Your first 90 days in exporting: turn objectives into deliverables
Use a suggested 90-day sequence to align management, check the product, plan market entry, cost and promotion, then review capacity, funding and results.
Editorial desk
Turn your first export effort into a project you can execute. The following 90 days are an editorial planning suggestion; adjust the pace to your product and resources. Following the official export-plan framework, record objectives, constraints, implementation dates and milestones in a worksheet with specific actions.
Days 1–10: agree with management on the purpose of exporting, its commitment and expected returns. Turn revenue growth or a broader customer base into clear objectives. Discuss whether overseas customers will still receive attention if domestic sales recover. Deliver an agreed statement of export objectives and expectations.
Days 11–20: select the product and check the overseas need it meets, required modifications, licences or certificates, packaging and labelling, and intellectual-property protection. Mark each question as confirmed or unresolved. Deliver a product-adjustment checklist so later research uses the same product version.
Days 21–30: describe the target customer's basic profile, marketing and distribution channels, and challenges such as competition, culture and import or export controls. Assign an approach to each challenge. Deliver a market-entry hypothesis that tells the team what it needs to test.
Days 31–45: build a cost-to-market worksheet separating freight, duties, taxes and other costs, then choose a pricing strategy using shipping estimates. Leave items without estimates open for investigation. Deliver an updateable quotation worksheet that goes beyond the factory price.
Days 46–60: decide how overseas buyers will discover you. Review website changes, third-party e-commerce, social media for awareness, and trade shows attended by international buyers. Deliver a promotion checklist for the channels you select.
Days 61–75: review current capacity, the cost of additional production, seasonal workloads and minimum order quantities. Identify design and packaging work required for export. Discuss whether export orders could displace domestic sales. Deliver a table of capacity and production constraints.
Days 76–85: identify capital available for export production and marketing, affordable operating expenses, allocation of initial costs and competing development plans. Deliver a funding-allocation worksheet and agree when the export effort needs to pay for itself.
Days 86–90: compare objectives with actual results and decide which strategies to revise. Official guidance treats the plan as a flexible management tool. Deliver the revised plan, recording new information and the adjustments to make in the next cycle.