Want To Take Your Business Global? Real Advice From UK Founders Who Did It

0:28Watch it early on the High Performance App. a few weeks ago came up to partner with the UK Export Academy, I was so keen to make it happen because I believe the world has never been smaller. The opportunities have never been greater, but actually the amount of information has never been so overwhelming. So over the past couple of weeks, if you listen to this show regularly, you'll know that I've been chatting to experts from the UK Export Academy itself and business owners across the UK who are all at different levels of international trade. But for today, for this special episode, we've got something a little bit different.

0:59A live conversation in front of a live audience. Hello, live audience. There they are. There's 6 ,000 of them in this room. There's 40 carefully hand-picked members of the audience today. And we're hoping for them and for you listening at home, we can give you as much value, as much insight and as much information as possible to help you take your business to the next level. The kind of information that I honestly wish was available to me a few years ago, but I can't do this on my own. So not only am I joined by a couple of experts from the UK Export Academy, but also some entrepreneurs and some business owners who have all experienced what it's like to grow overseas.

1:38So welcome everybody. Please put your hands together for our awesome panelists today.

1:48And instead of me individually introducing everyone, I think, you know, for the people in the room and those listening to this high performance episode at home, what I would love is for each of you to give us maybe 60 seconds about you and about your business journey and why the UK Export Academy has been so special. So Lindsay, maybe you could start by introducing yourself, your business and your story. Hello, my name's Lindsay Mitchison and I'm the owner and founder of Neo Walk, where we make fantastic acrylic walking sticks, which came about a little by accident because I became a walking stick user myself and didn't like the landscape of what they all looked like.

2:28They were all a bit grim and a bit old fashioned. So I decided that I would make my own and make some that actually give people confidence when they're walking and make something that you're proud of to walk with. So my business journey started about 13 years ago, small, me, in my kitchen, literally making products on my own. But then as we expanded and international orders started coming through, which amazed me how early they did come through. Yeah, we found ourselves in the export market, which we've navigated and we're still learning every day. So much information to take away from the UK Export Academy.

3:09Highly recommend it. Brilliant. Saul? Hi, thanks. I'm Saul Parker. I'm the CEO and co-founder of The Good Side. We're an insight and strategy studio. So what we do is we help organizations understand different audiences and cultures. Our clients range from big tech companies through to tiny one-person NGOs. And we help them understand different audiences in different cultural contexts. And we've been international from the outset, really. A lot of our work is about understanding different audiences. So it's about understanding cultures. So often we're actually sort of almost selling international expertise in terms of kind of a cultural insight and that kind of thing.

3:43Liz? Hi, everybody. My name's Elizabeth Lamb and I'm from the Data Escape Room. And we at the Data Escape Room are on a mission to make data learning fun. And I know everybody's in the room thinking, how on earth could you do that? Because data and fun don't go together. Well, the Data Escape Room is something different. It's a product that gamifies learning. It allows people to understand, analyze and use data in ways that makes their business profitable. and adds value. My name is Laura Ward. I am founder of a brand called Exeat. We are a luxury tennis apparel brand. We manufacture all of our products right here in London, which we're very, very proud of from pioneering sustainable fabric.

4:31The business launched actually sort of during COVID time. So our website went live in 2021. And no one was more surprised than me when the very first sales to our website came from international markets. I just assumed we'd have to prove ourselves in the UK first. But actually, by virtue of being a British brand, it turns out you do have instant international cachet. So we were attempting to send goods to Australia, South Korea, the USA and Germany with absolutely no exporting experience whatsoever. And thankfully, within about two weeks of launching the business, we were scooped up by the Export Academy, who turned us into what I like to call export ninjas, I think within about eight weeks.

5:14So yeah, big, big, big fan. And today we are the UK's most exported luxury tennis apparel brand. Oh, wow. What a great story. Well done. Well, we've got two of the men that turned businesses into export ninjas alongside us. So maybe guys, a slightly different message from you in about a minute or so, if you can. What you do at the Export Academy and I think maybe the piece of advice that you think is most valuable to people when they first pick up the phone or send an email or reach out? My name is Mark Berkis. It's useful to get a little bit of background information on me. I've been an exporter for a long time.

5:50I know it's difficult to believe, but nearly 40 years ago, I began my exporting experience and we're here at the Export Academy. Our remiss really, Jake, is to get the word out about what we offer from the government's departments for business and trade. We are the UK Exports Academy. We're proud of the fact that we have reached north of the border, over across in the Irish Sea, across to Northern Ireland, and in Wales as well. So we truly are a UK Exports Academy. But what we offer is a free webinar-based source of information and education. I use that word loosely because nobody likes to understand that, you know, be told, be in talk things.

