Successful small business owners know how to master the transition from local to global. Why are so many jumping on the global bandwagon? Because it offers tremendous growth. Here are 10 reasons to prove it.

1. Increase sales and profitability

Going global serves as a new source of revenue, yields greater returns on investments and predicts long-term success for a business. With the Internet, it makes it even easier to reach out to the world for business.

2. Enter new markets (first-mover advantage)

Have you saturated your local, core market and don’t have anywhere else to go? Then look beyond your region and enter an overseas market. Be sure to pick a market that offers opportunity. You want a market where it’s easy to enter, and the buyers are begging for your product or service. For example, is there a market for your products or services in Ireland? If so, get a jump on your competitors and get there before they do. It’s called first-mover advantage.

3. Create jobs

As you grow your business globally, you must support the additional workload. Hiring people is the solution and we know that the strength of our country lies in its ability to create jobs that help people live and prosper.

4. Overcome low growth in your home market

Are you selling kale in your home market and there are only so many customers who will buy it? Or are you selling specialized software and there’s been a sudden decrease in demand for it? The best way to overcome a foothold or low growth in your home market is to look for growth in overseas markets. Protect your company by exporting, using the Internet, licensing or franchising your products.

5. Outmaneuver competitors

It can be the simplest act that can generate the biggest business result. Taking one step to enter a new overseas market that your competitor isn’t in will outmaneuver that competitor and significantly produce stronger company performance against that domestic-only competitor.

6. Enlarge customer base

If you currently have 1,000 customers, why not increase the base to 2,000 by entering a foreign market via e-commerce or a collaborative sales partnership? You will need support as mentioned earlier to get the work done, but once the people and processes are in place the rest is easy.

7. Generate economies of scale in production

You’re ramping up and producing 20,000 hammers at one time, because someone in Ireland, Japan or Australia wants to buy them, and they’re not going to buy a single case. The more you produce, the greater your chance to lower your per-unit manufacturing costs.

8. Explore previously untapped markets

With an e-commerce site, customers worldwide will eventually find you, provided you’ve made it easy for them to do so, and when they do, you will want to sell them something. Move into markets where there is a heavy concentration of inquiries coming to your site. You may not have anticipated the area would be a ripe market, but the people there are telling you it is.

9. Make productive use of excess domestic capacity

This insulates the business from seasonal sales fluctuations by finding foreign markets that counterbalance that seasonality. For instance, some firms gear up for the holiday season, only to watch sales nosedive in January. By selling to other nations with peak buying seasons early in a new year, they avoid a winter sales slowdown.

10. Travel to new countries

Let’s not forget the fun factor in taking a business global. Not only will you connect with remarkable people from all over the world, but you will also have the opportunity to visit with them in person to grow the relationship and the business. Treat it as an exciting learning adventure.

Success in business can be attributed to global reach, not necessarily to domestic success. Use these telling insights to understand the benefits of going global and you will build a business that can support multiple phases of profitable growth. Now go make the world your customer base.

@2024 Laurel J. Delaney is founder and president of Chicago-based GlobeTrade.com, a management consulting company that helps entrepreneurs and small businesses go global; president of Women Entrepreneurs Grow Global®, publisher of The Global Small Business Blog, which is ranked No. 1 in the world for entrepreneurs and small businesses interested in going global; and author of “Exporting: The Definitive Guide to Selling Abroad Profitably.”