Prepare Your Company for Brexit

Change is coming

Up to now word of mouth, printed material and having a website was enough to attract new customers in the United Kingdom. Sales and marketing can take on a more important role to expand and export the business over borders and outside your physical reach and as important as operations and finance.

With Brexit rules changes from the last 20-50 years, management and marketing will need to take time to research and focus on areas of the market to focus attention on, without the same free movement.

Europe Union exit will also be an opportunity to expand with new partners in the UK looking around again for stronger UK partners. So does your brand share your logistics and time for domestic business?

The point of marketing is to look outward to the next deal so do not cut the area that will reduce your reach. There will be a changing 5-10 years where until the politicians are over the line with a new deal, a lot of trade deals and rules are up in the air.

Engineers not good at sharing

Sharing does not always come naturally to engineers and highly skilled people. People who like their tools and tuning feeds and speeds.

It is important to grow brand and awareness, some is talking to non-technical people, but it is important to be talking to other technical companies too. We all need to learn from each other and as new processes shared grow the whole industry and keep the strong position.

It is good to take the opportunity to let people know about you and your work.

You can plan

Your business can start to prepare for Brexit today by taking stock of your current brand and audience reach. Will the countries you partner with change? Will you need to get back over contracts to examine if new government or trade rules will impact them? Look also at the logistics and times at border crossings that may be impacted.

The wider audience and awareness of your brand and the image of the United Kingdom and Europe will be affected by the change. We will hope for the positive growth in engineering to continue but you should look to be having your own dialogue and sharing your business value position.

Digital audience on the internet

Online in websites and email are some of the fastest ways to cross borders and clarity of unfiltered message from your team to the world. Many people will want to be aware of your business work and what you are doing with partners and the community that form their perceptions. Sharing product and details of the offerings you have help, along with a direct way of contact. You can go further than that in stages, with:

• Good product photography
• Dimensions and install instructions
• Support request handling and first stage response guides
• CAD/CAM drawings and models for fitting into larger projects
• Partner secure exchanges
• Sales and Marketing Funnels
• Share training
• Pre-sales education manuals and videos
• Apprentice programs and getting in front of young people
• Mobile assets and contact information
• Parts assembly and sourcing catalogue, to save on all the printing

Audience is not all at your front door

With the audience being country and worldwide, the internet fits this location independent marketplace. You can share and retain your local identity but share it at a larger scale.

Encourage people to come visit and be aware of the work you do on your own website, but as with conferences, trade shows and going to visit customers, people are not all in one place. It is worth investing time in a strategy that keeps your brand and staff names in the visible area of potential leads and partners by carrying your conversation to where people are online. Be that trade publications and forums, or social media and video. It is more effective to be in a focused range of locations and being honest and engaging on these.

One of the places this can be seen is Twitter, where news and successes are passed around and awareness liked and commented on. Its all about personal relationships but a high amount of discovery and building awareness.

Make an action plan

Take steps to plan so you have a more strategic approach and make the essential adoption.

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Draw up a plan together

Follow on, would you like to talk about developing the online part of your strategy, contact me here

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