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Bill : Hi, Bill Kenny here from soft land central the hub of market entry. So today, our topic is to get into efficient international expansion. And we’re joined by Rob Ray from Littus. Welcome, Rob.
Rob : Hi, Bill, how are you? Thanks for having me.
Bill : I am fantastic. So here we are. We’re, we see a vaccine on Horizon. But obviously, it’s still gonna be some time before we get back to what any of us would consider normal, where we can travel globally, and without sort of any restrictions. And so, you know, we’re now sort of a year into this. And when you think about some of the things that companies that are really excelling during this pandemic are doing, what are they doing to continue to sort of bridge into new marketplaces, and remain efficient in terms of new client, new customer engagement?
Rob : Yeah, well, the pandemic certainly challenges anybody within our country, let alone from outside to make those connections to have those meetings that are really going to be important for accelerating your business, maybe even just laying in some, some some groundwork that you’re going to need for years down the line, or hopefully just months down the line, if you’re lucky. So the travel restrictions have been a big challenge. And I the companies that seem to do well, not well, but relatively well in this environment, understand that this is the reality. And we can sit and talk about the importance of face to face meetings. And boy, it wasn’t great in the past. Well, it’s not the reality today. So what can you do, and I think the companies that have embraced the new reality, and hopefully it’s short term, but I think elements of that will carry forward long term, realize that people will take a meeting virtually. So take the meeting, don’t be hesitant to try to reach out to somebody that may have been hard to nail down for an hour long meeting a year ago, because they’re pretty open right now the 20 minute meetings, or they have been for the past year or so companies that I’ve seen have been successful in bridging this gap of what they used to be able to do to what they can do today, are really leveraging that reality. And it also, aside from the fact that you may get a hold of somebody for 20 minutes, that they may not have wanted to take an hour long day, I don’t know meeting other day, you could take meetings in California in New York in the same day. That’s something you could never do before. So we’re in the world of supporting a lot of times about trade missions coming in. And you’re squeezing in as many meetings as you can logistically within a reasonable geography. Well, now you don’t have to squeeze it in over two days. And it doesn’t have to be under any geographical constraints. So the companies and the organizations and the partners that understand that and embrace it, from what I’ve been seeing are the ones that seem to be doing well, despite all the challenges that we’re facing now.
Bill : It’s so funny, you say that, because my day yesterday started with a couple of meetings in India, and ended with a couple of meetings in Sydney, which is great on the surface. But that’s a really long day, too.
Rob : There’s a lot of personal balance, you need to strike. I think we’re in the world where we’re a little bit spoiled right now with access, because you can do that. But you also need to sleep, your sanity. So I think and everyone has their own way of doing it, I block out certain times ahead of the week. I’m just not going to take a meeting because I’m looking at what I have ahead of time. And I think a lot of people do something similar, like you kind of need that time that I can’t do this five days in a row, you know, two in the morning, and then another one at 9am. You just need to find a way to balance that.
Bill : Totally. Yeah, no. We all have our times of day, right that we’re probably most acute where other times maybe a lot less. So
Rob : It’s not often I scheduled these calls on a Friday afternoon, Bill. So this is a little hint to when I usually block things out.
Bill : Well, and I apologize, but we could have had beer. I’m okay with that as well. Fair enough. So, a couple more questions. So let’s talk about traction because obviously sales success is critical to not just obviously financing ongoing operations, but in terms of validating the idea of market entry in the first place. So what are what are some of the things you’re seeing In the area of getting those first customers on board,
Rob : A lot of times, if you’re and we do a lot, we interact with a lot of companies in Ireland, and not exclusively, but a lot. And there’s a lot of multinationals in Ireland. So oftentimes their first customer is a US multinational, and who has a facility in Ireland that they’re servicing. And I think what’s really important is, if that’s a relationship that you have, that’s something that should be leveraged. You’re not an unknown entity, it could be completely different decision makers in the US, but you have somebody who can reference what you have done back in Ireland in their case, but in any country. So companies who have a multinational customer in their home base, who happened to have as their the multinationals footprint is strong in the US typically want to embrace that. And when they have that first customer, and even if it’s not through that relationship, maybe to something that came in through the transom, or a trade show from two years ago, that finally paid off, and you’ve been in contact with them, really important to to own that first customer. And that’s going to be for your building of success in the US, no matter how detailed and elaborate and effective your broader marketing program is, and how good you are converting sales, you need that referenceable customer and country. So we really, you know, we always encourage clients and interest people we talked to, in general, if you have that first client, hold on to the service, and really well make sure that you have a solid referenceable first mover in country.
