Global reach
We are headquartered in the United States and we deliver internationally. Not through offices we don't own or staff we don't employ — through remote-first delivery, overlap hours we commit to in writing, and local partners sourced for each engagement. Here is exactly how that works, where we work, and where our job stops.
How this actually works
Most consultancies that serve small businesses internationally are doing one of two things: overstating their footprint, or refusing the work. We do a third thing, and we'd rather explain it than dress it up.
Every engagement has a senior operator in the United States who owns the outcome from first call to last review. That person does not hand you off. When work needs to happen inside a market — a distributor scouted, a contract localised, a filing made — we bring in a specialist who is actually there, brief them properly, and keep them inside the same plan.
That is a deliberate structure, not a gap we're papering over. Offices you don't need are overhead you end up paying for. What a small business exporting for the first time actually needs is senior attention in a usable time zone and someone on the ground who knows the market. Those two things do not have to sit on the same payroll.
The work product is built to be read, not performed. Diagnostics, the 90-day Blueprint, models, trackers and decision logs live where your team already works, in your time, at your pace. Calls are reserved for decisions and for the uncomfortable conversations that deserve a face.
We pick the window at kickoff and write it into the engagement letter. Mornings US Eastern reach the UK, Europe and MENA in their afternoon. Latin America largely shares our working day. Evenings US Eastern reach Asia-Pacific the following morning. When the arithmetic is genuinely bad, we take the awkward hour rather than ask you to — and we say up front which meetings will be async instead.
We don't carry a standing global bench, and we won't pretend to. For each engagement we source, screen and brief the specialists that market needs: a distributor scout, a native-language reviewer, an accountant who files there, a lawyer admitted there. You see who they are before they start. Where you already have advisers in-market, we work with yours instead.
Where we work
This is a list of regions where we will take the work and can source in-market partners for it. It is not a list of offices, and it is not a claim that every market inside a region is equally easy to enter. If your target market isn't here, ask — we will tell you plainly whether we can help or who should.
Typical ask: “Should we open Canada before the US is finished, or is that a distraction?”
Typical ask: “Mexico or Colombia first, and what is a fair distributor margin here?”
Typical ask: “Do we need a local entity, or can a distributor carry us for two years?”
Typical ask: “How long is this sales cycle really, and who has to be in the room?”
Typical ask: “Can we test this without committing capital we can't get back?”
Typical ask: “Where do we land first so the rest of the region gets easier?”
Global expansion & market entry
Most expensive international mistakes come from doing these out of sequence — usually signing a distributor before deciding on a country, or localising a product before anyone tested whether the offer lands. This is the sequence we run inside the Global Expansion service line.
01
We score candidate markets on evidence of demand, cost to serve, payment and collection risk, regulatory friction, competitive density, and how cheaply you could exit. Your instinct about a market is an input, not the answer — and sometimes the scoring says the best next market is the one next door. You get: a ranked shortlist with the reasoning shown, and one market chosen to go first.
02
Direct export, an agent, a distributor, a joint venture, a local entity, or a partnership with someone already selling to your buyer. Each trades control against speed, capital and reversibility. We recommend one, state what it costs you in control, and name the conditions under which we would change it. You get: a chosen model, a staged budget, and the trigger points for moving to the next model.
03
We build the long list, run the outreach, and screen candidates on coverage, conflicting lines, financial standing where it is visible, references you can actually call, and appetite to invest rather than just to hold the territory. Then we help you negotiate commercial terms: margin, exclusivity, minimums, term, and how you get the territory back. You get: a screened shortlist and a term outline to hand to your lawyer.
04
Offer, packaging, pricing and currency, payment methods buyers there actually use, documentation, claims and labelling, language, and support hours. Localisation is not translation. The most common failure we see is a US price list converted at spot rate into a market that buys on monthly cost. You get: a launch-ready offer for that market, with a native reviewer's sign-off on customer-facing copy.
05
A market fails quietly when nobody owns it. We name the internal owner, set the weekly and monthly cadence, agree the handful of numbers that tell the truth early, and put a review gate on the calendar where you decide to double down, hold, or withdraw. Deciding to withdraw is a legitimate outcome, and it is far cheaper when it was planned for. You get: an operating cadence your team runs without us.