6:29But we can show you the way to export in the best possible shape. I'll leave something for Raj to say here. Yeah, hi. Thanks, Mark. My name is Raj, and I've got some really passionate about helping businesses grow, primarily because of the impact they make in the society around them. It's incredible how entrepreneurs, the vast majority I've met, aren't just about making themselves rich. It's about making the people that they work with, the people that they employ, the people who they trade with. There's a massive social good that comes from people being successful. I'm really, really invested in helping business grow because of the impact that they have.

7:08Brilliant. Now, I know that not just the people in the room, some of whom do export, some of whom are keen to do it, but I know many people that will be listening to this on their commute or on the train or when they're out running, they may well work in a business where they might be thinking about exporting. They may well work in a business where they don't own it, but they can go to the CEO and say, look, why don't we have a think about whether what we do here in the UK can happen overseas? But I think with that comes fear. So for those people that are listening to this and at this point they prick their ears up because they think yeah fear is exactly something that I can relate to who would like to go first in sharing some advice to those people that are fearful and what you would tell them to do if you as entrepreneurs were in their shoes you're right to say that it is fearful because we've all been in that situation where it is fearful you've got a product you've got a service you know people want it but you don't know how to get it to them around the world and i think you know i've been an exporter as i say and i know that fear but i wish you said you wished it was there at the stars for you let me tell you if who knows what my businesses would have become had they had the benefits of the uk exports academy because we're human beings as well and i think raj is really it's a really important point that he makes we're human beings we understand that pain points and yes we are a government department we can't deny that of course but we're humans as well and we've we've walked that path of exporting and we I think that comes across I hope it does come across in what we offer in the webinars we're human beings first and foremost and what we want my remiss of you know as I said is to get British businesses not only thinking about exporting but actually doing it taking themselves to international markets.

8:49So for me it wasn't so much about fear Jake it was actually I just assumed when I first launched my business that you would have to prove yourself in your home market first. And really, I was absolutely an accidental exporter. You know, these sales came to our website. It was off the back of a very lucky piece of press. The press didn't have anything to write about. It was COVID that ended up being syndicated globally. So suddenly what we were exporting and it landed on my lap. And I learned a really important lesson, which was you don't have to wait. So whether that waiting comes out of fear or just because you think it makes sense to wait and prove yourself first, there actually is a huge appetite globally for British businesses, whether you've got brands or products or services.

9:36It's actually sort of out there already. And that's a really, really exciting proposition. I think where the gap is, particularly if you're a, I think a product-based business as I am, is understanding sort of the compliance of moving goods across borders. And that, again, that can be a confidence thing, but that's where the Export Academy is fantastic. You know, it basically gives you the cheat codes for exporting from sort of a compliance perspective. And as soon as we knew sort of how to do that, so this is like techie stuff like IncoTerms and you, you know, you're away, you feel in control.

10:11So yeah, I guess it's sort of knowledge, knowledge is power, knowledge is confidence. And that came from the Export Academy. Brilliant. I'll go at it from the investment point of view, because I think when you're parting with money, certainly if it's your own finances, that's where a lot of fear can come into the equation. It's difficult finding investment as a female. It's difficult even more finding investment as a disabled female. So you've really got to kind of lean into your strengths. so if your strength is you are a market disruptor you are a change maker you're going to be changing lives you're you're a you know that the business has a social impact you've got to lean into your your strengths it is scary but just feel confident in your product or your service and and yeah feel feel the fear and do it anyway and lean into these guys as well because they can give you advice on where you can raise finances and how to raise the capital that you might need to move into an international market.

11:14Can I just pick up on two points Laura made and one you just made, Lindsay, as well. It's not in our psyche as Brits, really, to puff our chests out and say, oh, we're British, you know. But let me tell you, people around the world want what we have to offer, both in products and services. When you say your product's made in the United Kingdom, there's credibility there straight away when you say your service is from britain they understand that you've got a certain level of the service you offer and dare i say it there's a price to pay as well when people come to you and they're they're not really sure whether they've got a business that could operate overseas they're not even sure what the first step is what is the best piece of advice that you give people do you think at the export academy that that really sets them up for success I think I use a real example of a business that I worked with.

12:02They weren't even thinking about exporting to start off with. But what they did, they took their time. You know, they stacked up their knowledge. In the first year, there was a startup business. And they turned over around about£80 ,000 in the UK. But within a year, they were ready. And in the next 12 months or so, they went from£80 ,000 to over£1 million turnover, primarily driven by exports around the world. I remember doing an event a bit like this. and they're saying, look, every day we wake up with new customers from around the world. But they took their time. I think I can resonate with that.