Bill : Yeah, it we see that a lot where Yeah, the first question that customers in the new country ask is, well tell me who else you’re doing business with here? And it’s very obvious, right?
Rob : Yeah. And in the country in the market is so big, you know, so rather than trying to boil the ocean, make sure you get that first customer? Yeah, then it’s a lot easier to try to, you know, bright branch off of that build around that they have an ecosystem, they have references, they have business leaders that they talk to, that’s a much more efficient model than looking at the totality of the US market or North America if you want to get even bigger. And so how are we going to strategize this, we get 10% of that, not get that first mover build off of that. And then once you have some traction, you can do some much more detailed, you know, analysis of what the overall Tam is going to be up to the market you’ve identified but get that first one first. That’s really important.
Bill : Absolutely. Yeah. The bet. Yeah, that focus is certainly with particular small sales teams. absolutely critical. Yeah. So we’ve talked about sort of the DIY, or do it yourself model where, you know, sort of, we’re in some other country selling into a different country. How about the notion of working through partners, channel partners, sales partners, those types of things? But what can you talk a little bit about how you look at partnerships?
Rob : Yeah, so if you have that first customer, usually, that’s direct, but if you’re gonna build it out beyond that, it’s very first of all, it’s sometimes prohibitively expensive to build out, hire and have it in house sales team to do that yourself. Cold Calling is not something that works very well anymore. There’s a subtlety to it if you’re going to do that direct to consumer or direct to customer model. But that takes time to do it properly. If you have sales channel partners in the country, that’s typically the most efficient model to building out a base of customers that you can serve as reasonably, you got to spend a little bit more time educating and screening those partners. But once you have a network in place, they’re already calling on the customers that you want. And while you may have to sacrifice a little bit of margin, because they’re going to get the discount, or they’re going to mark it up, they give you the access that you need to get some critical mass of customers outside of that first mover to make whatever venture you have in the states have a solid plan a solid foundation and sustain become sustainable and scale. So we have always, always encouraged everything, every company is different. Every market is different. So it’s not universal. But in most cases, we find that developing sales channel partners is really the most efficient model to to grow in the business.
Bill : I suppose. Oh, I’m sorry. Go ahead.
Rob : I was the end, the partnership model goes beyond you may or may be cutting off. The department partnership model goes beyond sales. Everything that you do, you know, do not try to use Google as your source of legal reference for US law. You need us attorneys advising you don’t try to figure out what that is in the US because it doesn’t exist. It’s not that sales. You need us based counting partners to work with to make sure that you’re doing everything you should and not cutting corners are going to cost you a lot Money down downstream.
Bill : Yeah, I mean, I think manufacturing partners, obviously, there are a variety of different.
Rob : Yeah, a whole range. And those are just two examples. It’s Yeah, it’s just it’s it’s finding and one critical characteristic of a partner’s modeling that you want to do is find those that are that are used to working with because you’re typically if you’re new coming into the market, you’re an SME, you’re not a billion dollar company, or you’re probably already here. So you want to find partners that understand that, alright, we’re working with businesses are spending their own money, you know, they have to understand that they’re probably going to give you a little bit of free consulting advice up front, a lot, just enough to make sure that you know, you feel comfortable with them. And they’re comfortable with you find those types of partners. For the business infrastructure advisement, sales channels a little bit different. They’re just, they want to turn sales, you want to connect with them, you want to feel comfortable that you can work with them. And they’re typically working with smaller businesses anyway. But find those businesses, find those partners that understand the size and scale of the business that you are.
Bill : This is really been fantastic Robin in it really just encapsulates a great update in terms of efficient market expansion. Before we shifted, maybe talking for just a moment on lettuce, are there any other sort of updates that you’d want to make sure people are aware of in this sort of dynamic time and in making sure market entry as efficient as it can be?
