Going Global:

One of the initial challenges for any smaller company looking toward developing an international market development plan is finding sufficient market information to make some reasonable decisions about which markets present the highest probability of success for your particular product or service.

On the one hand it may not be worth it to spend thousands of dollars on a fancy market survey and analysis by a high-priced market research firm. On the other hand, it seems like a major strategic business decision should be premised on more than random Google searches. As a result, I'm always on the lookout for sources to bridge this gap. I think I may have found a new tool that is extremely useful in this regard.

In expanding abroad what you're looking to do is identify the whereabouts of more customers who fit your target demographic. Hopefully in your domestic market you have some understanding of who your customers are -- e.g. they use a cellphone as their primary communication device, regularly gain information from the internet, and are health conscious. Or maybe the opposite. Either way, this is the kind of granular data which you need to locate by country in order to locate your likely customers abroad.

In doing some research on an issue the other day I came across NationMaster.com (http://www.nationmaster.com/statistics). With two simple pull down menus -- one to select among 30 categories, ranging from "education" or "media" to "disasters" or "lifestyles"; and one to select the individual statistic that you are interested in, for example "personal computers per capita by country" -- you can search hundreds of statistical descriptors and quickly produce data driven bar charts that compare all the countries in the world relative to your selected inquiry. Fort many inquiries, you can also have the data plotted in pie charts or displayed on a map. And at least the way the site works at the moment, you can perform as many independent searches as you'd like for FREE.

The absolute data raises some questions. For example, in searching for internet users per capita, the rankings range from 79.306 per 100,000 people in New Zealand to 0.07 per 100,000 people in Tajikistan (the U.S. was ranked #18 with 54.655 per 100,000). I have to believe that more than 55 out of every 100,000 people in the U.S. use the internet -- heck, the number of people playing World of Warcraft alone would push the number past that statistic -- and one limitation with the site is that the definitions that might flesh out how to interpret data such as this are pretty sparse.

All that being said however, even the numbers for this statistic seem to make sense as a relative measure among the different countries, and often the concern with this kind of market research is less about the absolute number than how one country stacks up against another as a potential market. In addition, of course, any per capita statistic needs to be placed back in the context of the overall size of the potential market.

I would definitely add NationMaster.com to your list of market research sites. If anyone has any further experience with the accuracy or usefulness of this data, please share it in a comment. In the meantime, I will rest secure in my new found knowledge that 29% of people in Germany discuss politics often as opposed to only 6% in Japan, and that Australia has the highest per capita rate of car jackings (the U.S. is #9) while the lowest rate (among countries that can track this statistic) is enjoyed by Azerbaijan.

[Attribution note: the image of the market research reports is from a piece on HowStuffWorks.com entitled "How Market Research Works".]

I've been absent from the blog for a bit. It's not because I've run out of thoughts and insights on international business. Instead, my company, ExIn Asset Management LLC, acquired a new small business and my energies have been focused on repositioning that business for growth. I look forward to continued consulting and teaching, assisting other small and medium sized companies to develop and execute successful international growth strategies. Indeed, my hope is that reengagement in my own business will help keep my real world edge sharp so that when I'm advising others, its not the same old tired consulting formula.

So why is Seth Godin on the hook for any of this? I've been looking for a business to acquire for some time -- it takes time of course to find a good business. One of the guiding inspirations through the process was his book Small Is the New Big. It's full of insightful ideas, as are all of his writings on business and market development. One of my favorite pieces in this particular book is entitled "A Brief History of Hard Work, Adjusted for Risk". Godin makes the point that in today's economy, "hard work" and "working long hours" are not the same thing. As he puts it:

In the old days, we could measure how much grain someone harvested or how many pieces of steel he made. Hard work meant more work. But the past doesn't necessarily lead to the future. Our future in the workplace is not about time at all. The future is about work that's really and truly hard, not just time consuming. It's the kind of work that requires us to push ourselves, not just punch the clock. Hard work is where our future job security, our financial profit, and our future joy lie.

He goes on to put this thought in the context of risk taking.

Today, working hard is about taking apparent risk. Not a crazy risk like betting the entire company on an untested product. No, an apparent risk: something that the competition (and your co-workers) believe is unsafe but that you realize is in fact far more conservative than sticking with the status quo.

Wow! -- Now there's a statement that should ring true to anyone who has had the responsibility of leading an old economy company into the uncharted waters of international markets. It also explains my own enthusiasm for once again getting directly involved in the risks and rewards of operating and developing a business instead of just dispensing advice (albeit usually good advice I think) from the sidelines. So maybe "blame" is not the right word -- I should thank Seth for the inspiration to get a deal done and get back in the game even if it has left this blog a little short on content lately.