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let's start well i would like to welcome everybody to the latest webinar in our monthly series that focuses on helping kansas companies export to more countries and export more successfully we're constantly updating our calendar of events as we work to provide the most timely and useful information available right now we're working to develop a program how to make best use of virtual marketing tools in business to business sales and hope to have it ready to go shortly today however we are focusing on our trade promotion partners now whether you're new to exporting or a seasoned veteran accustomed to selling into countries around the world it pays to know the best ways to make the sale this can include knowing many things about your potential markets such as how to find good local partners the best ways to get paid as well as something as fundamental as which markets offer the best opportunities for sales in fact as many on this webinar today know there are a whole host of things one needs to consider to be a successful exporter of course this last year has only made the challenge more complicated as many countries close their borders to foreigners retrench economically or even change the rules of the game so now more than ever it's essential to gain a greater and more up to the minute understanding of the international marketplace to achieve readiness to be a prepared exporter today we are joined on this webinar by four organizations that have each have particular kinds of expertise and ways they can help all exporters become prepared to spot opportunities quickly and seize them successfully together we work hand in hand and all offer services to kansas exporters that address the range of needs they may have and which work together and importantly complement each other in very productive ways now to have the best production experience in today's webinar we ask that you mute your microphone and turn off your video after the speakers have finished we've asked them to be prepared to answer any questions the audience may have to ask a question simply pose it at any time in the chat box so that people can access this information later our session is also being recorded shortly after today's event we will post the recording on youtube and send all attendees a link with that i would like to turn the program over to my colleague and friend mr chong liu who will introduce each speaker and manage the rest of the program lou please take it away jeff thank you for the introduction i would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone taking time out of your busy schedule to join me today now speaking from personal experience it is really weird to have meetings just with yourself so thank you for joining me i'm your host chen lou lou is my last name spelled l u just two letters and i go by my last name i joined the kansas department of commerce in 2013. my focus includes export assistance and business recruitment today we're focusing on the export piece now let me start by asking you a question how would you like to make 368 dollars per second now some of you probably wondering if that's even possible remember 95 percent of the consumers live outside of the united states in fact kansas companies exported 11 6 billion dollar worth of goods in 2019 and that translates to 368 dollars per second trust me i would like to think i'm very good at math um so it is possible we hope to session will set you up as a prepared exporter aiming at the 368 dollars per second mark to all of our participants during this one hour journey we're about to embark we will have the opportunity to hear from representatives of the u.s commercial service kansas global trade services world trade center kansas city and the kansas small business development center among others they are the export service providers we work with hand-in-hand regularly many of them offer excellent export assistance programs and we may have financial assistance available to help you pay for these services okay now before i start let's just take a couple of housekeeping items um number one like jeff mentioned please keep your microphone and camera off until you need to speak number two the fact the chat the chat feature is on uh so you have questions please feel free to submit and we will be sure to address those during the q a session we want to hear from you we want to know how we can help you so please submit your questions um now if if any uh technical difficulty happens on my end which happens all the time my colleague jeff will take it over and ensure the meeting continues all right now first up miss pinky uh miss pinky thacker from the u.s commercial service kansas city office and mr aj anderson from the wichita office they are my counterpart at the federal level without further ado pinky the floor is yours lou thank you so much that was a funny introduction there um so i just wanted to say good morning everyone and and thank you for joining us i hope everyone is continuing to stay safe and healthy um and thank you to lou and the department of commerce uh for having us we're really excited to be presenting today along some of our local partners um to really bring you the full suite of the resources that are available to kansas businesses that have an eye towards exporting and so before we get started i'd just like to take a quick minute to introduce ourselves my name is pinky thacker and i'm an international trade specialist with the u.s commercial service located in the kansas city office and i'm joined today by my colleague aj anderson director of the commercial service wichita office so without further ado i think we can go ahead and jump right in and we'd like to start by showing you a brief video that shows a little bit about who we are and what we do um lou could we have the video please [Music] many u.s companies of all sizes grow their business by exporting products and services to buyers around the world if you want to start or expand your international sales to one market or 100 we'd like to help we are the us commercial service part of the us department of commerce's international trade administration we are the export experts with a global network of trade professionals located in more than 100 u.s cities and in u.s embassies and consulates in almost 80 countries this is unparalleled global reach that can help any exporting business the key focus of the u.s commercial service is to help small and medium-sized businesses the foundation of the us economy increase exports and expand into new markets abroad when u.s companies succeed abroad everybody wins exporting supports more good-paying jobs in america and u.s economic prosperity 95 percent of the world's consumers live