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by Strong Eagle » Fri, 01 Aug 2014 11:01 pm
You need to seriously research the market you think you want to approach. Locally owned SME's are a notoriously tough nut for foreigners to break into, especially on a consultancy basis. The only man I ever met that did so was offering local companies the expertise to expand into foreign markets.
Beware the local "business development manager" who provides you with slathers of promises of a large Rolodex and introductions to the decision makers in the SME's. I know of at least two consultants who engaged so called BDM's who produced nothing after two years.
Unless you've got something to offer that is so substantially different than what is available here already, it's usually in the interests of SME's here to develop strong networks with other SME's and good connections with the governmental agencies that either regulate them or fund them.
You might also find that even if you were to find a SME wanting to talk to you, you just might discover that a local company has made a similar proposal, in fact, nearly identical to yours... for less money of course... this happened to me on a large contract... my proposal had simply been copied into another company's proposal.
If you think you want to hook up with smaller regional or global companies, your problem becomes one of identifying who makes the decisions and controls the purse strings. You might find support locally but for many of these companies the real decisions are made elsewhere.
If you read the various "starting a business" threads in Business and Careers forums, you'll see that it is possible to start a professional business without resorting to the Entrepass. You'll need a track record, business sense, a business plan, and money to see yourself to through to profitability.