b2b growth company

At MEET, we often refer to the dangers of viewing the U.S. market as a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. Yet, we understand where this view comes from. With its vast market size, large pool of high-quality talent, and abundance of hungry investors, it’s a hard opportunity to ignore. Particularly when your company has a strong team and traction at home. But sometimes we all need a reality check; something or someone that gives you pause, perspective, and practical guidance around how to sort fiction from fact, and where the best resources can be found. This is why we were so drawn to Question the Questions, a comprehensive resource guide to scaling in the U.S. market put out by Octopus Ventures. Headquartered in London with an office in New York, Octopus Ventures operates as part of a venture capital investment group that manages over £8.5 billion on behalf of 50,000 investors focused on supporting entrepreneurs in three key areas: industry, money, and health. On March 14th we had the pleasure of speaking with Priscila Bala, Head of the New York Office for Octopus Ventures and the driving force behind Question the Questions. Why do foreign companies need to reality check their plans to scale in the U.S. market? Priscila shared, “a number of entrepreneurs start from the base assumption that it’s inevitable they will go to the U.S. Some see it as a rite of passage—that if you have ambitions to become a market leader and a global company you must go to the U.S.” “While scaling to the U.S. market will be a step on the trajectory for ambitious global companies that want to disrupt a market, the data will also tell you that the U.S. is the graveyard of more companies than it is the bounty they expect.” What was the inspiration for the Question the Questions Resource Guide? “Question the Questions really came from this recognition that there are a number of assumptions that are made about the US market. It may feel familiar because of shared language, movies or news articles that constantly give you a false sense of confidence that it’s going to be a market like your own. In practice, this couldn’t be farther from the truth.” For that reason, Octopus wanted the Resource Guide to be incredibly practical and “battle-tested.” “It’s about what works in the real world, in the wild, with some of the most talented people, because even those people struggle like crazy.  That’s because what you’re up against is a really, really hard challenge.” What are the unique risks to U.S. market entry? For all the reasons why the U.S. market represents an unrivaled opportunity for foreign entrepreneurs looking to scale, Priscila warns of the double-edged sword. “In many cases, the U.S. may cannibalize your domestic product, create divisions in your team, and make you vulnerable in both your home and new market.” Priscila isn’t trying to dissuade any of her clients from scaling in the U.S. Rather, her goal is to ensure they are prepared and approaching the endeavor with eyes wide open. For many foreign companies, U.S. market entry is absolutely the right answer. Timing is key and unfortunately, many companies operate under false pretenses. She shared this common trend: “In the beginning, companies get really excited when they start to see some traction in their home market. Suddenly they feel like they can’t miss out on the opportunity to expand to the U.S.” Key insight: Make sure that your impetus to scale in the U.S. market is not simply based on a desire for faster growth. Changing the geography of an underlying problem, as Priscila points out, will lead to even greater setbacks. “Unless you understand exactly why it is that you’re not picking up the speed that you need, growth is not going to be faster in a bigger market. If anything, it might be even slower because now you’re diluted amongst all of the American and international startups.” Priscila advises that firms take a step back and consider their reasons for scaling to the U.S. market. “Our role is to push on them to understand the real causes of their growth. And if it turns out expansion to the U.S. is a great option, we sit down and figure out how to execute correctly.” There is no such thing as a free lunch. Investing in the U.S. is going to cost you something and you have to be ready for the trade-offs. We recommend you check out Question the Questions for a reality check on what it takes to scale successfully. To hear more from Priscila about the challenges and best practices to U.S. market entry, check out our full interview: Reviewing Octopus Venture’s Treatise on U.S. Market Entry: “Question the Questions.” For access to all of MEET’s webinar content on how to successfully scale your company in the U.S. market through trade shows and in-person events, subscribe to our YouTube Channel. About MEET (meetroi.com) helps international B2B growth companies soft land and scale in the U.S. through trade shows and in-person events. MEET’s processes help its clients ramp-up sales quickly and maintain a steady stream of high-quality prospects going forward.  Contact Bill Kenney for a free, no-obligation consultation bill@meetroi.com or +1 (860) 573-4821

