Women In Exporting, Part 1 Develop and Grow Your Business
Join U.S. Commercial Service Dallas-Fort Worth office director Jessica Gordon; entrepreneur and author Elyse Eriksson, CEO of Export Connector; and Angela Hoffman, co-vice president for partnerships at the Organization of Women in International Trade and president of World Strategies; as they discuss: The current state of women in international business, Planning during uncertain times and how to develop and support teams to help you grow your business.
Episode Transcript
Speakers:
Evan Scritchfield: ES | Jessica Gordon: JG | Elise Erickson: EE | Angela Hofmann: AH
ES (0:03): Welcome to Export Nation. I’m excited to announce that this is the first episode of a new series focused on women in exporting. We listen in on a conversation, led by Senior international Trade Specialist, Jessica Gordon, from the U.S. Commercial Service office in Dallas. She’s joined by Elise Erickson, a lifelong entrepreneur and exporting trainer, as well as Angela Hofmann from the Organization of Women in International Trade, also known as OWIT.
The views and opinions expressed by the guests of Export Nation are those of the individual themselves, they do not necessarily reflect official policies or positions of the United States Government, U.S. Department of Commerce or any sub agency.
JG: Greetings from Dallas, Texas. I am joined today by Angela Hofmann and Elise Erickson. Before we get started with today’s conversation, I’d like to introduce our two guests that we have with us.
Elise, a lifelong entrepreneur has explored a wide variety of business ventures. I was talking with Elise earlier and learned that early in her career she owned two manufacturing companies specializing in concrete based products. She later went on to serve as the Director of International Training and a business management counselor at the International Trade Center, Small Business Development Center in Dallas.
Currently as the managing director of Export Connector, Elise brings together business experts to work with entrepreneurs interested in entering international markets. She’s the author of The Riddle of the Export training and workbook. Known as Betty-Sue export queen, she has trained exporters throughout the United States, Guam, Saipan and Puerto Rico, she has served on several boards including the Organization of Women in International Trade, DFW chapter and the North Texas District Export Council.
As a matter of fact, speaking of Organization of Women in International Trade, also known as OWIT, I’m also very pleased that we have Angela Hofmann with us, who is the Co-Vice President for Partnerships at OWIT, and the President of World Strategies.
Angela is a global government affairs, trade policy and corporate social responsibility executive with twenty plus years of experience and a proven track record of developing innovative government, media and community engagement programs around retail, ecommerce, and consumer goods imperatives. She served as an advisor to a member of the U.S. Congress and Executive Branch, as well as to CEOs and Senior Executives of complex, multinational organizations – and small and medium sized businesses going global.
Angela enjoys developing effective strategies to help enhance global business performance by leveraging her deep operational experience, international trade expertise, and innovation while integrating business and social responsibility initiatives. Welcome Angela and Elise.
I don’t know about you all, but I’ve heard a lot lately about just the amazing things that women are doing in the international trade arena. Especially during these unprecedented times. Women are known to step up during crisis and tackle issues head on when they are presented.
I was reading that the SBA reports there are around thirty million small businesses in the U.S. and out of those thirty million, the U.S. Census Bureau surveys report that over nine million are women owned. So, I’d like to start our conversation out today by asking, what is the business community, or your organizations doing to address the challenges that women currently face in international business and exporting? Specifically, for emergency planning during uncertain times. Elise?
EE (3:42): Thanks so much Jessica. Well these certainly are emergency times, and with most small business you’ll have times where you put out fires, but right now unfortunately everything seems to be putting out fires. And so we encourage the women we work with, throughout developing their export strategy, to have a team…to have a group, a support group. And so at this time, if you develop that support group, what you do is you go back to them. That could be your freight forwarder who of course knows – I call them your best friend, weather it’s the DEC…if you personally got to know your representative with EXIM bank or SBA….those types of people, you’ll be able to call them up and you’ll also be able to group with other people that are in your particular type of business through your trade (inaudible).
So women are really good at creating support teams, and now is the time to call on those support teams for advise, for help, for best practices.
JG (4:50): That’s good that you mention support teams, certainly as companies are trying to grow their businesses its important to have a support team, and so you really did point out some interesting point there where there may be some companies who are not as familiar with – how do I develop that support team? What does that look like? And so I heard you mention, having a freight forwarder, also working with agencies like the Small Business Administration, the Export-Import Bank, maybe even the District Export Council, so that’s incredibly helpful as companies look at how can I develop a support system that will help me to grow my business now, and even in the future.
I’d like to also ask Angela, so what does that look like for you? If you are giving some helpful tips to companies and you’re looking at how to develop a support team. What are some of your recommendations for how to grow that support team?
