Doing business in the United States: what foreign teams should know before the first meeting

Search demand for doing business in the US and selling to Americans is what it sounds like: companies trying not to waste a costly market entry. The mistakes that show up most often are not about which fork to use. They are about sequence.

Lead with a problem you have actually heard

US buyers expect you to understand their pain, their competitors, and the metric their boss will ask about. Advice written for exporters—EDC’s cultural notes, commercial guides, and practitioner essays such as Aperian’s on selling in the United States—repeats the same drumbeat: diagnose, then prescribe; quantify the outcome; differentiate yourself; be willing to offer a pilot when the risk feels high.

If your home market rewards a long courtship before anyone mentions money, this will feel abrupt. In many US settings it is the opposite of rude. It is how you show you will not waste the hour. McKinley (2022) documented the mirror problem among North American sellers abroad, who can under-adapt when buyers need more context and more relationship before the pitch. Read in reverse, the lesson for inbound teams is: do not hide the business case inside hospitality.

Read the language at face value, then notice the “but”

Yes means yes more often than you may be used to. No means no. Maybe means the person does not know yet. Softeners still exist—“great, but…” is a real objection—and the useful content is after the conjunction. Waiting for an implied refusal that never arrives will make you late. Hearing every frank sentence as hostility will make you tired.

Interruptions are more costly than in overlapping conversational cultures. Volume is usually lower in the office than at a family table. A neutral face is not automatically dislike.

Follow the process even if you have a friend

Americans network constantly and still expect you to use the portal. Skipping a posted procedure to find “someone who can help” can look clever at home and untrustworthy in a US enterprise sale. Universalism, one of the high-frequency tensions in McKinley (2022), is the cultural name for that instinct: the rule should survive the relationship.

Put scope in writing. Expect legal review. A contract is how they protect the deal from next quarter’s reorg, not how they tell you they never liked you.

Time is part of the offer

Be on time. Say so before the start if you will not be. End when the calendar ends, or ask clearly for another slot. Sequential time was only a moderate theme in McKinley’s dissertation, but it is an outsized theme in visitor experience: the American who stands up while you are still warming up is not always rejecting you. They are obeying a clock they were trained to treat as moral.

More than one buyer

Large US organizations rarely have a single “economic buyer” who acts alone. Procurement, finance, IT, security, and users all weigh in. Build more than one relationship so the motion survives a job change. Identify who can actually sign.

The rest of the country is not the airport

Do not confuse a coastal headquarters visit with the whole market. Regional pace, humor, and formality change. So do tipping customs attached to the meals around your meetings; in sit-down restaurants the tip is still part of how service work is paid.

For the cultural map underneath these tactics, see the pillar guide and the longer entering-the-US track. To have the pattern applied to your launch, use the consulting form.

Need this applied to your organization? Zachary advises international companies, sales teams, and trade groups entering the US market—and US companies expanding abroad—through sales-team training, US market-entry advisory, executive briefings, and workshops or speaking. Start the conversation