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CHAPTER 9 GROWING YOUR BUSINESS EMPIRE

largest), and having a team of highly experienced and well-
connected business partners, they were able to accelerate our
learning curve and turn in a huge profit almost immediately.
So, a joint venture can be extremely useful provided you team
up with the right foreign partner(s). Not only will they already
on home ground with the market, but they will be able to run
it full-time for you.

The third strategy is of course one that we discussed earlier
which is franchising. Franchising is of course the lowest cost
and least risky alternative as the franchisees that you sell your
franchise to will have to come up with all the capital instead
of you. At the same time, by having many independent
business partners as your franchisees, you spread your risk
of putting your overseas venture into the hands of a single
partner as in the case of a joint venture.

However, franchising comes with its own set of challenges.
You will have to ensure that your franchisees adhere to your
business procedures and standards and more importantly,
they keep paying the royalty fees that are due to you.

Step 3 Expanding the Overseas Business
Once your company is set up, you then begin the whole
process of taking the new company from the startup stage to
the growth stage and beyond again. Except, this time, it would
be much easier and faster since you are replicating the proven
business model and systems from your home country.

Once you have put in place a very capable and experienced
management team, your job as CEO would be to monitor
the company’s sales, costs and profits very closely to ensure
that it is on track to meet the goals and budgets that have
been set.

SECRETS OF BUILDING MULTI-MILLION DOLLAR BUSINESSES 285