Can you get the Export Grandslam?

The bad news is that new exporters do not generally qualify for the export grandslam, but if you are an existing exporter with at least one year of export experience then you could qualify for the Export Grandslam:

First Base: Department of Commerce Gold Key Program to find highly qualified and vetted Distributors or customers in your Target export country.

Second Base: one of at least three Small Business Administration Export Loan Guarantees to capitalize your export business.

Third Base: Export Import Bank‘s Export Credit Insurance to reduce the risk of non-payment by your export customer who required you to extend them credit to do business.

Grandslam Homerun: Center for International Trade Development’s STEP grant, export marketing reimbursement for example to pay for the Gold Key Program.

Yes, it can be a little complex since it deals with four different agencies but we can help you put together this phenomenal play and get an Export Grandslam. Just ask!

If you have never shipped further than your family in Texas or your customer on the other side of the country, it may seem that shipping is pretty straight forward or even simple. But when you start thinking about shipping to one of the hundreds of countries outside of the US, things suddenly become potentially disastrously complex. Suddenly there are multiple governments and their respective laws, regulations and tariffs, people, languages and cultures to make something that should be simple shipping into a potential nightmarish headache.

For example, almost everyone has heard the term FOB, some actually know it means "Free On Board", but most people can't actually tell you what it means about shipping risk and costs. What would happen if this gets translated into the other country's language and they really don't define "On Board" the same way. How would you negotiate a shipping contract?

To avoid this nightmare the International Chamber of Commerce has developed a set of INternational COmmerce (INCO) terms that are defined and accepted globally. When you use the term FOB it means the same thing around the world, thus eliminating translation, cultural and other differences.

So you should definitely include the proper INCO term in all of your shipping documentation. Of course, "proper" is subject to negotiation, but that is one of the advantages of using INCO terms - since every INCO term is accepted worldwide you know exactly what each term means in terms of risk and costs, so you can clearly negotiate with your customer how you both agree to share the risks and costs of shipping.

A number of existing resources can help you find out how much money is being spent on specific market segments in many different countries. They may not address your specific product or service, but they can tell you a lot about that group or market segment of similar things that people are spending money on in specific countries, what percentage of GDP that represents, and so forth.

This list includes Export.gov, US Census, United Nation Internatíonal Trade Association, etc.

Some are free or have a free version:

https://comtrade.un.org/data

https://traademap.org

There are some with paid subscriptions but others like US Census only require registration:

https://usatrade.census.gov/index.php

General information sites include

https://www.export.gov

https://globaledge.msu.edu

And of course you can always get help at your local Small Business Development Center (SBDC) or contact us.

Your may very well love to travel to the area of the world where you want to export to, but really, How will you get accurate marketing research done to know enough about customers, distributors, partners and so forth to be successful in that market?

International Marketing definitely challenges businesses because of things like time differences, cultural differences, language, distances and plain old complexity offered by international commerce. The good news is that there are a number of readily available (but likely not well known) resources to help you export successfully and profitably.

Very detailed, in-depth research and analysis of the Commercial environment, conditions, opportunities, challenges, and so forth in almost any country are available from the US Commercial Service in their Country Commercial Guides.

Somebody Reports to you that the prices for your type of product in Country X are Double what they are in the U.S. - Wow, does that mean you can Radically Increase your Profits? - Not necessarily, and probably not, but it may still be worth it!

Yes, I was one of those people reporting that overseas prices were Really high, so we should be able to export and make a lot more profit - but that is not necessarily the truth! When you add in shipping and handling, insurance, tariffs and duties and taxes, and so on, the sell price in that country will likely be as much as twice the U.S. price, but the anticipated "Profit" definitely starts getting eaten up by all of those extra costs and your profits on each sale is likely to be about the same if not slightly less than your domestic sale!

So why would anyone export if profits aren't going up that much? Remember that 95% of the world's potential customers live outside the US, so exporting does access potentially HUGE new markets and therefore huge revenue growth potential. There definitely can be incremental revenues when you start exporting, and if you manage the process, you can reduce some of those new costs and further improve profits. As your business grows, moving part of your supply chain into the target export country can result in even better profits, too.