Tamer Flores of BD Global Consulting wished the CEO of HairClub a happy birthday on LinkedIn and ended up becoming the lead visionary on global expansion for HairClub! With 25 years of experience focusing on growth, revenue, business development, and strategy for companies that want to expand internationally, Tamer was the perfect person to lead the initiative.
HairClub is an American hair restoration, hair regrowth, and hair replacement company with locations in the United States and Canada.
Tamer explained that the CEO is smart and recognized that if the company didn’t expand into new areas for growth, their competition would catch up and surpass them. The CEO recognized that Tamer had the knowledge to lead the company into international sales.
In order to grow HairClub internationally, Tamer explained that for the first three months, he focused on getting to know the culture, company, services, products and vision. Then he spent time researching countries and their interest in hair. He found that countries that had a history of being an empire were more likely to value a full head of hair. Italy, Egypt, Peru, and China are a sampling of countries that became targets. He ruled out several countries in Europe and Africa where hair wasn’t as important. Then he looked at social and political environments, economic stability, and for an appreciation of brands from the United States.
After gaining an understanding of the company and the marketplace, he ran the countries through his custom flow chart to see what entry model might work best – a joint venture, acquisition, franchise, or subsidiary. Once he had an idea of what might work best, he talked to both private companies and government trade officials to develope connections with potential in-country partners to discuss the opportunities.
Even though he started with a list of ten countries, he narrowed his outreach to 2-3 countries at a time. Instead of doing one at a time, he opened the door to multiple countries since they all worked at different speeds – building relationships, exploring opportunities, responding, etc. With 2-3 countries in play at a time, he had continual opportunities to assess.
We discussed language and how that influenced his choice of countries – he said that in all the countries, he either had the language skills (Tamer speaks 3 languages) or he had an interpreter. Ultimately, they decided that Australia would be a good #1 target market since they found a good partner that wanted to move quickly. China became a second level partner since the market is so large and having to use an interpreter made it a bit more difficult than English speaking.
When asked about translation for the marketplace, he said that during the research stages, translation wasn’t as crucial, but as soon as a deal is signed and the company is moving forward, high quality translation services offered by Rapport International would be of great importance. He explained that translation is not a word-to-word job, the translation has to capture the meaning of the content.
To sum up his process:
- Get to know the company.
- Research countries to gauge interest in the product or service.
- Run options through his Flow Chart to determine best fit options.
- Target 2-3 countries at a time to keep the ball rolling.
- Launch!
His final suggestion – pick the right partner to help you launch in a country. Moving forward too quickly with the wrong partner can set you back four to five years!
His favorite foreign word Lupo is Italian for wolf. Tamer appreciates the beauty of the Italian language and the image of a she-wolf suckling the twins Romulus and Remus in their infancy has been a symbol of the city of Rome and the ancient Romans since at least the 3rd century BC.
Links:
Connect with Wendy - https://www.linkedin.com/in/wendypease/
Connect with Tamer –
https://www.linkedin.com/in/tamerflores
Tflores@BDGlobalConsulting.com
786-589-1172
Music: Fiddle-De-Dee by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com
Transcript:
ATTENTION: Below is a machine generated transcription of the podcast. Yes, at Rapport International, we talk a lot about how machine translation is not good quality. Here you see an example of what a machine can do in your own your language. This transcription is provided as a gist and to give time indicators to find a topic of interest.
[00:00:34] Wendy: Welcome back to another episode of the Global Marketing Show Podcast, where we talk all things translation and global marketing. And I just love interviewing the guests because I always learn something. So, just a reminder that the podcast is sponsored by Rapport International who connects you to anyone anywhere in the world in over 200 languages by offering high quality culturally adapted translations.
[00:01:05] And, the tidbit for today is, Jinba Ittai, you may have heard me talk about this one before, cause it's the tagline for Mazda and I get such a kick out of going to Google Translator, machine translation, to see how they translate it because it's the tagline that's supposed to symbolize a archery warrior riding across the planes at one with the horse ready to do battle. And so it captures such a good image of a car that's speedy and responsive, but if you put it into Google Translate, the first thing it came up was " danger," which is not a good tagline for a car. One time I put it in, it came up as just "Jimbo," which has no meaning. And today I put it in and it came up as "horse and man." So it's just another reminder that machine translation cannot solve the translation problems that you might be trying to solve.