outside the united states we advise u.s businesses on what these consumers need and how to market them online on the ground and around the world we provide valuable and easy to access tips tools resources and market intelligence we offer personalized one-on-one export counseling and other services tailored to unique business needs leveraged by a global network unsurpassed anywhere else we help businesses select the best markets and sales channels understand the rules and regulations find qualified partners connect with buyers around the world and recommend ways to finance exports we also advocate on behalf of u.s companies bidding on foreign public sector contracts so they can compete on a level playing field our us-based experts help develop export plans and strategies to get you started our international experts provide the market intelligence and connections to help businesses get that first sale in that first export market or numerous sales in multiple markets and every day our in-country staff advocates on their behalf for easier market entry lower tariffs and even help unstick products delayed in customs our staff is dedicated to working with businesses every step of the way to see them grow globally and succeed in the international marketplace whether new to exporting or experienced global professionals looking for more market share they can contact the export pros at the u.s commercial service visit export.gov to learn more brought to you by the u.s commercial service part of the u.s department of commerce's international trade administration thanks lou and actually so as i'm watching that video i'm realizing it's a bit outdated and i'd just like to highlight that we're actually now located at www.trade.gov and not export.gov um but i hope it gave everyone a little bit of insight into um what we do um so if we could actually please move over to the presentation at this point um and as we're bringing that up um just to bring it all together um to highlight so we are part of the federal government and we're an agency within the u.s department of commerce and the international trade administration and we're federally mandated to support u.s businesses in your exporting efforts and with the the goal is to ultimately increase jobs right here at home and to reduce the trade deficit and so while we don't have updated numbers for 2020 yet pre-pandemic ita facilitated more than 90 billion in u.s exports and inward investment for more than 35 000 clients so the majority of which were small and medium sized companies and so most small and medium-sized businesses businesses often don't have the time or resources to dedicate towards strategically exporting so think of us as your taxpayer-funded international sales team so how do we work we work across a wide variety of services including everything from complementary export counseling to paid services that include market intelligence business matchmaking trade events and commercial diplomacy and aj and i would like to touch on a few of these services next slide please lou so looking at market intelligence the us commercial service develops market intelligence across a variety of industry sectors which includes country commercial guides and industry-specific resource guides that are published on our website and then we can also do customized market research at a client's request we also have the initial market check which is an initial assessment of the market potential of your product or service that gathers feedback on it from industry participants in a specified target market and then we can also conduct an international company profile which is a report on the foreign partner that includes everything from their management details financial condition credit worthiness and their experience conducting or promoting programs in order to help you determine whether an overseas partner or company would be a suitable partner for you next slide please lou business matchmaking so first up we have the international partner search and this is a personalized overseas search for interested and qualified partners in specific countries on behalf of a us organization so our commercial specialist overseas would repair a report of up to five potential prospects that have expressed interest in your product and service and they can also help set up those virtual introductions for you we also help to arrange single single company promotions at the u s embassies consulates and off-site locations abroad so an scp is a reception where our overseas staff would target would invite target industry contacts on u.s embassy letterhead to join and learn about your organization the u.s commercial service would help with the logistics of the event and they would invite um attendees and foreign media so this is especially recommended for program launches or networking receptions with potential partners and then we also have a new raise program that is exclusively designed to assist our rural exporters so those that are located in areas with a population of less than 150 000 or 60 miles outside of a metropolitan area so raise provides primarily customized market intelligence to assess compare and determine the best prospect markets for our rural clients and finally we have the gold key service which is our premier service that offers pre-screened appointments to meet with prospective recruitment partners government and industry officials and u.s embassy officials on the ground so this one is not available virtually and is currently on pause um and then if we could move to the next slide please lou and i'd like to turn it over to my colleague aj to talk about some of our other services thank you pinky uh some of our trade events first up is our certified trade missions these are on pause right now because of a covid and b we just have a brand new administration as well hopefully we'll start seeing more of these in the fall certified trade missions are typically led by high level us government political appointees out of washington sometimes they target an industry or a group of countries they will go ahead and lead a group of companies and you'll have meetings with government officials overseas industry prospects get briefings things like that international trade fairs this is when a foreign trade show will go ahead and apply to the u.s commerce department for trade fair certification uh once that's granted our overseas offices will typically go ahead and organize a u.s pavilion at a premier trade show overseas they'll take out space and then go ahead and resell that in smaller blocks to u.s companies so if you do participate in a u.s pavilion at a foreign trade show you'll be with other u.s companies and you'll have our local staff on the ground in country helping you out