As we prepare for the start of a new school year, we want to celebrate the accomplishments of some of last year’s top students. We’re proud to present the 2018 FITT Educational Awards to these individuals, and are excited to see how their careers grow and evolve in the coming years.

Exciting plan to sell BBQ sauce in Germany wins International Sales Marketing Plan Award

The International Sales Marketing Plan Award is given each year to the student who received the highest grade for their marketing plan project. This year’s winner, Kayla Beck, CITP from Nova Scotia Community College (NSCC), won the award for her project focusing on how Honey Bunny Inc. could export their Amazing Dads BBQ sauce product line to the German market.

She was very grateful for everyone who helped her along the way, and plans to continue excelling in her work with the Nova Scotia Boatbuilders Association.

“I felt extremely proud of myself and in disbelief that I achieved the highest mark of those plans submitted last year. My instructors at the Nova Scotia Community College – Truro Campus are amazing teachers and I have learned so much from them. Without them, I would have never been able to achieve this award. I would like to thank everyone that believed in me and supported me through my college journey, this one is dedicated to all of you.”

Leroy Lowe, CITP, the program coordinator at NSCC, was impressed with her accomplishment and excited to see how it’s already paying off in her career.

“We are very pleased to hear that Kayla has done so well. Her enthusiasm for international trade and her new knowledge and skills has translated into a new career. FITTskills courses have played an important role in her education, so it is great to see her now (as a program graduate) using those skills in her new job with the Nova Scotia Boat Builders Association.”

Winning the International Business Plan Award with a plan to sell dream catchers in Australia

Each year, FITT also awards the International Business Plan Award each year to the student who received the highest grade on their international business plan project. This year’s winner is from Seneca College.

“My team decided to be a marketing cooperative that teamed up with an Ojibwe tribe to see the feasibility of exporting high end dream catchers to Australia,” he explained. “What made our dream catchers stand out from competitors was the materials that were used, like precious metals, animal bones, and wood pieces. Attempting to cover the complete scope from production, transportation, importing and marketing to sell Australians was a challenging task but once all the pieces fell together, it all started to make sense. The analytics portion of determining the market share, production and product cost and current competition was the most interesting part of the project. It was even more interesting to find out that there are many Facebook groups and blogs in Australia devoted to dream catchers, which was very surprising!”

Winning the award was an unexpected reward for his hard work, but he now hopes to apply everything he learned during the project towards his career.

“I was very surprised to learn I had won this award to say the least. It definitely helped boost my confidence in my writing skills to find out about the award, but much of my success goes out to my teammates that worked on the project with me!”

Emiliano Introcaso, CITP and part-time faculty member for Seneca College, stated that “when I heard the news that he won this award, I was very happy to know that he won and that Seneca College was represented in this competition.”

Emiliano also emphasized how important the practical skills needed for this project are for international trade businesses looking for new employees, as they look for the right candidates.

“The skills he needed to excel in this project are extremely important for businesses across Canada. Thanks to all of the Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) that have been implemented over the last decade, our country is becoming a nation of diversified exporters that needs to have qualified individuals like him, navigating exports and import regulations to ensure Canadian goods and services reach global markets.”

Securing the FITT Achievement Award with top efforts in and out of the classroom

The FITT Achievement Award is unique because students are nominated for the award by others for their combination of community involvement and academic success. The winner is then selected by FITT’s awards committee.

The 2018 award was handed to Iuliia Kau of Fanshawe College for her excellence in the classroom and tireless efforts around sustainability in trade.

“I have a thirst for knowledge and I like to study and learn as much as I can, and then share this knowledge with my community. I bombarded my professors with questions, and never missed a class, because I wanted to know everything.”

With the support of Fanshawe, Iuliia began volunteering with two Canadian companies, Race Roster and Qtek Design, to improve their sustainability efforts. She then presented her findings at a London Chamber of Commerce event, which included many local business owners and representatives from EDC, BDC, Global Affairs Canada. Upon graduating, she was chosen by Fanshawe as a research assistant to help open an Ontario business which will produce sustainably made bags and sell them internationally.

“This business will help convert waste to produce fashion bags and invite newcomers (recent immigrant allophones) to participate in manufacturing them. I am truly inspired to become more involved in the community, reach out to those who are under-privileged, and to share my knowledge with those around us in order to make a positive change in our community and our world.”

