B2b search for clients of business partners abroad. Foreign intelligence: how to find a business partner abroad. Your pleasure from foreign economic activity is our pleasant concern

If you do not have established relationships with a supplier (manufacturer) / buyer of certain goods or services, or your existing supplier / buyer does not meet your business needs, LCM GROUP employees, who speak several foreign languages, will select for you the best counterparty for import or export, will conduct pre-contract negotiations on your behalf in order to obtain the optimal commercial offer from the supplier / buyer and prepare the basis for concluding a foreign economic contract.

These services are provided within the framework of a contractual relationship. The interaction is carried out as follows:

You are determined with the characteristics of the product, the supplier of which you want to find. The product must be described in such a way that specialists have a clear opportunity to identify it in the search process. Additionally, the client can provide the characteristics of a potential supplier (company size, productivity, age of the company, whether the supplier should be a manufacturer of the goods). Definition of the search region is mandatory. It can be understood as a specific country or group of countries. The more specifically the initial problem is formulated, the more likely the success of the supplier search is.
Before starting work, the specialists of the logistics company LCM GROUP analyze the reality of the implementation of the task set by the client.
The search for foreign suppliers is carried out with the involvement of agents of the international holding LCM GROUP in various countries, as well as using open and closed databases. Usually, specialists find several suppliers of the desired product. To determine the compliance of the supplier and the goods with the characteristics declared by the client, foreign economic activity specialists conduct preliminary negotiations with representatives of the supplier's company, as a result of which an idea is formed about the supplier and possible commercial conditions for cooperation with him.
If necessary, it is also possible to collect information about the supplier from third sources in order to check its reliability and business reputation in the market, as well as a qualitative analysis of the terms of cooperation that the supplier offers you and comparing them with the terms of alternative counterparties. We recommend checking at all stages of work, especially before signing the first foreign economic contract and transferring funds to the account of a foreign supplier.

Your pleasure from foreign economic activity is our pleasant concern!

Most modern companies sooner or later face the problem of expanding their sales markets, for which the management comes to the decision to search for partners abroad. Foreign suppliers can help expand a business, open a new direction, a foreign investor can help implement a start-up and develop an already successful business, a wholesale buyer from another country will help promote goods in other countries.

In any of these cases, if you need a foreign partner, you will need to go through several mandatory stages:

Find a potential partner;
Establish a connection with him;
Negotiate with him;
Enter into a business agreement.

In case of successful completion of all these stages, you can reap the fruits of your efforts in the future, because foreign partners are the right investment in the future development of your company.

How to look for a foreign partner?

Before starting the process of finding a partner from abroad, you have to prepare responsibly for this, because it is from preliminary preparation that success in achieving your goals will largely depend. At this stage, it will be necessary to collect information, assess supply and demand in the segment of work of potential partners. In addition, you will need to prepare presentation documents, moreover, in the language of the potential partner, or at least in English.

After that, you need to move on to the search process itself. The simplest and most obvious way today is to search for foreign partners on the Internet. To do this, you can use fairly well-known international communication portals - Facebook and Twitter, as well as professional networks - Linkedln, Xing and others. Moreover, LinkedIn is better suited if you are looking for partners in English-speaking countries or companies in which English is well known. But Xing.de is a portal that is actively used by partners who speak German. Considering that German, in terms of the number of Europeans speaking it, ranks first in the EU - this network contains a huge number of potential partners. Recently, a b2b platform has gained great popularity among Russian-speaking businessmen who want to find partners in other countries, the specifics of working with which will be discussed a little later.

The third stage will be to establish contact with a foreign partner. This can be done by e-mail, Skype, mobile messengers or the already listed professional networks. At the same time, the main thing is to correctly present your company - to show your idea, direction of activity, the advantages of your proposal for cooperation, as well as the benefit that the partner will receive. To do this, it is worth preparing a presentation in which you indicate:

The uniqueness of your company and its competitive advantages;
Which of these unique features may be of interest to a foreign partner;
Outline the target audience that will be interested in your proposal in the partner's country.

At this stage, the main thing is to convey to the partner why cooperation with your company will be beneficial for him.

