Break Into Europe - Transatlantia

Europe is a market you can’t ignore.
Now you want someone to run it with you, from the inside.

I help American companies land in Europe the way Europeans actually buy. I pick the markets worth your time, find and vet the right partners, and run your first deals with you, on the ground where your buyers are.

Christina Rebuffet-Broadus · American, based in France

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15-minute discovery call, no strings attached

Christina Rebuffet-Broadus, American operator based in France, helping US companies expand into Europe

20+ years living between
the US and Europe

40+ companies guided
across the Atlantic

12‑36 months saved
vs. going in cold

$1B+ generated across
the Atlantic

Here’s what I hear from American founders every week.

We’re the leader in our category at home. In Europe, nobody’s heard of us, and honestly nobody seems to care yet.

We signed a European distributor a year ago. They’re sitting on the territory, and we genuinely can’t tell if anything is happening.

Everyone keeps saying “Europe,” but France, Germany, and the Nordics all want something different, and we’re running them all off one playbook.

Our US sales motion just doesn’t land over there. What closes deals here seems to slow everything down in Europe.

We’re engineers, not exporters. We’ve done a couple of trade shows in Europe, but we’ve never really sold there.

We know Europe matters. We just don’t have anyone internally with the time or the network to actually run it.

If any of that sounds like you, what you need isn’t another consultant with a slide deck.
It’s someone who goes into the European market with you.

That person is me.

So what does ‘in the market with you’ actually look like?

It’s a role that doesn’t exist with the consultants who deliver and leave, or the contractors who wait for you to hand them the plan.

The consultant

You pay for a three-month study and get back an eighty-slide deck. They cash the check, then disappear. The Monday after delivery, you’re alone with a to-do list and a PDF nobody has time to reread. Everything they learned about the European market stays in their head. The execution is still all on you.

The local hire

You bring on a European country manager or sales rep and hope they figure it out. But for them to move, you first have to hand them the perfect blueprint: which market, which positioning, which pitch, which partners. European entry isn’t your job, so you don’t have that blueprint, and they can’t build it for you. Six months in, they’re still learning your business.

Your operator on the ground

I build the strategy with you, and I run the execution with you, on the ground in Europe. I pick the markets worth entering, find and vet the partners, and sit in the room for the meetings that decide it. Strategy and execution, in one person who’s already there.

I won’t leave you with strategy and no execution, or execution and no strategy.

What changes when we work together.

Four shifts my clients feel inside the first year.

A backbone before you commit real money.

Before you hire a European country manager, open an entity, or sign an exclusive distributor, you have a chosen market, a message that lands, vetted partners, and a pipeline already in motion. Not a blank page.

The right market, not just “Europe.”

We figure out which country actually fits your product first, instead of spreading one thin plan across a continent that doesn’t buy the same way twice. You concentrate your effort where it can win.

Partners you’ve vetted, not just signed.

You stop handing your territory to the first distributor who says yes. We find, qualify, and pressure-test partners, then hold them to real activation instead of hoping they sell you.

You arrive calibrated to how Europe buys.

We adapt your pitch, your pace, and your follow-up to European buying culture before you spend on trade shows, hires, or travel. You show up sounding local, not foreign.

What it takes to break into Europe

Everything below is built around your situation, not picked off a menu. We scope the real plan on our call.

Pick the right market

Before you spend a dollar, we work out which European country to enter first and which to hold. Market selection and prioritization, validation against real demand, and an honest read on where your product has room to win. This is the antidote to treating “Europe” as a single market.

Build the channel

The heart of it for most American manufacturers. We identify, qualify, and approach the distributors and partners worth your name, prepare and run the on-site commercial meetings, and put you in front of the right European trade shows. You stop handing your market to whoever answered first.

Establish presence

When you’re ready to go direct, we handle the on-the-ground build: an outsourced sales force in Europe, local hiring, employer-of-record, and setting up a European entity. You get boots on the ground without betting the company on a single cold hire.

Speed is your advantage. Here’s where it backfires in Europe.

The risk isn’t waiting too long. You won’t. It’s the fast move that costs you the next 12 to 18 months.

Sign the first distributor, just to get moving

In Europe that’s often a multi-year exclusive with no clean way out. The fast yes hands your territory to someone who may just sit on it, and you’re locked in for the length of the contract.

Push for the close like you would at home

European buyers read speed as pressure, and pressure as risk. The meeting you tried to accelerate is the relationship you just cooled, and first impressions here don’t get a retake.

One price, one message, one ‘Europe’ plan

Fastest to launch, slowest to undo. Anchor low in your best market and you’ll spend a year trying to re-price and re-position after buyers have already filed you as the cheap option.

Fast, and right the first time

You keep your pace. I make sure it’s aimed the right way: the market worth entering, the partner worth signing, the pitch that lands. Speed that compounds, instead of speed you spend next year unwinding.

Christina Rebuffet-Broadus, American operator based in France

40+ companies guided across the Atlantic

I’m Christina, an American who’s been doing business on the other side of the Atlantic for 20+ years.

I grew up in the US, and I’ve lived in France for over twenty years. I know how American companies think about growth. And I know how European buyers, distributors, and partners actually decide, because I live and work among them, in their language, every day.