Nord Mensah, CITP, who serves as coordinator for Iuliia’s program at Fanshawe College and was one of her professors, was excited to hear about her award.

“It is an amazing achievement for Iullia to be recognized by FITT as this year’s FITT Achievement Award recipient. Iullia has remained a consistently dedicated student throughout her academics, and emulates the characteristics expected of a consummate international trade professional. Her positivity, energy, and adventurous nature truly exemplify what Fanshawe expects from its international trade students.”

Iuliia was filled with both excitement and gratitude when she learned she had won the award.

“I was very happy and excited to receive this award. This result was achieved because my lovely professors and coordinators of Fanshawe College had squeezed out many valuable hours to teach me. Without Fanshawe College’s professors and coordinators, I could not have received it. This award belongs us – Fanshawe College and me. For me, this achievement is an absolute honour that I will cherish.”

Iuliia now plans to apply for her CITP designation, and would like to attain both an MBA and a Ph.D in international trade in the future.

Congratulations to all four winners of this year’s FITT Educational Awards, and we look forward to seeing the bright futures ahead of you!

The post Honouring the achievements of tomorrow’s business leaders: 2018 FITT Educational Award Winners appeared first on Trade Ready.

To grow your business globally today, you need to understand why many traditional sales tactics are not working and how to develop an effective sales strategy that works.

With increasing competition among businesses every day, a well-crafted sales strategy is necessary for successful business growth. Below, I’m going to share some expert strategies that you can deploy to grow your business sales now.

1. Increase penetration in your existing markets

Why do so many businesses stick to selling only within their existing market? All the business systems are set up, the team knows and understands what is expected, you have a good understanding of who your customers or clients are, and even have a niche market share.

Considering that your business has a good reputation in the market, you need to capitalize on this further. Find more ways to further penetrate your current market and create a stronger foundation for your business. Understanding your current customers by analyzing existing data will help you make the right decisions, so you can improve your productivity and strengthen your business performance and relationships.

2. Introduce new product lines

Thriving in global business is not easy, especially for businesses that sell products to consumers. Your existing products alone may not be the key to sustained long-term growth. Smart businesses re-evaluate their product lines and take a deeper look at their customer needs and expectations to come up with better ways to please them.

Adding new product lines such as promotional products to complement your existing offerings is a good way to improve customer loyalty.

Consider re-examining your product names in your current markets, give your business logo, product branding and packaging another look, and make sure that everything about your product line conveys your core business message. Broadening your product line also opens up new sales opportunities in your existing market.

3. Open up new channels of distribution

Product distribution can be a headache for international businesses. Even with existing distribution channels, businesses can easily stagnate when sales decrease by a significant margin. If you want to grow your business and increase sales, you need to aggressively open up new channels of distribution. For instance, Marlin Steel, a wire product and metal fabrication company, sold steel products to large factories and pharmaceutical companies for years. But over the last decade they’ve added catalog houses to their distribution channel.

Adding a new distribution channel helped them smooth out erratic purchases from their existing client base and increased their sales. Finding new channels for your business will not only strengthen your brand globally, but will also make your business less vulnerable to the ups and downs of your existing distribution channels. Businesses should maintain quality in delivering or distributing their products so they can keep sales coming.

4. Offer new services to your existing clients

Offering quality services on top of existing products can be the key to strengthening the bond between you and your clients. If opportunities are available, introduce a new line of services geared to both solve problems for your clients and make your business more profitable. Any service that meets the needs of existing or potential future customers will enable your business to see increased sales and improve client relationships. Ask yourself what new, unique services you can offer that will bring more leads and sales for your company.

5. Look out for new client segments

Focusing on new client and market segments can be the key to powering strong growth. Businesses need to be more observant of market trends and changes in how their clients interact with them and other businesses, including competitors. What other products or services are your existing clients getting elsewhere that you could provide for them?

By broadening your client segments, you open opportunities for your business to grab additional clients for your existing or new product lines and services.

Especially when your prospects already have confidence in your brand, it can make for easier growth, improved customer interaction and more sales under the same roof.

6. Target new export segments

Most companies, whether in the U.S, the UK or even Canada, don’t export at all. This oversight leads to massive missed opportunities overseas that can rapidly grow any business. Even companies already exporting may be missing new opportunities in other markets they haven’t considered or worked in before.

