Sharpening your Consulting Skills: set up a meeting with entrepreneurs

I had an interesting meeting today. I know that business meetings can be tedious sometimes, but that was not the case with this one. I met with an emerging entrepreneur in Florida that is trying to put his business together. Although this might be familiar territory for other business consultants for me this was fairly new, most of my business involves negotiating with already established and very savvy business owners (that’s the export consulting part of it) who very quickly want to get to the bottom line. This meeting was refreshing and a good test of my skills. Below are several reasons why I think every business consultant should every now and then meet with emerging entrepreneurs:

1. It will test your skills. These young emerging business owners have very different perspectives and questions about how businesses operate. Spending a couple of hours answering their questions will help keep you sharp and will show you the flaws in your skill set.

2. It will give you new ideas. The conversation will make you think about current business trends just a little different, it will help you understand what challenges business owners are facing and what opportunities are out there.

3. It is a key step in expanding your network. Some will make it, others will not. However it is much easier to meet with an emerging business leader than with the head of an established company. They still do not have all the administrative duties that are associated with established business. However the new entrepreneur that you just met might become a successful business owner in a couple of years, you want those leaders to remember, and most importantly refer, you.

As always let me know what you think and please share your own experiences in this area,
Regards,
Juan

Guides to Nowhere? The ITA’s good guides with no plan.

I just finished reading the International Trade Administration’s Trade Finance Guide (you can find it at http://export.gov/static/TradeFinanceGuide_All_Latest_eg_main_043219.pdf ). There is plenty of useful advice on it on things such as Export Credit Insurance, Factoring and a brief summary on Letters of Credit.  The guide is useful and its language is plain and easy to understand.  I tend to read most of the products that come from the ITA, such as A Basic Guide to Exporting, but after reading this one a concern seems to continue to come up. The ITA seems to be publishing good products but without any clear cohesive strategy, the SME owner basically has a guide that explains the basics of exporting and then another guide that gives information about financing. There is no “cradle to grave” guide that tells you HOW to export! 

The most fundamental and basic step, finding clients for your products overseas, seems to be overseen at best or assumed at worst.  A guide that explains the business process could be more beneficial. Clearly defining steps such as assessing your products/services, finding clients overseas, negotiating with clients overseas (to include method of payment and negotiations), financing, shipment of products/delivery of services and receipt of payments would be good a start. Obviously the business process is far more complicated but a coherent guide that takes the SME owner from the “cradle” of exporting (i.e. product or service self assessment) to the “grave” (i.e. goods shipped/service provided and payment received) is far more beneficial than good guides published at what seems to be random times. I know that services such as Gold Key Matching exist to find overseas buyers but not all SMEs prefer to pay the associated premiums of such services.

As always I look forward to your thoughts.

Florida: Exporting and SMEs

Recently I came across a report from International Trade Administration (www.trade.gov/mas/ian )regarding Florida Exports, Jobs and Foreign Investment from June 2012. The report had some interesting facts that I thought i will share. Florida is were i operate my business so i also have some selfish reasons to share this with you:

1. 37,687 companies exported from Florida in 20009 of those 36,109 were Small and Medium Sized enterprises (SME)

2. 67% of Florida's total exports are from SMEs

3. The largest trading partners are Switzerland ($7.3 billion in export sales), Brazil ($5.3 billion), Venezuela ($4.5 billion), Canada ($4.1 billion) and Colombia ($2.8 billion)

These figures seem impressive, however, when I see these figures i think of the challenges and opportunities of exporting. Consider these other figures from the Census Bureau (www.census.gov):

1. Florida has 491,249 private non farm establishments

2. Total number of firms in Florida is 2,009,589 for 2009

Do you see it? According to these figures only 7% of businesses in Florida engaged in exporting! I know some of you might point out that private non farm establishments are not the same as companies but even accounting for different types of establishments there is still a vast number of Florida companies that do not export. The opportunity to expand our exports is enormous! Do you see the second opportunity? Most of our exports are going to South America, a few to Europe. What about Africa, Central America, Asia? There are numerous places were Florida businesses can expand and export. I see these challenges as opportunities and as we all well know running a business is about seizing opportunities.

Is your next business breakthrough in Sub Saharan Africa?

I read a press release from the International Trade Administration this morning. Its an old one, dated June 14th, 2012 but the information is still relevant. In thepress release the World Bank's "Doing Business in a more transparent World" document is cited as evidence that 36 out of the 46 economies in Sub-Saharan Africa have improved business regulations this year and 6 of the world's 10 fastest economies are in this area as well. Hopefully this translates to better export opportunities for our businesses. The point here is simple. This COULD be the next big market for your business.

I know many of you are thinking do not put too much thought into this area. Asia occupies most of the commercial "bandwidth" out there and Latin America follows as our business are far more adept at conducting business in those countries than in sub-Saharan Africa. For this same very reason this is why it could be a potential market, the competition might be less fierce and the opportunities might be more abundant. Obviously this is just food for thought, a proper market research needs to be conducted before ANY business decides to take this leap but the facts are there, this area is growing, its growing fast and many are not paying attention.

