Taking your business to the USA

The reasons for a non-US-based business to address the US market are compelling:

• It’s the single largest economic market, by a wide margin
• It has a single currency and one main language - which is the de-facto global lingua franca
• It’s home to over 330m people and many of the world’s largest companies

So while the answer to the question “should you address the US market?” is likely to be a resounding “Yes”, you should first consider “When?”, before jumping into “How?”

There are a few key variables to consider, which would impact the answer to the “When?” question:

1. Is your solution provided in English (e.g. if you have a web-interface, is it in English) and can your company do business in English (marketing, sales, support, etc.)?

If the answer to either is “no”, there’s no point trying to address the US market until you’re able to change the answer to “yes” for both.

2. Is your current level of business efficiency (as indicated by measures like the ones below), before addressing the US, where you need it to be?

The lower your current business efficiency is, the more you should aim to fix it, before you start addressing the US market in earnest. At least initially, none of these measures are likely to get better when you start addressing the US market. In fact, many will probably get worse at the outset.

Sample business efficiency metrics:

• Revenue return on investment - i.e. revenue (or ARR*) growth divided by the overall cost of acquisition & retention
• The “Rule of 40” (i.e. the sum of your growth rate and your profitability)
• ARR per FTE (Full Time Employee)
• CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost) payback period
• LTV (Life-Time Value) over CAC
• NRR (Net Revenue Retention), GRR (Gross Revenue Retention), Churn

3. What tangible indications do you have for demand for your solution in the US?

The more evidence you have of people from the US reaching out to you without you actively targeting them; and of having generated any US revenue, without any employees actively targeting the US → the higher your chances of at least initial success when deciding to actively address the US.

When taking the answers to the above 3 questions into consideration, try to assess the following:

[a] How long can you afford to continue to operate with your current efficiency metrics (i.e. what’s your current runway)?

[b] How long will it likely take you to succeed in the US?

To work it out, sum-up the current median times it currently takes you to:

(i) Recruit a new person, from job advertised to person joining the company; plus

(ii) Onboard a new hire, from when they join until they are deemed ramped and carry a full quota; plus

(iii) Close deals - i.e. from the time an opportunity officially enters the pipeline to when it’s closed-won; plus

(iv) Get paid - i.e. from when a deal is closed-won until your company is paid

Note#1: The times above do not include the median time it would take to generate leads, because of an implied assumption that you’d be working on demand generation in parallel to the recruitment & onboarding of your US team and that by the time the recruitment and onboarding is complete, new opportunities will have been generated. If this (now explicit) assumption is not valid, you’ll need to add demand generation time to your calculation

Note#2: The chances you’ll get everything right on your first attempt are low. Hence, it would be prudent to multiply your answer by at least 2.

Once your answers to both questions 1 & 2 is “yes”, and once the number you worked out in [b] above is equal-to or shorter-than the answer to [a], then you’re in a good position to move from the “When?” to the “How?”

While there’s no one-size-fits-all formula to answer this question, there are some common “low hanging fruit” that you could try first and some common themes to consider for your US conquest plan:

1) Possible initial moves (the low hanging fruit):

• Do any of your existing clients have US-based business units that you can up-sell or cross-sell into (e.g. subsidiaries, parent organisation, partners, affiliates, etc.)?

• Can you use your network, in its widest possible sense, for referrals into the US? This should include: your existing customers, your employees’ personal networks, your investors’ networks, etc.

2) Common themes for consideration:

• Geography: Are there obvious parts of the US that would make most sense for you to start with? The US is too big to try and tackle in one go. Would it make more sense for you to start in the Northeast (e.g. New York)? The Southeast (e.g. Miami)? The Midwest (e.g. Chicago)? The Southwest (e.g. Austin) or the West Coast (e.g. San Francisco)?
• Industry: Are there obvious vertical sectors that you’re going to focus on? Note the answer to this question can help address the former one. e.g. if your obvious focus industry is financial services, then the North East would be sensible, while if it’s the oil & gas industry, then the Southwest would make more sense
• Language: As per point 1 at the top, having your public facing material in English is a must before you start to even test-the-water. Having said that, unless your material is adapted to US English, you’ll find that, as one of Oscar Wilde’s characters quipped: “...we have really everything in common with America nowadays, except, of course, language”** . Among other things, the differences manifest in: Spelling of the same words (e.g. use of “Z” vs. “S” - as in “Organization” vs. “Organisation”, or the use of “or” vs. “our” - as in “color” vs. “colour”); The use of words (e.g. “pants” vs. “trousers”, “elevator” vs. “lift”); Date formats (e.g. one of the most infamous dates in the US is known as “9/11” since in the US, unlike in the UK & Europe, the month is written before the day - hence Sep. 11th being “9/11” rather than “11/9”). Aside from the use of US English, when addressing a US audience, you should also aim to have pricing presented in $USD and case-studies showing US companies
• Time Zones: Excluding Alaska & Hawaii, the US has 4 time zones (Eastern, Central, Mountain and Pacific). Do you have a plan for how you will ensure you can serve US customers in their normal operating hours (including sales activities, customer service and customer support)?

• Payments: Clearly, in order to scale into the US, you need to be able to accept and handle US Dollars, all the way from quotes, through invoicing to billing. Note also that while the use of checks (the US spelling for cheques) has been in steady decline, it is still widely used in B2B payments in the US. Hence to minimise any barriers to doing business in the US, you should consider accepting checks as a form of payment

• US law: As per the 1st point at the very top, the ability to contract in English is a prerequisite for doing business in the US. However, even if your contracts are in the English language, if they state that the governing laws are those of a country outside the US, your ability to scale in the US will be limited.

With all that, best of luck with your expansion into the land of opportunity.

* ARR = Annual Recurring Revenue

** From “The Canterville Ghost” (Link)