Sponsoring in Portugal as a French manager
When iad opened its Portuguese subsidiary, I didn’t rush in. I waited six months. I had very good excuses, and no good reason. Then I got on a plane, had six meetings, and came home with five new recruits.
The first obstacle wasn’t the distance
When iad’s Portuguese subsidiary opened, I already had a solid network in France. Advisors, managers, a routine that worked. And yet it took me six months to get started over there.
I’ll be honest with you: I had no real reason. I had excuses. The language. The distance. “I don’t know anyone.” “It’s not the same market.” You probably know them too. They’re comfortable, they sound reasonable, and they cost nothing. Except time.
That’s when I understood a line I later put in my book, « Réussir à l’international » (Succeeding Internationally): the first obstacle to going international isn’t geographical, it’s mental. You can cover the kilometres in a two-hour flight. Shifting your certainties takes far longer.
So I did what I now advise every manager who asks me about it. I started small. From my office. Without a plane ticket.
Starting from France
My first playing field wasn’t Lisbon. It was my phone. Social media first: posting, explaining, showing what I did day to day, without selling anything. Simply being visible and consistent.
Then the Portuguese diaspora in France. It’s often overlooked, but many Portuguese families settled here keep very strong ties with home. A house in the village, cousins in property, a brother thinking of moving back. Every conversation opened a door on the other side of the border.
None of that work is spectacular. Messages, calls, video calls. Lots of “let’s speak again soon”. But it did one essential thing: when I finally got on the plane, I wasn’t arriving as a tourist. I had appointments.
First trip: six meetings, five recruits. I’m not telling you this to show off. I’m telling you because that score didn’t come from my charisma, which is very average before my first coffee. It came from weeks of preparation beforehand.
The method, no magic
People often ask me what the secret is. There isn’t one. There’s a method, and consistency. Here’s what I do, in Portugal as in the other countries where the team has grown.
First, a French-speaking local partner at first level. That’s the cornerstone. Someone who knows the ground, the culture, the language, and with whom I can talk openly. I don’t replace the local person. I support them.
Next, a fixed rhythm. A weekly check-in with that partner: short, practical, what’s moving, what’s stuck, who needs calling. A monthly video call with the whole team to stay connected, share successes and restate the direction. A trip every quarter to train people, because being there in person is still irreplaceable. And opportunity presentations every week, because without a flow of people, there’s no team.
None of this is revolutionary. What makes the difference is doing it week after week, including when nothing visible is happening.
The result? In two years, the team became one of the largest at iad in Portugal. Half of the iad Portugal top 10 belong to it. And today we have a hub in Lisbon, where I live part of the time, between trips back to Provence.
Adapt, don’t translate
The biggest temptation for a French manager is copy and paste. You have a presentation that works, polished training sessions, proven scripts. You translate them, send them over, and wait for them to catch on.
They don’t. Or not well.
My conviction: what works locally can be duplicated, provided you adapt it to the local culture. The substance stays the same. The form adapts. Attitudes to time, the way people say no, the place of family in decisions, how people talk about money: all of that changes from one country to another, sometimes from one region to another.
In practice, I let my local partner rewrite my materials their own way. I accepted that my favourite arguments sometimes fell flat. And I listened far more than I talked. A team is built with the people of the country, not in their place.
The mistakes I’ll save you from
Trying to do everything alone. Without a local partner, you’ll remain the foreigner passing through. Likeable, perhaps. But passing through.
Vanishing between trips. If your team only sees you once a quarter and hears nothing in between, it will learn to do without you. And it will be right to.
Promising the moon. I’ve never told anyone they would get rich. I tell them what can be built, and how much work it takes. The people who stay are the ones who heard the truth from day one.
Waiting until you’re ready. I waited six months. Looking back, it’s probably the only thing I’d do differently.
Frequently asked questions
- Do I need to speak Portuguese to sponsor in Portugal?
- It helps, obviously. But it isn’t the starting point. The French-speaking local partner bridges the gap, and the Portuguese diaspora in France is often bilingual. What matters first is method and consistency.
- Do I need to move there to succeed?
- No. I started from France. The weekly check-in with the partner and the quarterly trip are enough to get things moving. The Lisbon hub came later, once the team justified it.
- Won’t my team in France suffer?
- It’s a real risk if you rush off. If you’ve applied “do, get others to do, teach others to get others to do” in France, your managers will keep things running while you open up a new territory.
What about you: which country?
You may already have a country in mind. Family over there, contacts, an idea that keeps coming back. The hardest part is often deciding that it’s possible.
If you’d like to talk it through, I’m happy to tell you what worked, what didn’t, and how to adapt it all to your situation. No commitment, just a conversation between people in the trade.