Your first attempts to sell abroad are probably going to fail miserably.

(Now, I know that as someone who helps people get those initial sales abroad, I should be all “rah rah, it’s easy, you can do it!” But sorry, if you want someone to blow smoke up your a** like that, you might want to Google something like “get me a cheerleader.”)

The “sell abroad” community is chock full of service providers who put out stuff like “Singaporeans are different from Malaysians,” “French are different from Germans,” “Here’s what Norwegians are like,” etc etc.

But the thing is, when you are on the road to getting your first few sales abroad, you are going to suck so much and make so many mistakes that you won’t be able to identify the problem yet. Worrying about how Singaporeans are different from Malaysians, you can do that later, when you get better.

Here’s a real-life example…

A couple years ago, we had a guest on the podcast, Vlad Cazan, a Romanian guy who runs a company called KFactory, a factory automation company. KFactory was trying to sell into the UK. They thought the best way to get a foot in the door with UK companies would be to work with Romanian-based subsidiaries of UK companies.

It was a perfectly good strategy. No one would find fault with it.

It didn’t work at all.

KFactory retooled their strategy, trying something completely different. That’s the thing that ended up working.

My point is this: The plan you start with may look bulletproof, but it’s highly likely that it will fail anyway.

So yes, Singaporeans are different from Malaysians, and understanding the differences will eventually make you a better person, but when you are going for those first few sales abroad, you are going to be swimming in so much suck that you won’t be able to identify the problem.

You will just have to throw a bunch of spaghetti at the wall. Some of it will stick, and you’ll do whatever that was again. Some of it will fall off, and you’ll ditch those things.