discover global markets we do these in the u.s one to two times a year uh these are events that are about two to two and a half days we bring in our staff from overseas they come into a central location in the u.s these are targeted either at regions but more often industry sectors such as you know construction equipment or health care oil and gas aerospace things like that and our specialists that cover those industries will come in you can go ahead and make many appointments with them and go ahead and visit with them one-on-one about your your products services and getting them into those markets where our people have come in from next slide please commercial diplomacy the art advocacy center if you are a company that sells products or services to a foreign government and you're having issues with that we can go ahead and potentially provide advocacy for you what that means is for example if you're selling to the government of australia and you have a competitor out of say indonesia what we can do is go ahead and advocate to the australian government to purchase your product or service versus that of say your indonesian competitor now let's say it's down between you and your indonesian competitor and maybe another u.s provider out of california at that point we cannot advocate for just yourself but we can advocate that the australian government select a us-made product versus that of the indonesian one so that's advocacy trade barriers an example of a trade barrier uh had a small kansas company that produced uh mineral supplements that go into flower production a foreign government was buying those minerals and suddenly they started losing contracts they found out that a german competitor providing the very same product was undercutting them and the reason why is because the kansas company was correctly sending their product through customs and they were being assessed duties taxes things like that the german company was trying to send it through as a pharmaceutical and it was not a pharmaceutical it was a supplement they went ahead and approached us we had our office approach the government in this country they let them know that the german company was bringing the product in and not classifying it correctly customs in that country looked into it they agreed they finded the german company barred them from selling into the country for a while and the kansas company was able to go ahead and start resuming their sales trade dispute if you go ahead and chip into a foreign market and your product gets hung up in foreign customs we can go ahead and approach customs on your behalf to try to rectify the situation get your product released another example of a trade dispute something like this an example had a kansas company that went ahead and sold product uh sold software as a matter of fact to an airline in a foreign market that airline was owned by the government they defaulted on the payment they did not pay the kansas company for that software they approached us we approached our offices they approached the foreign government because that was not a company defaulting on that on that payment that was the foreign government so that was a you know a sovereign government defaulting on payment we approached them two to three days later they had a wire uh went ahead and paid that kansas company so you know things that get stuck in customs you're not getting paid we can try to help you out with things like that next slide please here's our contact information and feel free to reach out to us and lou i'll turn it back over to you thank you aj and pinky that was very informative and the video is fantastic i think it has a very catchy tune all right next up we have miss karen page from the kansas global trade services based in wichita karen the floor is yours thank you lou i also appreciated the catchy music for our colleagues the fcs videos nice to have a video thank you for organizing um this webinar today i appreciate the leadership of the kansas department of commerce international division team i think it speaks so highly of the leadership because you have these four service providers that really work in partnership to help kansas exporters export more so thanks for having us today um to present to the participants and thank you for organizing this i really appreciate your leadership jim if you could go to a slide i just have a few slides to show you that will focus in on what kansas global does um if you don't know us already we've been around since 1987. i've spent my entire career in international development for the private sector for the most part um but always working in partnership with our private sector and public sector partners next slide please i'll just cover three areas um we really focus on the customer or the client in their ability to increase their exports in three areas is where the bulk of our work is performed and it's almost always to compete globally i'd like to start sort of at the top and so when we first look at opportunities around the globe and how kansas companies can be competitive one of the tools we look to is u.s free trade agreements or ftas currently the us has 14 free trade agreements and that help us compete in 20 different countries and participating in a free trade agreement is completely voluntary but it is a great strategy to help you compete in that local market where we have that fta an fta that you're probably very familiar with is usmca which used to be called nafta and that helps us compete in the canadian and mexican markets let me just tell you a quick story about how this using fda's has helped companies a client of ours this is a few years ago was working to set up sales actually in latin america um they were able to use cafta dr and nafta at the time to really position themselves as the go-to supplier in um household goods um this mobility i'm sorry my cat i tried to close the door but he's trying to come in and visit us so i apologize the virtual environment um uh the uh so it helped the cup so sorry about that that helped the company be able to really position itself as a competitor their main competitors were actually in asia and at the time the asian countries did not have the same free trade agreements or free trade agreement tools for the company so not only did it help them increase their sales in those specific markets but it actually helped them develop their entire strategy to really have a great footprint in latin america next slide please another area that we do a lot of work in is export compliance and many companies think of export compliance as sort of a cost or this thing we have to do that you know complying with the regulation is not always fun we like to stress the importance of strategic marketing so when a company is