With 75+ years of experience in trade shows and in-person events, we’ve witnessed many mistakes made by trade show exhibitors. Fortunately, they’re easy to fix—the first step is to recognize when you’re making them. At MEET, we help international B2B growth companies soft land and scale in the U.S. through trade shows and in-person events. We do this because we believe that trade shows deliver the most efficient way to get face-to-face with a target prospect. Failing to fully leverage trade show opportunities is a huge waste of time and resources. Our goal is to help you avoid that mistake and maximize your return-on-investment (ROI). Mistake #1: Thinking that “everyone” is a prospect As social beings, we sometimes experience a sense of fear of missing out (FOMO) when we make a commitment. Some of us also have scarcity mentality, the fear missing even one prospect. Translate these tendencies to your business strategy, and they present as the fears that cause you to continually expand your sense of your best target customer, or buyer persona. The result is a substantially diluted marketing message. In fact, the opposite is true.  A trade show strategy that fails to target narrowly defined buyer personas leads to more missed opportunities by literally clogging your booth with unqualified suspects while high-quality prospects walk by. The challenge with remedying this mistake is that prospects aren’t labeled. As a result, you need to devise a booth offer that targets a narrowly defined buyer persona, triggering these individuals to self-identify and enroll in your marketing funnel. The misconception that everyone who walks by your booth is a prospect = mistake number one. Mistake #2: Failing to proactively select your trade shows “Should we participate in this event?” is a question we get asked repeatedly. At MEET, we believe that question is best answered by a series of follow-up questions, specifically: What other events are you doing? How does this event fit into your annual trade show and marketing strategy? Who is this event targeting? Where does this event fit in our strategy? Or does it fit at all? If we participate, how should we participate? In essence, we aim to better understand the broader context, a.k.a the who, what, where, when, and why, to ensure that each trade show opportunity is a productive fit with your overall strategy. Mistake #3: Misaligned (or totally missing) call-to-action. Though seemingly straightforward, misaligned (or missing) calls-to-action are among the most common mistakes made by trade show exhibitors. Also known as a booth “offer”, a well-aligned call-to-action will attract qualified prospects on the trade show floor to stop, opt-in and engage with your marketing offer by enrolling with their contact information. For more on how to select a call-to-action that will attract high-quality prospects (not suspects), check out our Special Report: How to Maximize ROI with a Trade Show Strategy Plan, or reach out to us today. Pro-Tip: At all costs, avoid enter-to-win booth offers for items that you do not sell. The iPad giveaway is the most classic example. Offers such as these will overwhelm your sales and marketing teams with contacts who have very little interest in your product or service. Mistake #4: Placing salespeople in the booth. Salespeople are trained to deliver the knowledge and expertise needed to sell your product or service. This takes time, which in the booth is your most valued commodity. Placing sales people in the booth not only wastes time that could be spent enrolling greater numbers of qualified prospects, but it also eliminates opportunities to engage with those already in your sales funnel and those already doing business with you as well as build relationships with potential strategic partners, opinion leaders, and speakers. Interested in seeing how many more qualified prospects you can gain by simply replacing sales people in the booth with transaction professionals? Here’s how we do the math. Mistake #5: Inadequate follow-up and tracking Perhaps the easiest mistake for trade show exhibitors to make at the end of an exhausting event is forgetting (or not fully leveraging) follow-up and tracking. As with any commitment of time and resources, you want to know your ROI. Additionally, the contacts you make at trade shows are perishable. Coming up with an efficient system for immediate follow-up will help to ensure that hard work is not left to spoil. Pro tip: Some trade show exhibitors choose to stay an additional day at the event location to get all their follow-up done. This guarantees timeliness and protects against these activities getting sidelined upon return to the office. At MEET, we’ve devised tools that allow B2B growth companies to calculate precise metrics for each stage of their trade show strategy plan and gain valuable insights into areas of strength and opportunities for improvement. Contact us to learn more. For more perspective on how to remedy the top five most common mistakes made by trade show exhibitors, check out our Special Report: How to Maximize ROI with a Trade Show Strategy Plan. There’s a saying that mistakes are meant for learning, not repeating. Everyone makes mistakes. The trick is learning how not to repeat them. About MEET (meetroi.com) helps international B2B growth companies soft land and scale in the U.S. through trade shows and in-person events. MEET’s processes help its clients ramp-up sales quickly and maintain a steady stream of high-quality prospects going forward.  Contact Bill Kenney for a free, no-obligation consultation bill@meetroi.com or +1 (860) 573-4821.

