How to enter Dutch markets. Insights from local professional.

Hi, I'm Dmytro Shvets, your host at the Start Global Insights, where I interview experts from different countries about local business secrets and international expansion experience. Today, my guest is Hedy van Elburg. She's a managing director of MKB Trade Office and an owner of Iron Moon International Digital Marketing Agency. MKB Trade Office is the export hub for small and mid -sized businesses in the east of the Netherlands.

Hedy has an extensive experience in market analytics and helping businesses understand customers within the Netherlands and in international markets. Hi Hedy and welcome to the show. Hi, thank you for having me. Was my introduction correct or would you like to add something maybe from your experience?

What did you do with... businesses in terms of international expansion? In 1999, I started my career with the internet and international businesses. And so now we're in 2025.

That's quite a lot of years. And it feels like it's ages because everything is changing so fast. But one thing has always been the same. It's always about people.

And that's why I still love to do it. Okay. And what are the major gaps that you see now in Dutch businesses in terms of international expansion? When I see that people fail in a certain market, 9 out of 10, it's the cultural part.

Not understanding or misinterpreting the others. So they might think it's a fail, but it's not a fail. It's just... a reaction which is quite normal and placed out of perspective and then they get angry and then things fail or they don't understand how things work in another country so most of the times when something is not going well it's merely a lack of understanding sometimes it's a lack of money Because there is no marketing budget enough or no travel budgets, etc.

Okay. And coming back to the Netherlands. And by the way, there is always this thing that I hear that people call Netherlands Holland. Yeah, this is like an old type of name in the country.

Could you clarify shortly? I think that it is the question that everybody knows the answer for, the difference between Holland and Netherlands. I live in the Netherlands. I don't live in Holland because Holland is just a small part of the Netherlands.

And that's the western part. Two provinces of North Holland and South Holland. So it's only two small parts. They say it's a little bit bigger.

But OK, it's two parts in the Netherlands which is called Holland and all the other ones are called the Netherlands. Okay. Do you know why it is so that people call the Netherlands Holland? Because the power is in the West.

Aha. So it was more about communication, I think, yeah? Yes, I think so. And yes, we don't mind that much.

So if someone says, oh, you live in Holland, and I would say yes. So it's not that great an issue. But as you ask of the differences, Most people don't mind. But when you're doing business with someone in the north part or the south part of the Netherlands, please tell them they are in the Netherlands and not in Holland.

You said that there are these regions or districts. Is there a big difference between them in terms of doing business? Or maybe they are split in some industrial or non -industrial way? We have 12...

or actually they're called provinces over here. We are a very small country. It takes, I'm nearly to the center, and it takes one and a half hour to get up north, one and a half hour to get up south. Germany is one hour to the left and to the right.

It's an hour, an hour and a half where the traffic is bad to Amsterdam. So we think that's... Very far away, Amsterdam. But it isn't.

It's just a comparison. The Netherlands is a very, very small country. Thickly populated. We are about 90 million people here.

And all provinces are really into business. One or two, a little bit less, like Drenthe or Zeeland, Flevoland. But most of them are... into business.

And yes, FinTech, you can find it more around Amsterdam. Rotterdam is more the harbor. Where I live near the eastern border, you have lots of machineries, etc. So there are differences and you find farmers all over the country, which is also quite a lot of our export.

And in terms of easiness of entry, would you advise to, because all people speak about Amsterdam as the point of entry or Rotterdam as a port. From your experience, where is it easier to start a foreign business? What should they look for? First of all, look at your own business.

What kind of business do you have? Do you have something in fintech? please go to Amsterdam because that's what is happening on fintech. But when you have more on software or high -tech development, go to Eindhoven, more into machinery, et cetera, more in our region.

So it really depends on what are you looking for. And if you, it's a small country and you can find it online or you can use the AI to find the information about the different parts. And in the Netherlands, it's not that far away, as I said. So distances are not that far.

And when you go to the right place, then you have the most, the best chance to get. something out of your trip. When I started in 1999 and even until now, every month I will get surprised by a business. Then, oh, I have to go to the drive to them.

And then it's in the middle of nowhere between the fields, between the cows. And there is a great software company or a great company in high tech, whatever. So it's not that they all stick together. So many times I find it surprising where I can find the most interesting companies and nearly nobody knows that they are there.

But they are great in export. So their neighbors don't even know what they are doing. When you were talking about the selection of the place where to go, where to start with, You said that you need to analyze the country, the businesses, the industries, the sectors. Could you give some advices if a company would like to enter the Netherlands?