compliant with export regulations they are showing to their buyers and intended buyers that not only are they following the rules but they're very well managed and organized in their outreach if companies in certain excuse me certain industries like aerospace have contracts with domestic suppliers there's a great chance that you can also have opportunities with international buyers and you must have your export compliance management and processes in place we work with a company aerospace supplier in wichita actually and we were so thrilled when they said you know we were going through this exercise to make sure we were itar ready but now we have opportunities in in turkey singapore and in korea because we can tell them that we are compliant with u.s export regulations it's really giving us a chance to bid on more projects and be competitive next slide please the bulk of our work is actually an export expansion um we begin with a customized view of opportunities in the world starting with data looking at key industry drivers product drivers and then add in local insight all of our work in this area is absolutely customized to the particular company and its product or array of products we also engage global partners we have a network of global partners that we work with and work with them to get the local insight so that adds some weight to the the data indicators that we have already discovered with the kansas company and then together with the global partner with kansas global staff and the company we began a market entry strategy to fulfill the objectives to increase exports in that particular market one example of this is a program that we designed that we call the export accelerator program or i'm quite literal so not a very catchy um title but the city of wichita sponsored five companies in this pilot program in 2020 to walk through a 12-month process to accelerate their exports really following this particular three-step process which has many other steps dispersed in there but really working with them hand to discover their opportunities in foreign countries and accelerate their exports so far our companies just those five companies have reported multi-millions of dollars in opportunities that they're currently exploring and chasing and when i say opportunities we're not looking just at the data but actual targeted customers as well as distributor agreements and jim i'll stop there if you want to go to the next slide um it just has my contact information if you don't already know how to find me you can find me on linkedin um or at the email address or or our website kansasglobal.org give us a call thank you so much for allowing me to share with us the three major areas that we help kansas exporters let me conclude lou with just one final thing we do not do this by ourselves we rely on the export ecosystem which is inclusive of all the partners that are here presenting today and many others whom you may have worked with and may know free forwarders bankers x and b all kinds of partners that make it possible and working side by side with the export experts in kansas and in the nation is absolutely imperative to kansas exporter's success thanks lou thank you karen that was very informative and i know my 368 dollar per second number is very enticing even your cat has to call me and listen thank you next up is our uh it's miss melisa miller from the world trade center kansas city melissa the floor series thank you lou and thanks to the kansas department of commerce international team for again organizing and hosting us today i appreciate the opportunity to speak with everyone as we mentioned my name is melissa miller i'm the director of world trade center kansas city i do have a short presentation if we could pull that up thank you and you can go ahead and move to the next slide so um for those of you who aren't familiar with world trade centers um immediately we go to world trade center new york very obvious reasons it is not the only world trade center um most people are shocked to know that there is one in kansas city there are actually over 300 world trade centers at 90 markets around the world we are considered the largest global trade network um the kansas city chamber holds the license world trade center kansas city they've held it since 1990 2021 marks our 31st year as a world trade center our mission is to facilitate international trade in the greater kansas city region by connecting educating and providing services to the regional business community in order to achieve their international trade goals in the global market next slide please so who do we serve um our primary territory is dictated by the greater kansas city chamber of commerce we cover 14 counties in the bi-state region almost equally split between missouri and kansas our secondary territory is a little bit larger than that and that's dictated by the world trade centers that are surrounding us so to the south is rogers arkansas to the east is st louis to the west is denver and all the way in the snowy snowy north is winnipeg manitoba so as you can see there's quite a big swath that we cover who do we help small medium large businesses all industry sectors we don't niche into a specific sub-sector one thing that does distinguish us we do help with importing as well as exporting is our main focus but we do offer some import resources as well and even though our license is held by the greater kansas city chamber of commerce you do not need to be a chamber member to gain access to any of our services you do get discounts on some of our services but again you do not need to be a chamber member to gain access to any of ours next slide please thank you so now that you know who we are who we serve what do we do um we have market industry briefings throughout the year so we'll bring in foreign dignitaries industry experts to give real-time information and available business opportunities in those respective market or industry areas trade education will hold events throughout the year mostly in partnership with the people that are presenting today and will focus on a specific trade topic like finance logistics marketing trade agreements uh we recently had one on incoterms 2020 because it was the 10-year update for those and it's just to educate the regional business community on changes that may have occurred will have or will be occurring or any best practices for those starting out our export concierge program this was built out of the global cities initiative it is a customized business consultation service connecting companies with the resources and service providers necessary for them to achieve their international treat goals so we'll sit down with a client we'll talk through you know where they're at in the export process