HairClub Goes Global - Show #93

Tamer Flores of BD Global Consulting wished the CEO   of HairClub a happy birthday on LinkedIn and ended up becoming the lead visionary on global expansion for HairClub! With 25 years of experience focusing on growth, revenue, business development, and strategy for companies that want to expand internationally, Tamer was the perfect person to lead the initiative.   HairClub is an American hair restoration, hair regrowth, and hair replacement company with locations in the United States and Canada.  Tamer explained that the CEO is smart and recognized that if the company didn’t expand into new areas for growth, their competition would catch up and surpass them.  The CEO recognized that Tamer had the knowledge to lead the company into international sales.  In order to grow HairClub internationally, Tamer explained that for the first three months, he focused on getting to know the culture, company, services, products and vision.  Then he spent time researching countries and their interest in hair.  He found that countries that had a history of being an empire were more likely to value a full head of hair.  Italy, Egypt, Peru, and China are a sampling of countries that became targets. He ruled out several countries in Europe and Africa where hair wasn’t as important.  Then he looked at social and political environments, economic stability, and for an appreciation of brands from the United States.  After gaining an understanding of the company and the marketplace, he ran the countries through his custom flow chart to see what entry model might work best – a joint venture, acquisition, franchise, or subsidiary.  Once he had an idea of what might work best, he talked to both private companies and government trade officials to develope connections with potential in-country partners to discuss the opportunities.    Even though he started with a list of ten countries, he narrowed his outreach to 2-3 countries at a time.  Instead of doing one at a time, he opened the door to multiple countries since they all worked at different speeds – building relationships, exploring opportunities, responding, etc.  With 2-3 countries in play at a time, he had continual opportunities to assess.    We discussed language and how that influenced his choice of countries – he said that in all the countries, he either had the language skills (Tamer speaks 3 languages) or he had an interpreter.  Ultimately, they decided that Australia would be a good #1 target market since they found a good partner that wanted to move quickly.  China became a second level partner since the market is so large and having to use an interpreter made it a bit more difficult than English speaking.  When asked about translation for the marketplace, he said that during the research stages, translation wasn’t as crucial, but as soon as a deal is signed and the company is moving forward, high quality translation services offered by Rapport International would be of great importance.  He explained that translation is not a word-to-word job, the translation has to capture the meaning of the content.    To sum up his process:  Get to know the company.  Research countries to gauge interest in the product or service.  Run options through his Flow Chart to determine best fit options.  Target 2-3 countries at a time to keep the ball rolling.  Launch!  His final suggestion – pick the right partner to help you launch in a country.  Moving forward too quickly with the wrong partner can set you back four to five years!    His favorite foreign word Lupo is Italian for wolf. Tamer appreciates the beauty of the Italian language and the image of a she-wolf suckling the twins Romulus and Remus in their infancy has been a symbol of the city of Rome and the ancient Romans since at least the 3rd century BC.    Links:  www.BDGlobalConsulting.com     Connect with Wendy - https://www.linkedin.com/in/wendypease/  Connect with Tamer –   https://www.linkedin.com/in/tamerflores  Tflores@BDGlobalConsulting.com  786-589-1172   Music: Fiddle-De-Dee by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com