For some entrepreneurs, opening international markets is part of the job. For others, it requires a new model for providing essentially the same service.
Gastineau Log Homes Inc. in New Bloomfield, Mo., with 22 employees, designs, manufactures and installs log homes. Company president Lynn Gastineau launched in 1977 and has built a market in 50 states and 10 countries.
A projected mid-February first sale in China will make that country the 11th after 14 years of initial market research there. “(Its) economy had to reach a point where it made sense,” she says. “It has gone up and ours is flat.”
Not until October, 2011 did Gastineau grasp the market’s potential. En route from the airport to her hotel in Beijing, she noticed that newer cars, many upscale, had replaced the old, dilapidated cars she’d seen before. They reflected more money, on average, than she sees in the United States. In addition, bicycles just weren’t weaving around in traffic hauling goods they way they did in 1998. “This told me the economy had changed drastically,” she says. “People with money for luxury cars are obviously going to have money for luxury homes.”
As is customary, the U.S. Department of Commerce had set up appointments with potential customers. Meetings in Beijing alone lasted seven hours. Some people, sitting at tables or standing in line, waited for three hours. Shijiazhuang, the second city, although less affluent, was also enjoying a higher economic level. Gastineau continued to see affluence in three other cities – Xiamen, Wenzhou and Shanghai – as she kept meeting people who wanted to abandon their apartments and could pay to do it. She was stunned at the number of people who could afford the $100,000 package.
The entrepreneur spotted a need for thousands of her products and heard from the Chinese people themselves about “a huge demand for entertainment – vacations, houses, places to go to get away – because they’ve had so little over the years and now people have some money and want to enjoy their life,” she says. “It was the same everywhere.”
For Gastineau Log Homes, one more market overseas makes sense. Tadd Rosenfeld, founder of the four-year-old marketing company DualEagle.com LLC, headquartered in Miami, found that the recession demanded an overhaul. He had to reposition his agency.
Referrals in the Philippines, where he had office space, had kept growing. He committed to developing outsourcing and offshoring of the same services with TeamLaucher.com, a new division based there. Many clients on the old model converted to the new.
Today, with 62 employees, the company generates revenue in Europe and the U.S. DualEagle.com also has offices in India, New York and Pittsburgh.
“We’ve had such a good experience hiring in the Philippines primarily,” Rosenfeld says. “You get very attached to your employees there. People are conscientious.”
It’s very obvious that relationships drive both of these entrepreneurs, as different as they are. Rosenfeld warms when he speaks of improving his employees’ standard of living while helping companies receive value. He likens his process to microlending, without employees having to repay money. “It’s essential for us to keep relationships with employees and clients lasting,” he remarks.
Gastineau mentions that conversations with the Chinese people reflect their relationship-orientation. “They are good, honest businesspeople and have a need we can fill,” she observes. “We have a need they can fill by working together (with us).”
International markets attract entrepreneurs for the same reason – increased business. However, business owners, while building relationships, must find their own way to capitalize on opportunity abroad.
Dr. Mildred L. Culp welcomes your questions at culp@workwise.net. © 2012 Passage Media.
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