[00:02:01] So today's guest, Is Tamara Flores and he has been an innovative visionary focused on growing companies and revenue and business development and strategies for companies that want to expand internationally. He speaks three languages, he's a real visionary, and he was brought on as a consultant to HairClub to drive international growth and global expansion, for them. Welcome, Tamara. I'm very excited to have you here.
[00:02:35] Tamer: Thanks Wendy. Thanks for having me here.
[00:02:37] Wendy: Yeah, yeah. It's my pleasure. So, I'm so curious.
[00:02:42] What was the impetus for Hair Club bringing you on? Well,
[00:02:48] Tamer: Hair Club is a company that offers her solutions. They do hair regrowth, hair replacement, hair restoration. Regrowth is when they help you regrow your own hair with they have vitamins and menial laser hats. And you can regrow your own hair.
[00:03:08] Then hair replacement is where they have hair systems that they attach to your scalp with medical adhesive. And they, in that way they replace your, your, your hair immediately, and then hair restoration, which is the transplants when they transplant your own hair into the, the spaces where you don't have much.
[00:03:28] So I've basically, The CEO is a very smart person, very intelligent, and he realized that if they don't grow and do new things they are opening a window for future potential issues and competitors catching up. Her club is the biggest company in the industry here in the US and the world. But if they don't move forward there are always competitors that can catch up.
[00:03:57] So that's why he brought me in.
[00:04:00] Wendy: Okay. And what did he, Which makes a lot of sense. If you don't move forward, you can stagnate and especially when the competitors are nipping and there's a huge market internationally,
[00:04:11] Tamer: right? Definitely. Yes. There are many. Cultures that give a lot of value to the hair.
[00:04:20] So given that there is a lot of opportunities,
[00:04:25] Wendy: so what did he task you with doing when you came in?
[00:04:28] Tamer: Well, let me tell you a story of how we met that, that's a funny story. We connected through. Then he said he wanted to talk to me and then you know, we were exchanging some emails and things, but he never got back to me.
[00:04:41] And then in January of 2021 I saw a LinkedIn message that said, this is his his birthday. So I just say, Happy birthday through LinkedIn. And then he answered and he said, you know, We need to meet and let's set up a meeting right now, just because I said happy birthday, right? So that was a good thing.
[00:05:03] So he's in Bocaraton, I'm in Orlando. So he said, Let's let's meet together in person. So I drove there. We met, we spoke. He presented me to the main people, the company. And then we have dinner with also a couple of important executive. And and then he said, Okay, you're the right person. You have been an entrepreneur.
[00:05:25] You know how to handle yourself. And we need somebody with that mentality to help us grow internationally. And I have been a CEO for 17 years, since I was 30 years old for a medical devices company. And I've made at least 40 international deal. At least. So with all that, he said, Okay, we need somebody that thinks in that way.
[00:05:51] And, and so let's, let's start as a consultant and I need you to drive us and guide us on growing internationally. So that, that was the main task. So
[00:06:03] Wendy: now had he ever done international work or had he lived inter. Well,
[00:06:10] Tamer: kind of Canada, if you consider that international, right? They have, you know, they have a few centers in Canada and one franchise in Canada.
[00:06:19] And Puerto Rico, again, that could be consider international. They have one franchise in Puerto Rico. So basically just North America and, and. Mostly English is speaking parts of North America, although in Montreal they do have
[00:06:36] Wendy: couple centers. Okay. So he's really a visionary and knew that he wanted to bring in good support, and he saw that in you, and so how do you
[00:06:46] Tamer: start?
[00:06:46] Correct. Correct. We really think very much alike and yes, he wanted to grow with a mentality. Yes, Well was an exciting new challenge for me. The first thing is to getting to know the company itself, how it works, the culture and everything, the products services how, how it really works inside.
[00:07:10] And he assigned me that task for three months. So I was working three months interviewing people, talking with people, and asking them how they see we could grow internationally, right. So that's how I started analyzing the, the company from the inside out. Mm-hmm. . And after that, the next three months, I was assigned with the task of making a plan for how to grow international.
[00:07:43] So I, I really did a lot of research and how to, how is the best way to do it and in a safe way because there is, there, there are a lot of risks when you go internationally and you don't know the cultures, right. So I made a very, very interesting Exciting and really aggressive way to grow, but taking care of the risks that that would that would mean.