The last stage is negotiations and signing of an agreement and, probably, this stage is the most difficult, more difficult than finding a potential partner. After all, your goal is to sign a long-term agreement that will be most beneficial for you, while your partner's desires are exactly the opposite. Business negotiations is a whole art and a lot will depend on the ability to understand someone else's mentality. Someone prefers quick negotiations, someone slow and thoughtful, in addition, each culture has its own formalities that must be respected during negotiations.

Features of interaction with the site

Naturally, the whole process of finding a partner takes a lot of effort, time, and sometimes nerves. This is why the platform became so popular right after its launch. After all, each stage of the search for partners from other countries is much easier here. All companies offering partnerships are grouped for ease of search by country of location, as well as by industry, which significantly saves time. In addition, the user of the platform can create his own proposal for cooperation and will be looking for it, which is much more effective.

For serious users of the platform, there is a BIS-agent service. In a nutshell, this is the outsourcing of partner search services, that is, placing this mission on the shoulders of the platform employees. All you need to do is create a request to find a foreign partner indicating the features that are important to you. Employees themselves will select the best options for cooperation from companies from more than 4 dozen countries around the world. You just have to choose the best offers in your opinion, negotiate and conclude an agreement.

For many companies, in the short or long term, the issue of bringing their company to the world market or working with foreign business partners remains relevant. Business partners are needed to start an enterprise, open a new direction, promote your own products or develop a project.
If you want to start a business (project) in a foreign market, then after you decide on a new market, you will need to find a potential business partner in this market, establish contact with him, build relationships and negotiate before the transaction. New, business connections are an investment in the future of your company and its development.
When looking for business partners, executives and top managers of companies face difficulties associated with:

lack of understanding of the most effective and less costly methods of finding potential business contacts abroad or incorrect use of these methods;
lack of a structured communication algorithm for building relationships with a business partner in order to conclude a deal on mutually beneficial terms;
with difficulties in communication associated with the specifics of communication with representatives of another culture, as well as the language barrier;
with the lack of a qualified team of specialists to conduct negotiations in order to achieve the most favorable conditions for cooperation.

There are two strategies for finding foreign business partners: “You are looking for” and “You are being found”. Undoubtedly, the second is more beneficial and interesting for you. It is more effective and will most likely bring maximum results - with minimal financial investment on your part.
However, no matter which strategy you choose, you will need to focus on five main steps. We recommend that you initially apply a kind of step-by-step algorithm to find partners. This algorithm is a generalizing model of the actions necessary to achieve the set goals through coordination and optimal distribution and planning of the entire process.

Step-by-step algorithm for working with business partners abroad: from search to deal

1. Planning and preparation.

At this stage, you choose an external market and collect the information that is needed to assess supply and demand in the segment you need. You will need to answer the questions: who are you looking for; why are you looking for them; and how you will search for them (choose sources of information and search strategies). Further, based on the idea of the desired segment, prepare presentation materials in a foreign language, in which do not forget to pay attention to the positioning of our company in the international market.
It is also necessary to realistically assess what tools and knowledge you lack. It is imperative to appoint a responsible person who will oversee the entire process of work on the project.

2 Search for business partners.

At this stage, you already have information about the resources with which you will search and you have a search plan.
You can search on your own: on the Internet (online) or by calling potential partners by phone or visiting exhibitions (offline), you can also attract qualified specialists to search.

Offline search

Your project can be presented by participating in or visiting an international exhibition, where during a personal meeting it is convenient to conduct preliminary negotiations and exchange experiences. Also at exhibitions you can see the development trends of the product group that interests you. Other important sources can be networking (forums, congresses), internships, business missions or assistance from various government agencies, associations, or contacting a consulting company in the country with business partners you want to work with.
Attraction of a consulting company to search for partners has certain advantages:

the fastest way to find business contacts;
the possibility of using specialists who are well aware of the language and specifics of finding business contacts and can establish contacts in accordance with local norms of business culture.
you can get expert advice on positioning and presentation;
increases the level of confidence in your company from the counterparty;
you do not need to go anywhere - all your questions in the country will be solved for you.

The service of searching for foreign partners can be accompanied by additional services: analysis of a segment of the market for a product or service, marketing research, organization and holding of business meetings and events.

