Go Global: Unlock International Markets and Opportunity

Welcome to Your Business, Accelerated! Digitally remastered with AI, Your Business, Accelerated! is the go-to podcast for entrepreneurs ready to scale smart. Hosted by Attorney Shaune B. Arnold, it delivers strategic business insights, legal frameworks, and real-world solutions to help you operate with clarity and confidence. Get actionable guidance to protect, grow, and optimize your business…one smart move at a time.

In this inspiring episode of Your Business, Accelerated!, Attorney Shaune B. Arnold shows you how to expand beyond borders and thrive globally. Discover strategic steps to enter international markets, partner with embassies and trade councils, and respond to multinational RFPs. When local doors close, the world opens wide—go global with purpose! 

Transcript

Hello, friends! I really want to welcome you to your business accelerated. I am your host attorney Shaune B Arnold …and I am just very excited to be with you today and every single week. If this is your first time here, thank you so much for spending time with me. I know there are a lot of places that you can be, and a lot of things that you could be doing. I truly appreciate you stopping through to spend some time with me to help you grow your business.

So, let's do a little housekeeping. Those of you who are regulars have heard all of this before, so just sort of whistle and look upward. And those of you who are new, please listen up.

I want to let you know that I am a California business attorney. I practice in downtown Los Angeles. Well, I practice all over California. And I sometimes speak about legal issues on this show. To the extent that I do, my conversation about those legal issues have to be taken in the context of California law …because that is my training.

If you live somewhere else, then I want you to take whatever I tell you, if it's pertinent to your situation, to an attorney in your jurisdiction. Have them actually tell you whether there's a difference between the law in my jurisdiction and the law in your jurisdiction.

I also want to let you know that here on your business accelerated, we are dealing with really hardcore business issues like today, we're going global. I also invite you to join us weekly over at legal biz Café. On that show, we talk about mindset issues that keep you from ever getting to your business operations issues. When you listen to Your Business Accelerated and LegalBiz Café, you have the tools you need to truly build a business you are going to love.

So those are all the housekeeping matters. I am really excited because tonight. We are talking about going global. So, what does that take? You know, I always like to ask you a question, because I want you to really connect in your own mind with what you think of the subjects that we discuss.

Tonight, we're talking about doing business globally. So, what does it take to go global? What do you think that it really takes? Because, you know, in reality, going all the way around the world is just time and space, right? And dealing with doing business globally is, I was going to say, mostly a mindset issue.

Yes, politics is involved. There are legal, financial and other barriers to entry in various markets around the world that you do have to consider. But I would like you to consider this.

Have you been downsized? Do you know someone who has been downsized, especially someone who's over the age of 45? Have they been looking for a significant amount of time without finding a job and they feel like they've lost all their value in the marketplace?

We are experiencing fundamental changes in our markets and government. There's a lot that's going on, and it's very scary for a lot of people. They feel panicked or frozen in place and confused. I'm talking to a lot of people who just don't know where to turn. I think I have a small measure of salvation for you this evening.

I encourage you to lift your eyes, stretch your vision just a little bit, and consider the fact that our local markets may be saturated. They are not hiring the 50 year olds because the 25 year olds are coming out of school and they can’t find jobs.

But look around the world, the entire world wants to do business IN the United States, …WITH the United States …and LIKE the United States. Whatever you know, whatever you do, there is somebody, there's an entire tribe of people for you globally. You need to reach out to them. Find them.

At the very least, you need a website. It creates an instant international presence for your business.

I remember many years ago, I worked for a publicly traded company, and I opened offices for them in Russia, China, Australia, Mexico, the UK, Spain and France. In most cases, I hired local counsel and let them do a lot of the negotiating for me. They understood the culture so they saved our company a LOT of money.

I worked with local counsel to open the offices and to staff them. During this work, I was really struck by the different work cultures that I encountered. For example, in France, if you hire someone, you pretty much have an employee for life. You may have heard me say that before, but it's true. You know, I met a gentleman recently at a function who was afraid to implement any of the ideas he was hearing at that function, because he was coming from South America, and the country that he was in in South America was a French protectorate, or at least it was in the past, and they still go by a lot of the French civil laws.

In his mind, anything he did for one of his employees in South America he had to do for all of his employees, globally, especially in France. That was prohibitive to him, so he felt very stymied. So, you do have to be really careful when you're looking to go global; ensure that you take into account all of these various issues.

Let me give you an idea of some of the ways you can actually find yourself doing business globally. My suggestion would be reach out to some global chambers of commerce and Councils General. Their job is to foster American business in their home countries.

Sometimes you may have to interact with your local chamber of commerce. If you reach out to some of the embassies and some of the chambers for some of the immigrant populations in your city, then you will find some ready business partners right there that cannot only make it really inexpensive for you to do business overseas, but they can literally take you there and introduce you to all of the infrastructure and all of the regulatory information that you need to be aware of in order to do business in that country. I think that the various embassies in the countries that you are considering are just a gold mine.

You can also go to various trade organizations for the countries that you're interested in doing business with, and these trade organizations can encompass entire regions like Southeast Asia or South America or Central America or something like that. You can also look to make yourself part of.

A trade delegation, where the trade delegation will introduce you to some very influential people. On the other end, the contacts that you can make can be absolutely astounding.

There are also requests for proposal that are issued by multinational corporations and by development organizations, both here and abroad. You can find those on the internet. I love the internet. I find ways each and every day to surf around on the Net and find information. It is an absolute gold mine at your fingertips and Artificial Intelligence is a game changer. I find ways each and every day to use some form of it.

I suggest that you look for some requests for proposals that are being issued by multinational corporations and by development organizations, and if it seems a little intimidating to deal with those requests for proposals, then you should get a transaction attorney, like I'm a transaction attorney. I've been responding to requests for proposal on behalf of clients for more than 25 years.

Find someone who has international business transactions experience. They can help you either do a consulting arrangement, where you do the work, or they can do it for you.

You know, I also suggest that you look to the United States government, because the Department of Commerce and the Department of State, and also the Department of Labor all regulate American business abroad. They do business with and through private industry. These are contracts where in order to get them, you have to get yourself certified. And in order to be certified, you, if you have any veteran, or MBE/WBE designation or if maybe you have some sort of physical or other challenge that could make you an OBE and other business organization, that makes you a challenged organization, you can get some set asides, contracts that are actually set aside for these populations to make sure that they get included in the government business.

So, you see, there are all kinds of ways that you can actually reach out across the globe and start doing business. Are you having trouble doing business right there in your neighborhood? Are you having trouble doing business right there in your city? Are you finding things drying up? Are the contracts disappearing?

If so, take your business global. If you are finding yourself with dwindling contracts, dwindling hopes and dwindling opportunities on our shores, there is an entire world out there. They want to know what you know. They want to know what you do, and they want to know how you do it.

If you were to reach out with the mindset and the heart set and the intention to pour into somebody else, you may find yourself richly rewarded, not just in feeling good, but we're talking about doing business. You will be richly rewarded in currency because that's what makes the world go round. But, what truly makes the world function is the heart set and the mindset to do good and to do well at the same time.

Ladies and gentlemen, I want to thank you for visiting me this week on your business accelerated. I invite you to follow me on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter X. In each of those places, my name is S.h.a.u.n.e dot Arnold.

In the meantime, and in between time, I am reminding you to maximize your competence to get the confidence you need to succeed. I can’t wait to see you right back here next week, on Your Business Accelerated. Thank you and bye-bye, friends.