The extent of your specialised export personnel determines your company’s ability to take control of global sales.

If your people have the required cultural, linguistic and legal skills, you can consider setting up international offices.

If not you will need to work with partners or recruit local professionals into your overseas operations.

If you are planning on asking any members of your current team to move to another country to manage, or help set up, an international office you will need to help them settle.

Life in another country can be difficult, especially if the culture is very different and many successful professionals find it too difficult to cope with the changes.

Good preparation goes a long way in minimising culture shock and gives individuals and their families a better chance of enjoying their new lives.

Concentrate on learning about the people, culture, social norms, religions, language, food, entertainment and accommodation.

Use the power of the internet

A business’ website is often its most powerful marketing tool and if you are going international it will need careful consideration.

Greig Holbrook, owner of search engine optimisation company Oban Multilingual has some advice.

He says that businesses in international markets should not be simply translating their English site into the native language of a particular country.

They need to look at getting key phrases customised to each individual region to help potential customers find their site.

With more than 50 per cent of online transactions beginning with a customer typing a word or phrase into Google, or another search engine, the visibility of your site is imperative.

Holbrook says that people prefer to search in their own language and warns that they don’t use a dictionary to translate.

“The secret in multilingual SEO is that you have to understand what users are looking for,” he adds.

Look after your brand

International expansion can make brand consistency more difficult. Exporting via partners can only guarantee limited power over your brand image, which is just one more reason to make sure you can trust everyone you collaborate with.

Work with people who share your values and will represent your brand with the integrity you would expect from your UK team.

Helen Wilkinson, founder of Striding Out, runs Local to Global, a series of talks giving expert advice on international business.

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