As a Brit until the age of 28 I lived within the reality of "Whatever Brits invent the Americans will end up marketing better."

I am now consulting with a UK technology company seeking to enter the US Market, so I wrote this testimony to help them leapfrog the Atlantic:

"10 Rules a UK IT Company must learn to succeed in breaking into the US."
Subtitle "Brits are from Uranus and Americans are from Jupiter"

Let me know your thoughts.

10 Rules to Succeed in the US IT Market

1. Think like an American (v. tough for Brits)
2. Promise a lot about little (Brits are very engineering-minded. They tend to talk a lot of details and lose the American somewhere between the 3rd and 4th sentence)
3. Make the delivery slick (Brits think fluff is something unwanted that attaches itself to woolly outer wear.)
4. Get top endorsements and testimonials (Brits are so self-effacing they wouldn't want to impose upon a 3rd Party)
5. Be repetitive on few core ideas (Brits expect not to have to repeat themselves. You should have heard it the first time.)
6. Be consistent (In Britain, if at first you don't succeed you must have done something really wrong and need to change it right away)
7. Have a strong warranty in place (Brit: you mean, if it doesn't work, we have to fix it for free, or give the money back?)
8. Lock up legals, very tight. Small print is everything (Brit: we have barristers for that sort of thing)
9. Make sure that whatever you do is scalable to support the demands of expansion (Brit: we will plan for growth, but first we want to see if people like it)
10. Be very, very sure of yourself (Brit: Well of course we are, aren't we?)

The reason most UK companies fail to enter the US market is because most of the above is alien to their culture. Not that there isn't outstanding advertising in the UK. You just have to live there to get it. While the UK is an excellent beachhead into the European market for US companies, it doesn't work so well the other way around. I think it has been that way since 1812.