[00:08:12] So and that was the second part of it. And after the CEO read that second part, he said, Okay, now I like
[00:08:20] Wendy: these. Okay, so talk, So hold on there. I wanna capture that. Mm-hmm. . You've got 200 countries in the world. Yes. You know, and they're in two or Puerto Rico, you know, so however you count that. Two, maybe three.
[00:08:35] How, how did you pick, like how did you marry the culture and products and services that the company to which countries you wanted to go into or recommend?
[00:08:48] Tamer: Okay. Well The way of picking is first according to the importance those countries gives to culture, to the hair, right? Like what, what does hair mean in that culture, right?
[00:09:07] How important is, is is that, And so I had to choose places where they really, really sometimes they even have a status. Meaning to her.
[00:09:18] Wendy: And then so what countries have a high value in hair? In which countries not as much?
[00:09:24] Tamer: Well, in general there is an importance to her, right? But in, in, in countries like in Latin America, and maybe even some places in Africa like Egypt and.
[00:09:39] Italy places that are like that have been an empire before. Those for some reason. they give a lot of importa to her. And then
[00:09:51] Wendy: also countries that have been an empire before.
[00:09:57] Tamer: Rulers of empires like thousands of years ago. They, they dictated the mode and the hair and they, they still have these importance because, you know many places where the hairstyle was to have lots of air.
[00:10:16] That was, that was really important. So the still, still a thing in the. But but
[00:10:22] Wendy: it's fascinating. So it really is a historical value of hair, right? And rulers ha. Okay.
[00:10:30] Tamer: And how about but is just the first piece of it, because then
[00:10:34] Wendy: wait, wait, wait, wait. We gotta look at the opposite side. Side. Which countries did you kind of rule out because they didn't have the importance of hair as much.
[00:10:42] Or not rule out, but put lower on the, the choice. Right,
[00:10:46] Tamer: Right. I don't want to mention them like one by one, but basically countries where they really, it really doesn't matter, you know, if, if you have heard or not. They, they don't, they don't, they are not what's the way to say it? They, they, they, they don't give you enough importance.
[00:11:04] They're like, Okay, if you don't have. Is is fine, really. Like you don't, you don't need to, It doesn't mean anything. It doesn't mean anything. You don't have much hair. So there are places where the mode is not important. The look is not important at all. And you know, things like that.
[00:11:25] Wendy: So, Nordic countries, Caribbean countries, certain African company countries.
[00:11:32] Tamer: Certain European countries and, and even certain African countries. Yes.
[00:11:40] Wendy: Okay. How fascinating. All right. Mm-hmm. , I wouldn't have thought that would've been. One of the first, it makes sense, but I didn't know there was that much of a difference in culture. So that's, that is such a huge learning lesson for anybody listening to this podcast.
[00:11:56] Tamer: Okay. Right. But that, that, the way I, I approach it is not, that is, it was not important. Right. But the other way, I approach it, we have to go first where there is a lot of importance, right. So I wouldn't, you know, so I, I wouldn't say there are countries that really, really don't care about it. It's just that there are countries that is really important.
[00:12:19] That's, that's what I focus.
[00:12:23] Wendy: And so those bubbled up to the top, to the higher priority. And then the other ones just, they're, they're not in the preliminary.
[00:12:31] Tamer: Correct. Because at the end, at the end, every country, every, you know, has people that, that, that wants to have her and for men and also for women, right?
[00:12:42] For women it's very important. So, so it's not that they. Don't want or they don't have market. It's just that the market is varying other places.
[00:12:53] Wendy: Okay. Okay. Mm-hmm. . All right. So then you figure out your primary countries that have a high importance of hair. What's the next step?
[00:13:03] Tamer: The next step is social and political things.
[00:13:06] So have to make sure that it's political, stable country so that you don't invest. And then you have many risks after four or five years of investing, right? Mm-hmm. . And then the economical situation has to be stable. Socially also stable, right? And cultural feed in the sense that her club is a very American brand so that they.
[00:13:29] They really appreciate American brands, right? So all of those together were the ones that gave me an approach. Also I have I have developed a flow chart for any industry and any company that can with three easy questions, you can, you can define what is the best strategy. And together with the best, the best markets for, for, for a, for a product or service.
[00:13:57] And it's very interesting flow chart. But basically it helps you decide if you want to go into a new market as joint venture and acquisition or maybe a franchise or subsidiaries. Right and gives you the best strategy according to the market of the country and according to your product and service and the company itself.