Where they should find this information? How should they analyze the market? The big overview you can always find on Google. I don't know any company at this moment who is not online.

The very small ones, but then they're very small solopreneurs, might only be on Facebook. But normally all the businesses are at least have their own website. To do a quick search, you could also use LinkedIn. Over here, every company is on LinkedIn or their staff is on LinkedIn.

So that's also an easy way to have. a first overview you could have some business organizations have lists of their members but we are not that much organized like in comparison to germany it's more mixed for instance over here you have the mkba trade office with 1200 members there's also the possibility just connecting to the business associations who are there for instance mkba trade mkba trade offers but also mkba daventer or other associations real trade centers and have their own business clubs and you can ask hey guys do you have something like this and this and this over there and they are glad to help you and and they are quite open to to communicate yeah so it is not uh so close to start the conversation yes and you can also um ask the embassies.

So the embassy or the Dutch embassy can also try to get you into the Netherlands where they know the overview. As I said it's very mingled here and some very important businesses are really in the middle of some middle of nowhere. We don't have middle of nowhere but at least they are more in the outskirts. then it's more difficult for them to find.

Okay, so this is about the companies. So to find companies, you need to Google them or you need to ask the embassy of Netherlands in your country. Or you can address the business associations so they would also help or to go to the LinkedIn. So mainly they are there.

What about the statistics and the market size or the industry? specifics are there some uh like statistic office yeah that that has all this information or maybe there are some also publications or main magazines that are doing that in dutch for example okay the main thing um you can find on the netherlands is on cbs .nl that's the central bureau of statistics and they have all kinds of um yeah all kinds of analysis on different sectors, on the economics, on well -being, on all kinds of things, they have statistics on it.

And some of them, I don't know if they are all translated into English, but a large part is also translated into English. And it's also nice when you have a little bit more on the regions, you can also find it in Eurostat. That's the European database. Okay, are there any regional sources of information like in provinces or you can find everything on CBS?

CBS is from cities, provinces and the whole country. And sometimes their banks might also have good researchers on different sectors and they make this public. So, for instance, you have Rabobank and ING Bank. They do sector analysis based on their clients.

And they share this as an aggregated data. Interesting. I never thought about banks posting that. One lifehack that I use is that I'm looking for yearly reports of stock listed companies.

They also publish a lot of information about the market research they've done and they show it to their investors how they do it. But that won't work for SMEs because most of them are not listed on the stock market. Yeah, but they also do this overview of the market saying that we will do this and that because the situation is like that. So just to have...

Because they already paid a lot of money for McKinsey or Ernst & Young to prepare this research. Then you can use it free of charge just downloading their reports. Great, great. So it looks like this is actually why I really like to...

help companies to enter European countries, especially Nordic countries, because everything is open. You can find all the information on the Internet. Yes, as you said, you need to somehow and sometime look for information in the local language. So that's a very important issue.

Even now in the era of artificial intelligence, you still need to search with the local language. even in google yes so you can translate the keywords and look for it so it looks like the statistical data and open data is not a problem yeah no no there's a lot of open data in terms of in terms and i think that we will now slowly come to the business culture and negotiation culture But one of the things that I advise to my client and when I do the research, it is also one of the major points of this market entry research is to ask people.

As you said at the beginning, people are the main point, the main actors of this game of international expansion. And I do advise to interview as much as possible local players, local stakeholders from different point of views. Like, for example, if you are in the retail, then you need to talk with distributors and with retail chains as well and with small shops as well. So they can give you the bigger picture of insights.

Yes, not something that is written in the official data, but the relationship between them and how they... behave and what are the game rules of the market in this terms from this point of view how easy it is to get contact from the cold outreach yes when you are calling some or you are contacting some company role in retail for example and you are trying to interview them how easy or how hard it would be um To connect to them, it's very easy, but to get answers is very difficult.

And that's not because they don't want you to know all these things, but they simply don't have time for it. Because they are flooded with all kinds of interviews. So yes, they are important, but then... When you would do interviewing, for instance, clients, B2C clients in the Netherlands or retailers, then you have to also translate the answers.

And I don't mean translating from language to language, but from culture to culture. Because over here, most of the people want to have the polite answer. And they will say, oh, it's an 8 or a 9 out of 10. Well, I live on the German border.

A German would say it's a six. But they both mean the same. So first of all, you have to do your research on how are people going to respond in the different parts of Europe. Are they going to respond politely and saying yes?