Rob : Well, I think because there’s limited travel, the businesses and the companies that are considering coming into the US, they may be in a regime or country where it’s severe lockout. And while we have restrictions here in the US, you know, we kind of have 51 countries, you know, 50 states and the federal government. And there are different levels of restrictions as far as meetings and what can be accomplished on the ground, that don’t assume that nothing’s happening, because things are happening here in the US. So I guess that the parting comment to somebody who’s considering coming into the US don’t assume anything, talk to people who are on the ground here, talk to people who may be in a region, that’s not as restrictive is where you are right now doesn’t mean you can come over and visit customers, but your partner in the ground may be able to. So understand that it’s a big country with a lot of diversity in every aspect, including levels of lockdown and business interaction. So make sure you reach out to whoever you have in your network to get feedback in real time. That’s based off of the realities on the ground here.
Bill : Oh, that’s, that’s wonderful advice. For sure. So let’s switch gears and chat a little bit about lettuce. Do you want to just give an overview in terms of what you do, and, and a little bit more about, about your organization? Sure. So
Rob : Littus is an umbrella company of service providers that support business infrastructure needs for companies are looking to come into the US. So our play in the soft land ecosystem is find companies need or help companies identify their needs, and connect them with service providers who may be able to support them. And that’s what Littus us is all about. We have members in legal and accounting and business development, and insurance in recruitment. We align for companies are coming in, we align them with service providers who can support needs that they’ve communicated to us. We do a lot of upfront consulting, as part of our investment in the relationship. And then in turn, we can connect them with sometimes somebody within our network and sometimes people with outside of our network. We typically work with economic development agencies that the business has come through, but not always, sometimes we get businesses coming to us directly. And we’re fine. In both cases. We understand what small businesses are dealing with. Now I mentioned earlier, we they’re spending their own money. And we’re not going to no offense to a big for firm, we’re not going to recommend to a business that has a, you know, turnover 50 million euros, that they should talk to EY about tax consultant, that’s just not, it’s not an alignment that makes sense. So we make sure that when we connect them with somebody, it’s appropriate. It’s aligned with their needs. We’re not like unlike a lot of soft land. Players, there’s nothing wrong with it’s just the way we have structured, we’re not site specific. We’re not tied to one geography. We happen to be headquartered in Philadelphia, we have a very strong network here in the region. So a lot of the clients we work with end up here for very good reasons. But we’ve had clients end up in the Carolinas in Atlanta in other areas where it made sense for them based off of their business philosophy, strategy and network context that they needed to develop. So, we again, we’re not site specific, it’s the last thing we’d look to advise on, because there’s so many other aspects of the business plan and as softland and consideration that we help them identify first. And that’s, you know, that’s what we’re all about get the small businesses who are coming into the US aligned with service providers who can help support the business infrastructure needs that they have.
Bill : Cool. And are you both b2b, b2c, B2G are their industries, what’s what’s sort of that profile,
Rob : it’s a bit more b2b, but not exclusively, a couple B2C’s. But it’s just a bit more b2b. A lot of it, we’re agnostic. You know, I think similar to yourself, we’re not going to turn down too many things, you know, as long as it doesn’t violate something I’m comfortable with. But we’re not tied to an industry. And we have soft land partners who are and if we have a specific client who comes in, who has a need that aligns with that industry specific area, we collaborate with them as well. So it’s a big market, it’s there’s a lot of players in it. And if somebody who’s a quote unquote competitor of ours has a, an industry niche, we want to talk to them, we want to align the businesses we’re talking to with that, you know, our reputation of being really concerned about the client’s needs and finding that right connector is more important than having them absolutely go through us for everything. We don’t want that we want to be honest brokers. And you know, that’s, that’s what our philosophy is all about.
Bill : That’s so cool. Well, that’s fantastic. And I really appreciate you taking the time this afternoon on your on your quiet day. Exactly to give us this update, and is there anything else at all that you’d want to make sure the audience knows about,
Rob : about littus? We’re always open for a conversation. Cool. The clock does, you know, the billable clock doesn’t start anytime soon. So we love having conversations. Whether your businesses looking to come in whether you’re an economic development agency has tried to understand whether or not it’s worth trying to do trade missions anymore in this environment. We’ll be happy to share what we have done. And talk to you about ideas that may apply to the clients that you’re looking to support.
Bill : Cool. And we’ll put your contact info in the description below. Right, so people will see that. Yeah, exactly. Thank you again, for taking time today. Really appreciate it. And certainly wish you a great weekend. To our audience, please make sure to like and subscribe so that you can stay informed of all the episodes we have coming up. But again, thank you so much, Robin. My pleasure.
Rob : Thank you. Thank you, everybody for listening, and we’ll see you all soon.
Bill : Great. Thanks.