[00:14:22] And it is, it's a very good guide. So basically that also has some social and economical question to it. So you need to go to, to a place where initially, Where you are almost sure you're going to be successful because of the market and because of the economical of that country. Right. So with my flow chart that helped me a lot and, and, and to guide for every country I would, I would.
[00:14:55] Run it through, through the flow chart and, and then find how good was it for the market and what strategy was better. In some countries, joint ventures are better. Some countries franchises are better. Depends on the market. Depends on the economical situation. And that's what I did.
[00:15:12] Wendy: So when you did your research and picked out countries, Did you wanna go into multiple countries at a time or start with one?
[00:15:21] Or did you build out a grid of which countries you do a JV and which countries you do a franchise or, you know, So how do you think about that?
[00:15:31] Tamer: Yes. First of all I started always planning on three. Two to three countries at a time because every country has its own speed. And you never know. So if you only, if you only work in one, that could take too long, right?
[00:15:51] So two to three countries. Then you start investigating and researching for possible partners, and then you, you have interviews with four or five potential partners in every country. Right. And according to the market and the partners also you will decide if it is better a strategy of a joint venture or a franchise, or an acquisition, right?
[00:16:18] So you have to talk to the people. So the, the, the flow chart that I made give you a guideline, but then you have to, to match that with, with what the candidates. Those countries are telling you, right? So they will tell you that you know, we don't want to do, we don't want to do a joint venture here. We want to do a franchise or here is better to do an acquisition for certain reasons and conditions in the market.
[00:16:50] So they will tell you and, and but you already go with an idea of what's the best for the company. Cause what you want to do. With this flow chart, with your decision is to maximize revenue while minimizing risk. So that's what the flow chart is about. You know, how, what is the best way to get here, to get the most revenue with the lowest risk?
[00:17:19] So that's, that's the decision thing that you have to, that, that you have to pick, right? The decision, the final decision, you have to pick. That's a flow chart and that's what you want to do. But then when you talk to the candidates, they're going to tell you well, in our culture, this works better. Right?
[00:17:37] And then you have to define if the risk and revenue are a fit with what the candidates are telling you. That works better in that country. Right. So you might decide that, okay this country is best for an acquisition, and then they tell you, no, nobody's going to sell you their similar centers or whatever.
[00:18:05] And, and then you have to decide if you want to go join Venture or. Because maybe you, you know, they want, they all want joint venture, but you have decided that it's too risk, right? So, So
[00:18:19] Wendy: can you talk in particulars about, Hair club, like maybe some of the countries that you looked at, some of the conversations that you might have had, like bring it down to were you flying into the country, were you doing Zoom calls?
[00:18:35] You know, how did you build the relationships? Did they speak English? So more, more detail of what you were doing. Cause I find this fascinating.
[00:18:44] Tamer: Yes, that's interesting. First of all I. In partnership with an institution or two or three that would help me find some leads and to talk about the market in general, right?
[00:18:58] And so I would talk to people in that in those organizations and I would have a general idea about if it was or not a good idea. So you
[00:19:09] Wendy: hired. Company or who was the organization to give you some leads?
[00:19:14] Tamer: Yeah, yeah. I hired, I hired some, well, not even hired. I talked to those organizations beforehand.
[00:19:20] I would have to find them and, and ask to talk to them and see if they could do some market research before the market research. I would talk to them in general about the, the possibilities and opportunities in those, in those countries. Right. And then after that,
[00:19:36] Wendy: what kind of companies were.
[00:19:38] Tamer: They, yeah, they were governmental companies and also private.
[00:19:45] Wendy: Okay. So you did reach out to some of the International Trade Association, federal government employees and some of those things.
[00:19:54] Tamer: Right. And private companies also. Okay. To that do market research to, to, just to talk in general about idea. Right. Okay. So just in
[00:20:02] Wendy: gen, just for our listeners, there are lots of free federal and state resources that companies small, mid-size companies can reach out to, to get some of this free consulting or ideas.
[00:20:14] The the first,
[00:20:15] Tamer: The first talks, yes. But then you have to. You know, after that, when you order the actual market research or whatever, you have to pay for it. Right? Right. But at the beginning, of course even with private organizations, you just talk about the possibilities and, and then you get an idea of if it is a good idea or not.
