You've got equipment that performs. Your European customers will vouch for that. You've invested in a US sales office because your home market has plateaued and you need new territory to hit growth targets. So why isn't the phone ringing?
Here's what nobody told you before you set up that US office: American buyers don't know you exist. The ones who stumble across your website aren't sure why they should care. Your sales team is making calls that go unreturned, attending trade shows that generate business cards but not opportunities, and every quarter you're explaining to headquarters why the pipeline still looks thin.
This isn't a sales execution problem. It's a market entry problem. The approach that built your business in Europe - relationships, trade show presence, word-of-mouth reputation - takes decades to develop.
You don't have decades. Your American competitors already own those relationships, and they're in front of your prospects every day through their marketing efforts.
Back home, you built credibility over years. Plant managers knew your company. Engineers had seen your equipment running at other facilities. When you exhibited at trade shows, people stopped by your booth because they recognized your name.
In the US, you're starting with a few relationships with specifying engineers or procurement managers who determine which vendors are even considered. You're asking American buyers to take a risk on an relatively unknown supplier when "nobody ever got fired for buying from the established vendor" is the operating principle.
Your competitors here have been servicing these customers for twenty or thirty years. They've got local inventory, local service technicians, and a Rolodex full of plant managers who take their calls. You're fighting for attention against companies that are already trusted partners.
The procurement processes look different, too. European sales cycles often involve longer periods of relationship development and more technical discussions before formal RFPs are issued.
In the US, buyers move faster once they've made their decision - but getting considered is harder because they already have established vendors.
The challenge isn't closing deals once you get access. It's getting access in the first place.
I'll go ahead and walk you through what happens when companies set up US operations without proper business development infrastructure. Your salesperson sits in an office making cold calls that often go unanswered. You fly over quarterly for trade shows, collect business cards, and maybe get a few follow-up meetings that don't go anywhere. After 18 months, the headquarters starts questioning the investment. After 24 months, you're either pulling back - and your competitors will tell that story to prospects for years - or you're doubling down without a clear strategy and burning through even more cash.
The opportunity cost is massive. While you're spinning your wheels, your competitors are capturing the growth in the US market. The customers you could have won are making purchasing decisions and signing multi-year contracts with other vendors. Every month you don't build a pipeline is a month you fall further behind.
And when you finally do pull the plug on an unsuccessful US expansion, you've spent somewhere between $500,000 and $2 million, damaged your brand's credibility in the market, and lost the management confidence you'd need to try again with a better approach.
Here's the fundamental shift you need to understand: US buyers research online long before they ever talk to a salesperson. According to Gartner research, B2B buyers are up to 80% through their purchase decision before engaging with suppliers. They're on your website at 11 PM reading technical specifications. They're reviewing case studies to assess your understanding of their applications. They're trying to figure out if you're legitimate or if you'll disappear in two years.
Forrester Research found that 68% of B2B buyers prefer to research independently online rather than interact with a sales representative. That number has only increased as AI-powered search and research tools have made it easier for buyers to gather information without talking to vendors.
Your sales process should begin months before someone picks up the phone. That means when a plant manager in Ohio searches for solutions to his production bottleneck at midnight, your content needs to appear.
When an engineer is researching equipment options, your case studies need to demonstrate that you understand US applications. When a procurement manager is building a vendor list, your website needs to signal credibility and staying power.
Most European manufacturers appear in the US with a website that's essentially a product catalog - featuring technical specs, some photos, and a contact form.
That doesn't answer the questions American buyers are asking:
The gap between what your website says and what buyers need to know is costing you opportunities every single day. Prospects are researching solutions, finding your competitors' content instead of yours, and moving forward without you ever knowing they existed.
If you thought you could skip the digital marketing investment and rely on trade shows and direct outreach, AI just changed the game completely. Here's why: American buyers are increasingly using AI tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Anthropic's Claude to research solutions. These tools don't pull from vendor databases or paid directories. They pull from the content that exists online - articles, case studies, technical documentation, application notes.
When a buyer asks an AI tool "What are the best solutions for [specific industrial application]?" the AI synthesizes information from available online content. If your competitors have published detailed case studies, application guides, and technical articles about solving that exact problem, the AI references them. If you haven't published that content, you don't exist in the AI's response. You're not even in the consideration set.
Absorb that fact. You will not even be considered if your content is not found in the US online or by the AI tools.
This is fundamentally different from traditional search engine optimization. With Google, you could at least buy your way onto the first page with paid ads. AI tools don't work that way. They prioritize authoritative, detailed content that genuinely answers the user's question. You can't buy your way into an AI-generated recommendation. You have to earn it by creating content that demonstrates subject matter expertise.
According to a study by Gartner published in 2024, 25% of B2B buyers are already using generative AI tools as part of their research process, and that number is projected to reach 60% by 2025 (Gartner, "Emerging Tech Impact Radar: Generative AI," 2024). These buyers are getting vendor recommendations, technical comparisons, and application guidance from AI before they ever visit your website or contact your sales team.
Our clients are starting to see website visits, leads, and new customers that come directly from AI sites.
