What is the marketplace?  In the old days the business marketplace was associated with those people you came in contact with in your day-to-day operations or those people drawn to your business from the neighborhoods surrounding your business.  You would send out a few flyers or place a few ads in the local paper all in order to inform your local clientele of the products or services available to them from your business.  

Your local clientele would then respond to your advertisements and come in to buy your products or ask for your service. With the advent of the Internet the marketplace is anywhere, at anytime and with anyone.  All you need is a website and a little imagination and you will be reaching customer worldwide.

What is the marketplace?  That was then this is now.  Over the last twenty or so years the business marketplace has changed drastically by the advent of increased Internet usage. Individuals or companies doing business are no longer locked into one geographic location or into one type of client.  All you need to do is to purchase a domain name that reflects who you are as a business and then put yourself out on the World Wide Web.

With the advent of the Internet though does come some need to be alert and ready for any changes that may come your way in the form of communication problems with your customer’s or problems due to distance when it comes to the shipping of goods or performance of services overseas.  These changes can be an asset or a hindrance to your business but there are 10 things you can do to insure global marketplace success.

1. Look at the global marketplace as an asset to your business.

The overseas market is a growing and for is largely untapped.  If you get a small percentage of the customers that are out there your business will grow enormously.   I t is a fact that 95% of the population lives outside the United States but only 10& of the companies do business outside the US

2. Build your global business from the ground up.

Set it your mind what you want to do globally and then build that business in your mind and on paper.  Once you understand what it takes to do business globally then you can move forward.

3. Have a plan

Do not try to take your company or service global without first mapping out your course of action.  Your plan should include market research, what markets you plan on entering, the products or services you are going to market and so on.  Include any detail you think will be needed.

4. Get to know your customers

Make sure you know who you are selling to in order to initiate the first sale, cultivate a relationship with the customer and maintain that relationship for a long time to come.

5. Keep a track record

Even before your first sale make sure you have picked safe and efficient payment method and prepared any quotations or ads to reflect your pricing structure.  After each sale respond as quickly as possible to the customer and let them know that you will be, preparing and shipping their product,  Also make sure you document everything as much for your protection against fraud as it is to track repeat customers

6. Lay the bricks of your online business

Once you have a customer don’t let them go.  Lay some bricks and build your business by offering free services products, whatever it takes with the word free in it to encourage repeat business.  Also add a degree of professionalism to your business by checking back with the customer to see if the product or service was adequate. 

Remember a moment of unprecedented professionalism will keep your customer’s deeply impressed

7. View each day as a learning experience

We live to learn and as we learn we live.  View each day of your global business as a learning experience, because as your business continues to grow you will need to become more cultural conscious taking particular care to learn the values and concerns of your overseas customer’s

The more you learn the more comfortable you will become in the world marketplace.

8. Look to the Future

Do not spend your time concentrating on your present success, but set your sights on the future. Your business depends on vision and having vision means that you are constantly looking at what is to come: changing trends in the marketplace, new products, new international laws, whatever it is that will affect your business.

The key is to act on what you see as the changing trends in the marketplace in order to expand your business instead of reacting when the changes come and then trying to play catch up with your competition.

9. Keep expanding

By constantly seeking out new ways to promote your business, new markets to present your business to and alliances, partnerships or ventures with businesses unlike your own but which will compliment your business in the global marketplace.

It is always wise to reach out your hand in order to grasp new markets through honorable means in order to build relationship and economic ties in other countries and cultures.  This is an ever-shrinking world and to think that you hae reached all of it would be a mistake on your part. So keep seeking in order to keep expanding in the local as well as global marketplace

10. Don’t be a victim of business success

Or think that you cannot do more.  Realize that there is no comfort level when it comes to doing business in any marketplace, local or global.  As the old saying goes “he who hesitates is lost”.   Sure your sales will come but do not sit back and wait thinking that you have made it. 

Keep reinventing and redefining who you are and what you expect from yourself and your business. Customers constantly demand more products, of a better quality, with faster delivery times than ever before.  In order to meet customer’s demands you will need to constantly build on each success, without becoming a victim of that success.

This is only a quick view of the marketplace and how it is constantly changing.  In order

To succeed you will constantly need to keep on learning about what works and what doesn’t work in your marketplace.