I’ve spent two decades watching companies carry their home playbook across the Atlantic, in both directions, and the way it breaks is always the same. They pitch like they pitch at home, price like they price at home, sign a distributor like they’d sign one at home, and then wonder why the market went quiet. The deal didn’t die on the product. It died on the codes nobody translated. Learning that the hard way costs years of burned budget. That’s what I’m here to save you.

I built TransAtlantia to be the thing I couldn’t find anywhere: a bicultural operator embedded in your team, who doesn’t live in a PowerPoint but on the ground. Not a consultant who hands you a market study and wishes you luck. Not an outsourced rep who executes without understanding. Someone who builds the strategy with you and carries it into the market with you.

If your product already wins at home and you want it to win in Europe without years of trial and error, we should talk.

Companies I’ve worked with across the Atlantic.

FAQ

Your questions, my real answers

Before we start

We’ve tried Europe before (a trade show, a distributor) and it went nowhere. Why would this be different?

Because most attempts that stall don’t fail on the product or the market. They fail on the day-to-day execution: pitching Europe with a US playbook, signing a distributor with no activation plan, moving at a pace that reads as pushy over there. I come in as the operator who runs the machinery you were missing the first time. We keep what was already working, and we don’t start from zero.

Our industry is pretty specific. How would you know it?

I’m not an expert in your product. You are. What I bring is the transatlantic commercial machinery: how a European buyer weighs a decision, what moves them forward or makes them pull back, how distributors and partners actually work here. I’ve worked across deeptech, medtech, industrial equipment, food, and energy, among others. The product expertise stays on your side, the Europe expertise comes from me.

We’re early in our Europe thinking. Is it too soon to talk?

Probably not. The best results come from working together before you’re stuck with the wrong distributor or a mis-hired country manager. If you’re at the “we haven’t decided yet” stage, that’s the ideal time. The 15-minute call is for exactly that: you tell me where you are, I tell you honestly whether I can help, and if so, what the first step looks like.

We already speak the language and have some European contacts. What do you add?

Speaking the language and selling in it are two different skills. Having contacts and knowing how to activate a sales cycle are two more. What I add is the read on how buying decisions actually get made here: what makes a European buyer say yes isn’t what makes an American one say yes. Without that read, your contacts stay polite and never sign.

How can one person cover all of Europe?

I don’t, and I’d be suspicious of anyone who claimed to. Europe isn’t one market, and no single person knows the German channel, the Nordic buyer, and the French distributor scene equally well. What I have is a well-established network of trusted people across European countries: operators and experts who actually do business in each one. Part of my job on your project is working out which of them your specific move needs, and pulling the right ones onto the team. You get one point of contact, me, and behind me the in-country expertise your market actually calls for. So no, I’m not one person covering all of Europe. I’m the person who knows who should.

During the work

Are you based in Europe or the US?

My base is France, and I operate on both sides of the Atlantic. I run the whole preparation phase from here, in-market, and I come with you when you travel to Europe. I also have a network of trusted contacts and partners on the ground across Europe who join the project when it makes sense. You’re in good hands on both sides of the Atlantic, and I stay your single point of contact throughout.

Concretely, who does what between your side and mine?

You work directly with me. The Europe strategy gets built with you, and I carry its execution in-market too: partner search, meetings, follow-through, unblocking deals. You stay in charge of your product, your internal trade-offs, and your company decisions. For the pieces I don’t cover directly (European legal, accounting, local HR), I bring in the right partners from my network, with your sign-off.

What if we’re not aligned partway through?

At every phase we take stock: what’s working, what isn’t, what we adjust. These are living engagements, not frozen contracts. If either of us feels the collaboration isn’t holding its value, we say so directly, before it becomes a problem. My priority is that your Europe move keeps advancing. If I’m no longer the right tool, I’ll say so.

Results & fit

How long before we see real results?

First, to be clear: this isn’t a volume-prospecting machine with a set number of meetings and sales counted by the quarter. A serious entry into Europe is measured in years, not sales sprints.

What you see along the way: your positioning sharpened to European buying codes, your first strategic meetings prepared and run in-market, deals unblocked step by step, and a shared way of steering so you’re not guessing. I never promise X meetings a month or Y sales a quarter. What we build here is built to last.

Who do you work with, and who don’t you?

I work with American SMEs and mid-market companies that already have a product or service proven at home, and a serious Europe project that fits their company strategy. What they’re missing is the European commercial development: the strategic framing, the execution on the ground, and the support over time.

I don’t work with:

Startups still hunting for product-market fit, even at home
Companies that want to outsource prospecting without staying involved in the steering (I don’t work on success fees alone)
Leaders who see Europe as a quick sales sprint

Europe is a 12 to 36-month investment, minimum.

Let’s book in for a 15-minute call.

Fifteen minutes, no sales pitch. We’ll both know pretty quickly whether it’s worth going further.

Where you are now

You walk me through your Europe situation and what’s getting in the way.

A straight yes or no

I tell you honestly whether I’m the right fit, and whether there’s enough here to be worth pursuing.

A clear next step

If it’s worth going further, we book real time. If not, I’ll say so. No chasing, no hard sell.