After 6 months of indecision, the final approach of this US brand was to mix a dedicated permanent team with local contractor resource. The dedicated team included an EU Sales leader, a Logistics manager and a Finance manager in a central office. Then for each country in Europe, a contract was established for 12 months with a local sales leader able to give at least 2 weeks time per month to set up the business.

Each local leader worked from their own office and with their own tools. Control was maintained by having one commercial policy, one pricing strategy, weekly conference calls and a physical meeting together every 4 months. The local leaders were paid a retainer per month to cover travel and to ensure appropriate time was given to the brand, plus commission on sales.

Within 12 months the brand had achieved local distributors, retail and online accounts and had both visibility and a positive reputation in the markets of UK, France, Germany, Netherlands and was also poised to open Nordics, Italy and Spain. In Year 2 the brand started to hire permanent sales staff, some contractors converted to permanent and some chose to leave. Everybody was happy. Shortly afterwards the brand was acquired on a global basis.