The best market I ever opened started with a spreadsheet, not a sales pitch.
Years ago, I was asked to help bring a financial-services programme for cars and motorbikes into Benelux. There was no local partner yet.
The obvious move was to call every bank, pitch hard and see who said yes.
We did the opposite. First, we mapped which local banks had a real reason to say yes, and which partnership would work for both sides. Only then did we pick up the phone.
Choosing the partner took weeks. Steering the partnership took every week after that.
In 18 months, penetration went from 20% to 33%. Then we repeated the same method, market by market, until the programme ran across more than 14 European markets.
Today I see the opposite in climate tech all the time: technology that works, hundreds of cold emails, very few replies.
The difference is almost never the product. It’s three questions answered before the first message:
→ Who has a dated reason to act?
→ Who actually signs?
→ What proof do they need to say yes?
That’s the method behind Find Your First European Buyers in 30 Days: 9 tools to find the trigger, the person who signs, your first 40–50 accounts, and to decide whether to enter, refine or stop.
€39 until 25 October, then €79.
And if you’d rather do it together, I’m taking on three Market-Entry Sprint clients this quarter.
If one of those three questions still has no clear answer, start there. That’s usually where the silence comes from.
Back to signals on Thursday.
— André Rodriguez