Search online

We refer to the online resource fv social networks (Facebook and Twitter) and international professional networks such as LinkedIn, XING.com, Viadeo.
For example, LinkedIn is the most popular professional network in the world. The best way to find foreign business partners. LinkedIn can be extremely powerful, however very few people know and use this marketing tool effectively.
There are many thematic business platforms, for example in Europe - Europages, Asia - Made Chine, Alibaba. In the EU countries, corporate exchanges also operate as tools for finding partners.
The main advantage of using professional and social networks, as well as other Internet resources, is that your financial investments in the search for foreign business contacts are zero.

3. Establishing contact and interaction with a potential partner.

This stage can take place through personal meetings, professional networks, social networks, skype, e-mail, or a cold call. When contact is established, a presentation of your project is made. It is important: to clearly tell about yourself and your company, while at the same time attracting the interest of the interlocutor. Show your idea, direction of activity, proposal for cooperation and, of course, the benefits for the partner.

4. Presentation of the project.

At the stage of preparation and planning, you have already prepared all the marketing material and presentation of your company (project), now your task is to correctly present yourself and your company in front of a new foreign partner.
Work it out carefully for yourself again. next questions:

What is unique about your company / brand in comparison with your competitors both in the domestic and foreign markets?
Which of these features might be most important to your potential foreign business partners?
Which of these features are not inherent in your competitors or anyone else, but are important to your potential customers?
What is the best way to present your project or company proposal for your target audience in the country with which you are going to work?
Who can help you translate your USP into a foreign language and adapt the content to the mentality of a particular country?

Your main task now is to convey this to your potential business partner.
And remember ... that if your USP is not something that will bring tangible benefits to your potential partners or clients, then you can be sure that they will find those who can meet their needs.

5. Negotiation process.

Negotiations are also an important factor in building a business contact. Your goal is a successful deal and a contract on the most favorable terms. And do not forget that you must plan ahead - as the partner will always be more loyal to consider the contact in the long term.
Business communication is an art and a lot depends on intercultural communication, as you work in the international market.
It is worth remembering: "When speaking with a person in the language that he understands, you speak to his head. If you speak to a person in his native language, you speak to his heart." - Nelson Mandela
Cultural and mental differences play an important role. For example, for negotiations in one country, time is money. In another country, on the contrary, slow negotiations are better, because cause more confidence in the other side. Culture has a profound effect on people's behavior, how they think and communicate. It also affects the negotiation process between representatives of different countries.
For example, when negotiating with the Germans: they work out their position very carefully in advance, and during negotiations they like to discuss issues sequentially, one after another. They, as a rule, enter only those negotiations in which they see enough the possibility of finding a solution. Much attention is paid to charts, numbers and graphs.
While the Chinese usually clearly distinguish between separate stages: the initial clarification of positions, their discussion and the final stage. At the initial stage, the Chinese pay great attention to the appearance of partners, the manner of their behavior. On these grounds, they determine the status of each of the participants, and then they are guided only by people with a higher status, both official and unofficial. 80% of the time is spent on building personal relationships only at the end of the conversation switches to business.
Each culture has its own formalities that negotiators must respect. Therefore, before coming to a business meeting with foreign partners, careful preparation is required. This will help you easily reach mutual understanding with people from other countries, build a strategy for cooperation with foreign partners, and may play an important role in concluding a profitable contract.
Therefore, in conclusion, I would like to say that the main secret of success is a well-developed algorithm or strategy for working with foreign business partners: from search to deal, with special attention paid to the peculiarities of the culture and specifics of doing business in the country of your potential business partner.

For more details on the topic, we talk in our webinar "Where and how to look for business partners in the EU?"

Inna Armstrong,
international business consultant, expert with 15 years of practical experience in international cooperation and negotiating with business partners in Germany and China. Founder and CEO of NueVenture Global, General Representative of the Soyuzconsult network of international experts in Germany. Leading expert of the portal "Exporters of Russia".
armstronginna.com
neuventure-global.com

Daria Recker,
international business consultant with 13 years of practical experience, specialist in starting a company using the bootstrapping method, specialist in international sales and marketing. Member of the Association of Irish Consultants, owner of several businesses, General Representative of the network of international experts "Unionconsult" in Ireland.
neuventure-global.com

LinkedIn or Xing to find foreign business partners?