You can read the press release at the following link:

http://blog.trade.gov/2012/06/14/growth-and-opportunities-in-sub-saharan-africa/

I look forward to your comments.

Those busy bastards...

Those "busy bastards"...

I was recently reading Colin Powell's new book "It Worked for Me: In Life and Leadership" and the General had an interesting concept that I have never heard of before, he called it the "busy bastards". Now I don't remember how General Powell came about with that term, I do remember that he heard it from one of his colleagues in the Army during his long and distinguished career. Nevertheless it is an interesting concept. The General was referring to those individuals who sometimes have exceptional skills but confuse being "busy" with being productive. Having spent a short time in the Army myself, I stopped and thought about this for a while, in such a short time a met plenty of "busy bastards" too! Don't get me wrong, many of the guys I served with are exceptional leaders, Soldiers and human beings but many of them truly believed that the way to show the "boss" that we were being productive was by being busy.  I started thinking about this concept as it applies to business ownership and entrepreneurship and I thought "Many of the small business owners I know are busy bastards too!"

Let's think about this for a minute. Usually small business owners are pressed for time. We have to figure out how to market our products, plan and supervise our operations,  manage our resources effectively, maintain our financial accounts, pay our employees, etc, etc.  More often than not we don't have a Human Resources department or a Finance department that can do this for us, we have to do it on our own. However a business owner doing all of these tasks doesn't necessarily mean that he must be "busy". We need to strive to move beyond being busy. Is the way I am operating the most effective way? Is my marketing really working? Am I doing payroll the most efficient way? Being a "busy bastard" prevents us from THINKING about our business and how to improve. If a business owner stops thinking and innovating they are bound to fail.

In the export/import business it is REALLY easy to fall on the "busy bastard" rut. Try completing a SED or using AES for a minute without being frustrated.  Do not let the tasks become "busy work". Take the time to think about your business and how to improve, constantly. We must always be productive but never "busy". That is a good lesson that I have learned from this book, which by the way I recommend, it is an amazing read.

Look forward to your comments.

Export Broker: Building your Network of Trust

 Exporting can be complicated.  Fortunately if you are like me you picked the least complicated position in the export/import industry, being an export agent/broker. Our friends doing distribution or manufacturing require much more time and capital to get their businesses of the ground. We focus on the deal, as long as you have a penchant for getting two parties together and completing a deal you have a good foundation for being an export agent.  Most experts on the subject start with the same basic advice, find a good product and try to find a buyer for the product abroad, all for a commission. Although this is sound advice it is not as easy to find a "good" product to export, or for that matter a manufacturer that is willing to let you try to sell their product abroad. 

I do not suggest that you should deviate from this advice, finding a good product to export IS the best way to complete a deal but this other advice might be helpful as well.

1. Plan for your venture to take time. Exporting is all about building relationships. It is difficult to find a manufacturer that will trust you with a product because they want someone they can "trust".  Exporting is a difficult business with many pitfalls, building and maintaining that trust is essential and it takes time.

2. Plan to take even more time building your network.  Your network is the basis of your "sourcing". In a business where trust is key your network is the way to get your trust noticed. In exporting, word of mouth still counts. Spending the time to get to know others in the industry and try to carve your own niche will yield results.

So there it is, being an exporting agent is more than just having the right product. It requires building the trust and creating a network to support your business.

As always your comments are always welcomed,

Export Broker: Adventures in the Trade " The Export Assistance Centers"

If you are like many of us on the export/import arena you probably read, or at the very least browsed,  "A Basic guide to exporting". This "document" has been produced an important resource for distributing the basics of exporting to the widest possible audience for more than 70 years. Reading the 2012 version, which was advertised as completely revised and updated in the export.gov website, I have arrived at 2 conclusions that might help others in the export/import broker business.

1. The revised and updated edition is neither much revised nor much updated. If you have a copy of the old guide I suggested that you should hold on to that and wait for another "revision". Many of the examples are from the pre recession era (i.e. 2005 and 2006). This might have been good enough a decade ago but we all know that the market is changing at light speed this days, a guide with information that is 6 years old is not keeping much up to date. The problem is not that the information is obsolete, the issue is that much of the information loses its relevance. Save yourself the time, keep using your old guide.

2. Don't be discouraged by the Export Assistance Centers. In the guide all of the answers seem to rest at the Export Assistance Centers. With such a phenomenal organization, how are independent consultants going to survive? Surely the EACs will run all of us out of business. Not true. First let us remember that the EAC are just plain government agencies, i.e. not known for being efficient or providing the best service. Granted that there are excellent trade specialists in many of the EAC but overall the service is not much different than other government agencies. Second, the EAC can provide a lot of the information, but they can't represent a sole party. Your attention is divided among many customers and your best interest, although important, are not the sole interest of the center.  Independent consultants fill many voids that the EAC, simply by being government agencies, can never fill. Learn to leverage their expertise and work with them, but constantly remind your clients that there is a difference, in quality and service, between a government agency and a private company.

As always I am open to your comments on the opinions presented in the blog.

I look forward to your comments.