Global e-business
Before leaping globally online, network locally offline
Garrett Wasny, CMC | September, 2000Okay, okay. After some hemming and hawing, you’ve finally caved in to all the web hype and launched your own small business website. Along with your street and e-mail address, you’ve posted your company logo, and uploaded some descriptions and photos of your products. The site is nothing fancy, but still an effective e-brochure. After a month or so, you receive – totally out of the blue – an order from a customer in Dublin, Ireland. “Dublin?” you scream. “I’ve never done business with anyone from outside my neighborhood, let alone another country.” What’s my next move?
A growing number of U.S. small businesspeople are discovering that the World Wide Web is just that. When you go online – even with the most modest of webpages -- you are an instant multinational whether you want to be or not. You and your business are accessible from any web-connected computer on the planet, from Topeca to Tokyo. For a small company with a tradition of local-only clientele, this can be both exhilarating and terrifying. Yes, you’re awestruck that someone oceans away somehow found your site and wants to buy from you. Trouble is, how do you actually deliver to some distant land when you have absolutely zero international trade experience and expertise, and no budget for global marketing?
My advice? Your first stop should be USA Trade at http://www.usatrade.gov. While thousands of websites promise how-to advice on how to trade globally, this site actually delivers. A service of the U.S. federal government – specifically the U.S. Department of Commerce, the International Trade Administration, and the U.S. Commercial Service or CS – USA Trade should be required viewing for any American businessperson on the web. While it’s fashionable to scoff at federal government workers, these agencies do not fit the stereotype. For decades, they’ve offered outstanding global business products and services, everything from international market reports to cross-border trade missions to one-on-one briefing sessions. Long ignored and underrated in their own country, the agencies are arguably only truly appreciated outside their own borders. In Canada, for example, the U.S. Commercial Service is a widely respected source for international trade information. So good, in fact, that some Canuck government agencies – which shall remain nameless – pass off Commercial Service information as their own.
When you visit the USA Trade website, click on the “U.S. Office List” menu and scroll down to the Commercial Service office nearest you, say, Long Beach, California. Hit the hyperlink and you’ll access the local CS homepage. In this case, the Long Beach U.S. Export Assistance Center. There, you’ll find a variety of trade information from a monthly newsletter to a directory of local international business events to directions on how to get to the office. The real goldmine is the Staff Directory. Pick a name, preferably a female (this is sexist, I know, but I always pick a female because they tend to be more helpful than males, although not always). Ask for the trade specialist who specializes in your particular product area and the country from which you received your order. In this instance, Ireland. When you speak with him or her, arrange an in-person appointment to discuss your unsolicited international order. Either you go visit them at their office, or you invite them to yours. Discuss it only briefly on the phone, and do not correspond by e-mail. Meet face-to-face. Yes, you read it right. I strongly recommend this because it shows to the trade officer that you are serious. In my experience, the officers tend to share more and better information with a real live human being sitting across from them at a desk as opposed to a faceless caller over the phone, or an e-mailer on the web.
At the meeting, bring along a hard-copy of the e-mail you received from your international buyer. Also carry a pad and pencil. Then ask lots of questions, listen closely, and take detailed notes. In many instances, the trade officers have years of international business experience. They’ve served in U.S. trade posts and consulates around the world, and assisted hundreds of U.S. exporters. The officers can walk you through, step-by-step, the export process and explain how to do everything from international buyer credit checks to preparing customs documents. They’re also well connected in the local export community, and can recommend reputable customs brokers, freight forwarders, and other trade professionals in your area who may provide additional assistance. A single 60-minute meeting with one good Commercial Service officer will save you countless research hours on the web, and get your export plans immediately focused and organized. The cost for all this: nothing. With a few exceptions, the Commercial Service provides export counseling at no charge.
As thousands of new web consumers from all over the globe swarm onto the Internet every day, U.S. companies of all sizes should expect an ever-increasing volume of international inquiries and orders online. Using a resource such as USA Trade, businesspeople – especially those who know little or nothing about exporting – can quickly and easily learn how to conquer the world from their desktop by leveraging often overlooked export resources in their own backyard.
Based in Vancouver, Canada, Garrett Wasny, CMC, is an e-commerce trainer and author. His latest book is World Business Resources.com. Mr. Wasny may be reached at gwasny@direct.ca or Tel: 604/878-4555.
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