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Are you or your boss scared of starting to export products internationally? Are you afraid of dealing with culture barriers (especially in client meetings)? Do you want to expand your business globally to reach the 95% of consumers who live outside the U.S., but are just not sure how? If these questions sound pertinent to your business, then the U.S. Commercial Service is here to help you.
The U.S. Commercial Service (USCS) has four primary ways that they will help your business: export counseling, market research, trade events, and introductions to buyers. With someone qualified to help your business in over 80 countries and the backing of the United States government, the USCS will be able to help you expand into the market you are looking at. The ways they will help are presented in this YouTube video, but I will summarize them here as well.
Export counseling is helping to work you and your clients through the legal aspects of international exporting. This helps to ensure that all of the trade agreements are held in place and that the business partnership will be a fair one, which is a huge deal to Rosie Herman – CEO and President of Mykytyn Enterprises (the makers of One Minute Manicure). Mrs. Herman said that when she first tried exporting internationally her clients tried to make her play by their rules, not the rules of the trade agreement between the two countries. However, the USCS helped to sort out all misunderstanding and Mykytyn now exports about 15 products regularly.
Another benefit of working with USCS is the wealth of marketing research and information given to your business by them for free! It is foolish to try to enter a foreign business without first knowing what you are getting into and can be expensive to obtain that knowledge. That is why this research (which can be accessed at www.export.gov) is so valuable to any business thinking about expanding internationally.
The final two ways the UCSC helps businesses to internationally export are very similar: they host international trade shows where buyers and sellers can mingle and meet each other and they introduce exporters to qualified purchasers. No business will have success exporting if there is nobody to buy their product and finding the first few buyers is often the hardest step. For this reason, the UCSC makes sure to host numerous trade shows all over the world where business can meet and interact with each other – even if they are not exporting yet. The UCSC also will help to introduce a business to a matching purchaser if they feel it will be a success.
Still feeling scared about exporting internationally? I hope not. With marketplaces crossing borders, the modern world of business almost requires international export to be competitive and the USCS is a great help to any business that wants it.
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