For many companies across the globe, U.S. market entry represents unrivaled opportunity, a veritable pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. And while many international firms do find success on U.S. shores, others are forced to retreat with empty coffers. The decision to scale in any market is complex; one that requires numerous phases of self-reflection, evaluation, and calculated risk. Knowing when, and if, your company is ready for U.S. market entry is the first step. Support is out there—the key is to know where to look. At MEET, we help international B2B growth companies soft land and scale in the U.S. through trade shows and in-person events. In an effort to explore this question of when is the right time to consider U.S. market entry, we spoke with Blair Parks, U.S. and Canada Business Manager for the Mayor’s International Business Programme, London & Partners. The Mayor’s International Business Programme is a free 12-month program designed to help UK-based high-growth, ambitious scale-ups expand internationally. To learn more about the program, check out their site here. To help founders determine the right time for U.S. market entry, Blair explores a series of questions with her clients. Is your business solid and stable in your home market? Financial stability is the most obvious place to start. Does your company have the necessary investment capital on hand and in projected sales to afford U.S. market entry? Fortunately, through support from agencies like London and Partners, international scale-ups can be connected with U.S.-based firms specializing in tailored cost projections. Beyond financial stability, you’ll need a solid team. Blair makes sure her clients have the necessary support, from HR to legal, as well as employee buy-in for international expansion. Finally, Blair helps her clients gain a realistic understanding of the amount of time and energy it takes to set up internationally. “A lot of people don’t realize how much you’re going to have to travel back and forth to get this office set up. Make sure you’re at a place in your life when you can commit that time and energy.” Like sand in an hourglass, time does run out for firms exploring U.S. market entry.  Money, investor support, employee retention: all are limited resources during a high stakes expansion. This makes timing all the more critical. Is U.S. market entry the next best milestone for your company? Many international firms perceive the U.S. market not only as exciting but endlessly bountiful. Blair works with her clients to make sure that U.S. market entry is truly the next, most logical step and that they have considered other markets in Europe as well as Canada. “The U.S. may not always be the best place to scale first. Companies need to ask themselves: What is the competition in the U.S.? Is there a market? Logistical factors like time zone and ease of travel may make European expansion a good practice or interim step.” For data to support this decision, Blair encourages companies to drill down into their client data, even explore the source of their web traffic to which parts of the world their company is gaining the most traction. This will help to determine the next best market. Jumping in with both feet There are actual risks to only partially committing to U.S. market entry. Embracing the time and resources international expansion requires is a critical step in the scale-up process. “If you tell your prospective clients or even your current clients that you’re coming to the U.S. and it takes too long, it looks like you don’t have your house in order.” Whether you take Blair’s advice to send a senior manager from the home office to lead the expansion (see our post on common post-scaling pitfalls) or decide to scale digitally, your full commitment to the U.S. market must be visible. “Companies often get attracted by an opportunity and think this is a “hot time” to be in a particular city like San Francisco. If it’s really too soon or doesn’t make sense for you yet, I recommend waiting.” To learn more about this topic and the work of London & Partners, check out our full interview with Blair Parks on Issues and Opportunities when Endeavoring to Scale in the U.S. Market. About MEET (meetroi.com) helps international B2B growth companies soft land and scale in the U.S. through trade shows and in-person events. MEET’s processes help its clients ramp-up sales quickly and maintain a steady stream of high-quality prospects going forward.  Contact Bill Kenney for a free, no-obligation consultation bill@meetroi.com or +1 (860) 573-4821.