AH (5:50): Well I would say that this is the perfect time to become a member of the Organization Women in International Trade and this is a global network of over twenty-five hundred women throughout the world – North America strong, growth in Africa, growth in the Middle East and Latin America. But as Elise mentioned its not only developing a support team in terms of your policy issues and staying on top of the latest trends, but its also building your mentoring network. Having those in the supply chain who you can trust as a friend, pick the line, mentor up and also developmentees. The other thing I would say is look beyond simply your supply chain. Look at those who are doing innovative things in the COVID fight right now who are in the healthcare industry and could be in related industries who could help you think of alternate strategies as you’re managing a creative time in exporting.
JG (6:47): So Angela, you are with OWIT, what is OWIT doing to address the challenges that women are currently facing in international business?
AH (6:57): Well OWIT again is a national and international organization that has experts in terms of legal supply chain logistics, but we’re really excited because we recently actually launched a partnership with the Department of Commerce where we’ll be leveraging expertise with Commercial Service Officers, we’ll be helping those women get extra training – you don’t have to do it yourself there are experts in the field with the Department of Commerce, as you mentioned in the regional offices as well, and we’re going to be leveraging a further partnership and launching webinars and having very specific training with the Department of Commerce as well.
JG (7:38): So you mentioned webinars and a lot of training, and I think that in this time you’ve seen that many organizations are offering industry-specific webinars. They may be offering webinars about financial resources available companies, so I think that can be very helpful for companies to really gain that knowledge on how to just keep their business afloat and how to grow their business.
So now I think about really the current state of women in international business and international trade. So Elise, what is the current state of women in international business?
EE (8:05): Well the current state of everything right now is on high alerts. But the one thing we want to remember, even though things are on high alert now, they’re going to go back and we’re going to have a prosperous increase in international trade – that’s never going to go away. I always quote and I think its so interesting, there was a survey by the National Small Business Association from 2005 to 2009, and remember the recession, the world-wide recession in 2008 was at the height of this. And they showed that small businesses that were exporting had a thirty-seven percent increase in revenue during this time, while those that were not had a seven percent decline in revenue. So again, we’re going to go back to that – the world is not going to become isolated, and so what women are doing right now is they’re doing what it takes to solve the problem, that’s what we always do. And I believe that women being able to solve the problem – that’s what’s going to put them back, or increase their international trade, because that is what, when you increase your market share exporting is always a long-term strategy – it’s not your only sales, but it’s a consistent, long-term strategy. And so I think women are going to…they’re in it now, obviously by increased numbers and I think once this settles in, they’re going to go back to being a key force in global trade.
JG (9:46): You mentioned a few point Elise, and I like what you said about how women step up during crisis. They certainly do, and I think that as you mention, when companies are in difficult times and they’re trying to, lets just say in the case of U.S. exporters, are trying to weather this U.S. crisis…they start to look at which markets are in demand of their product or service. So it may be a time for companies to diversify – to really identify those markets that offer the most potential for their product or service. And so I just want to highlight some things that I think companies might consider. So, at the U.S. Commercial Service, we offer a number of programs and services to help companies expand internationally. And one of those services is market research and initial market checks. So as companies are looking to say, ok I’m looking at the entire world right now…which countries might offer potential for my product? The initial market check is an initial assessment of the market potential for a product or service in a targeted market. So the service assesses the potential of a specific product or service in a market by gathering feedback from industry experts and provides recommendations for whether or not to pursue the target market. So Elise, that was significant in that you mentioned that, you know, companies who do export – they experience a thirty seven percent increase in revenue.
Now, what I want us to have us think a little bit more about…other networks, or maybe some resources that are available to companies. So I’m going to go to Angela. Angela, what does the current network of women in exporting look like in your view?
AH (11:25): Well, I’ll mention one thing, and I think you touched on it both as well. We’re in a crisis right now, but there’s tremendous opportunity ahead, and as we’re looking to sort of the resilience phase of this, we need to be ready to tap into these new trade agreements that have been recently passed, soon to be implemented, and there’s a lot of excitement around the USMCA, we’re opening up markets in China and Japan, and you know, women are really good about planning ahead and being ready to seize those opportunities. So right now, you never want to squander a good crisis – this is the time to get yourself prepared. In addition, we’ve mentioned the Department of Commerce, we’re talking about the EXIM bank, we’ve seen other partnerships with international organizations like She Trades, where you can market your products online, and women can start thinking a little bit differently about how to move their products through the system. I know there is a lot of talk about even leveraging more technology and online marketing of products as well, and so partnerships like again, She Trades, could be available to move your product in a time when we can’t move out of our homes but we can certainly continue to do business.
