Anonymous asks, apropos the post below...
Nevertheless what happens if I want to "test the hypothesis" of a product I want to export instead of import to my own country?
I mean in your course you mentioned that if I want to import a product with my designs I should first go the customer (retailers) and ask them about the product I wanna design until they say "It´s a good idea that doesn´t exist"....
Which proceeds from the premise that you have experienced a problem and found joy in developing a solution. It presumes that this business is about you, and not about the accident of having some irrelevant connection to some country overseas.
However what can I do if I wanna export my product to foreign countries? I mean I don´t have the money to go to these countries and to go to each retailer of those foreign countries to "test my idea".
International Trade 101: Your domestic market is always your biggest market. The exception is the export trading company, and extremely difficult game to get into, usually reserved for the old hands. (Again, covered in the text.)
What would you do in that situation John? (If you don´t have the $$$ to travel those countries...)
Money is never, ever the problem in business. If someone says they do not have enough money to do something, HEAR the truth: they do not have enough customers to do something. It costs no money to prove customers. Yes, you can spend money proving customers, and people often do, but that would be a waste of money. The only legitimate bar to advancing is business is to say "I do not have my design good enough yet."
Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.
Nevertheless what happens if I want to "test the hypothesis" of a product I want to export instead of import to my own country?
So, assuming you mean you desire to export from the USA, while in the USA, back to your home country, then you run into a couple of problems. The first of which is the very high probability of the error of "organizing around a resource." By targeting your home country, you are guessing that life will be easy because you know the market, speak the language, you can easily find customers, or "import overseas to yourself" among other delusions.
But instead of me cataloging the litany of problems you can and will run into, I say, as usual, form a hypothesis and test it. For example, you may say, "I can sell Hershey Chocolate into Sweden and get enough orders to cover the suppliers minimum in a workable amount of time, profitably." Then test that hypothesis. (In chapter eight of How Small Business Trades Worldwide - linked below) I run down the decision tree of whether to go/no go.
I mean in your course you mentioned that if I want to import a product with my designs I should first go the customer (retailers) and ask them about the product I wanna design until they say "It´s a good idea that doesn´t exist"....
Which proceeds from the premise that you have experienced a problem and found joy in developing a solution. It presumes that this business is about you, and not about the accident of having some irrelevant connection to some country overseas.
However what can I do if I wanna export my product to foreign countries? I mean I don´t have the money to go to these countries and to go to each retailer of those foreign countries to "test my idea".
International Trade 101: Your domestic market is always your biggest market. The exception is the export trading company, and extremely difficult game to get into, usually reserved for the old hands. (Again, covered in the text.)
What would you do in that situation John? (If you don´t have the $$$ to travel those countries...)
Money is never, ever the problem in business. If someone says they do not have enough money to do something, HEAR the truth: they do not have enough customers to do something. It costs no money to prove customers. Yes, you can spend money proving customers, and people often do, but that would be a waste of money. The only legitimate bar to advancing is business is to say "I do not have my design good enough yet."
If you look at the graph in my text on page 20, you see the dark band that says "the ocean..." as an importer, you are the importer to the right of that band, in the USA, and the agent overseas is the exporter. being an exporter in the usa is just to flip that chart, you are the agent in the usa, and the importer is overseas (or, you are the factory in the usa, exporting directly or through an agent in usa.)
With this in mind, it is the importer overseas who is doing the "competing on design." It is the importer overseas who is testing the hypothesis, and having found that you are the best place in the world to have the product made.
P.S. The woman in the picture... Is she your wife? you look cute together.That is a sister... and thanks for the compliment.Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.
2 comments:
Thanks for replying John. But I focused into exporting because I live in a country with a population of 17 million hab.
I mean the market would be too small to import a product, even if it is a "good idea that doesn´t exist" that is why I think that would be better exproting my idea to bigger markets like the USA.
My country is too small... I mean how can I compare my own country with 17 millions with the USA with over 300 mill? Hence the question I made before...
Thanks again for replying John. Take care and good luck in your business endeavors although you don´t need it...
Hmmm... Norway has 4 million people and a lively "compete on design" industry... How do you know "My country is too small..." You are only guessing.
I see this happen all the time. People guess, and then defeat themselves. "Can't be done." In business, since we cannot possibly know anything, we must test everything.
If I sell something in the USA, I am selling to a tiny market. Who cares if it is 350 million people, what marketing I do reaches less than few hundred thousand people if that. Do you think because there are 350 million people in USA all 350 million people consider your product?
Say it cost you only 10 cents an impression to reach all 350 million people... that means you would spend $35 million to contact each once (say with google ads). If you have no intention, or the means of spending $35 million dollars on ads right now, then the fact there are 350 million people is utterly irrelevant.
What you do not know is if you reached several hundred thousand people in your country of 17 million would they be so delighted someone finally designed for them that you would actually do better faster? Is your marketing system slicker in your country of 17 million (or more rational) than USA, and therefore more effective?
If everyone "knows" "My country is too small..." then that is the most likely thing to test first... because "everyone" is almost always dead wrong.
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