For many companies, in the short or long term, the topic of bringing their company to the world market or working with foreign business partners remains relevant. However, most of them face the question where and how to look for potential business contacts abroad.

In 2003, two of the most popular professional platforms were created: LinkedIn in the USA and Xing in Germany. Both platforms have the same goal of bringing online businesses and professionals together.

Xing and LinkedIn are business networks that are similar to social networks, but there is one difference - all events, accounts, discussions are exclusively professional in nature, not personal.

These platforms will help you and your business if you:

Looking for foreign business partners, investors or clients.
Do you want to directly contact top managers of companies abroad.
You are looking for new effective opportunities to promote your business (project) with minimal investment.
You want to effectively use the Internet in your business, quickly find and strengthen new business connections.
Look for qualified foreign specialists.
Want to create a strong online positioning for your company.
Want to draw attention to your business (project).

Today, the most famous professional platform for finding foreign business partners around the world is LinkedIn... In Ukraine, this network is also gaining popularity.

The second, less well-known professional network, which few people in Ukraine know about - XING. DE. XING is especially popular in German-speaking countries, so if you are doing business, looking for business partners or foreign specialists in Switzerland, Austria or Germany, this platform can be especially useful for your business and can become the main source for finding business partners or clients abroad.

Many people wonder whether it is worth choosing one network or registering a profile in both networks at the same time. On the one hand, LinkedIn has 313 million users in over 200 countries. On the other hand, Xing, with only 14 million users, is predominantly from the German-speaking region of Europe.

Statistics show that the leaders of all successful global companies are registered on LinkedIn. In addition, about 40% of users of this network log into it daily. LinkedIn has about 2.1 million and over 3 million companies showcasing their brand and offerings.

Xing is the largest professional network in Europe. More than 40% of users are in management positions, where about 90% of premium users visit the network regularly. Xing has over 50,000 specialized teams.

Both networks share great similarities, but LinkedIn offers more opportunities to promote your business. For example, the sales navigator ( LinkedInSalesNavigator) helps salespeople quickly find distribution channels. Thanks to this tool, you can receive updates on the companies and individual employees of the companies that are of the greatest interest to your business. LinkedInSalesNavigator has advanced search capabilities of the LinkedIn database and you have the ability to search through news feed updates. In addition, the news feed is more structured, thanks to a breakdown of updates by company, company representative, which helps in finding news for a more structured approach to doing business with different companies internationally.

Xing is doing better in finding jobs for workers and finding employees for companies. Xing focuses on collaboration with Germany's popular job site Kununu. But LinkedIn is also very actively used by recruiting companies for recruiting. That is why there is a paid option specifically for HR employees.

Xing's functionality gives it an edge over LinkedIn, allowing users to not only find events that match their interests, but also create and promote their own. In addition, Xing has organized a powerful program of regional representatives who are responsible for organizing events and are the liaison in promoting events on the network. This network is quite strong in cities in Germany, Austria and Switzerland and could be the key to penetrate these regions.

Compared to Xing, LinkedIn users have a wider geographic distribution. For a business operating in the international marketplace, LinkedIn will be the most attractive. However, Xing is more developed in Europe (especially in Germany, Austria and Switzerland). This makes it an ideal platform for businesses that develop in the region.

Most of the users of both professional networks are over 35 years old. LinkedIn attracts older users because it positions itself more as a platform for business development and business contacts, which allows it to attract new clients and create its own professional image.

One example is related to Xing. Dell, entering the OEM market, was in dire need of new contracts, but cold calls will not bring big contracts. Contracts that generate millions in profits are rarely cold-called. To conclude one of the major deals in the SME market in Germany, the first contact with the director of the company was established through Xing. The director of the company, which at that time was using a competitor's OEM (), was invited to join for networking and discuss partnership issues. The director accepted the invitation and sent the contact details. After communicating with the director, the data of the person who dealt with the technical side of the issue was received. After 9 months, a contract for 2 million euros annually was nailed as a result.

