Going Global: From Georgia to Tanzania

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Of course, there's a huge labor force that's much less expensive than in the West, and the raw product will be much less expensive, so overall we hope we have a lot more margin than we would for a similar operation in the U.S., but things are not really as cheap as they look from the outside.

Why is that?

Well, you have to provide a lot of benefits for your workforce, in terms of health care, education, and training. These people expect to become your family, not just your employees, and you grow to feel a great responsibility toward them. We plan to develop a labor pool management program and human resource training initiatives to help them adapt to modern farming, ranching, and meatpacking techniques. We also want to present genetic improvement programs to the local cattle farmers and train them in energy and water-saving techniques.

We want to help the local producers, who we'll be buying from, to improve their production and their health standards. Now, it takes them four to five years to bring their animals to market. We can show them how to produce the beef in six months to a year, which will improve their income, give their kids a reason to stay on the farms, and free up more grassland for additional production.

What advice would you give to other U.S. entrepreneurs interested in starting businesses abroad?

Get a great big dose of patience before you start. As Americans, we want to do things yesterday. In most places outside the U.S., nothing happens that quick. It takes time to prove yourself to people. They're much more relationship-oriented and they want to be kept abreast of all the day-to-day stuff happening at your company. We contacted the Tanzanian investment center, which has an informative Web site, and hired a good attorney in the country, but everything takes dedication and time.

Of course, I've done business there for several years and I know a lot of customers there, which really helps. Also, I have a certain confidence level, having worked on so many business projects in my life. It would be much more difficult for someone to just get on a plane and try to go over there and start something from scratch.

Karen E. Klein is a business journalist who covers small-business issues for several national publications. She writes her Smart Answers column twice a week.