Global Horizons: A Small Business Guide to International Expansion is a powerful roadmap for ambitious entrepreneurs and small business owners ready to scale beyond borders. In today's interconnected economy, even the smallest startup can access international markets, but success requires more than a good product. It demands preparation, cultural fluency, smart strategy, and the courage to navigate risk with confidence. This book gives you all four.
Written in a professional yet approachable style, Global Horizons translates the complexity of global trade into a clear, actionable guide. Readers begin with a readiness checklist that highlights the operational, financial, and leadership capacities required to expand abroad. Practical sections walk you through compliance, intellectual property protection, tax considerations, and cultural due diligence, ensuring that you avoid common, and costly, pitfalls.
From there, the book explores proven market entry strategies: direct exports, partnerships, licensing, franchising, and joint ventures. Each option is broken down into simple decision frameworks so you can choose the model best suited to your stage of growth. With an emphasis on high-opportunity regions, Global Horizons highlights booming sectors in Africa, such as fintech in Nigeria and agribusiness in Kenya, and thriving markets in South America, including Brazil, Colombia, and Chile. Real-world case studies and post-2023 data show what works, what fails, and why.
Beyond strategy, this guide teaches you how to build international networks, forecast demand, align supply chains, and finance growth responsibly. You'll find tools for risk management, including trade credit and political risk insurance, and learn how to safeguard your venture against currency fluctuations, regulatory changes, and supply disruptions.
To ensure immediate application, Global Horizons closes with a 90-day action plan and a 12-month expansion roadmap, complete with measurable performance indicators. Appendices include templates, scorecards, and curated resources from leading trade agencies, chambers of commerce, and global business associations.
Whether you are an early-stage founder, a small business owner seeking new revenue streams, or a leader aiming to position your company for long-term success, this book equips you to take the leap. Global Horizons transforms international expansion from an overwhelming challenge into a structured, achievable journey toward global growth.
Autorentext
Charles Johnson is a practitioner's practitioner, part builder, part coach, and always a student of what works in the real world. Over more than three decades, he has led through cycles of growth and contraction, navigated new ventures and complex organizations, and learned firsthand how the same principles that steady a business can also steady a life. Colleagues know him for translating big ideas into everyday practices and for a mentor's voice that is direct, compassionate, and anchored in results.
This book grew out of that long arc of experience. After thirty years of wins, wipeouts, and rebuilds, professionally and personally, Charles saw the same pattern repeat: setbacks are tuition, if you know how to extract the lesson quickly and move forward with integrity. Intelligent Failure distills the frameworks he has tested under pressure: how to debrief without blame, design safe-to-fail experiments, protect what must not break, and align work with values so progress is sustainable at home and at the office. He wrote it for rising leaders and seasoned operators who are tired of perfection theater and ready for a playbook that turns inevitable missteps into momentum. In Charles's hands, failure becomes a disciplined practice, one that helps readers learn, heal, and grow into the kind of people others trust when the stakes are high.