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CHAPTER 9 GROWING YOUR BUSINESS EMPIRE

before they entered Asia, they found that many Asians were
also taking up their online courses. To learn how to effectively
market and sell your products and services on the Internet,
read ‘Secrets of Internet Millionaires’ by Stuart Tan or visit
www.internetmarketingsingapore.com. Another strategy would
be to appoint distributors or agents in a foreign country and
export your goods through them. Once a strong following
has been built for your brand, you can then decide to start
your operations there.

Do bear in mind that lots of preparation and research has to
be done before you actually start a foreign office. On average,
Patrick (my group CEO) and myself spend one and a half to
two years researching and laying the groundwork before
opening an overseas office. During that time, we would have
flown to that foreign country at least 8-10 times. Here is an
overview of the three steps that you must take to start to
penetrate a foreign market.

Step 1: New Market Research
Market research involves making repeated visits to the potential
new market to get a feel of the country and its people and to
meet up with potential customers, suppliers, partners, investors
and even competitors. Like I said earlier, this process can take
anything from six months to two years.

Before you can develop an effective market penetration plan,
you would need to constantly ask questions and find answers
to the following:

1) Target Market (Your Customers)
• How big is the market for your product/service?
• Is the market growing or contracting?
• How do the customers’ tastes/preferences/needs differ?

SECRETS OF BUILDING MULTI-MILLION DOLLAR BUSINESSES 281