Many examples can be cited in relation to LinkedIn. Through this professional network, several important offline contacts were found to negotiate the $ 7 million deal that were not listed in the contact database. Why? Because the network has shown its dynamism in terms of updates within the company, which cannot be reflected so quickly in static databases.

Summing up, I would like to note that if you are interested in finding partners and developing business around the world, then your network is. If you work in Germany, Austria or Switzerland, or are developing a business and looking for partners in this region, Xing is a great option. However, there is a tendency to create accounts in two professional networks at once.

Complete your professional profile as much as possible on one or another platform as a leader in English, tell us about you and your business.
Try not only to invite your friends and colleagues to your contacts, but also to connect with new people in your industry from different countries and regions. The wider the circle of your international acquaintances, the greater the prospects for the development of your company in the international market
Don't forget to recommend your colleagues and business partners. The more you give, the more recommendations you will receive in return, which creates a certain level of trust in you.
Create your topic group and start filling it with useful content, articles and recommendations.
Be sure to optimize your profile for search engines by adding the keywords you want in the text.

Start building your international base now! Good luck.

The first question that arises for companies planning international expansion: where and how to look for business contacts abroad? Inna Armstrong, founder and CEO of NeuVenture Global in Germany, shared her thoughts on this topic.

Click to enlarge

Stages of export development

1. Market selection

What criteria does your company use to select a target market? When we ask this question, the answers we get are very different:

Have already worked with local partners or been on business trips in a certain country, there is an understanding of how business is conducted there.
A large number of requests from a specific country.
The assumption that this particular market is promising.

All of these rationales are understandable. Depending on the specifics of the business, when choosing a market, it is necessary to rely on 2 main strategies:

If you are a manufacturer of goods or services, you can collect statistics through desk research using TN VED product codes, making inquiries on sources such as trademap.org, Eurostat Statistical Office of the European Union, United Nations Commodity Trade Statistics Database, World Trade Organization Trade Profiles , FITA and an international directory of trade and professional associations.
If you have innovative products, then collecting information should be done using a different strategy - from the first hand of your potential partners or customers. You can collect a list of research institutes in the target country and contact them for any interest in collaborating.

2. Determination of the target audience

For some companies, a direct sales strategy works, for others it is easier to go through an indirect export strategy, finding 1-2 potential partners. If, for example, take, say, for developers of mobile offers or software, you can search for direct customers by sending commercial offers to companies directly, or find potential partners to get into the pool of their subcontractors. When there are projects that are relevant to you, they will call you and offer to set your price.

If, for example, you are a furniture manufacturer, then you should think about how best to enter the market: look for large distributors, in this case the sales cycle will most likely be longer than going to small Internet or retail stores with an invitation to cooperation. From practice, in the latter case, price proposals will play an important role. It will be very important to clearly highlight your competitive advantage. Another option that few people know about is participation in tenders in the EU. You may not win the tender the first few times, but this is a good chance to get highlighted.

3. Areas and ways of finding information

You can use both paid and free platforms to search for information in a new market. The latter, for example, include LinedIn, Xing, Viadeo, Switchboard Yellow Pages, Europages, or Kompass (a business directory containing information on more than two million companies in 70 countries).

4. Distribution of the scope of search in the company

You can search on your own or involve specialists. At the same time, specialists can manually select potential partners through the above resources or purchase contacts from paid databases for further development. For example, if you buy a database of more than a thousand potential partners in the segment of art materials (look for suppliers in the EU countries), you should roughly understand that up to 20-25% of contacts will not always be targeted, and the first stage in the development of the database by your outsourced employees will be it. qualification and further updating. From our experience, as a rule, it follows that the sample for the paid base is about 1235 contacts falling under the segment, of which 239 are manually qualified as potential, 39 are selected as the highest priority, of which 7 have the maximum number of products on demand. After elaboration, it turns out that 6 companies buy products from the 7th, which is the main supplier on the market. Bingo!

5. Search strategies

In any undertaking, the main thing is strategy. By developing business both in the domestic and foreign markets, you can use 2 main strategies: you are looking for or you are found. We have already considered where you can look for business contacts abroad on your own or with the help of specialists, let's see how you can attract the attention of foreign partners to your project.

First, these are profiles and groups in professional and social networks in a foreign language (,.

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