[00:20:34] Right. And then, You ordered that market research and, and, and research for potential partners, Right. And so that I talk to people in, in so many countries. I talk to people in Italy, in Qatar, in Colo, Peru, Australia, China, Hong Kong, India Canada again and so many, so many countries. And.
[00:20:59] So
[00:20:59] Wendy: at this point you didn't have your top two or three countries? Correct. You spread out pretty wide Correct. To to do research. Okay. Right.
[00:21:10] Tamer: A little wide, but not, not, not more than 10 countries that I already had re investigated. As for cultural and political and economical fit, right? Mm-hmm. , in some countries, like in Latin America, they looked like good places to go, but then the political situation was very stable at that moment.
[00:21:30] So, mm-hmm. I put them off for later, right? So, not that I cannot, that we cannot do business with them, but it's just for later. And, and so eliminating, or not eliminating, but this prioritizing the countries. We got, we got to basically A few, just a few countries that were left. And the most important one was Australia for, for her club.
[00:21:56] It was Australia. And there were a lot of synergies and talked to a few people and a few candidates. And a very good cultural match. A cultural fit and, and they think alike hair club, right? Not only. Australians have many things common in common with u the usa, but also the, the, the, the partners that we were talking, they think very much like her club.
[00:22:24] And so that was a very good cultural fit and we spoke to three potential partners there. And then we decided for, for one, and We started talking about merchant acquisition. This case, it was actually not exact merge, it was a joint venture. But this joint venture, this company already has border company that does a replacement.
[00:22:52] And the, the company bigger company, the parent company does her regrowth. So basically, We talk about establishing a joint venture with the dollar company, with the smaller company. So that's, that, that was the, the, the main idea that was the way they wanted to do it. And, and then the truth is, once I start talking to the partners more seriously about what are we going to do, I tell them.
[00:23:25] I tell them that I don't want to impose her club's culture or American culture into their country. I don't want to make that mistake. Cause we, they are the experts on their culture. Mm-hmm. , we are not going to impose them anything actually. How would they see that this could work? So what do they want to do?
[00:23:49] Wendy: So you're very open and curious. Yeah.
[00:23:52] Tamer: Right. The other, So I'm not going to post anything. So if they tell me two or three options that are not feasible for her club, then I wouldn't go on with that, with that country. But I wouldn't tell them, You have to do this, this, and this. So are you. I'm not going to talk like that.
[00:24:09] Right. I'm not going to say that. I'm going to ask them what is it that I need to do and learn from. Right. Okay. So I
[00:24:17] Wendy: have to ask here, because you mentioned a whole bunch of countries that speak a bunch of different languages, and oftentimes US companies will go into Australia or UK because they speak English, but that wasn't one of your criteria that you were talking about.
[00:24:34] Can you talk about how you handled the language and how you were looking at a hair club doing the global marketing, or you at this point, Right, right.
[00:24:45] Tamer: Well, you know that English is very much worldwide language. So for important companies, there is always people and executives in that country, in that company that speak English.
[00:25:01] So that's, that's good part. Now, I, myself, I speak Spanish and I speak Italian. So when I talk to. Italy and I talked to Spain. Actually I didn't, I didn't mention Spain before. In Spain, we had a an acquisition opportunity. So when I was talking to those people in Latin America, in Spain and in Italy, I would talk to them in their own language.
[00:25:28] But in the other countries was fortunate enough that I could find people that would. Speak English now. It was very interesting in China, when I was talking to China, it was one of my first countries and I was trying to, I was trying to figure out and talk several times with, with a candidate trying to figure out if it was a fit.
[00:25:48] And with that we had somebody that was translating for us. We had another person that was a translator and uh,
[00:25:57] Wendy: they were doing the spoken facilitation of conversation. Correct now, so I'll use this as an education moment. Just interpreters do spoken and translators do written. Right. So nobody outside the industry knows that.
[00:26:13] But now if you've heard it, you know it. Interpreters are spoken, translators written. So you had interpreters that were helping you communicate from English to Chinese,
[00:26:22] Tamer: correct? Correct. Okay. And, And it made it a little more d. But not impossible to communicate. However, at the end we decided it was not the best, one of the best MA markets to start with.
[00:26:35] Also, because this is a new adventure. So we want to make sure we can establish ourselves in, in two or three important countries. And I decided that China was probably for the second The second group of countries that we should go into, but not the first because, because of political situation and, and, and you know, again, the the executives not speaking English made it a little more difficult to,
[00:27:04] Wendy: Okay, so, Your first group, you wanna define something where it would be easy to communicate with the executives Correct.
