Imagine you've established a remarkable business here in the Netherlands and you wish to expand into the American market. Or perhaps you have a brilliant idea for a company or product that you aspire to launch in the United States. What's the best approach to accomplish this?
While the internet offers pages full of comprehensive information on every aspect of business operations, merely setting up your American INC or LLC is just the beginning. After all, your ultimate business objective is to achieve success in the USA.
Discover more below about how we can assist you in reaching this goal!
Expanding your business through international sales requires a decisive strategy that includes market research, planning, and execution. Below, we outline the key stages for growing your company with international sales and explain how our experts can assist you in this endeavor.
The Van Holland Group assists companies with preliminary research in the USA, helping to establish connections within the appropriate international network. Based on this personalized process, a market exploration or market entry can follow. This approach ensures you get the right American marketing focus, and you can even test the scalability of your plan with a pilot project.
It is essential to understand your target market. This involves gathering information about the economic, political, and cultural factors of the countries you are considering, as well as the demand for your products or services in those markets.
Before drafting your market entry plan, conducting a market exploration is necessary. Ideally, this should be done with the help of someone who knows the country well, has the right contacts, and a personal network. At the Van Holland Group, we have those connections—specialists who understand your industry and a network that includes key decision-makers at the companies you want to engage with. In this way, we support entrepreneurs with international growth ambitions, particularly in America.
A market exploration provides answers to several questions:
Exporting to another country often involves unforeseen costs. You need to factor these in when considering a profitable export plan.
Are you planning to use a freight forwarder or an agent? Or do you choose to open your own sales office? Generally, the barriers to entering the American market are significant. Language, culture, legislation, and the lack of a network are obstacles that we help remove.
Map out your international ambition clearly in organized steps:
Locating and identifying reliable partners and distributors should be among your initial steps when aiming to enter the American market. These partners can assist not only in efficiently entering the market but also in understanding and navigating local business practices and often complex regulations. Furthermore, they can be crucial in logistics, marketing support, and customer service.
The Van Holland Group has established strong local networks in Miami, Florida, and Houston, Texas. These local contacts are ready to assist with everything from product distribution and promotion to negotiating and resolving regulatory issues. With their local knowledge and experience, the process of entering new markets becomes significantly smoother and less risky. Therefore, consider seeking and cultivating such partnerships. Our team can make the difference between success and failure in your expansion efforts in the USA.
Tailor your marketing and sales strategies to fit the cultural and linguistic preferences of your target market. We assist companies in creating multilingual marketing materials and understanding local consumer behavior. Marketing in the United States is distinct from marketing in the Netherlands. Sometimes, simply translating or making minor adjustments isn't the optimal solution. In such cases, more than just a touch-up is required to shift from outbound to inbound marketing effectively.
Everyone encounters marketing throughout the day, whether it's through advertisements for detergents or other products promoting a happy life. With the rise of the internet, marketers know more about individuals than ever before. Target audiences have evolved into individual profiles.
When expanding your business to America, it's crucial to ensure your website and payment systems are tailored to this market. Your website often serves as the initial point of contact for customers, so it's essential for it to be user-friendly, reliable, and easy to understand, no matter the country. Make sure your site has fast loading speeds, intuitive navigation, an appealing design, and content that is relevant and adapted to diverse cultures and languages.
In the USA, we also adhere to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). These guidelines are part of a document developed and published by the World Wide Web Consortium as part of their Web Accessibility Initiative.
In practice, this is often seen as the Accessibility Tools button on American websites. It's important to ensure your site meets these standards as well.
In addition to ensuring your website is accessible and easy to use for everyone, it's crucial that your payment systems are secure, reliable, and user-friendly. They should support a variety of payment methods familiar to users in the United States, such as American credit cards and payment apps.
This is an area where the Van Holland Group, with our expertise, can add significant value. We can assist you in optimizing your website for an American audience and ensure that your payment systems can accommodate a diverse range of payment methods. With the right support, you can offer your customers a seamless and secure user experience, which in turn leads to higher customer satisfaction and loyalty. Remember, optimizing your website and payment systems is an ongoing process, and you should always strive for improvement to continually meet the needs of your customers.
Establish systems to manage international financial transactions and understand trade taxes and pricing discrepancies. The Van Holland Group can assist you by, for example, drafting contracts in multiple languages.
The American taxation landscape, while not deeply complex, requires careful attention. It involves federal legislation, state-specific laws, and local regulations. Expert advice from a Van Holland Group specialist can guide you through this process. We have our own CPAs (Certified Public Accountants) and collaborate with specialized International CPAs and IRS Tax professionals.
Additionally, for Dutch tax matters, we partner with an Enrolled Agent (EA) to provide comprehensive support.
An EA, or Enrolled Agent, is the highest credential awarded by the IRS, the U.S. tax authority, to an accountant.
International expansion is a dynamic process. By consistently monitoring your performance and being willing to adjust your strategy based on market feedback and changing conditions, you remain competitive and responsive to new opportunities and challenges. The Van Holland Group is your reliable partner in this journey.
By following these phases and relying on the expertise of professionals like the Van Holland Group, your company can effectively grow through international sales and entry into new markets, resulting in an expanded customer base and increased revenue streams.
Expanding into the world's largest market is a logical step. But where do you start?
If you are ready to make positive changes.
While it's not entirely comparable, an INC is somewhat like an American LLC.
We are pleased to provide a customized quote for your business in America.
The Van Holland Group provides you with the best information and reports to ensure your business in the USA is a success. Experience our straightforward approach—our pricing is fully transparent and available online. As an entrepreneur, you naturally want to know what to expect upfront!