How to Expand Internationally – In Just 7 Minutes with Cynthia Dearin

Resources/Links:

• Want to know more on how you can go global? Join Go Global Go Getters

Summary

Have you been feeling overwhelmed and stuck doing guesswork? Do you always end up having little-to-no traction at all?

You can’t rush global expansion just because you got 1-2 international orders– that’s the hard truth. However, if you feel like you’re ready to go global, it’s not supposed to be stressful, time consuming and costly!

Cynthia Dearin is an international business strategist who helps business leaders create game-changing international strategies. She established Dearing & Associates when she realized that, although there has never been a better time for companies of all sizes to go global, most don’t know where to start.

Sit back and grab a drink while Cynthia shares how can YOU expand globally with little stress, high assurance, and better leads at an international level.

Check out these episode highlights:

• 01:43 – Cynthia’s ideal client: I love to work with companies, often manufacturing companies, turning over between $2 and $20 million who are looking to go global. Sometimes these will be established companies that have kind of run out of runway in their home market.
• 03:11 – The problem she helps solve: So, look, it’s often not knowing where to start, as you said, at the top. You know, seeing an opportunity and thinking, “How do we tackle this?”, or maybe, some of the other common problems that you see are things like overwhelm.
• 04:02 – The symptoms of the problem: Well look, some of those things that I mentioned a minute ago, so maybe spinning their wheels, lots of activity, but not much traction or lots of opportunity, and feeling overwhelmed because you don’t know which direction to go to.
• 05:01 – Clients’ common mistakes before consulting Cynthia: Yeah, look, I think multiple’s everything– multiple markets, multiple client types, multiple channels to market, multiple marketing approaches. It’s just too much of everything. I think also, taking an ad hoc approach.
• 05:59 – Cynthia’s Valuable Free Action (VFA): Get laser-focused. This is my absolute number one top tip.
• 07:04 – Cynthia’s Valuable Free Resource (VFR): Want to know more on how you can go global? Join Go Global Go Getters
• 07:56 – Q: You should have asked me about the painting that’s over my left shoulder here. A: My uncle painted it for me when I was four. His name is Cedric. He’s gone all around the world with me and some people think he was taking drugs. The guy in the future, not my uncle.

Tweetable Takeaways from this Episode:

“Get laser focused. This is my absolute number one top tip.” -Cynthia Dearin Share on X

Transcript
(Note, this was transcribed using a transcription software and may not reflect the exact words used in the podcast)

Tom Poland 00:10
Welcome, everyone, to another edition of Marketing the Invisible. I’m Tom Poland joined today by Cynthia Dearin. Cynthia, a very warm welcome. Where are you hanging out?

Cynthia Dearin 00:19
I’m in Sydney today, Tom.

Tom Poland 00:21
Sydney and is it wet, as you’ve had your wettest year? Was it something like 158 years, I think? Is it wet today or is the sun shining?

Cynthia Dearin 00:29
It’s neither. It’s kind of ominously gray and threatening to rain but not raining right this second.

Tom Poland 00:36
All right. We’ll get off climate, change the subject, and back to you. For those of you who don’t know Cynthia, she has got a fascinating background in foreign affairs and international relationships. It’s really led her to today where she is the international business strategist here in Australia. She helps business leaders create game-changing international opportunities. And it is absolutely fascinating once we get our blinkers off and stop thinking about our own town, city, state, country, or wherever you are in the world and cast your eyes to the enormous opportunity that you could be presented with if you go global. Cynthia established Dearin & Associates when she realized that, although there’s never been a better time for companies of all sizes to go global, most of us don’t even know where to start. So, Cynthia, I’m here by all ears. Let’s kick off our- oops, are seven minutes. Don’t hit the ‘end’ button, Tom! The seven minutes start button, here we go. Our seven minutes start now. Question number one is who is your ideal client?

Cynthia Dearin 01:43
Great question! So I love to work with companies, often manufacturing companies, turning over between $2 and $20 million who are looking to go global. Sometimes these will be established companies that have kind of run out of runway in their home market. And they’re looking around and thinking, “Hmm, not sure if we can grow too much more here. Wonder what we could do overseas.” Some companies who’ve never done anything before, and have just seen an opportunity and thought, “Let’s check that out.” And some companies who’ve had a go at selling internationally or expanding internationally, they’ve done it in a fairly ad hoc way. And it just hasn’t worked out how they’d hoped. And so they’re coming around for another go to try and do it better. All three of those types of companies are the ones that I love to work with, to help them create and accelerate a strategy into a new international market.

Tom Poland 02:30
It sounds like the common denominator is they’ve got something that’s working in their domestic market.

Cynthia Dearin 02:36
Most of the time. I mean, you know, occasionally, there are companies like the company, aussieBum, which was the company that made men’s undies and sent them out on a subscription service, one pair a month. Their business started here in Australia and totally tanked. So the founder went off and raise capital in the US and really started the business over in the US. And then when it was global, brought it back here. But that’s kind of an outlier. So most people, yeah, have got something that’s already working for them at home. And they’re looking to take that and spread it around the world.

Tom Poland 03:05
Perfect! Thank you for that. Five and a half minutes left, how would you define the problem that you solve for these clients?

