Latest / The SmallBizChat with Melinda Emerson / Exporting Like an Expert with Laurel Delaney

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Exporting Like an Expert with Laurel Delaney · The SmallBizChat with Melinda Emerson

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  3, 10, 1, 0, ignition, liftoff,
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  Ending small business failure.
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  Welcome to the Small Biz Chat podcast with a number 1 small business expert Melinda Emerson.
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  Bolinda's goal is to end small business failure, and she'll give you the information
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  you need to succeed and live the life you've dream of.
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  Now here's the small biz lady herself.
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  Melinda Everson.
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  Hi, everybody.
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  Name is Melinda Emerson, the small biz lady, and I am so excited to welcome you.
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  Now small biz chat, we have hosted it for over 10 years.
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  And tonight, we're really gonna focus on what we call this peer to peer education thing where
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  what we are doing is giving you a safe place to get information so that you can succeed as your
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  own boss.
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  Now I am excited to be here with you because this really is about giving our loyal fans.
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  Just one more thing.
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  We are joined by international exporting expert, Laurel Delaney.
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  She's gonna talk to us about exporting to China, doing business in China with the Chinese
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  consumer that it's no small thing, so she's gonna break it down for us.
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  She is the founder and president of Global Trade, which is a management consulting company
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  that helps small business owners go global.
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  She is also a founder of the women entrepreneurs Grow Global, which is a nonprofit
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  organization that educates women business owners on how to go global.
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  And she's also the author of exporting, the definitive guide to selling abroad profitably.
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  So when I meet an exporting expert, Hi, Carl.
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  Laurel, the lady is I'm so excited that you are here with us tonight.
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  Laurel, welcome.
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  Well, thank you.
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  Thank you so much, Melinda.
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  It's such a pleasure to be here.
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  Well, I'm excited because I think, you know, exporting is something that's still like a
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  little bit scary to people.
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  You know?
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  And when
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  I when
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  I looked at the statistics in the US, there's really about 300,000, small businesses
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  exporting, and most of them are exporting to the US or Mexico.
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  So when we talk about exporting to China, that's still something that Not that many
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  people are doing, but, man, it's a it's a booming market over there.
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  Right?
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  I mean, that that's something it's very much worthwhile I mean, is it is it the Asian
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  marketplace, one of the fastest growing opportunities globally?
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  Absolutely.
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  Yeah.
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  And one of the things that I think a lot of small businesses, what they failed to recognize
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  is that the easiest way to get started in porting is really to go to from the United
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  States to go to Canada and go to Mexico.
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  And, logically, that makes sense because it's pretty close in seventy in terms of, you know,
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  the geographic radius, but to really take that leap to export to China you've gotta do a
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  little bit of research, a little bit of homework.
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  You've gotta develop a a road map so that you feel pretty confident about what you're going
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  to do and how you're going to do it once you do enter China.
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  Right.
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  So I mean, I know there's a lot of barriers.
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  Right?
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  You know, tariffs are high.
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  There's a lot of barriers to doing business in China.
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  Can you tell us, like, what's what's some of the top 3 or 5, like, you know, barriers really
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  are that people need to know?
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  Absolutely.
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  One of the top ones would just be bureaucracy, or you could define it as trade regulations
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  that involve, let's say, export compliance, rations, whether or not you need an export
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  license, and those items in and of themselves can really be a deterrent for small to medium
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  sized enterprises.
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  It really scares the daylights out of them when they see it's like those red flags going up.
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  And how do you overcome those barriers has a lot to do with making sure that you conduct
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  research that you work with some organizations such as some big organizations like SBA or
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  export dot gov, or trade dot gov.
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  Many of the big governmental organization can really hold your hand and walk you through the
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  process to sort of get you into China, if you will.
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  Alright.
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  So what would you say are some of the best ways to end of the market.
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  You know?
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  So I've got my registration lights as I've got through this, like, you know, kind of red tape
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  stuff you're talking about, but now I'm ready to do business.
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  So what what do I need to do?
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  Look, there's a couple of ways.
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  One is, to try and connect with someone that is on the ground in China and that can be a
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  friend.
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  It can be a colleague or it could be an organization.
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  Someone that you literally have trust with.
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  That you communicate with, and you start asking questions in terms of what it is that you're
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  attempting to offer and making sure that there actually is demand for the product, in China.
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  A second way, which we've all been I think it tightened awareness on is, Alabama.
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  And it's it's a real not not just a hot topic.
