Hi All...
I wanted to talk a bit about international expansion, and give an example of some of the things i had to navigate on this last deal. I am so very proud of this latest deal...I kind of also wanted to share it with you guys who are staples here at the small-business-forum too. OK... sept 2015 I got a lead from a gentleman in the Bahamas to purchase one of my game stores. As you guys know I have extensive experience internationally including Mexico, Hong Kong, Japan, and the Philippines. This however was the first time my video game store model was purchased and going to be built in another country so it was a biggie. Based on my experience I knew I could handle it and jumped all over the deal giving the client breaks that he just couldn't refuse because I really wanted the deal. The first issue was immigration. I have my passport and I knew I would need a work permit, but the application to get it meant I needed to prove that my area of expertise and knowledge was specialized to a degree that no local Bahamian could perform my function. This was unexpected because of my experience traveling there for pleasure. The country seemed to be pretty lax on admittance but this is certainly not the case when you go there to work. In the end we ended up navigating it correctly. I sent credentials and provided detailed explanation of why this was the case, and the client also submitted a letter requesting my admittance. We were even able to get my assistant in because I confirmed that even tho his tasks may be easily performed by a local, I considered him essential due to his knowledge of some company processes that I would need to draw upon, with him at my side, that I considered sensitive/confidential this explanation served to gain him admittance as well.
I'll run out of space here but I really could go on and on.. i'll pick one of the biggest hurdles. The POS. We have developed our own POS in house back in 2010 so I am lucky in that I can have the developer make changes to the POS on the fly. Accordingly I of course tried to make sure we had any potential issues that we could head off at the pass covered before we were wheels up to the Bahamas. I asked about, and researched on my own currency exchange which... hasn't changed much in a long time... the Bahamian Dollar is pegged very close to the US dollar. I had a conversation about taxes (and so many others regarding the product coming through customs lol... so much we had to navigate there but as I said... limited space) back to taxes. He talked to me about VAT and I confirmed our system could calculate it and print it on the receipt. this is where it got crazy. in our conversation it was never revealed and I would have never thought to ask... but in the Bahamas it is law that Tax is printed on the tag that is placed on the merchandise. I employ a team that prices everything stateside..(at least as far as disk media and consoles go) i'm talking 2400 plus items easily, and then uploads it all to the point of sale so that when I get on site the inventory is already in the system. This process takes two weeks prior to my departure to the field. guess what... I get there and I find out about the VAT transparency law...
Now I had to reprice all of this merch in a very, very, limited time frame. I knew there was no way I could pull it off manually and get the customers shop open on time. so I called my developer. and after two days of collaboration (my clarifying vat for different categories and hard keying spreadsheets along with client input and getting the specs of exactly what we needed to the developer, and he programming on the fly) we were able to reprint everything automatically and resticker it all to the client's amazement. You guys the store came out so awesome... and his numbers are so so great. International for a small company can be a challenge.. I always say small business is just 24/7 problem solving, and at the end of the day, if you have solved enough problems you get to be successful (those that work with me have heard this many times lol) with international its usually doubled because you WILL come up against some unknowns when you are inexperienced in a country. With enough dedication to your cause tho, you can navigate it. I learned so many lessons on this last deal if you guys want to hear more i'll be happy to post them... I enjoy sharing.
I wanted to talk a bit about international expansion, and give an example of some of the things i had to navigate on this last deal. I am so very proud of this latest deal...I kind of also wanted to share it with you guys who are staples here at the small-business-forum too. OK... sept 2015 I got a lead from a gentleman in the Bahamas to purchase one of my game stores. As you guys know I have extensive experience internationally including Mexico, Hong Kong, Japan, and the Philippines. This however was the first time my video game store model was purchased and going to be built in another country so it was a biggie. Based on my experience I knew I could handle it and jumped all over the deal giving the client breaks that he just couldn't refuse because I really wanted the deal. The first issue was immigration. I have my passport and I knew I would need a work permit, but the application to get it meant I needed to prove that my area of expertise and knowledge was specialized to a degree that no local Bahamian could perform my function. This was unexpected because of my experience traveling there for pleasure. The country seemed to be pretty lax on admittance but this is certainly not the case when you go there to work. In the end we ended up navigating it correctly. I sent credentials and provided detailed explanation of why this was the case, and the client also submitted a letter requesting my admittance. We were even able to get my assistant in because I confirmed that even tho his tasks may be easily performed by a local, I considered him essential due to his knowledge of some company processes that I would need to draw upon, with him at my side, that I considered sensitive/confidential this explanation served to gain him admittance as well.
I'll run out of space here but I really could go on and on.. i'll pick one of the biggest hurdles. The POS. We have developed our own POS in house back in 2010 so I am lucky in that I can have the developer make changes to the POS on the fly. Accordingly I of course tried to make sure we had any potential issues that we could head off at the pass covered before we were wheels up to the Bahamas. I asked about, and researched on my own currency exchange which... hasn't changed much in a long time... the Bahamian Dollar is pegged very close to the US dollar. I had a conversation about taxes (and so many others regarding the product coming through customs lol... so much we had to navigate there but as I said... limited space) back to taxes. He talked to me about VAT and I confirmed our system could calculate it and print it on the receipt. this is where it got crazy. in our conversation it was never revealed and I would have never thought to ask... but in the Bahamas it is law that Tax is printed on the tag that is placed on the merchandise. I employ a team that prices everything stateside..(at least as far as disk media and consoles go) i'm talking 2400 plus items easily, and then uploads it all to the point of sale so that when I get on site the inventory is already in the system. This process takes two weeks prior to my departure to the field. guess what... I get there and I find out about the VAT transparency law...
Now I had to reprice all of this merch in a very, very, limited time frame. I knew there was no way I could pull it off manually and get the customers shop open on time. so I called my developer. and after two days of collaboration (my clarifying vat for different categories and hard keying spreadsheets along with client input and getting the specs of exactly what we needed to the developer, and he programming on the fly) we were able to reprint everything automatically and resticker it all to the client's amazement. You guys the store came out so awesome... and his numbers are so so great. International for a small company can be a challenge.. I always say small business is just 24/7 problem solving, and at the end of the day, if you have solved enough problems you get to be successful (those that work with me have heard this many times lol) with international its usually doubled because you WILL come up against some unknowns when you are inexperienced in a country. With enough dedication to your cause tho, you can navigate it. I learned so many lessons on this last deal if you guys want to hear more i'll be happy to post them... I enjoy sharing.
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