If you’re planning to go global or want to increase your international sales, targeting new export markets is a great way to power growth. Over 30% of respondents in a recent National Association of Manufacturers study are already deploying this strategy to drive growth and increase sales.

Bottom line: never stop looking for new opportunities

Focusing on ways to increase sales alone will not guarantee successful business growth. Smart businesses that want to gain an edge in global markets have to constantly uncover the best practices for improving product and service quality, streamlining delivery and distribution channels, and strive for improved productivity, innovation and growth.

Have any of these tactics or others proved successful for you? What advice would you give to others looking to use these tactics?

Ashley is a writer from Studyclerk and super-connector who helps businesses find their audience online through outreach, partnerships, and networking. She frequently writes about the latest advancements in digital marketing and focuses her efforts on developing customized blogger outreach plans depending on the industry and competition. You can learn more about her here: https://studyclerk.com/research-paper-writing.
Original article: https://tradeready.ca/author/ashley-lipman/

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Here are some of the advantages and disadvantages of using sales agents to distribute services and products:

Advantages:

• Established distribution and delivery system in the market
• Offer services such as receiving goods, clearing through customs, warehousing and delivery
• Established network of customers for organization’s products and services
• Familiarity with local business practices and regulations
• Less expensive than hiring, training and paying benefits and wages to sales representatives

Disadvantages:

• May also represent competitor’s products and services
• Lack of loyalty
• Lack of motivation to sell organization’s products and services due to low agent risk
• Added costs if subsequent sales are required from agents to distributors
• Decreased direct contact with end-user

It is important to thoroughly research and screen potential sales agents prior to entering into an agreement. Organizations should seek information on the specifics of the relationship, the sales and marketing strategies that the agent will employ, the agent’s reach within the target market, and their technical capacity. It is also critical to request and verify business references.

The questions to ask of potential sales agents will change depending on the specific needs of the organization and the type of product or service being sold. This list is not exhaustive but provides an example of the information that exporters should gather and use to screen potential sales agents.

The Relationship

1. Why do they want to act as an agent or representative for your company and product?
2. Who will be your main point of contact at their company?
3. Is it possible to have direct, face-to-face meetings?
4. Will any of the processes required for selling your product be outsourced to third parties? If yes, who are the third parties?
5. What support do they expect from your company?
6. Expected sales volume (broken down by time frame, e.g. year one, months one to three)

Sales and Marketing

7. What is their marketing strategy, e.g. how will they build your brand, what medium will be used (social media, print, web)?
8. What is their sales strategy?
9. Do they plan on using any images, logos or information other than those provided by your company?
10. How large is their sales force?

Reach

11. Where are they located and what is the extent of the territory they cover?
12. Are they currently selling any similar or competing products?
13. How many companies are they currently representing?
14. What competitors do they face and are those competitors selling any products that are similar to, or compete with, your product?

Technical Capacity

15. What methods of stock control do they use?
16. Can they describe and provide market intelligence on the territory that they will cover?
17. Do they have previous experience with the type of product you sell?
18. Does their sales force understand, or have the capacity to understand, any technical requirements of your product?
19. Are they qualified to provide after-sales services?

Business References

20. Asking for references is an absolute must. Inability to provide references should be considered a red flag.
21. Other data to access, if possible, such as a business plan or financial statement

Contracts with sales agents should specify the territory the agent is responsible for and whether or not exclusive rights to sell within that territory are granted. If an agent requests exclusivity in a country or region, exporters should first consider whether the agent can provide effective and efficient coverage. Inadequate coverage, or inability to apply sufficient marketing, sales and follow-up efforts in the region, could translate into loss of prospective sales.

Contracts must also stipulate how sales agents will be paid. The most common method of payment is commission. Other financial details that should be addressed in agent contracts include what, if any, expenses will be covered by the exporter, as well as any compensation payments that the exporter may need to pay if it decides to terminate the relationship. The specific conditions that would initiate the termination of the contractual relationship should also be defined.

This relationship can be complicated by the fact that the exporter may be held responsible for the agent’s actions or for shortfalls in the agent’s earnings if the exporter fails to supply adequate stock. Organizations should seek legal advice before signing a contract with an agency.

