From a cold market to signed export contracts, in 16 steps
Every guide we've written, in the order you'd actually run them. Find the right buyers with trade data, reach the person who signs, get the reply, close the deal, and turn the whole thing into a system that runs without you. Read it start to finish, or jump to the step you're stuck on.
Book a strategy callFind the right buyers
Turn trade data into a list of real, qualified buyers, including the ones your competitors can't see.
- 1
How to find the companies that import your product
You don't need a bigger list of 'potential' contacts. You need the named companies already buying your product abroad, ranked by volume, with the supplier they buy from today sitting next to each one.
Read step 1 - 2
How to find your competitors' customers
Trade data records the supplier next to every importer. That means you can search a competitor and pull their entire buyer list, ranked by volume, across every market. Here's how to turn that into pipeline.
Read step 2 - 3
How to find the buyers behind your distributors
Your distributor moves the product, keeps the margin, and owns the customer relationship. Trade data shows you the front of the market, here is how to find the buyers sitting behind the visible importers.
Read step 3 - 4
How to validate export demand before entering a market
Most exporters pick a new market on a hunch, a competitor's footprint, or a tip from a trade show. Then they spend €15,000-€25,000 and find out months later whether the demand was real. Country-level trade data lets you read the demand before you commit a cent.
Read step 4 - 5
How to qualify export leads with trade data
Most exporters build a list, then blast it. The problem isn't the list, it's treating every name the same. Trade data lets you score and rank every buyer on signals that predict whether and when they'll buy, before you write a single email.
Read step 5
Reach the decision-maker
Get to the person who signs the order, and make sure your email actually lands in their inbox.
- 6
How to get replies from the people who sign the orders
Finding the right company is half the job. Getting a reply from the person who actually signs the order is the other half, and it comes down to reaching the right person, with a verified email that lands and a phone that rings.
Read step 6 - 7
Why you get no replies to your cold emails
You send hundreds of emails and hear nothing back. The reason almost nobody tells you: most of them never reach the buyer at all, filtered out long before his inbox, so he never even knows they existed. Here is the 4-step fix.
Read step 7
Get the reply
Write what gets opened, in the buyer's own language, and turn replies into booked meetings.
- 8
How to write a cold email from a buyer's import history
Your cold email gets deleted before the buyer finishes the first sentence, not because the product is wrong, but because the email reads exactly like the last thirty he got from other suppliers. Here is how to fix that using his own import history.
Read step 8 - 9
Why writing to buyers in English costs you replies
Most export teams send every buyer the same English email. It feels like a neutral default. It isn't. Here is what it actually signals, and how writing in the buyer's language changes what comes back.
Read step 9 - 10
How to turn buyer replies into booked meetings
A buyer replies to your cold email. Most exporters assume the hard part is done. It isn't. The 48 hours after a first reply are where deals quietly die, not on price, not on product, but on speed and calendar friction. Here's how to fix both.
Read step 10
Close the deal
Build trust before the call, run the call, and win the deal without cutting your price.
- 11
How to win a buyer's trust before the first call
Every foreign buyer arrives at a first meeting with one silent question he'll never say out loud: 'Can I trust this company?' The Export Kit answers it before the call starts, so your first 10 minutes go to pricing and terms, not to proving you're legitimate.
Read step 11 - 12
How to build a LinkedIn profile that attracts B2B buyers
The buyer you've been trying to reach just received your message. Before he replies, he clicks your name. If your profile reads like a dead résumé, he closes the tab. Here's how to build a profile that earns the reply instead.
Read step 12 - 13
How to run a 4-part sales call
Getting a qualified export buyer on the phone is only half the job. Here is the exact four-part framework, Intro, Discovery, Pitch, Close, that turns those booked calls into signed contracts.
Read step 13 - 14
How to win export deals when you're not the cheapest
Losing deals to cheaper suppliers is a pricing trap, not a pricing problem. Here's how exporters win on trust, lead time, and second-source positioning, without racing to the bottom.
Read step 14
Make it a system
Replace trade shows and SDR headcount with a pipeline that runs every day, without you.
- 15
How to win export customers without trade shows
Trade shows cost €15,000-€25,000 each and run three weeks a year. A trade-data system runs every day, in every language, across every time zone, for roughly the same annual cost. Here is the full method.
Read step 15 - 16
How to grow export sales without hiring an SDR team
Manual prospecting tops out at around 500 cold emails a month, and stops completely the moment you do. Here is how to build an export pipeline that keeps running whether you are in the office, on a plane, or on holiday.
Read step 16
Want this run for you instead of by you?
The playbook is the method. Fineris is the system that runs it, finding the buyers, reaching the decision-makers, and booking the meetings, so you only show up to close.
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