What this means practically: you need content that speaks directly to the problems your prospects are trying to solve. Not generic marketing copy about your company's commitment to quality and innovation. Detailed, technical content about specific applications, with real performance data and ROI calculations. Case studies that walk through actual installations with measurable results. Application guides that help engineers specify the right solution for their use case.
The European manufacturers who make world-class equipment AND who figure this out early will dominate AI-driven research. The ones who don't will be invisible to an increasingly important channel that's driving buyer awareness and vendor consideration.
Trade shows won't solve this problem. Yes, you need to exhibit at the major industry shows - not showing up signals you're not serious about the market. But you're one booth among hundreds of vendors, many with established customer relationships and bigger hospitality budgets. The qualified buyers are already meeting with their existing vendors. You're talking to whoever wanders by.
Cold calling works poorly in US industrial markets. Gatekeepers are trained to deflect vendors, and your accent - I'm just being honest here - immediately signals you're an outsider who probably doesn't understand their specific business. You'll burn through weeks of calling time to get a handful of meetings with people who aren't decision makers.
What actually works: targeted account-based approaches where you demonstrate you understand specific prospects' challenges before you ask for their time. That means real research, not just looking at their website. Understanding their production processes, their competitive pressures, where your equipment could solve problems that are costing them money.
LinkedIn has become the primary business development tool in US B2B markets, but most European manufacturers use it poorly. You're not trying to connect with procurement managers - they're gatekeepers who deflect vendors. You're trying to reach engineers, plant managers, operations directors - the people with the technical authority who influence specification decisions.
You reach these people by sharing content that demonstrates technical expertise. You comment intelligently on industry discussions and make yourself someone worth talking to before requesting a meeting.
When you do reach out, you need to offer genuine value in that first conversation. Not a product pitch - a discussion about their specific challenges, technical insights about their application, maybe an efficiency analysis or application engineering support. You're trying to show that you understand their world well enough to have an informed technical conversation. That's what gets you a second meeting.
You built your European business through relationships, trade publications, and word-of-mouth over decades. You think you can replicate that approach in the US. You can't, because you don't have decades. Your competitors are already in front of your prospects every day through their marketing. If you're not visible when buyers are researching solutions, you don't exist.
According to Demand Gen Report's 2023 B2B Buyer Behavior Survey, 78% of B2B buyers are consuming three to seven pieces of content before they're willing to engage with sales (Demand Gen Report, "2023 B2B Buyer Behavior Survey"). That content - case studies, white papers, application guides, technical articles - is how you build credibility with prospects before you ever talk to them. Without it, you're asking for meetings with people who don't know who you are or why they should care.
Most European manufacturers see digital marketing as an expense. Something you do after you've established market presence through direct sales. That's backwards. Digital marketing is about compressing the time it takes to build awareness and credibility. It's how you get in front of buyers who are actively researching solutions. It's how you demonstrate technical expertise to prospects who aren't yet ready to take sales calls.
Think about it from the buyer's perspective. They've got a problem. They search online for solutions. Your competitors' content appears - case studies, application guides, and technical articles that explain how to solve precisely that problem. Your company doesn't appear anywhere. Who do you think they will contact?
Here's what a proper US digital marketing strategy looks like: A website that speaks directly to US applications with US-specific case studies and references. Content that ranks when prospects search for solutions - not just your product names, but the problems you solve and the applications you serve. Case studies with real performance data that demonstrate ROI in terms American buyers understand. Technical resources that engineers actually find useful - application guides, selection tools, performance calculators. A systematic email nurture program that stays in front of prospects from initial awareness until they're ready to engage in serious discussions.
The investment isn't trivial - you're looking at maybe $75,000 or more annually for content creation, SEO, paid search, and marketing automation if you're doing it correctly. But that investment compresses years off your market entry timeline. Without it, you're asking your sales team to generate awareness and credibility through one-on-one conversations, which is an impossibly slow and expensive process.
Your European sales team can't effectively support US deals from six time zones ahead. When a prospect requests information at 2 PM Eastern, it's 8 PM in Central Europe. They're gone for the day. The prospect moves on to a competitor who responded while you were asleep.
Response time matters in American business culture. When prospects request information or pricing, they expect responses within hours, not the next European business day.
You need US-based resources who can respond in real-time, schedule meetings without time zone gymnastics, and understand the pace American buyers expect. That doesn't necessarily mean a large team initially, but the people you do have in the US need real authority to move deals forward. They can't just be order-takers who pass everything back to Europe for decisions.
Here's what kills deals: A prospect asks for pricing. Your US person says they need to check with headquarters. Two days later they come back with a number. The prospect has follow-up questions about configuration. Your US person needs to consult with European engineering. Another few days pass. Meanwhile, your competitor's local sales engineer has already worked through three iterations of the proposal and is scheduling a site visit. You've lost before you even knew you were competing.
Your US team needs authority to quote standard configurations, negotiate within established parameters, and commit to delivery schedules without checking back to Europe for every decision. They need direct access to application engineering support that operates on US time zones. They need inventory visibility and the ability to commit to ship dates that match American expectations.
