I want you to do something I'd like you
to take a moment and visualize a
successful international business
picture the company that you believe
best epitomizes global trade did you
picture a global multinational
conglomerate one of the world's largest
corporations Global 100 or the like how
about one of the companies actually has
the word international baked right into
their name maybe
IBM AIG or ING is it one of the global
brands that you see when you travel
overseas everywhere Subway KFC or
7-eleven for example or maybe the gap
which is now a familiar sight all around
the world how many of you pictured a
small business with fewer than 50
employees one with only a single
location a family-owned and operated
business this isn't what springs to mind
for most people when they think about
international trade but the fact is that
over 98% of exporters are small and
medium-sized businesses in the United
States alone that's over two hundred and
sixty nine thousand local businesses
that have successfully gone global
for the past twenty five years I've been
working with companies as they enter and
expand into foreign markets and they
really aren't who you think they are so
what are they like who are they and what
do they sell and more importantly what
can all the companies that haven't yet
gone global learn from their example
back in 1996 The Millionaire Next Door
was a surprise hit on the New York Times
bestseller list and it totally
challenged our perception about who the
affluent really are we learned that the
wealthy weren't really much like Blake
Carrington the oil tycoon from the 1980s
TV hit dynasty or his 21st century
equivalent lucious Lyon from Empire
actual millionaires turned out to be far
more like modern families Jay Pritchett
the people that we see in our
neighborhoods every day predominantly
running their own small businesses
living very modestly and
disproportionately driving pickup trucks
it turns out that this is also very true
of international business and a whole
new generation of millionaires next dorm
are being created by small businesses
that are increasingly going global the
fact is that in the United States
currently over 90 percent of successful
exporters are single location small
businesses 37% of which have fewer than
20 employees think about that for a
moment over a third of successful
exporters are about the same size as
your favorite local clothing boutique in
fact some of them actually are your
favorite local clothing boutiques the
cliche would be to call the mom-and-pop
businesses and many of them are but many
more would actually be better described
as mother/daughter businesses a growing
percentage of them are female owned and
operated so what do small businesses
export well really anything and
everything here are some examples of
small business shipments in just the
last week custom-made tops for off-road
vehicles material for making dental
molds multi-level luxury Kitty houses
slobber proof webcams so you can Skype
with the dog while you travel
tailored orthopedic products woodworking
equipment skateboards stand-up
paddleboards and my personal favorite
steampunk costume jewelry okay this one
might require a little bit of
explanation these aren't very very tiny
steam engines steampunk is a huge trend
among fans of science fiction and
fantasy that Rhian visions the genre
with 1800s era Industrial Revolution
inspiration think George Lucas meets
Jules Verne Princess Leia in a hoop
skirt with a parasol and the Millennium
Falcon is now a dirigible with ornate
gears and tail fins this exporters my
favorite because they're very
illustrative of how many businesses
first get involved in international
trade this is one of those
mother/daughter companies we were
talking about a minute ago and a couple
of years back they weren't planning to
export at all in fact they wanted to
import their plan was to import really
cool retro Victorian and Gothic jewelry
to sell the steampunk fans who dress up
costumes and go to conventions and what
they'd hope to do was to import these
items from the coolest Victorian and
gothic places that they could think of
but they couldn't find a supplier in
London or Hong Kong or Prague or
anywhere else they thought that things
like this might be found so they had
their own pieces custom manufactured and
they put them up on their website hoping
to sell to the locals who were working
on their costumes for Dragon Con aka
nerdy Gras an annual event drawing
fifty-two thousand genre fans but what
they got were orders from London and
Hong Kong and even Prague and that's
when they did what many companies do
when first presented with international
growth opportunities they fought those
orders off hard they walked away from
sales and left money on the virtual
table they told customers that they were
only set up to sell domestically and
they even put terms to that effect on
their website but they also had their
phone number on their website and one
persistent potential international
customer absolutely insistent that they
were going to take her money called and
patiently walk them through what would
be required to ship her order
internationally and it turned out to be
a lot less difficult than explaining
what steampunk is when they got to the
part about payment the customer
credulous Lee asked them you do have
credit cards in your country right so
now today this business has very
different terms on their website and
more importantly they've got over
280,000 in international top-line sales
which have grown to account for about a
third of their revenue there are
thousands of examples like this small
business owners becoming unlikely
millionaires by opening their shops to
international trade but here's the crazy
part in the United States fewer than 1%
of companies currently export this is
the lowest level of active exporters in
the industrialized world the vast
majority of US business stops at the
border we talk about leaving money on
the table
yikes why is this the case international
borders have never been more permeable
to trade than they are today
the fact is the barriers that most
companies face
going international just aren't the
borders on the map the borders they have
a hard time crossing are the ones that
they establish for themselves doubt
uncertainty fear doubt that there's
international opportunity available for
them uncertainty and by how to reach
customers in foreign markets and fear
fear that international business is
inherently risky now this first
self-imposed border doubt that there's
international opportunity available for
most businesses it simply couldn't be
further from the truth the international
trade administration reports that over
70% of the world's purchasing power is
now located outside the United States
along with 95% of the world's consumers
international opportunity isn't just
knocking at your door it's already
eating your porridge sat in all three of
your chairs and it's heading upstairs to
figure out which one of your beds at
once the second self-imposed border is
uncertainty uncertainty about how to
reach customers in foreign markets and
this is what causes most companies to
pull the virtual welcome mat off their
websites and confine themselves to
domestic sales what if we do something
wrong they ask what if we sell things we
aren't supposed to to people or places
we aren't supposed to okay that's not
actually international business that's
called smuggling that's something
completely different
and if your border shifts that quickly
from we don't know how to export to what
if we accidentally become international
crime lords it probably wasn't a very
firm word to begin with and either way
there literally is an app for that and
it'll keep you out of trouble and it's
available to your business for the low
low cost of absolutely free
the final self imposed border is fear
and many companies truly believe that
engaging in international growth
opportunities opens you up to everything
bad that can possibly happen loss damage
theft delay diversion regulatory penalty
the high seas piracy some of them have
seen the movie captain Phillips maybe
one too many times
numerous studies have shown that it's
actually far more risky to remain
confined to the domestic market
is to engage in international growth
opportunities companies that export have
exponentially more growth opportunity
available to them than those that don't
and they are nearly eight and a half
percent less likely to go out of
business than those are confined to the
domestic market knowing those numbers
why wouldn't you export that 1% of
American companies that do currently
export they have phenomenal growth
opportunities those are the businesses
that are creating the next generation of
millionaires next door and even some
billionaires a moment ago we talked
about the gap when we were talking about
visualizing a successful business do you
know how they got started a husband and
a wife having a very hard time finding
pants that fit him opened a single small
store to sell blue jeans and vinyl
records today they shipped to over 90
countries around the world and they open
up more stores internationally every
year than they do domestic ones for
today's neighborhood business the
neighborhood is now a whole lot bigger
the world is your neighbor and it's
waving and it's smiling it's trying to
get your attention
because it wants to do business with you
and it's time to wave back thank you