You interview them face to face. People are always... providing you a more polite answer than when they are doing this online. But the response rates are very low, also from Dutch businesses to Dutch businesses.

That's why quite often they use research agencies. So the local ones that could do these interviews locally. Yes, but you have like Ipsos, etc. You have these big research companies and they have people who are going to ask the public on quite a lot of topics.

And then your product might be one of a complete picture. So you don't have to speak to someone 10 or 20 times a month. But this is more about the B2C, the consumer side. You just ask the consumers how do they like the product and what is the experience with this product, etc.

If we are talking about the buyer of distributor, for example, or the category manager of retail chain, what would be your advice how to reach them? What would be the best way to get these answers? Send them an email first. And ask if they or contact them through LinkedIn and ask if they could help you and state why you need this data.

And then they might say, OK, I'm going to help you. And that's especially when you know you need to adapt your products to the market. So then you can ask, okay, how do I have to adapt this to the market? That's more easy to do when you first have contacted them instead of just a cold calling.

Because cold calling, in many companies, you won't get beyond the persons from the reception. So this is like a firewall. You also could go to one of the universities here and ask a student to do this research for you. Interesting.

Most people really do still want to help the students because most of the time it's then part of a project for school as well. So they do a real -life project and they could do this for you. Interesting idea. I never thought about that.

We used to do that a lot with Ukrainian students when we were talking about the expansion. So they got their internship within the company and learned from us, but never thought about hiring a local student overseas or in another country. That's a very good idea. I think it should be tried.

Lots of companies who are looking here from the Netherlands who are... want to go to a new country they should they seek a student from that country who is studying over here and ask if in half a year or they get a half a year, six months or a year and ask them to do this research for them as the project. They will get points from it for their education. And the business has someone who also knows the local market because he or she is coming from that local market.

Interesting. So in talking about this, so when you're contacting them, in fact, you are starting to sell. This is the interview still, the face of intelligence part. But this first contact is about establishing the trust, understanding the company, learning about the company.

And they learn about you as well. So you are actually starting to sell without selling. When you are starting sales, when you are starting negotiation, can you characterize the Dutch people in terms of this negotiation style, how formal or informal they are, how you said that they are too polite? They won't say you know how to interact with them.

Several advice. Yes, I will do that. But before that, I think there is one step before. If I would manage to get an interview with someone, what's the first thing they are going to do?

They're going to look you up on LinkedIn and they are going to your website. And if they don't like what they're seeing there, open enough to build trust online, then you start with the point zero in your first interview. So you should prepare your digital footprint. Yes, make sure that your digital footprint is about what your new market is expecting of you.

Then you already have built the first part of trust before you have your first sales conversation, which is... Much easier, because then you have something to talk about. Yes, the first is about building trust. And we are very informal.

Most of the time, it's with a cup of coffee. You don't have to be overdressed, depending on the sector, of course. But most sectors, you can have a shirt and jeans. And it's not that much formal.

But the Dutch are really quick. in talking about the product on what you offer. They don't like wasting time. So yes, they want to know you as a person and your company.

You have to be open about it. But most of the time it's first name when you are not in an official strict business situation, but in a more normal company. Most of the times it's that they only use first names. And when you have said or promised that you will send something or you want to research something and will send it later, then do this.

If you are being asked to make a quote, then you have to be a little bit more patient because the Dutch won't decide within three days. The decision -making process is quite long. Because, and that's the main difference, we have no hierarchy or nearly no hierarchy. The managing directors or the CEO is just...

talking to the intern and asking his or her opinion and evaluating the opinion for the opinion and not because it's just the intern. So everyone is involved in accepting a quote based on his or her experience and not on... age or on which payment level you are but really on the knowledge and experience someone has for instance when you have a kind of machine and you're offering it the persons who are actually dealing with the machine also have a say so you need to keep in mind that this offer will be seen by specialists in technical side and then legal side and then some economical side yeah so everybody will assess it and then they need to take this make this decision yes whether to proceed or not and we are dutch we like a good bargain so probably they have when they are looking for new materials new machineries etc they might have two or three quotes to compare it's not always price that wins it's the price quality balance and the surface balance because nowadays when surface is not so easy to get because of the lack of staff then that part might be the winning part so but you have to research this are you in the industry where surface after sales surface is very important then that might be the decision maker Interesting.

So when you are calculating or you are making your sales strategy, you need to have this whole view of the situation within these parts that are not concerning the product only, but also before and after the sales, so the long -term approach and long -term relationship. Yes, and the warranty. And one of the items which is also very important, that's the compliance to European legislation All aspects that might be, especially for food, it's very important, but also for machinery, etc.

