A recession is a good time to sit back and analyze your go to market strategy and, part of this, to think about going international, online or through a reseller network. You may be already selling internationally in same language markets/through a few reseller partners – now is a good time to expand.

So why is it good to go international NOW?

• Spread risk (don’t put all eggs in one basket).
• Increase market base (there’s a variety of markets out there, from small to large software markets in both established and emerging economies. Not to mention that an increasing online population makes it easier than ever before to sell software online).
• Increase revenue.

Let’s dwell on this last point for a bit. When it comes to building a partner network, you need to start right about now to be fully up to speed when the recession is over and things start booming again. It doesn’t mean that you wouldn’t get anything out of your channel during the recession (that’s not a promise either), but in general you have to be ready to support it for at least 6 months without seeing much return.