Cynthia Dearin 03:11
So, look, it’s often not knowing where to start, as you said, at the top. You know, seeing an opportunity and thinking, “How do we tackle this?”, or maybe, some of the other common problems that you see are things like overwhelm. People have gone into international markets, and it’s not working as well as they had hoped. They’re doing a lot of different things. They’re expending time, money, and energy. There’s a sense of overwhelm. They don’t know which thing they should do next. It’s like whack a mole, but they’re really not getting the traction that they need. And really some fog, thinking, “Gosh, I can see this isn’t working, but which of these problems do we solve? You know, which levers we pull to make this thing go faster?” And that is really what I help with.

Tom Poland 03:49
Great description! Just over four and a half minutes left. Just a few, question number three is what are the symptoms that your ideal clients are feeling before they engage with your services? What’s going on that would give them kind of a heads up that they should be reaching out to talk to you?

Cynthia Dearin 04:02
Well look, some of those things that I mentioned a minute ago, so maybe spinning their wheels, lots of activity, but not much traction or lots of opportunity, and feeling overwhelmed because you don’t know which direction to go to. So sometimes, people come and say, “I’ve got five markets in mind. Let’s do five markets!” And at the same time, they’re looking incredibly stressed. And I usually say, “That’s a terrible idea. Let’s do one!” You know, so, then, going on guesswork. You know, people are thinking, “Or I can try this, but I’m not really sure that this is gonna work.” So yeah, guesswork, no traction or low traction, and that feeling of overwhelm.

Tom Poland 04:38
Yeah, one of the secrets of success is you don’t really have to be that smart. You just have to be smart enough to know how dumb you are and reach out for help.

Cynthia Dearin 04:46
Know what you don’t know.

Tom Poland 04:47
Yeah, know what you don’t know, and be prepared to find someone that can help you with that. So talking about that, question four, what would you say are the couple of top mistakes that people make when they launch oversea? You’ve probably already mentioned one, trying to tackle multiple marketing.

Cynthia Dearin 05:01
Yeah, look, I think multiple’s everything– multiple markets, multiple client types, multiple channels to market, multiple marketing approaches. It’s just too much of everything. I think also, taking an ad hoc approach. People often go global because they get inquiries coming in from overseas. And they think, “Oh, that must be where the market is” when in fact, maybe it’s just one or two orders coming in. I had a conversation with a company the other day that is turning over $6 million. And when I asked how many countries they were selling to, they said “A hundred!”. And I said, “You’re selling into 100 countries, and you’re only making $6 million? That’s an average of $60,000 a country.” But what it means is, some countries are probably making them $10 a year, and some are making a bit more than that. But that kind of company is doing way too much and getting a subpar results. And that’s a pretty serious mistake.

Tom Poland 05:50
Thank you. Two and a half minutes left. Question five, a top tip, if you like. A valuable free action that’s not gonna solve the whole problem, but it might take folks a step in the right direction. What do you get?

Cynthia Dearin 05:59
Get laser focused. This is my absolute number one top tip. We can’t really do it here because some people are just listening on audio, but if I can get you to imagine a pyramid in your mind, and the pyramid has got six layers in it. In the bottom layer, it says “Market”, so million dollar market. The next layer says “Ideal international client”. The next layer says “Powerful product”. The next one says “Attraction channel”. The next one says “Powerful promotions”. The next one says “One year”. What I want you to do is think about one answer for each category. So what I try and get my clients to do is to focus down to one market that they want to focus on, one country that’s going to deliver them a million dollars or their next million, one type of client that they’re going to target for a start, one product or a great small weight of products, not every SKU that you have, one go-to-market approach. So you’re doing e-commerce or you’re doing just one distribution or direct, but pick one, and then one marketing approach, and then do it for one year. Dial it in and do it for one year. Stop trying to do, you know, 15 things in each category.

Tom Poland 06:59
Fabulous model! Where can people go to find out more about your work?

Cynthia Dearin 07:04
I released, earlier this year, a book, Business Beyond Borders: Take Your Company Global. If you’d like a free copy of that, and if you don’t mind, read a PDF, you can get it in our private Facebook group, which is called the Go Global Go Getters. So if you go to Facebook and type in Go Global Go Getters, you can find it there. If you would like a hard copy, you can go to our website dearinassociates.com and navigate to the “Book” page. You can get a hard copy there. You can also get it on Amazon if you prefer to do that. Those are a couple of ways that you can find out about what I do. The blueprint is in the book, pretty much.

Tom Poland 07:39
The book is Business Without Borders. You can go to dearinassociates, D-E-A-R-I-N, associates.com. Buy a copy there or go to the Facebook group, Go Global Go Getters. We’ve got 20 seconds left. Cynthia, what’s the one question I should have asked you, but didn’t?

Cynthia Dearin 07:56
You should have asked me about the painting that’s over my left shoulder here and-

Tom Poland 07:59
We’ve got 15 seconds. Tell us about the painting.

Cynthia Dearin 08:02
My uncle painted it for me when I was four. His name is Cedric. He’s gone all around the world with me and some people think he was taking drugs. The guy in the future, not my uncle.

Tom Poland 08:11
That’s amazing. Cynthia, thanks so much for your time and your insights!

Cynthia Dearin 08:14
Great to meet you, Tom!

Tom Poland 08:16
Thanks for checking out our Marketing The Invisible podcast. If you like what we’re doing here please head over to iTunes to subscribe, rate us, and leave us a review. It’s very much appreciated. And if you want to generate five fresh leads in just five hours then check out www.fivehourchallenge.com.