[00:27:13] And then get the plan in place, and then you could replicate it with Okay.
[00:27:17] Tamer: Yeah. That sense. Great. And I, and I found that in every country except for check.
[00:27:24] Wendy: Okay. Okay. All right. Yeah, we're coming down to the end of the time, so this is, This is fantastic. We. What do you think the biggest challenges are gonna be for Hair Club as they expand inter nationally?
[00:27:40] Well,
[00:27:40] Tamer: again I think their CEO is is great. He's very smart. He, we used to joke that he told me I was amazing, and I was, I would tell him that, you know , he was a great ceo, but just joking. So anyway. The, her club is owned by a Japanese company called Other, Okay. And Japanese have a different working culture.
[00:28:11] And so even inside her club, I believe that there's a potential to improve how they work. Right. And I think that that is one of the biggest challenges is that they, the Japanese start thinking a little more like Americans when they are here and Americans start thinking a little bit more as like Japanese when they are dealing with the Japanese executives.
[00:28:38] That's a, that's a. A challenge. That's a challenge. And, and, but I'm sure that they're improving at that and that you know, it will, it will be successful. So that's one of the challenges. And, and the other one is that you need to be a hundred percent sure and convinced that you want to do this, because at the beginning, you are going to have lots of steps back, right?
[00:29:02] And you're going to have lots of issues. So if you don't keep pushing, then You are probably not going to be successful. So I talk to 12 countries and, you know, move forward with, with three, right? So that's, that's something that is going to take time and then it takes at least two to three years.
[00:29:21] So you are not going to have to have results in less than two or three years. So if you are not sure if you are in a hurry, if you, if you try to rush it that's a challenge. So either you are sure that you, you are willing to wait at least two to three years for the first results, or you better not start with it because is you're probably not going to successful less time than that, and it's not worth it then if you're not sure if the company's not sure is, is, is, is not going to work.
[00:29:55] Wendy: Okay. Yeah, that's, that's, I have heard that. And that is really good advice. Make, commit to it, have senior leadership buy-in and then give time to get the results. Correct. Yeah. So I didn't realize that Hair Club was owned by a Japanese country company. Right. Do they have operations in Japan?
[00:30:18] Tamer: The Japanese company.
[00:30:19] Hair Club does it. But a has businesses in several countries in, in all continents, they make weeks and they make related products. But Hair Club has not started operations in Japan, which was also one dream of mine at some point. Japan is in the list, and I would like her club to be there.
[00:30:41] But even with. A Japanese owner it wasn't the best match for a study, the international expansion program. So even having a Japanese owner, it was, it was best to start other countries. Was that, Well many different things. But basically there were better opportunities. Again, it's not that it.
[00:31:07] A bad place to go. Japan. Mm-hmm. . But it was a lot better to go to the other countries that we started, and I have only talked about Australia, but we have started also things or conversations and opportunities in other countries that I found were a better match.
[00:31:26] Wendy: Isn't that in? Okay. So you really did a strong strategy analysis for where to go.
[00:31:33] Cuz oftentimes I'll hear people say, Well, the parent company was Japan, so that was a natural, Or like I said earlier, they speak English, so let's go there. Even though American and Australian English are very different.
[00:31:44] Tamer: No, no. The space in Japan was was one of the issues space for centers. Oh, right.
[00:31:50] That, that was one of the issues. So, I mean, I. I would love to go there at some point, but it's not in the first year of countries.
[00:31:59] Wendy: Yeah. Okay. And then do you, when you're doing that strategy, does translation for the products or for the website does that come into your analysis at all?
[00:32:14] Tamer: Yes. When, But that's, that's when you have already a deal and you are starting to, to The, for example, the me or the joint venture, the acquisition or, or the franchise, that's when you really need great translators and interpreters.
[00:32:32] And that's where our company like yours would be really, really important. The translation is not, you know, this very. Do, but transition is not about translating words, but it's about translating concepts and, and so if you translate the words and the words mean something else in that culture, then you are not being effective.
[00:32:56] So you need, you know, knowledgeable translators and interpreters to be able to have a feed there. Right. And a cultural.
