Dec 14, 20202 min read

Tips for Internationalisation and B2B Sales

Updated: May 7, 2021

How to successfully internationalise and how does your company overcome boundaries to international growth and B2B sales? These and more questions were addressed during a recent Internationalisation and B2B Sales Summit hosted by Endeit Capital and weGrow-International.

Panel discussion on internationalisation

Ilan Goudsmit of Endeit Capital kicked off the event by introducing the hosts and highlighting the importance of the changed dynamics of internationalisation and B2B sales due to Covid-19 and whether some changes will become permanent. Florent Coudyser, weGrow co-founder moderated the internationalisation panel with Barend Raaff (Harver), Martjin Hamann (Endeit Capital) and Roland Schaber (xClip). The main takeaways of this panel are:

Go is all in and know the price it will cost. Overplan budget and time for internationalisation. Anticipate the struggle and the competition in order to stay ahead.
Emphasize the importance of a local team & local insights. Think of training the local team and networking with potential local clients and suppliers in order to have a foothold in the market you are trying to penetrate. Have a specialised person abroad to be more effective, and make sure one of the founders is heavily involved.
Investor and company needs to fit. This is very important because it's a long-term relationship. You need to find a strategic key partner, someone that will be there for the good and the bad times but also has experience with internationalisation in target markets.
Understand to which extent you need to adjust and adapt - focus on your company and the industry needs. Be aware of local regulations and culture, and mitigate risks. Define what is important and have a growth mindset that is structured.
Think BIC: Believe, Innovate & Internationalise and Collaborate. - do not be scared and go for it!

Watch the video here 👉 https://youtu.be/S_OiX3i2fK0 👈

B2B Sales & Marketing

The internationalisation panel was followed by an expert talk from Shimon Ben Ayoun (MD & founder of SpotOnVision), key takeaways are;

Changes in B2B sales & B2B marketing due to Covid-19 are here to stay – there has been a “permanent transformation” in how potential buyers research and like to interact with B2B companies. Start- and scale-ups need to place the buyer journey in the center of everything, and therefore adapt their strategy, processes and resource allocation to this.
Refocus your sales and marketing efforts to facilitate B2B purchases and the buyer journey. Use omni channels to engage, create content and use the right channels and information for hyper-automated engagement with customers such as using a personalised ROI calculator for a specific solution or website personalisation.