Breaking into new territories requires people with an entrepreneurial mindset making the pool from which to recruit quite exclusive.

There is an issue that is rarely included in books on business methodology.

The human dimension.

Individual people make a decisive impact on whether your plan will succeed or not. Especially when you are a small shop. If there is one statement explaining failure in international business that I hear more frequently than any other, then it is we had the wrong people on the project. I know that may be a lousy excuse for the lack of leadership or poor judgement, but finding, recruiting and managing the business development team that can execute your international expansion plans is critical.

Provided that you have a competitive offering and that the timing is in your favour, then your success will mostly depend on the quality of the team.

The human impact on an early stage international business venture is significant.

When you are completely unknown, have few or no references and are not mentioned in the reports from the industry analysts, then it takes a particular breed of people to make customers and partners in other countries listen to you and eventually convince them to use or resell your product.

Breaking into new territories requires people with an entrepreneurial mindset making the pool from which to recruit quite exclusive.

The pool of available talent that can build an international business from scratch is limited. Not many are prepared to run the risk, and fewer have the broad skill set required. As I mention in several places in my recent book, Going Global on a Shoestring, even the most carefully crafted plan will not survive the meeting with reality, which means that you depend on the feedback from your business developers to then take corrective actions.

So, in the book, I have devoted a full chapter to discussing what business developers do, what they look like, how you find them, how you get them on board and how you keep them.