I am watching it happen again. Startups and SMEs assume that investing in time, travel, and government-backed support will translate directly into deals and partnerships. They staff booths, pitch attendees, and wait for purchase orders.
Meanwhile, major brands like Samsung, LG, Hyundai, and Lotte are operating under an entirely different playbook.
What Major Brands Understand
For example, events like CES aren’t deal-closing events. They are brand amplification platforms.
It’s not about chasing buyers on the show floor. It’s about staging evergreen media moments, securing press coverage, and building narrative momentum that extends for months beyond the convention center.
The Actual ROI
After years of watching Korean companies enter Western markets and international brands enter Korea, the pattern is clear: The companies that succeed at events like CES treat them as evergreen media launch pads, not sales floors.
The Four Critical Steps Most Companies Skip
Korean and global companies must recognize the significant upfront support and investment required to enter markets outside their home countries. Here are the critical steps that distinguish successful market entries from failed attempts:
Do Your Homework
Real market discovery requires investing time and resources in objective, detailed competitive analysis. The report should identify competitors’ strengths and weaknesses, the strategies that create distinct advantages, barriers to entry, and vulnerabilities that can be exploited.
Too often, companies scratch the surface of market discovery. Sometimes, this means assigning in-house teams to work remotely and conducting research via Google searches. In other cases, headquarters dispatches a team to do ‘field work,’ attend trade shows, and visit a few potential partners.
These approaches fall short of legitimate competitive analysis.
Get in Front of the Right People
For highly recognized U.S. or global brands, setting up meetings is less of a barrier because name recognition opens doors. Brands entering an overseas market need significant effort to establish credibility upfront.
Arranging solid introductions involves upfront costs and can be very time-consuming. Furthermore, anyone with the skills, savvy, and reputation to facilitate introductions with decision-makers should not be expected to do so as a favor.
As advertising legend David Ogilvy famously said: ‘Pay peanuts and you get monkeys.’ The principle applies equally to market entry consultants.
Present as if it were a First Date
Although introductions and first contacts have traditionally been best done in person, they are often ‘virtual’ today. Any content presented at this stage should be high-quality and well-localized.
Too often, companies present repurposed generic PDF and PPT presentations, not unique, custom-tailored content. Grammar, spelling, and punctuation must be checked by native speakers, and pages must be free of formatting errors.
At a minimum, interested parties will Google a company and often key individuals before any meeting. A professional website is advisable. Even better are third-party postings, such as press releases and media articles, that showcase the company as a legitimate business.
Share the Vision
During their screening process, global companies select top candidates based on a solid vision and business plan for the market. They will request a comprehensive Go-to-Market Business Plan, not a three- or four-page company overview.
As with PDFs or PPTs shared during introductions, the Plan must be free of glitches, poor grammar, and spelling errors. The documents should present a compelling, solid business opportunity.
A company PDF highlighting your brand is fantastic, but most potential partners are primarily interested in a solid business and go-to-market strategy, too.
The Economic Reality
These four steps require time, resources, and commitment. There are upfront costs, unlike past practices, which relied on a Finder’s Fee model that typically required no upfront investment.
Professional market entry requires dedicated time and expertise. Successful consultants work on retainer to cover time and expenses, with bonuses upon deal completion or for development-fee transactions.
As one legal expert specializing in international contracts notes: ‘A little money carefully spent at the front end of market analysis, and during initial negotiations will always save a lot more money later in the process.’
Global business presents challenges and risks. Success requires embracing a new model and taking bold action by committing resources to projects that venture into uncharted waters, even when a more practical approach would be to tackle each stage as it unfolds.
Companies that understand this treat CES as brand amplification rather than a deal-closing opportunity and invest appropriately in market entry are the ones building sustainable international businesses.
