinars addressing other areas of international business development.

The themes we have picked so far are:

• Building Successful Partner Channels
• Crating Powerful Value Propositions
• Discovering Foreign Market Opportunities
• Generating Qualified Inbound Leads

For each of the themes, we will present opportunities and challenges that are specific to the software industry. We focus on approaches that can be implemented on a limited budget and with a small team. Our ambition is to give you inspiration for performing international business development on a shoestring budget.

Building Successful Partner Channels

Selling and delivering through independent business partners is a popular go-to-market approach in the software industry. However, it is not easy to get a partner channel established. Doing it in another country is especially challenging.

This webinar will discuss when the indirect go-to-market approach can be applied and how it can be managed successfully.

The good news is that it can be accomplished without a huge budget and a large team, but it does requires a structured approach and patience.

The webinar is based on the principles presented in my book Building Successful Partner Channels.

Crafting Powerful Value Propositions

One of my most popular articles on international business development is titled: The product is not the value proposition.

Does it seem as this statement contradicts the principles behind Product Led Marketing?

Yes, it does. And for good reasons.

For simple and easy to understand products there is no big difference between the product and the value it offers. Trying the product will tell the value.

For software, however, the value is seldom the product per se.

• The value of software, that requires customisation and implementation, depends heavily on the skills and experience of the companies involved in the project. It depends on the suppliers as well as on the customer.
• The value of such software depends on how fast you can learn to use it.
• The value depends on the quality of the vendor’s support.
• The value depends on how well it integrates with other software and data sources on which the customer depends.

The webinar will define the principles behind the powerful value proposition and provide you with a simple process for crafting one that works.

Discovering Foreign Market Opportunities

Winning customers abroad often require investing in localisation.

Legislation, tradition, culture and competition may dictate that you provide a so-called l10n (nationally localised) version of your product.

How do you select the market or country that offers the best balance between investments required and opportunities available?

This webinar will present the business model environment concept that you can use to describe a market and discuss how you can obtain the information needed to compare the opportunities.

Generating Qualified Inbound Leads

If customers cannot find you, then they cannot buy from you.

That statement could be the title of a book about Search Engine Optimisation.

If customers cannot find you, then you have to find them and reach out. Doing so domestically is already challenging. Doing it in foreign markets even more so. Outbound marketing is not only difficult. It is also expensive.

This webinar discusses how you can establish a presence on the web that will attract customers from foreign countries. The method presented is based on the principles described in chapter eight of my book Going Global on a Shoestring.

Any questions or suggestions?

As soon as we have scheduled the webinars we will let you know the dates and hours and provide links for signing up. We will record the sessions for those who have calendar conflicts and for those who would like to revisit the content.

Please add a comment if you have specific questions you would like us to address in each of the webinars. If you have theme suggestions for other webinars, then please let us know.