This is hard for European manufacturers because you're used to centralized control. But the alternative is losing deals because you're too slow to respond and too bureaucratic to work with. American buyers will pay a modest premium for vendors who are easy to do business with. They won't wait around while you navigate internal European approval processes.
Most European manufacturers underestimate both. You're not going to generate substantial US revenue in year one unless you get lucky with one large early customer. A realistic timeline for building sustainable US business is three to five years from initial market entry to meaningful revenue contribution.
Year one is about establishing presence and generating initial awareness. Getting your digital infrastructure right. Creating the content and reference materials you need. Making initial customer contacts and starting to build relationships. If you close any significant business in year one, consider it a bonus, not the expectation.
Year two is about converting those initial relationships into reference accounts and using those references to open more doors. Your pipeline should start filling with qualified opportunities. You're still investing more than you're generating, but the trajectory should be clear.
Year three is where you should start seeing real revenue contribution. Not enough to cover all your US investment yet, but enough to demonstrate the market entry is working. Your reference accounts are helping you win competitive bids. Your digital presence is generating qualified inbound inquiries for you. Your sales process is working efficiently enough that you're not losing deals to slow response times or poor coordination.
Companies that try to do this on the cheap usually spend the same total amount over a longer period with worse results. They hire cheaper, less experienced people who can't open doors. They skimp on marketing and wonder why nobody knows they exist. They try to support everything from Europe and lose deals because they're too slow. They end up reacting to problems instead of executing a coherent strategy.
Management needs to understand this upfront. If headquarters expects US profitability in 18 months, you're going to make decisions that optimize for short-term revenue instead of building sustainable market presence. That usually means chasing any opportunity regardless of fit, discounting heavily to close early deals, and never investing in the infrastructure that generates consistent pipeline. You'll hit year three with a few scattered customers but no systematic way to grow.
You can't manage what you don't measure, but most European manufacturers track the wrong metrics for US market entry. "Did we close any deals this quarter?" is a lagging indicator that doesn't tell you whether your strategy is working. By the time revenue shows up (or doesn't), you've already spent months executing the wrong approach.
You need leading indicators that tell you whether you're building momentum. Start with awareness and engagement: Are you generating qualified inquiries from US prospects? How many per month, and what's the trend? Are those inquiries coming from target industries and company sizes that match your ideal customer profile, or are you attracting tire-kickers who'll never buy?
Track your digital performance systematically. Website traffic from US visitors - not total traffic, specifically US traffic in your target industries. Content downloads and resource requests. Time on site and pages viewed, which indicate genuine interest versus accidental clicks. According to HubSpot's 2025 State of Marketing Report, companies that track content engagement metrics are 2.4 times more likely to improve their lead quality year-over-year.
Measure your sales process efficiency. How many touches does it take to convert an inquiry to an actual opportunity? What's your meeting-to-proposal conversion rate? What's your proposal-to-order conversion rate? If you're generating inquiries but they're not converting to meetings, your initial qualification is off or your value proposition isn't compelling. If you're getting meetings but not advancing to proposals, either your solution doesn't fit US market needs or your sales process needs work.
Track your pipeline velocity. How long does it take from first contact to closed order? Which stages are bottlenecks? A deal that sits in "proposal stage" for three months while you wait for European engineering to finalize technical details is a deal you're probably going to lose. If your sales cycle is significantly longer than competitors, you're either targeting the wrong prospects or your internal processes are costing you business.
Most importantly, track your cost of customer acquisition by channel. Which lead sources produce customers, and what does each customer actually cost you when you account for all the marketing and sales expense that went into winning them? Those same principles apply to capital equipment - you need to know what's working so you can invest more in effective channels and stop wasting money on approaches that don't generate results.
Without this data, you're flying blind. You can't diagnose where your process is breaking down. You can't make informed decisions about where to invest. You can't tell headquarters whether you're on track or spinning your wheels until it's too late to fix it.
The European manufacturers who succeed in the US treat it as a distinct market requiring its own strategy, not as an extension of their European business. They commit proper resources upfront. They accept that building credibility takes time. They invest in the digital marketing infrastructure that US buyers expect. They give their US team real authority to move quickly and serve customers effectively.
Most importantly, they understand that their engineering excellence and product quality are table stakes. What separates success from failure is whether US buyers ever discover they exist and whether they can build enough trust to get a chance to compete.
Your sales office won't generate results just because you opened one. It generates results when you give it the tools, support, and strategy to actually reach decision-makers and build a pipeline. That means investing in digital presence before you have US revenue to justify it. It means accepting lower margins on early deals to build reference accounts. It means responding to US market demands on US timelines, even when that's inconvenient for European headquarters.
The companies that commit to this approach - really commit, not just give it lip service while trying to do it on the cheap - typically break through in years three to five and build substantial US businesses. The ones that underinvest and expect quick returns usually give up after two or three years of disappointing results, having damaged their brand credibility and wasted their opportunity.
You've already made the decision to pursue the US market. The question now is whether you're going to invest what it actually takes to succeed, or whether you're going to add your company to the long list of European manufacturers who tried and failed because they didn't understand what US market entry really requires.
We have successfully helped numerous companies execute this type of strategy and expand US operations. Contact me if you would like to talk about how we would help you do the same!