where they want to be in the export process and figure out how we can best get them there market research so our market research services focus mainly on customized prospecting and benchmarking lists and product specific import and export regulation guides these are supplements to the more extensive market research that our counterparts offer as you've heard from earlier presentations and we'll hear in the later presentation but these are definitely helpful in supplementing those and identifying potential business partners suppliers and helping narrow down target markets our essert program so we process certificates of origin on behalf of the casey chamber utilizing this online essert platform and i will say because the process is entirely contactless it's all done online it has been exceedingly helpful during the pandemic we've been able to continue to offer this service without disruption throughout our coveted pandemic quarantine time so um we were very proud of that fact that we were able to keep that moving it's a very quick turnaround process and we offer a pay-as-you-go policy so if you're interested in that please let me know happy to help with that um probably my my favorite that we do is the global business liaison so this is where we leverage those 300 plus world trade centers around the world and we do it in a variety of ways this is trade leads b2b meetings conference and event packages um anybody who is in the consumer electronics wtc las vegas has offered a special behind the scenes package to any any of our members clients who are attending that virtual conference they said you know here's this package we've got it um feel free to offer it to any of your members free of charge so we get those time to time meeting facility access um so when we get to travel again not if when when we get to travel again uh if you are traveling in a foreign area and you're like oh my gosh i need some office space uh we can you know if we've got a wtc in that market or in that metro area we can call on them and see if they've got office space available for you business betting is another thing that we do we've actually had to utilize this a couple of times as everyone knows you receive trade leads from emails and you don't know if it's a legitimate trade lead or not um we've had to call on our wtc counterparts like hey do you know this company please let me know real estate assistance so if you're looking for an office in a foreign market to expand your sales we can help with that too request for proposals we've had counterparts come through and say hey if you've got a company who operates in this industry sector we're actually bidding out for it please let your clients know and we'll support them if they decide to go through with that bidding process so this is by far my favorite because it can be utilized in any manner of way i'd like to tell our clients sky's the limit you know there's no wrong question with these um the worst that they can tell us is uh no i'm sorry you know we don't offer that service and 19 out of 10 if they don't offer it they can tell us who does um who does offer that service or they can connect us with somebody who will um next is virtual trade missions so this is new to us this year um we are offering these in conjunction with some of our strategic partners and we hope this will lead to more in the future and eventually in-person trade missions again when not if we get to travel again but the format of markets will vary uh from trade mission to trade mission but companies should expect quality b2b meetings out of these and in-depth market and industry overviews um and these last three i'm not going to go super in depth on just for the sake of time but i did want to let everybody know world trade center kansas city serves as the ex-im bank regional export promotion program partner mouthful world bank private sector liaison officer pslo and the usta or u.s trade and development agency making local local partner um that's a lot alphabet soup but what it boils down to is we serve as a conduit to promote the services and resources of those organizations we also act as a connector should a company need direct access to these organizations so we serve that for the kansas city area but know that we can go a little farther out again our primary territory covers quite a bit um we can go to the next slide thank you um so to wrap um please know that my virtual door is always open as are i know my other presenters this is my contact information and you can also um reach out to the kansas department of commerce's international team for it as well with that i will turn it back over to you lou thanks everyone melissa thank you for the wealth of information um just as a reminder all the participants if you have questions please submit it in the chat box all right last but not least we have miss laurie piper and mr john odessi from the kansas small business development center the acronym is ksbdc ksbdc has 12 offices throughout our state lori is based in topeka and john is based in overland park lori the floor is yours thank you we have a powerpoint presentation thank you lou we appreciate the invitation to present today and tell everyone about our services and also be present with other partner organizations that we work with to help businesses uh export more successfully next slide the kansas sbdc is a nationally accredited small business development center we are a part of a national network called america's sbdc we receive some of our funding through the u.s small business administration also through the kansas department of commerce regional and local economic development organizations and our university host institutions in 2019 the kansas sbdc generated 94.6 million dollars in capital infusion in the state of kansas working with the small businesses that are our clients and for every one dollar invested in us through our funding partners we had a 45 return on investment next slide i'm going to be presenting today with john odessi who's one of my colleagues i'm lori piper i'm with the washburn university sbdc and bright center located in topeka john is with the johnson county sbdc located uh in overland park we have another colleague who also is very actively engaged in export advising her name is stephanie willis and she's also with the johnson county community college sbdc next slide one of the things that we do in working with small businesses generally is think about opportunities for growth potential and so some of the businesses that we work with aren't exporting already or might be new to export and one of the things that we do is try to help them um evaluate whether exporting might be a good part of their growth strategy approximately one percent of the small