Plain talk
Cross-border work attracts firms that imply they can handle everything. We can't, and neither can they. Here is the line, stated before you hire us rather than discovered at the worst moment.
We do not form entities, draft or sign off contracts, register trademarks, or advise on employment law in any country. Distributor agreements, terms of sale and IP filings belong with a lawyer admitted where you are operating.
Permanent establishment, transfer pricing, VAT and GST registration, withholding, treaty positions — none of that is ours to answer. We will tell you when a plan is about to create a tax question, which is usually earlier than owners expect.
We do not classify goods, calculate duty, file entries, or arrange freight. We will make sure landed cost is in the model instead of discovered in month three, and that a broker is retained before the first shipment moves.
Visas, work permits, secondments and the right to hire a person in a given country are questions for licensed counsel. We plan around the answer; we never guess at it.
So what are you paying us for?
Specialists answer the question you put in front of them. Nobody bills you for noticing the question you failed to ask. That gap — between the lawyer, the accountant, the broker and the bank — is where small businesses lose months and money going international. Closing it is the job.
If we don't know something, we say so in the meeting, and we tell you who would know. We would rather be the firm that admits the limit than the one that improvises past it.
Cross-border questions
We contract and invoice in US dollars from the United States. Fees are fixed and agreed up front, so the number on the engagement letter is the number on the invoice — there is no hourly meter and no surprise addendum.
International clients typically pay by international wire or card. Bank charges and the exchange spread sit on your side, so we will tell you which route is cheaper for your bank rather than leaving you to find out. If your business needs invoices issued in another currency, raise it during scoping and we will tell you honestly whether we can accommodate it.
Your own cross-border pricing is a separate question, and a more important one. Getting paid across a border — terms, currency risk, collection risk — is part of the market-entry work, not an afterthought.
Engagements run in English. Every deliverable — the diagnostic, the Blueprint, models and trackers — is written in English.
For anything customer-facing in another language, we source a native reviewer in-market for that engagement: someone who checks that the offer, the pricing language and the claims read the way they are meant to, not just that the words are correct. We are not a translation or localisation agency and we won't bill you as if we were. Where the volume justifies it, we will help you select and brief a proper localisation vendor and then hold them to the plan.
Our own engagement letter is a US agreement governed by US law, regardless of where you are based. It is short, it states the scope, the fee and the dates, and we are happy to walk you through it line by line before you sign.
The contracts that matter in-market — distributor and agency agreements, local terms of sale, employment or contractor agreements, data processing terms — are drafted and reviewed by lawyers admitted in that jurisdiction. That is not us. What we do is define what the commercial terms need to achieve, give your lawyer a clear brief instead of a vague one, and pressure-test the business consequences of the clauses they come back with.
We agree an overlap window before kickoff and write it into the engagement letter, so it is a commitment rather than a hope. In practice: mornings US Eastern reach the UK, Europe and MENA during their afternoon; Latin America shares most of our working day; evenings US Eastern reach Asia-Pacific the next morning.
Everything else is async on purpose. Decisions get written down with the reasoning attached, so nobody is blocked waiting for a call. You will always know what is moving without having to ask.
When the arithmetic is genuinely unfriendly — a US-Pacific client and a Singapore partner in the same conversation — we take the awkward hour rather than hand it to you, and we say in advance which meetings will happen in writing instead of live.
Often, yes — but not on enthusiasm alone. The businesses that succeed usually have four things: a home market that is stable and profitable enough to survive the distraction, cash that can fund twelve to eighteen months without a return, one owner or senior person with real time for it, and a target market that can be entered narrowly rather than all at once.
If those are in place, a small business can move faster internationally than a large one, because the decision to commit takes a conversation instead of a committee.
If they are not, we will tell you. A perfectly good outcome of a Signal Sprint is “not this year, and here is the shorter list of things to fix at home first.” That answer costs you two weeks. The alternative costs a year and a distributor agreement you can't get out of.
Question we haven't answered? Ask it directly
Book a 30-minute discovery call. You leave with two or three things worth doing next — whether or not you hire us.