1. Costs Increase

If you are considering exporting a physical product, you have to understand that your costs can significantly increase. Thus, your products should be made as light as possible for the purposes of international shipping. Check that youd be able to get the things youre selling to the place where you plan to sell them without it becoming prohibitively expensive. Next, check if there are any customs requirements. Sometimes even the most well planned international businesses flop because they fail to take into account local laws or customs. s

2. Non Physibal Products

The best kind of product you can sell is a digital one, because the only cost of distribution is your bandwidth. Of course, you still need to worry about currency fluctuations. You therefore might want to price your products in the currency of your country. Non physical products are often called bits on a wire products.

3. Maintain A Niche For Your Business

Regardless of your product, be sure that it caters to a niche customer base. In other words, make sure there is a market for your product in the country before doing anything. Disney, for example, made the mistake of opening amusement parks in countries that held strong anti-american sentiments. The parks performed extremely poorly. Fast food giant KFC fails horribly in China, where the general population never eats such huge meals and avoids eating anything with their hands and finds it offensive to be served food in buckets. If youre not sure, you could talk to a few local businesspeople about how they think your product would be perceived, and they may be able to suggest a suitable target market for you.

4. Produce Internationally As Well

If the cost of distributing overseas appears to be too expensive, you will want to investigate the possibility of producing your product on international soil to eliminate that cost. At the same time, if you do this, you may be able to take advantage of hiring international workers that will work for less, and purchase international materials that will also be cheaper.

A: Great question, Mr. Granger, though not one I’m personally qualified to answer since I have not had direct experience with international sales. So like any good columnist without a clue I can either make up something and hope it sounds semi-intelligent or I can consult someone who really is an expert on international sales and let him answer your question. Since my agreement with The Times prevents me from fabricating anything other than my true age (I’m 29), let’s go with the latter.

I called on Jose Rodriguez, President of RISMED Oncology Systems, a Huntsville company that provides high medical technology to radiotherapy professionals around the globe, to get his input on the subject. Jose is an old friend and client and if anyone can give pointers on doing business internationally, Jose is the man.

Jose believes that the decision to do business beyond your own backyard should be based on your success as a local, domestic business first. “Unless the business is intended to be one that sells to international customers only, one should not jump into international business until they have devoted the time to develop a good local and domestic business first,” Jose recommends.

Here are a few other points Jose recommends that you keep in mind when considering an entry into the international business arena.

Instill Confidence In Your Customer
Regardless of the type of product or service you sell internationally, you must be ready to provide your international customer with an even higher level of service that you offer your domestic customers. To instill confidence in your international customers you might have to offer such things as around the clock telephone support, extended warranties, and other services that help the customer have confidence in doing business with you.

Know The Rules
You must understand all of the rules and regulations that govern international business practices in this country as well as those in your customer’s country. Understanding the rules will allow you to provide service beyond the expectation of the buyer and operate within the boundaries of the law.

Understand The International Shipping Process
If goods are being shipped internationally you must have a thorough understanding of shipping modes and regulations. Any difficulties with shipping will always be viewed by the buyer as the seller’s responsibility, right or wrong. Understanding the entire shipping process and having policies in place will help avoid shipping problems and keep the customer happy.

Work With Experienced Companies
Always look for experienced companies to work with, especially when if comes to shipping, insurance, freight forwarders, etc. Such companies are great allies and will help keep everything in order and will also help in solving problems related to their end of the process.

Telephony Solution with High-tech Features

VoIP PBX phone systems come with high-tech communication features that are commonly found in expensive telephone systems. These include call conferencing, custom-menus, find-me/follow-me call forwarding, auto attendant, voicemail, music on hold, voice to email, call waiting, fax to email, and more.

The built-in auto attendant functioning as the live receptionist presents your callers with a professional communication interface. It greets them with recorded salutation messages and helps them choose from a menu of options to route calls, including dial-by-department, dial-by-extension, and dial-by-name. This call answering system manages several calls arriving together with unbelievable efficiency. It redirects calls to appropriate extensions, call queues, conference rooms, mailboxes and groups promptly, without giving off engaged telephone line signals.

Voice and Fax Messages on Email Accounts

The feature-rich VoIP PBX phone systems are a great help to small business professionals with multiple offices and mobile workforce. You can communicate continuously with all your branch offices and employees without heavy investment in complex networks, software and hardware. Additionally, the stylish call forwarding feature allows you to answer incoming official calls on your alternate extension phones including home land phones and cell phones. Unanswered calls are instantly managed by the voicemail system, prompting callers to leave voice messages and eliminating all the chances of missing important calls during peak business hours. VoIP PBX phone systems allow voice and fax messages to be verified on your email account as well.

Additional Features

A feature-rich VoIP PBX phone system also offers toll free numbers and local phone numbers with the area codes of major cities. This helps you establish a virtual business presence in any location without having to set up additional physical offices. Further, you can even maintain several extensions from a single business number and expand your business with new departments at reduced cost.

Implementing a feature-rich, highly scalable and flexible VoIP PBX phone system helps accomplish the changing needs of your small business office. Choosing an established VoIP PBX service provider allows you to enjoy PBX features at nominal monthly charges. Browsing web-directories and yellow pages is the easiest way to locate reliable providers.