JG (12:32): You know, you mentioned again some of the resources available to companies during this time. What are some of the resources available to women that they might not necessarily be aware of?
AH (12:47): Well some of the resources are simply your network. This is time to get on your LinkedIn, have a conversation with those that you’ve worked with in the near term and build that out. There are plenty of tools in the toolkit, whether we’re talking SBA right now – a lot of these are small businesses that are really tapping in to the financing. But also have the conversation with your local DECS, they are in your backyard, they’re there to be available and to be a resource to you.
JG (13:19): And you know I mentioned the U.S. Commercial Service earlier, but I think it’s interesting that I think sometimes we consider ourselves to be the best kept secret within the U.S. government, so I just want to mention that. We are the lead government agency responsible for assisting companies, primarily small to medium sized enterprises with exporting their products and services to foreign markets. And so we offer a number of programs and services that are specifically designed to promote U.S. exports. Currently we’re offering a wide variety of virtual export promotion services – so these services include market intelligence and customized market research, due diligence reports on foreign parties and foreign buyers, I mentioned the initial market checks and business matchmaking services. So I think that companies could potentially benefit from some of these services and one that I really think has been beneficial to companies is our matchmaking services that consist of the international partner search – which provided U.S. companies a list of maybe five agents or distributors or partners that have expressed interest in their product or service. There’s also a unique option for the international partner search that includes virtual introductions, where in addition to receiving a partner list, our team facilitate virtual introductions via email, teleconference, or video conference to identify contacts. So there are a number of resources out there available for companies.
I’m going to go back to Elise. Elise, what is the connection between international trade and women’s economic empowerment?
EE (14:51): Well I don’t think it can ever be underestimated…women working is good for their families, for the economy… they’re not just sellers they’re buyers. And I was reading a really interesting article by USAID, and they divided it into three areas as far as women moving forward in international trade. The first is behind the border, the second category is at the border, and the third is beyond the border. Now we’ve made massive increases behind the border, because that’s just women…that is women getting in to the workforce that actually either makes the products or transfer the products – and we can’t underestimate the benefit of what has happened here because the numbers really have increased substantially. They’ve also increased at the border, and what they mean by at the border is women who are actually the decision makers, the ones who start to export, the ones who own the companies, the ones who own the transport companies…and of course that’s where we want most of the action to eventually take place, because when women are making the decisions, their decisions in my opinion seem to be balanced with…taking care of their employees, taking care of their distributors, while taking care of their business at the same time. And then the third one is beyond the border, and that really deals like in Angela’s realm, with global policy and how global policy can be established to support all of this. So again, I don’t think we can underestimate the power of international trade. So far its had the most impact behind the border, a lot of impact at the border, and that’s where we want to help women become those exporters. And then of course beyond the border will help shape the world economic policy.
JG (16:35): I think your slogan, Elise, really can resonate with many. So behind the border, at the border and beyond the border. And so you mentioned a little bit about global policy, for example. So I want to ask Angela, what is the connection between international trade and women’s economic empowerment in your view?
AH (16:57): Well I think there’s a couple of areas and I always say its with the three E’s, and in terms of international trade women have been participating at all levels from policy development to enacting those policies and moving their products all around the world, but there’s a little bit more about it in terms of economic empowerment too and that’s education one another, its giving each other the experience to move their products and trade, and its giving exposure. And so that economic empowerment really allows us to not only start at the knowing what’s happening and being ahead – we’re setting those trends, we’re thinking ahead, we’re horizon scanning, we’re giving it experience between each other and sharing those best practices and it’s empowering women to make better decisions, but its also empowering companies to make better decisions. And then exposure, there’s nothing more important than helping women, women owned businesses get the opportunity to be in front of new customers, new markets and working together to empower them to make those deals and sales. And as Elise mentioned, those dollars come back ten-fold, it is a fantastic return on investment when you help women grow their businesses around the world.
JG (18:07): You know, I think many companies are in a stage now where they are looking at how to secure new customers, and how to pursue new markets – so as you mentioned that Angela, what advise or tips would you give to women currently operating in the international business environment?
AH (18:26): Well it’s a really interesting time to think about international, because while we may be at our homes, this is the time we can go global from Main Street, from your home office with technology. And so we’re having a lot of conversations with businesses who are really taking this time to upgrade their systems, to get online, look at payment, make new contacts…think out of the box on how you leverage technology to help transform your business – which can not only help you be more profitable right here at home, but could open those doors internationally. So a lot of focus on technology and enabling those next steps, sort of leap frogging to the next generation of marketing your products.
JG (19:08): Elise, what advise and tips would you give to women currently operating in the international business environment?