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  It's a great organization from the standpoint that they now have a platform that is available
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  to USA companies that you can easily get online and not just buy from suppliers, but you can
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  actually sell your own products to their base of customers.
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  And that's not just in China.
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  It's wherever Alabama is at.
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  So that can be Brazil, that can be India and that can also be the United States.
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  So I I highly recommend a lot of SMEs, take a look at that platform, and consider offering
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  their products to see if they can reach the Chinese market in that fashion.
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  So let's talk a little bit about Alibaba.
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  Is it inexpensive to get your stuff on Alibaba?
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  Like, do you have to be one of their advertisers, if you will, like to sort of,
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  like, get your product known on Alibaba or is it just like kinda like Amazon?
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  Like, you throw your stuff up there and hope you have the right keywords and that people
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  find you.
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  Like, is it selling on Alibaba, you've really gotta be prepared to make a marketing
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  investment as well.
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  Right?
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  So you definitely need to make a marketing investment, but backing up to your original
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  question, there is a fee involved.
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  It's an economic fee whenever I see something to the tune of, let's say, US dollars, $2000.
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  And if that's an annual cost for an SME, that's affordable, And then once you get up and
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  running, what you're really paying for in my opinion is 2 things.
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  1 is exposure.
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  Exposure to all of these potential customers.
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  And the second is then the opportunity to be able to sell to those customers all over the
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  world.
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  And once you are up on their platform, you do have to leverage the opportunity of, let's say,
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  you know, advertising, you want to set some other mechanisms that sort of are integrated
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  into Alibaba.
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  And that would be 2 other platforms.
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  One would be WeChat, which a lot of SMEs are familiar with, and WeChat operates pretty
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  similar to the USA Twitter, But once you get up on WeChat, you're connecting to Chinese, you
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  know, consumers and business owners all over China and other parts of the world.
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  Second to that, beyond the WeChat, you also wanna connect to Weibo, which is another,
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  online platform, but in that particular case with that platform.
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  You have to be careful because it's more that you need to speak the language, which would be
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  predominantly Mandarin.
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  Oh, well, you know, it's interesting because that was actually my next question.
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  Do you do you do you need to know Mandarin to do this, or You have to have somebody or your
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  staff or a translator or something like, can you do this in English, or do you really have
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  to understand Mandarin?
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  You really do need to understand Mandarin, but that doesn't mean Melinda that you need to
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  understand it or I need to understand it.
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  It means that you need to leverage and make sure that someone is on board that understands
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  Mandarin because that really is the only way to, you know, when I say create fluidity so
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  that you have a dialogue and a communication that you understand what they're communicating
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  to you and vice versa the same communicating with you.
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  So I highly recommend that you get someone on board that can speak the language because, for
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  example, backing up If you use WeChat and let's say it's in English, that's great.
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  And you're you're trying to tap into the audience and you get going.
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  You're trying to leverage what's happening on Alibaba and also crossing over to Weibo.
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  And all of a sudden, you see, oh, you need to understand the language.
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  That can really trip you up.
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  So I I do recommend that that you you have someone that understands the Mandarin language.
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  Okay.
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  Now what about actually traveling to China?
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  Like, can I do all of this from my comfortable office in Philadelphia, or do I actually have
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  to get on a plane and go to Bay What do I need to do?
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  Well, in that particular instance, you really model what you do when you connect with people
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  locally, like, in in your own market, in in in our case, let's in in the United States.
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  You can con you can start to do business with an organization without traveling and meeting
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  them, and you can set up, for example, how we're online right now and be able to do, for
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  example, a Skype call and be able to have that warm and fuzzy feeling seeing someone.
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  But second of that pushing it further after you move along and you develop the relationship,
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  nothing is better than sealing the deal by meeting in person.
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  It's not urgent.
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  You don't have to do it at the very beginning, but as you see, the relationship is really
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  getting serious the the customer is ready to buy, and you you definitely wanna then make a
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  plan to get on a plane and travel and meet with them in person to to more, let's just to really
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  solidify the relationship.
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  Good stuff.
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  Good stuff.
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  Alright, Laurel.
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  I'm gonna put a pin in it right there.
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  We're gonna go to commercial.
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  And when we come right back, we're gonna spend some more time with Laurel Delaney, learning
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  how to reach the Chinese consumer.
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  I'm Melinda Emerson, the small biz lady, and we will be right back.
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  Hi.
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  I'm Melinda Emerson, small biz lady.