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When I hear these statements, it reminds me of what I say to my university students during lectures regarding the difference between a “goal” and an “objective”.

Goals are generic: for example, when some people say when they want to be “successful”. Being successful is a vague and an undefined end result.

Objectives are what we need to use in business. An objective must be SMART:

• Specific: it has to have a clear relation to what the business is doing
• Measurable: it has to be measured in order to understand when it is completed
• Achievable: it has to be possible to achieve considering the resources and the structure of the business
• Realistic: it has to push the business a bit beyond its limits but not to utopian unattainable utopia
• Time Defined: it has to indicate by when it has to be achieved

Objectives are usually created for different functional areas, such as strategy, financial, operational, marketing, IT and human resources. In fact, businesses must have objectives in each of the above functional areas.

An example of a financial objective is: “Company XYZ will increase its profit margin by 4% by March 2017.”

For human resources, an example might be something like: “Company XYZ will reduce employees’ level 2 turnover by 12% by November 2017,” whereas for marketing, an example would be more like: “Company XYZ will improve customer satisfaction by third quarter of 2017 by increasing percent of returned customers from 17% to 28%.”

Objectives make the difference between a dream and reality.

Develop the process and simple rules you need to achieve your objectives

This topic of success also reminds me of the definition Earl Nightingale gave in his article called “The Strangest Secret Article” published in 1950: “A success is anyone who is realizing a worthy predetermined ideal, because that’s what he or she decided to do … deliberately.”

Basically, Nightingale says we must have a purpose (the objectives I mentioned above), but if we read between the lines, we realize that we also need to have a process that is good enough for us to be able to achieve success.

Success is therefore the result of clear predetermined objectives, and the implementation of a step-by-step process.

Going back to business, if we want to become successful, we have to know the rules (the process) and predetermine our objectives.

We, the businesses, have to create the internal environment that can synchronize with the external environment following some simple rules.

I call the rules simple, because science has always proven that complex behaviors can also have very simple rules.

Think about the way Albert Einstein wrote the concept of relativity using the famous formula Energy=mc². A simple formula describes a very complex phenomenon.

Taking action is the first step towards achieving your objective

To better understanding what I want to communicate, I want to encourage you to follow these 5 steps:

1. Why are “you” in business?

Perform an introspective exercise to discover who you are and what you do the best.

2. Look around and find the “right” customer as per “The Art of Synchronization©” model

Use customer segmentation techniques to create a clear target market to understand their rules of interaction.

In my webinar, I will talk more about the “Art of Synchronization©” and I will refer to a study on computer graphic simulation conducted by Craig W. Reynolds in 1987 to explain how simple rules can create very complex results in computer animation. I suggest the same principle applies in everyday aspects of life.

3. Discover what the customer wants from you

Make an emotional connection: all the sales involve emotion and trust. How have you done lately focusing on establishing an emotional connection with your customers?

4. Developing and maintaining sales excellence

This requires informal leadership and morality. Business often pushes the message on why their product is the best too hard. What about making it easiest for your customer to remove any barriers that may prevent them from business with you?

5. Create, hone and perfect techniques that will help to grow your business

The three simple rules are: Collision avoidance, Velocity matching, and flocking centered.

In computer animation, the collision avoidance is codified stating that a certain distance must be kept among the moving pixels to avoid collisions. In business, I refer to buyers and suppliers instead of pixels. The collision is intended as a crash between the participants and must be avoided.

Another rule is to match velocity enough to get in the orbit between suppliers and buyers.

Flocking centered, using the analogy from computer animation, means creating the conditions to create the flock or working together.

What do I need to do now?

I want you to attempt to think about the entire process and the importance of thinking critically. To look at everything around you using a structured process, in order to improve your chances to achieve your definition of success.

Ask yourself how can you be the leader in your industry, working together with your leader customer to reach the realization of a worthy predetermined ideal, because that’s what you and/or your customer decided to do, deliberately.

If you set an objective, and build a process to accomplish it, a leading role in your industry is well within your grasp.

Want to learn more on the topic? I hope to have the privilege of your attendance at my webinar, “Five Steps to Sell More in the Global Market (The Art of Synchronization©)”.

While there isn’t a single, absolute, or unique method for success, I hope you’ll find this to be helpful as you work towards establishing and achieving your objectives.

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