The global marketplace used to be reserved for large corporations, however, that’s no longer true. Small- and medium-size businesses can create a competitive edge due to their flexibility and agility. If a business is online, it is a global business, and with more Internet users every day, the global market is constantly growing. According to Masaaki Kotabe and Kristiaan Helsen, authors of Global Marketing Management, “Business-to-business client e-commerce is larger, growing faster and has fewer geographical distribution obstacles than even business-to-consumer e-commerce.”¹ Since most creative service professionals sell to other businesses, this area of business growth is worth a look!

There are many strategies for creative professionals who want to go global. Here are the top two:

•    Joint Ventures will lower the risk of entering global markets
     for small businesses. They also give you more clout in
     foreign lands. 

•    Foreign Licensing rather than selling your service, illustrations
     or designs directly. In return for licensing these assets,
     you collect royalties from the sales.

GETTING STARTED
Talking with creative professionals trying (and succeeding) to take their services to the global market brings a variety of responses—from lukewarm to enthusiastic. Tim Mendola, mendolaart.com, says, “Overall we had limited success in selling to markets outside of North America. Years ago we visited London a couple of times, had portfolio reviews with agencies, dropped off promotional materials and did not get one inquiry. We occasionally get some publishing and editorial work from Europe. Though that work tends to come from referrals from U.S. affiliates. My theory is that there is plenty of good European talent and even with a more positive exchange rate, they are still cheaper than U.S. talent. On the other side, we represent a number of European and Australian illustrators and we get more inquiries every day. So perhaps there is not enough well-paying work to keep even the better non-U.S. artists busy.”

In contrast, Hernán Braberman, tridimage.com, is enthusiastic, “We founded Tridimage in 1995 with the objective of creating the first Latin American design firm emphasizing the marriage of structural and graphic package design. Seven years ago, we successfully started our international expansion. It started when Tridimage’s partners noticed the astonishing growth of the outsourcing industry in India. Using that as inspiration, we decided to spearhead the Latin American offshore packaging design industry.” Looking at the issues of the economy, John Sharpe, sharpeonline.com, believes, “The U.S. adver­tising assignment market has tightened up significantly over the past three to four years, resulting in fewer available jobs and significantly lower budgets. That combined with the weak dollar prompted us to put more energy towards Europe.”

Sometimes not finding work in your local market is the motivating factor. This was the case for Seven Boyd, workworkplay.com, “Our initial focus was to create work in our own city. We looked for work in Portland, but had little luck. So we had to start thinking of ways to maximize our time and our energy. When we started receiving calls from New York, Colorado, Nevada and California, we decided to focus less on borders and more on profitability. In the Web industry, corporate clients look for technical skills with proven results. Oftentimes,because of the places we advertise and the reasons we’re hired, we find our competition has an underdeveloped skill-set. We take advantage of that.”