EE (19:15): Well, I have a few. The first thing is breath, right? It’s kind of like being in an airplane, if the air mask comes down you need to put yours on first before you take care of everybody else. So that also allows you to spend some time in reflection and get your brain cleared out. Research is essential, everybody I think is just researching everything they can get their hands on – of course make sure its good research. You can get this through your support team – these support teams if they come together, whether its OWIT, your group at OWIT, your DEC, your freight forwarder, your trade alliance – share that research and then that will lead you in to best practices. Communicate – communicate with your existing clients, communicate with your team, with your freight forwarder, with your trade group – communicate with future personal relationships. I think one thing Angela and you both have talked about is there’s going to be a new normal. There’s no question about it – some things are going to change. There needs to be innovative ways to reach out to customers. Right now I am updating my workbook, and there’s a whole section on virtual marketing – virtual marketing is going to take different steps, you would use the USEAC to set up your appointments, but you have to have a virtual marketing strategy now. And, as we’ve all said, in every crisis lies opportunity. Think out of the box, think like an entrepreneur, something might surprise you and as Betty-Sue Export Queen always says, the reason international trade is always going to be with us is because somebody, somewhere, is always buying something. So if we remember that, we know there is a great future in international trade.
JG (21:19): I like that. You’re right in that someone, somewhere, certainly is buying some form of product, so I think it is important and many of us have mentioned this today, to really analyze and evaluate markets that might offer potential for a company’s product or service. There are so many opportunities out there, but you certainly want to make sure you’ve had a chance to assess properly those opportunities.
So, Elise, you’ve mentioned a few things, one is to first breathe, right? Take a deep breath, and take some time to really research opportunities and connect that network that can be supportive. So connect to the network of business service providers, government agencies, private sector consultants that can support a businesses growth and development. And so we talked about the Small Business Administration, we mentioned the Export-Import Bank of the United States, we talked about the U.S. Commercial Service, we talked about the Organization of Women in International Trade, we talked about the North Texas District Export Council – so there’s so many resources out there available to companies. And, I want to mention too that the U.S. Commercial Service is going to be organizing a women’s virtual global trade and economic empowerment forum. And so that is planned for July through August – its going to be a six part series, and really the key program goal is to assist U.S. women-led businesses to expand in North America, also highlight USMCA trade opportunities, and foster a dialogue between women business leaders across the North American marketplace who are looking to solidify partnerships and increase their market share in the region.
So I don’t know if Angela or Elise have any final comments or maybe just anything that you would like to share with companies during this time with our listeners that we have today.
EE (23:23): Well, I think Angela said it early, you never want to waste a crisis, you want to use it to the best of your ability, you want to take the time to get yourself prepared to launch either for the first time, again, or expand because this is the time, and it’s a perfect opportunity that when things and the clouds clear, that you’re going to be ready. I think exporting, international trade is the most exciting thing out there for so many reasons, not just the business part of it, but the connecting part of it – and when we do business with people, we want to keep those relationships going well, and it prepares everyone for a more peaceful, prosperous time.
JG (24:19): Absolutely, relationships are so key, especially during this time. Angela? Any final comments or recommendations from you?
AH (24:29): Well I’m a perennial optimist, and what keeps me going every day, and advice I would give too is check in with someone in your network every day. If you’re going to have a cup of coffee, make a phone call, send an email or two – see what they’re doing wherever they may be located across the U.S. because what makes women so successful in exporting is that they trust each other, they build lasting relationships and those are very strong not only with the professionals that you work with, but with the customers that you grow, you keep, you expand. So I would say take that time every day, touch base with your network and then help each other out. This is a time where working together will lift one another and will continue to foster success in the international trade market together.
JG (25:13): I really like your optimism, Angela, and I think now is a time where people need to feel empowered, and they need to hear from those who are optimistic. So I’d like to thank our listeners for joining us today. Really, this was to highlight the work that’s being done to empower women and women-owned businesses during these uncertain times. So thanks for joining us for our first episode of Export Nation.
ES (25:42): For more information on the upcoming Women’s Global Trade Empowerment Forum, please visit www.trade.gov/womensglobaltradempowermentforum to register your interest and receive event updates.
The International Trade Administration and U.S. & Foreign Commercial Service are temporarily reducing or eliminating the costs of several of their export services, providing relief to U.S. businesses affected by COVID-19. These efforts are intended to encourage the export of non-COVID-19-treatment-related “Made in the USA” products around the world in this moment of economic transition and recovery. For U.S. companies that produce goods or services for export, the USFCS is authorized to reduce user fees and services by up to 100 percent for U.S. small and medium-sized enterprises and economic development organizations, and by up to 50 percent for large U.S. companies. Reduced fees will be provided until September 30, 2020. For more information, please contact your local USEAC or visit us at www.trade.gov
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