There is a conversation I have had many times, first at Google and now with Portuguese companies. It almost always starts the same way: “We have been getting inquiries from clients in Spain (or France, or the UK). We think it is time to go abroad.”
If you are reading this and you lead an SME, you may have been on this side of the table before. The domestic market starts to feel small, the first foreign contacts arrive, and internationalisation seems like the natural next step. You translate the website, launch campaigns in three or four countries at the same time, and hire someone to “handle the international market.”
For a few months, there is enthusiasm. Then the surprises start. The cost of acquisition is double what was projected. Clients ask for payment terms, delivery conditions, or support the company cannot provide. The team splits its attention between the market that was already paying the bills and the new markets that are not paying anything yet.
And the money, which seemed sufficient, runs out before the results arrive.
Internationalising is one of the decisions with the greatest growth potential for an SME. It is also one of the fastest ways to put the company at risk when done without a plan.
The mistakes repeat themselves from company to company, almost always in the same order:
1-Choosing markets by intuition:the closest country, the most similar language, the market where you know someone. These are understandable criteria, but none of them tells you whether there is enough demand, what it costs to compete, or what margin is left at the end.
2-Entering multiple markets at the same time: the budget and the team’s attention get split, and no market receives enough investment to prove whether it works. After a year, the company is present in four countries and does not know which one is worth keeping.
3-Underestimating the real cost of entry: advertising is the visible part. Behind it sit content localisation, logistics, tax compliance, customer support in another language and in another time zone. And the return, in a market where nobody knows your brand, always takes longer to arrive.
4-Treating the new market as a copy of the current one: the same offer, the same prices, the same message, just translated. Buying behaviour changes from country to country, and what convinces a client in Lisbon may leave a client in Madrid or London completely indifferent.
5-Not defining when to stop:without metrics and without decision deadlines, the company keeps investing out of inertia (or out of pride). Walking away from a market in time is also a strategic decision, and often the hardest one to make.
The alternative is to internationalise in phases, with the risk controlled at each one.
In the first phase, valida-se: before any serious investment, you test demand with a limited budget: a page in the target market’s language, test campaigns, conversations with potential clients and local partners. The goal of this phase is to learn, not to generate revenue.
In the second, you enter with focus: one market at a time, with budget, targets, and a deadline defined upfront. The offer adapts to what the previous phase revealed, and the team knows exactly what needs to happen for the investment to continue.
In the third, you consolidate and then replicate: when the first market is profitable and the processes are fine-tuned, what you learned becomes the starting point for the next market. Each new entry becomes faster and cheaper than the one before.
What makes this model safe is simple: you only move forward when the numbers justify it. If a test fails, the company loses the investment of a test. It does not lose the business it already had.
There is a question worth asking before you take the first step:
If the first foreign market takes twice as long as expected to generate a return, can your company absorb that without jeopardising the market where it already makes money?
If the answer is no, you are not ready to internationalise this way. You need a plan.
At Grow Beyond, we help SMEs choose the right markets, test them with controlled risk, and grow abroad without weakening the business at home. If you are thinking about taking this step, we can help you design the plan before you invest.
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