businesses in kansas are currently exporters and that generates about 10.2 billion dollars in um excuse me 25 of kansas's 10.2 billion dollars in export so when we talk about reasons for exporting we talk about things like how it might help a business hone its competitive edge how it might help in expand the lifespan of the products and we also help them evaluate whether or not perhaps their best market might be outside of the us next slide and i think that's to me so thanks lori and thanks to uh lou and kansas commerce for having us here uh i'm john odesse again uh lori and and stephanie's colleague in johnson county um and these are sort of our core services um and so we do offer a number of readiness assessments we're we're kind of experimenting right now with one from the harvard harvard business review that's on our website and uh looking at the seven attitudes of management toward exporting and toward international trade uh lori will talk a little bit more about the process of an international business plan but really just in terms of mitigating risk and uh and that's always a good thing and the next two things are really where i live i think the international market research and i know melissa talked about that and i'll show you some examples but really trying to find the optimum potential markets for your goods and services and i said services you know we actually have a trade surplus and and that is in services we uh we export more services than we bring in some people don't think about that but we're doing very well there and then we're all financial wonks cash flow geeks whatever you want to call it and so we're doing financial projections very frequently if you want to expand the sba has an export export express loan program 90 guarantee which makes you look very appealing to a bank um export working capital loan say you get a big honking order two million dollar crane or something i don't know what a crane goes for but two million dollar order uh it's going overseas well that's a work that's a working capital cash flow crunch and and you're going to need to buy more materials possibly new equipment you're going to need to bring in more people maybe a different a different shift and train them and you have to build this thing you have to bring it to the port and get it overseas and get it delivered and get it assembled and and uh and do the paperwork to get billed and wait to be paid that's a cash flow crunch so yes a two million dollar order awesome we're popping champagne corks but it might be a one and a half million dollar cash flow need uh that you need so we're doing that frequently and then as you saw today um just some fantastic resources if we do the international trade uh research and it looks like dubai is the place to go we don't know anybody there uh but the kansas department of commerce certainly does and their step program um uh can help pay for that and i'm sorry the us commercial service has people on the ground there and kansas commerce's step program can pay for that um we do work very closely with the sba obviously we're kind of under them in terms of regulation xm bank to make sure you get paid and you met the kansas global trade services and world trade centers and and fantastic support there and then we we know other folks as well if you need an attorney to draft an international contract or a banker to handle a letter of credit we know some folks so back to you lori next slide please so one of the tools that we use is a readiness assessment tool it includes a 23-point test and provides immediate feedback in the form of an export readiness test score this is just one of the tools that we use next slide we also assist businesses in putting together an international business plan this is something that we encourage people to think of as a process it's a planning process a process of making decisions about how export fits into the big picture for the business which product or product service or services are going to be exported um whether they need to be adapted for the new market what the market objectives are what the benchmarks are for success um how they're going to perhaps need to adjust their business model in order to engage foreign markets what their distribution plan is going to be like what their need to do in terms of risk mitigation and also importantly how we can work with available resources to help them be successful exporters next slide and john i think this is you yeah lori's such a pro she did my slide on the readiness assessment she's good i just kind of gave up on that um so again i mentioned the international market research and these are just a handful of the tools that we use i really like the engine the itc trade map uh which can give us an idea of who out there in the world is buying stuff and i'm not talking about little things i mean the the units are in tons on this thing and if you look at the very lower left where it has a kind of a heat map with some blue and and gold circles that's talking about how far afield the customers are willing to buy so if they're in france do they only buy within the eu or are they willing to entertain a supplier from from north america for example uh in the middle of the world trade bank oh my gosh they've got hundreds and hundreds of thousands of data sets i was always using the featured indicators and there were hundreds and then one time i noticed it said all indicators and i looked in there and there were thousands but again for the training crane example um there's data in there for prevalence of railway lines uh prevalence of of cell phone reaching and if you have an e-commerce solution or an app or something literacy i've used it for healthcare concerns for clients ahead that had products for diabetes for example and prevalence is in there then on the one on the right uh not the best slide shot sorry but it's the msu global edge out of michigan state university and if you can only choose one source oh my gosh use that one they've got a kind of a quick and dirty one one of many things a quick and dirty country comparator tool where you go in and you can choose from a subset of indicators not the thousands they have in the world bank but you know a little subset choose up to five and bam it will give you a list of the top markets in the world it's not that particular tool is industry agnostic so it's not looking at drill bits it's just looking at overall potential but still a really quick way to get into things and again these are just a couple of the databases that we use and if we go to the next slide please this is thank you this is where we put them together i don't do pretty spreadsheets this is an ugly spreadsheet but it's useful so we take all the data from those 10 or 12 sources we roll