How to determine if you are ready to export

Are you receiving inquiries from international customers interested in buying your product or service? Or maybe you’re hoping to diversify your revenue stream, or just want to expand your income opportunities by looking towards international customers?

But are you export ready? Are you willing to make a commitment to exporting? This doesn’t necessarily mean spending huge amounts of money or hiring large number of new staff. But it does mean making a commitment to some level of resources and dedication of staff time. If your company wants to succeed at exports, upper management needs to be committed to exporting and to planning for exporting.

Time

Your company needs to be willing to invest some time into exporting and you must be realistic about the timing of the return on investment for exports. Rome, er, exports to Rome, are not built overnight.

Just as you needed to figure out finding a distributor in California or a way to ship your goods down there, so too you will need to do the same thing when sending your product to a foreign country–but add in the complications of possible language and cultural barriers, different laws and regulations and other challenges intrinsic to exporting. Sure California can seem strange at times but other countries can be challenging to navigate too.

Planning for Exports

You have a business plan that has helped guide your company to success. You’ll want to do the same for exports. Developing an export strategy will help you grow your exports and thus increase sales for your company. Your export plan will help you avoid surprises, prepare you for any modifications you have to make to your goods or services for foreign markets and set guideposts for your future exports.

Export levels

Which stage of exporting are you at? Determining that will lead you to what kind of help you need in exporting. Let’s look at the four stages of exporting:

• Not Ready to Export: An individual or firm with no clear exportable product (good or service), track record of domestic sales, or resources to commit to exporting.
• New to Export: An individual or firm that has not exported recently, but has an exportable product, a solid track record of domestic sales, and resources to commit to exporting.
• New to Export Prime: An individual or firm with a live, unsolicited foreign buyer’s expression of interest in hand for their product or service.
• New to Market: An individual or firm currently exporting with the potential to deepen sales in an export market or to expand to new markets.

Not sure which of these stages your company is at? No problem, try our easy to use Export Readiness Wizard. Not only will it determine your export level, but it will also point you to the right export resources to help you succeed. Good luck and get exporting!