Short answer: evaluate the sort. Slow markets keep moving deals through stages even when they do not move dollars. Wrong-frame markets stop moving anything at the same beat. The verdict is in the uniformity of the silence.
Slow-cycle signals: discovery converts to a second meeting at a normal US rate. A named champion emerges inside the buyer org. The proof packet gets forwarded. Procurement opens the security evaluation. Stage movement is real even when dollars are not. The cycle is just longer than the home-market cycle. This is the US enterprise pattern and it does not break.
Wrong-frame signals: second-meeting rate drops below 20% across reps and regions. No champion emerges. Decks do not forward. The same objection language repeats verbatim across unrelated accounts. Silence is uniform, not stage-specific. Per IMAP German Mid-Cap M&A 2026 and the Roland Berger Mittelstand 2025-2026 survey, the second-meeting rate is the single highest-signal indicator separating the two evaluations for European vendors entering the US.
The third tell is uniformity. Slow markets vary. Some reps run hot, some run cold, some regions buy faster, some slower. Wrong-frame markets are eerie in their consistency. Across reps the deals die the same way. Across channels the buyer goes silent at the same beat. Across categories the procurement officer files the company into the same vendor bucket. Uniform silence is a sort verdict. Stage variation is a cycle.
Buyer-language pattern. The company works at home. The US buyer still asks what category it belongs in, why the proof is relevant here, and what the next low-risk step should be.
A Market-Entry Marketing Sprint runs the category rebuild and first buyer-facing marketing layer over six to ten weeks for one corridor. The output is a named verdict and a named rebuild path. A Cross-Border Marketing Build runs three to six months when the verdict is rebuild rather than pull. A Global Marketing Partnership is monthly retainer with a twelve-month minimum. Commercial terms are set after fit and scope are clear. No public price bands are published.
Sources for this page: Roland Berger Mittelstand survey 2025-2026, US BEA FDI inflows 2025, IMAP German Mid-Cap M&A Report 2026, White & Case M&A Explorer 2026, Gartner agentic commerce forecast 2028.