it into an excel spreadsheet or a scorecard we weighed it appropriately for the client and then you see in this particular case this was a food product that i that i looked at some time ago qatar the uae uh rose to the top of the charts of course they got money they need to import everything so um so they're they're they're potentially a fabulous customer and again i don't know anybody there but the us commercial service does and uh and the world trade center does so uh next slide please if you would and then of course then you got to do the money you know and uh the uh so we run the numbers frequently for financial projections for the working capital loans export express and by the way you might be an exporter if you're only shipping stuff across the street to someone else that incorporates your stuff we we had success with a power um powder what do you call it powder coater there we go um that wasn't sending anything uh out of the country but they were powder coating stuff and sending it to uh as an oem to another another supplier in kansas that supplier was selling stuff abroad so they were they were an indirect exporter and as an indirect exporter you can tap these same financial vehicles and get these 90 guarantees and access to some capital so and one more slide for me i believe and then we're very happy to partner with nasbite that's our our trade association and offering their uh trade passport program this is um so far 60 really good really great training modules on a number of subjects as you can see uh they're only like 30 minutes long so they're nice little bite size kind of things but these are by subject matter experts you can do 20 of these things for free if you like what you see and you want to do the rest it's like 150 bucks which was a screaming deal um at johnson county community college stephanie and i are going to be doing some like lunch and learns or watch parties using excerpts of these and and then having some discussion so i think we're starting off with political and economic risk because we see some things out there like the weakening dollar making things uh less expensive for our goods overseas so your goods will appear to be less expensive and you can sell more of them so i'll turn it back to lori for the bright center next slide within the fbdc and our university host institutions we have a number of specialized centers the newest one is our washburn university bright center which stands for business resources for innovation technology and exporting what we're doing is developing programming to help high potential small businesses with pathways to commercialization which of course includes exporting we have a website that is going to go live within the next couple of weeks it's the wubrightcenter.com and you can go on that to receive notification of when it becomes active next slide please what we do through the bright center is team advising using our internal team through the sbdc and the bright center but also advising bringing in resource partners from around the state and around the region to help businesses have access to the advice and resources that they need we have a series of educational events planned for the year we're working on developing new and innovative programs to help small businesses with pathways to commercialization some of this includes developing management capacity which is something that's very important for international trade and helping them develop to the point where they're ready either for financing or for bringing in investors we are also very actively working with partners and seeking partners to engage with for outreach and programs development next slide please here are some of the upcoming events that we have that are export related we're going to be having a round table with other resources on talking about how to engage with businesses that have potential for export we have a couple of export training sessions coming up for businesses how to put together a business model and understand your value proposition for businesses new to international trade how to fund your export venture and what market research will you need and protecting your intellectual property domestically and internationally and we also are an exam bank rep partner so we're going to be involving xm bank in the international trade financing as well as our sba partner next slide please so i john i'm sure would like to join me in thanking our campus businesses for being so great to work with and also the international resource partners that are so valuable in helping us deliver good guidance to the businesses that we work with john thank you yeah i'm there thank you uh thank you lori and thank you all for joining us today and i think lou is going to do some q a and you can ask the questions of these amazing partners thank you lauren john for the great information now that concludes our presentation part we have heard from four expert service providers and learned about their amazing programs once again the kansas department of commerce work with these entities hand-in-hand and our programs complement each other in many different ways just remember we may have financial assistance available to help you pay for the services you just heard the most popular financial assistance program we have i'll just name three uh first one is called steps state trade ex state trade expansion program the second one is called kit kitsap kansas international trade show assistance program third one is called kit map kansas international trade marketing assistance program the the trade show program is mostly used to pay for trade shows uh step includes many different activities including training trade shows and missions and market interest support you know some of the work commercial service does market market study type of work and the last one kid map that one's a little bit more flexible it covers a lot more for example fees for letter of credit processing fee we can help to pay for those most importantly i want to point out the kids app and kit map program can be used to support virtual trade shows and virtual business promotion activities um so that is something new we're doing in light of code keep us in mind if if you want to do a virtual activity now let's dive into the q a session um i i don't really see any questions right now in the chat box if you have any please submit but i did prepare a couple of questions for our speakers um i know we are a little bit tight on time um so i will ask each of the presenters which is heard from please name the top service you would urge a company to use from your organization and if you have any if you witness any success or best practices companies used during the during the pandemic please share with us and we'll just go