The trip taught me that Americans want to help you succeed. I met so many useful contacts and it was great to see people light up when I explained what our product is.
It was an odd experience to be among a group of business people with such a broad spectrum of products and interests. But despite the differences in what we were selling, we could all sit down at the seminar and take a huge amount in.
During the trip I visited a trade show barbeque in Nashville – Tennessee could be a big market for our product. It was surprising, and reassuring, to find that no one is making anything like we do. There are two types of really popular pickup trucks in the US, and a lot of people have SUVs. So we have to think about how to adapt our product to fit American vehicles.
Ashley Grice, managing director of Iris Worldwide, was one of the most memorable speakers. As a branding specialist, she talked about why we developed our products and how we could use those details in our brand’s story. If you have someone of that calibre helping you, you feel that you have a great chance of success.
Before the trip, I would have lumped the US into one market, but now I see it as 13 different regions. I probably would have looked to start either on the east coast or in California if I hadn’t been on the trip. But learning about the logistics and distribution points for products made me realise that it would make a lot more sense to start somewhere in the south-east; there was a lot of passion for our product there and Atlanta would be a sensible hub.
Preparation for entering the US will start fairly soon. It’s all about working with local sales agents, making initial contact and finding the right retailers. We hope to make our first steps into the US in the next two to three months and have some presence there by 2016.
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