• 11:00
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• 11:04
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• 11:28
  Welcome back to Small Bishop.
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  I am talking with Laurel Delaney.
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  She's an exporting sprint, and she is the founder and president of global trade dotcom.
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  And Laura and I were just talking about how important it is to really no Mandarin.
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  And if you're gonna partner with an organization or a broker or something over in
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  China, you really need to go over there and meet them and and seal the deal with with
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  personal relationships.
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  Now, Laurel, I wanted to kinda come back to you and talk a little bit about I know you
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  mentioned earlier that the federal government does offer, you know, some resources to help
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  people with exporting.
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  Can you talk a little bit more about those disease you mentioned earlier and explain kind
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  of what they do.
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  Oh, sure.
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  The 2 big ones are export.govandtrade.gov.
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  Both of those organizations have just numerous offerings for small business owners whereby
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  they can access market research concerning country profiles.
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  For example, if you want doing business in China, you wanna find out everything there is
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  to know about doing business in China.
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  They would have a report covering that.
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  And beyond that, they also will set up potential meetings and opportunities to have
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  you meet with distributors that might be interested in your product.
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  And even be on that, they will set up trade missions and set up appointments for you it
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  they really serve as your arm when you are trying to do business in any part of the world
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  for that and it's just the great resources and great, organizations to be able to connect
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  with.
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  Very cool.
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  Now real quick, what are some of the best things.
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  If you're just getting started, you know, kind of selling the Chinese market, what are some
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  popular products to to sell?
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  Well, Linda, actually backing up a little, but we didn't cover this.
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  But one of the things I I if anyone follows Metro any stats, you'll see that there's a lot
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  of activity going on in Southeast Asia.
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  That Southeast Asia activity is primarily primarily having to do with agricultural
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  exports.
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  But in the case with most SMEs, They really like to get involved with more of how I define
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  CPG consumer product goods.
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  So those types of items that would be houseware items kitchen items.
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  But a big one for China right now is actually surprisingly enough is, anything to do with
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  children.
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  Whether it be toys or it could be organic, high value food items for young people.
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  And even beyond that, luxury items is another.
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  Luxury items will never go away.
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  The Chinese population, they just love the herms and they love the burberry.
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  They're like the Tory Burch type items, you know, the handbags.
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  So that's what's really moving out there right now.
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  Interesting.
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  Interesting.
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  So if you're gonna go into the Chinese market, what kind of time frame really can you give
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  yourself?
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  To to to build brand awareness, you know, in China?
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  What's realistic?
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  No.
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  I'm not trying to be smart aleck right now.
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  But realistically, when I say, you know, give it plenty of time because it takes forever.
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  It takes a really, really long time.
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  I I hate to say to you that it depends, but it does depend on the product that you're offering
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  what your resources are, not only financial, but the the human power, the labor power that
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  you have behind your organization.
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  So taking all that into consideration, I think the best way to really accelerate the process
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  is to always start off with someone that you can trust.
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  If you can trust the partner, you can move a lot faster than if you start cold, you have no
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  idea who you're dealing with, and you think that this could take, like, for forever or for
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  years.
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  Got it.
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  Got it.
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  Well, Laurel, I'm gonna leave it right there.
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  Thank you so much for giving us this valuable insight you know, today is World Entrepreneur
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  Day.
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  So if you're interested in going into business and taking your business overseas to the
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  Chinese market, Lord Delaney is the lady that you wanna look up.
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  So check out her website, global trade dotcom.
• 15:57
  Please, those of you who want more information about my guests and any more information on how
• 16:01
  to start and grow a business.
• 16:03
  Please head over to my blog at succeed as your own boss.com.
• 16:07
  I have over 5000 articles about how to start and grow And tomorrow, I'll have more
• 16:11
  information on these 3 so you don't wanna miss it.
• 16:14
  And thank you all.
• 16:15
  We will be back on Twitter next week, so don't miss that.
• 16:18
  The mission of small fish chat is to end small business failure.
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  I'm Melinda Emerson, the small business lady.
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  I will leave you with this.
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  You never lose in business.
• 16:28
  Either you win for you, Mark.
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  God bless everybody.
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  Bye.
• 16:33
  Thank you for listening to the small biz chat podcast with Melinda Emerson.
• 16:38
  For more resources and small business success strategies, visit succeed as your own boss.com.
• 16:45
  Subscribe to this podcast wherever you listen to podcasts and join us next Wednesday.