in the water of um of the presentation um so the first one up will be aj and pinky please please share your insight okay i'll jump in as far as services during this time that i would recommend most first one would probably be international market check we can go ahead and reach out to a market that you're interested in and they will go ahead and reach out to contacts in the market and present information on your company and gauge interest and come back to you with that level of interest it's kind of quick um you know you get some fast quick feedback uh the second one uh if you're ready to go ahead and actually establish new reps or distributors would be our international partner search with virtual introduction they would go ahead and search for potential partners for you to be your rep or distributor and we would do something kind of like what we're doing right now today they would go ahead and take those top candidates and they would arrange a date and time to go ahead and do a virtual video introduction to you for them you know aside from that my other piece of advice would be uh everyone on here today has services and capabilities no one organization has everything for everyone get to know all of these service providers we all know each other and we can tell you whether we can help you or whether you should be talking to someone else but you know like i said we all know each other so everyone please get to know all of them thank you aj nd karen um agree completely with aj and i'm i can even anticipate with everything our my colors are going to say we all work together if not on a daily basis on a weekly basis we all know each other well um so i'm going to take a different tact especially during this global pandemic what we've seen is that companies who have certain characteristics are the ones who are experiencing success and i'll summarize them from our experience as being what you might think of as an entrepreneur so even if they're not working for a startup company and they still have this entrepreneurial mindset um a an ambition to hunt new opportunities and to try new things um which this may seem very simplified but we have seen that the companies who are willing to you know think outside the box and and take one step forward in this really challenging environment are the ones who are continuing to see success and as we look backward they're the ones that have always been successful um so i would encourage everyone if you have an idea if you have a question just there's no wrong answers necessarily just get out there and and seek those new opportunities ask for help you have lots of resources and help available to you thank you karen melissa yeah now i would i would definitely echo karen's comments say what we've seen on our end is pretty much the same those that have done really well during this time have the willingness to pivot and uh to innovate in ways that you know we just haven't seen before i think everybody's heard the jay rieger's three where they're like okay we can't sell you know our alcohol in in bars anymore the sales are dropping we need to do something different and they pivoted an entire line of their manufacturing to making hand sanitizer you know i mean it's it's that willingness to to be able to pivot um and like karen said is that entrepreneurial spirit um that goes through um and then contingency plans anybody who's had a contingency plan um has has definitely weathered this really well um so always be thinking about that in the back of your mind um and then as far as like our top services that i would recommend um i'll just i'll go with one for the second time is that global business liaison where we can leverage those different world trade centers there is so much that comes through and goes out and it's a way so i mean it you know if you're looking for something in a particular market whether it's a business meeting conference you know like things like that all the way down to trade leads you're just looking for a distributor in that market um you know we complement with others so we would work with like us commercial service to to widen that net um but it is just an awesome resource that we have that complements a lot of these other services so that's all thank you thank you melissa lori and john hello laurie again okay um in terms of the uh three things that people should come to us for i would say um market research uh decision making about putting together an international business plan and also connection to resources and in terms of the piece of advice that i would have um really utilize the resources before entering a new market whether you need a resource to assist with market access whether it's financing whether it's export compliance or protecting your intellectual property connect with resources before you get out there into other markets john and i'll reiterate that i'm going to argue with one of my colleagues and it's karen karen no one no one ever knows what i'm going to say and so all of my colleagues know that so you'll learn that soon enough i'm going to reiterate what laurie said don't go it alone um i mean this is the most fleshed out ecosystem you're ever going to find i mean if you come to us as a domestic business and you want to borrow money great we can help you but there's so many pieces that can be brought in to bear on this and you've met them and then and then look beyond that don't try to go without a good good banker or perhaps without someone in concert with xm bank to guarantee your receivables don't go don't try to ship without a freight forwarder don't write your own contracts you know or understand what's in the contract one wrong incoterm and your uh your profit could be gone so i mean again there are there's so much expertise make use of it uh make use of the people you met today and the people that we know please don't go alone thank you john laurie um and thank you everybody for your input we heard lots of great advice and potential programs you can use and just remember most of those programs we might be able to help you to pay for it so reach out to us to all of our presenters and participants i hope you found today's session insightful and helpful i know that with the global pandemic pandemic allah can seem bleak at times even if we can't achieve the 368 per second mark we're here to help you to get prepared to increase your export sales and to expand your global footprint and all of our partners share the same goal we're all in these together if you need anything even if you don't think we have the answer just give us a call we will figure it out together and we're only one call away with that thank you so much for your time today stay tuned for future even announcements thank you thank you thanks everybody