Firms Face Hurdles Overseas

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Firms Face Hurdles Overseas

The Wall Street Journal

August 25, 2011

Marketing and buying different products overseas is a very hard task for small and large companies because they must rely on direct marketing, distributors, or sale representatives to bring their different products to all the different types of markets. This article is about a business owner named Nancy Simmons, who was contacted by customers in Brazil about buying refurbished aerospace parts from her plant in Orlando, Florida. The problem was that none of her employees spoke Portuguese to be able to negotiate the deal, therefore she turned to her neighbor for help to translate. Ms. Simmons says that an unexpected cost was the needed for extra training for her workers, they were afraid of the language differences, currency differences, religious differences, and many more.

Businesses are now looking for customers outside of the U.S but the problem is that it is really hard and complicated for small businesses, because unlike big firms, a small business doesn’t have as much money. Every year, U.S exports have risen by more than 20 billion each year. Fred Hochberg, chairman of the U.S. Export-Import Bank, says everything is suddenly changing because you used to not see a lot of exports from U.S businesses due to the robust local markets. Now businesses with fewer than 500 workers account for about 30% of total revenue from exporting.

Although that number seems high, still only about 1% of the nations small businesses sell overseas. For the first time in ten years, Tres Roeder, the president of Roeder Consulting Inc., is now starting to look for various clients from outside of the U.S. He says, “the overall tide isn’t rising here, but i look at foreign markets and they’re growing.” For Mr. Roeder, many different foreign clients have been joining the company while many American clients seem to cancel, therefore, he is now looking to offer full-time training services in...