[00:33:08] Wendy: Okay. Okay. Yeah, that's really interesting cuz I didn't, as a translation company, I didn't know if getting in on the strategy side or, but it's, as soon as that deal is made, that's when you're starting to think about it.
[00:33:21] Now we gotta build on our operations and it would fall under that.
[00:33:24] Tamer: Correct? Correct. Yeah. At least that's in my process. That's where he goes.
[00:33:29] Wendy: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's good to know. Yeah, which is interesting now that you say that there's a lot of marketing strategists or companies that come into the US and they have a market strategy.
[00:33:42] but they don't drill down into their marketing strategy, which we've done some strategy documents cuz coming into the US you have to have, you've gotta identify your target market and you have to be very specific cuz the market's so big. Right. So yeah, that's, so it's an afterthought. That's, that's fascinating to me.
[00:34:00] Okay. Well, any last suggestions that you would have for people that are thinking about expanding internationally?
[00:34:09] Tamer: Yeah. I always say that the worst mistake a company can make is to enter into business with the wrong partner. Mm. So according to me, to what I've seen, you lose between four and six years of penetrating a market.
[00:34:27] If you, if you do it with the wrong partner, then you break. Right. Yeah. And between the breakup and, you know, realizing it's the wrong partner, breaking up, establishing a new company or a new partner, growing that partner, again, that takes four to six years. So do a lot of research about the partner before you, you sign, deal.
[00:34:51] And, and that happened actually to one of the important countries that I was growing into, which was. I found a candidate that look, it was perfect. And then when I did the research he wasn't that perfect. So we, we stopped, we stopped negotiations because of that. Right? But that's for me a success because not.
[00:35:19] Doing business with the wrong partner for me as a success. However, for the outside viewer, it could look like a failure because you just didn't enter the country, right? But it, it would've been worse. So and again, from the first talks and everything, it was the perfect partner. So, so you, you have to do your research after that.
[00:35:40] Wendy: That is fantastic advice. And losing four to six years, boy, you hire slow, fire fast, right? . Right. And I think, you know, this question is coming. What's your favorite foreign
[00:35:54] Tamer: word? My favorite foreign word? Well, I speak English, Spanish, and Italian. From those, The one that I don't use too much is Italian, but it's a beautiful language.
[00:36:09] A beautiful language and foreign word. I I, if you ask me the foreign language, I would say Italian and a foreign word. Foreign word. You know what I like, I, I live a wrong and I, they, they have the. The wolf that fed role and remo. Mm-hmm. . And so that is lupo. Ah. So, ah, yeah. Yeah. That's a strong animal.
[00:36:37] Lupo. So that would be my, my. Favorite word.
[00:36:41] Wendy: Oh, that's fantastic. And what a, a good one to represent the history of Rome, of a beautiful language. So that ties together beautifully. Correct. All right. So Tamara, you recommended your flow chart and you've got a wealth of information. If people wanna learn more about your flow chart or reach out to you what's, what's the best way to do?
[00:37:01] Tamer: Yes. I am working right now with my own company. It's Business Development Global Consulting. The website is bd global consulting.com. And my email is tflores@bdglobalconsulting.com. So can I say my phone number or it's too much? Sure, yeah. Okay. My phone number is 786) 589-1172. And the website is again, BDglobalconsulting.com.
[00:37:34] BDS business Development. So We can work together and apply all the knowledge that I have acquired during 25 years of doing international business as a CEO and as a consultant. Would be my
[00:37:48] Wendy: pleasure. All right. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing your information.
[00:37:55] Tamer: Thank you, Wendy.
[00:37:56] Thanks to you for inviting.
[00:37:58] Wendy: Yes. So listeners, thank you. I think this was a fabulous way to think about really using a strategy to expand internationally. So it'll be interesting to see, to watch Hair Club and see which countries they enter into and, and how they do that. If you want to hear more podcast, Make sure you go back.
[00:38:20] Maybe number 25 is Zach. S he is an international salesperson so you can listen to him. And then there is another one that's earlier, it's before him and it's about strategy, how a company did that. I can't remember the name of it right now, but I'll put it in the show notes. You could just look for the title that says strategy.
[00:38:39] And she gave a very interesting discussion about that you. Looks at it from a different perspective that Tamar did and of course, give us a rating or share this with anybody that you think might be interested in in learning about how to expand internationally. So we will talk to you next time.
[00:38:57] Tamer: Thanks, Wendy.
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