The first step in developing a global business is awareness of opportunities. Start with a macro-level assessment of the global potential of your local area.

The following resources provide information that will be helpful:

• NAR publishes State-by-State International Business Reports with detailed analysis of populations and economic patterns.
• The U.S. International Trade Administration publishes state-by-state reports on exports, jobs, and foreign investment at trade.gov.
• The federal government maintains eda.gov, through which you can access information about state and local economic development efforts.
• Online resources such as yelp.com are time-saving ways to identify local businesses that have an international appeal or focus, and to gauge the composition of the international presence in your community.
• Another approach is to look at what local business roundtables are doing and to whom they target marketing efforts. Contact with your local Chamber of Commerce for further insight.

Finally, you could work some good old fashioned intelligence-gathering into your everyday lifestyle and workflow. The clues to global opportunities are all around you, as long as you practice tuning into them. By driving around neighborhoods, you can observe the businesses that are there and the international clientele they serve. Grocery stores are closely attuned to customer demographics—check out the types of international products they stock on their shelves. If your market includes a college or university, seek out demographic information on foreign students and faculty. Large universities attract graduate students, faculty, and researchers from around the world.

To learn much more about expanding your business internationally, consider taking the online Global Real Estate: Local Markets course. This course is one of seven international courses developed by the Global Business and Alliances division of NAR and is designed to introduce real estate professionals to the basic skills and knowledge necessary to facilitate international real estate transactions and grow their global presence. In addition, this course can be used toward earning the Certified International Property Specialist (CIPS) designation. This entire month of August, all CIPS courses and bundles are 25% off. In the case of the Local Markets course described here, enrolling in August will result in a savings of over $30.