But that's not only for the Netherlands, that's for the complete European Union. And sometimes we also, especially the bigger businesses, also look for, is it sustainable? What is the environmental impact? Or other, yeah.

which might be relevant for that product. And in this situation, when the decision -making process is quite long, I often hear from clients that we have sent some quotes or we have got some first contact and then we've sent them the presentation and then they disappear. So the other party is not answering. How long you should wait or what you should do before to get this?

Not to be annoying, but at the same time to proceed with some answer, even if it is no. You need to understand. There's not one fixed answer because it depends a little bit. But I've had a client and they were about to decide on a quote.

This was an American business. And in one week time, they called three times. That was too much. They went to someone else.

And it depends on how you say, okay, you can say, did you decide? Do you have any questions left? Can I help you with something? That's a quite different approach.

So we take the friendly approach more often than did you decide? Because that's something we do this in our own time. And we decide when we are ready. So pushing the decision never helps.

offering the help or offering where is the point of friction. Can we do there something? When you have sent your quote, you probably have done that from your own cultural background. And for you, everything is clear because you know your products.

There might be things which are interpreted a little bit different. Ask them, is everything clear? Are there things you might want to have more explanation about? Or are there things I can help you about?

So that's something. And if you let your client know that you are aware of the cultural differences and that you want to overcome them. and reach those gaps but then but only you can only do this with a little bit help of your client then the chances is are bigger that this is in the end a very good deal yeah just again both people yeah be open be polite understand or empathize to other person and then it is much more easier to overcome these gaps between the cultures and Remember that the foreign people are people inside.

Even if they look different or they behave different, it is still the same human being as you are. When you were working with foreign companies entering the Netherlands, what were the biggest mistakes they did? And what would be your advice? If we would say do's and don'ts, what are they?

Things you should do or not. Especially over -promising. And that's also a cultural thing. When you don't say that you're great in the US, then you must be a loser and you can't do anything.

But over here, when you were saying you're great, everyone said, okay, a bit more normal, please. Don't exaggerate it. So, yes, you can tell the advances of your products, but in a normal way. Don't exaggerate it.

We don't like that. Be as direct as possible. And we are very direct, so we can handle that. And be honest with the products.

And yes, you might have a better product than your competitor, but don't say that competitor's product is bad because then, oh, why are you saying this? When you say, okay, that's a good product, but ours is better because of A, B, C, then you make it a comparison out of it. That's a way to address this. That works better.

So use the objective criteria, not just your opinion to do that. Over here, we value data. What are the measurements of your product? What are the results of your product?

So, yes, it's very data driven. What is the level of trust, especially to foreigners? Because I've been talking recently to an Estonian friend of mine about the sales channels in Estonia and B2B. And he said this thing that Estonia is a very little country.

So you know everybody. Everybody knows everybody. So if you happen to have a contact, then you ask someone and they should know about this company. The reference, yes.

So the reference means a lot in sales and in coming to this channel. And the same thing I experienced in Sweden, for example. If you've got some reference from other Swedish company, it is very easy to get into conversation and they trust you at once because someone else from Sweden has already gave this trust to you. How it is in Netherlands?

Are you open for that new opportunities and do you trust people at once or you check them first? We love new things. We are very open to something new and to new companies as well. Is recommendation important?

Yes, of course, it's always important, but not as much as in Sweden, etc. Because there it's very difficult to bypass. the recommendation for other companies over here yes we trust the recommendation but then we want to have proof so we go to the website of the company we speak to them and we look at the data so you have to prove that the recommendation is valid So that is a more even playing field. And yes, your track record is very important.

Your brand, what did you achieve? Who are your clients? All very important. But as we still love new adventures, new products, new ways of producing.

You always have a chance, as long as you are not one of the flock, but you are sticking out. And that might be on price, but that's not a sustainable way to stand out. Most of the time, it's better to stand out on quality support levels and these kind of things. And then you have a...

great chance. Great, great idea. Thank you very much for sharing your experience and these points to pay attention to. I see that we are already out of time of our conversation and I have so many questions to ask more.

As usual, it is very interesting to go deep to the country and its culture and its people in the first place and I like that. This attitude to people is quite similar to mine that we need to have businesses made between people disregarding the nation and culture and everything. So be open, be polite, prove your trust and prove your promises with data in terms of the Netherlands and be direct and transparent and you have some chances to succeed in Dutch market. So thank you.

Thank you very much.