Founders preparing to pitch in an unfamiliar market usually prepare thoroughly. The deck is rehearsed, the numbers are checked, the difficult questions are anticipated.
What receives far less attention is the market itself. Who will be in the room, how they expect to be addressed, what they consider a commitment, and how decisions are actually reached inside their organisation. That gap is frequently what determines whether a strong pitch converts or quietly stalls.
This checklist covers what to establish before the meeting.
Confirm who holds decision making authority
Find out, before the meeting, who will attend and what each person's role is in the decision. Seniority in title does not always correspond to authority over the specific decision you are asking for, and in some markets the person who will ultimately decide does not attend the first meeting at all.
This changes how you structure the pitch. If the room is gathering information for someone more senior, your job is to make the case easy to carry internally, which means clear written material and a summary they can pass on, rather than pressure for an immediate commitment.
Establish how directly people expect to be addressed
Ask a local contact, an advisor, or anyone with genuine experience in that market how business conversations are typically conducted. Specifically, whether disagreement is expressed openly or indirectly, and whether a confident, assertive pitch reads as credible or as overbearing.
Adjusting delivery is not the same as weakening your position. It is making sure the position is heard as intended.
Understand the pace of negotiation
Some markets move quickly and expect decisions within days. Others build consensus across multiple internal conversations over weeks, and any attempt to compress that timeline damages credibility.
Knowing which applies changes your entire follow up plan, and prevents the common mistake of interpreting a slow response as disinterest when it is simply the normal process.
Clarify what actually counts as agreement
A verbal yes, a nod, a handshake, and a signed document do not carry equal weight in every market. In some, verbal agreement is treated as binding and revisiting terms afterwards is seen as bad faith. In others, verbal agreement is a positive signal but nothing more, and the real negotiation begins once documents are exchanged.
Treating a soft yes as a closed deal is one of the most common and most costly errors in cross border business development.
Plan follow up timing deliberately
Decide before the meeting when you will follow up, and base that decision on how the market operates rather than on your own internal pipeline pressure.
Following up the next morning reads as efficient in some markets and as pressure in others. A week of silence reads as respectful in some and as disinterest in others. Getting this wrong can undo a meeting that went well.
Prepare written material that survives the room
Whatever happens in the meeting, your material will be forwarded, summarised, and discussed without you present. In markets where decisions are made collectively, that second hand version of your pitch does more work than the pitch itself.
Make sure anything you leave behind states the offer, the value, and the next step clearly enough that someone who was not in the room can understand and advocate for it.
Ask one local person before you go
The single highest value step on this list is a short conversation with someone who has actually done business in that market. Not general research, a real conversation with someone who can tell you how meetings there typically unfold.
Most founders skip this because it feels like an imposition. It rarely is, and it consistently surfaces details that no amount of desk research would have produced.
What this does not replace
None of this substitutes for a strong offer. Preparation of this kind does not make a weak proposition succeed. What it does is ensure a strong proposition is heard the way it was intended, which is often the entire difference between a deal that closes and one that quietly does not.
Pitching into a new market soon?
We work with founders and SMEs on preparation for specific meetings, negotiations, and market entries, from the pitch structure itself to how the room is likely to read it.