12:36It's turning that fear into curiosity and it's not automatically just driving towards thinking I'm going to get a sale. Because when in a startup and when we're moving towards a scale up as well, especially with a digital software product, it can happen really, really quickly and it can become a little bit overwhelming. therefore by starting just a little bit slowly and testing and not just assuming you're going to get millions of pounds in straight away you start to build your confidence up a little bit more with actually playing in different parts of the world and you start to validate the fact that your product is actually a product that will be utilized globally and bought and enjoyed globally you know we've got to the point now where we get multiple website contacts from all four corners of the earth and initially it's like wow what do you do with this I don't know anything about this country I don't know how they operate culturally I don't know what the price and model is for this country I don't even know if they like gamification but they're talking to me about my product and we recently had a contact from somebody in Trinidad and I thought, data escape room in Trinidad, what are we going to do with that?

13:57And in fact, we were at the point of saying, we probably just say, you know, we're going to leave it. And I didn't, I just, I like the feel of the email. So I emailed them back and within a week, it was probably one of the fastest turnaround sales that we had. And this is the start of the journey. at that time I knew nothing about the Export Academy now I do now that conversation feels less fearful for me now the confidence is there the product landed and I've got some support so it's like brilliant we can actually do this I love that would you all mind telling us about your first experiences of of overseas exporting I mean for you it happened as you said really quickly you kind of launched and suddenly you were exporting overseas and I guess you had to learn on the fly, Laura?

14:44Yeah, yeah. So if I look at the stats around small businesses, many small businesses are called sort of passive exporters, where a sale lands on their lap from somewhere overseas, and they decide to fulfill it or not. For us, because we got sort of, I guess, so many, as it were, from different markets, that and off the bat, that was a real light bulb moment for me to be like, well, hold on, this isn't just a flash in the pan, it feels like we can turn this into like a long-term play. We don't have to wait. But I don't even know how to ship the goods, how to get the goods into the market. Thankfully, at that point, obviously, we were introduced to the Export Academy.

15:24Did you link up with the Export Academy before you even sent your first bit of tenants apparel abroad? No, no, we didn't. What did you do with that first order? We sent them on Royal Mail. And guess what? They didn't arrive. No shade to Royal Mail. It was COVID, but they didn't arrive. Our paperwork was terrible. We didn't have a clue what we were doing. It was a bit of a disaster. And, you know, we had to sort of reach out to these customers, apologize. Once we were up and running, we sent them free stuff, you know, trying to bring them back on board. They were actually very understanding. But yeah, it was like night and day for us sort of then doing the Export Academy and really knowing what we were doing.

16:03And then we were sort of off to the races. but I think a really important thing for us doing the Export Academy was that it turned us from passive exporters into a business where export is sort of the heart and soul of our business but we could only do that with this sort of exporting expertise. If you think you can be an international brand, as you are, Laura, if you think you can be an international brand, you're halfway there. You just need to know the information around it. It's a great story, actually, because I think people might be listening to this thinking, well, you're just experts. Of course, you've been invited on.

16:38But, you know, what is it? They say how good you're going to be at something depends how long you're willing to be bad at it for, right? Because everyone's bad at working overseas before they've done it. What are your sort of early memories of trying to navigate this world of overseas exporting? Honestly, we started with an overseas customer as our initial customer. I went from being a kind of freelance sole trader to being a business because we suddenly had more work than two people could do. and so it's an organic group group. But I think in terms of some of the challenges, it sounds really obvious, but currency is one of the kind of the biggest things that I think you have to get your head around is the idea of you're trading in different currencies.

17:12Currency rates are, you know, the bane of our lives. I'm sure everyone here in this room who does any exporting has this kind of issue. Suddenly thinking about how you charge in different currencies, you know, as Liz touched on what your kind of pricing model looks like, but also how you mitigate around kind of fluctuations, which is still an ongoing journey for us. And I think it gives us a fair amount of anxiety around understanding how to kind of manage those things. But now we've become almost kind of a reluctant expert in understanding where the markets are moving because you just sort of have to.

17:38So I think there's all these kind of sort of small technical elements that you're not kind of expecting. But ultimately, at the core of it all, it's about, you know, those kind of human relationships. And you can navigate these spaces and you can build contingencies and you can manage it. But, and as you say, it's become something you become an expert in over time. Brilliant. Lindsay? Well, I've got a similar story to Laura, really. just annoying the lady at the post office by having the wrong documentation going in you know she wasn't a friendly lady anyway but you know it was like go away come back when you've got that it was just you know this this box to i think i think it was off to america not having a clue how to do it and that that was one of our first sales but when they started coming in the sales the repetitive sales it made us look at our logistics then you've got to guesstimate your quantities that you're going to be shipping abroad.

18:27And, you know, you just don't have any idea, really. I love these entrepreneurship stories because entrepreneurship seems so glamorous when you're not in it. And then when you are, it literally comes down to how much time you spend standing in a queue at a post office trying to send a parcel that never arrives and you end up having to send a load of freebies. But there's also something, I think, magic that comes with that first moment of exporting, which is you realise the size your business could become. You know, it's exciting to have a UK-wide business, but it's really exciting when suddenly someone outside the uk wants your product because then you realize hold on this isn't just about going outside the uk to that one country this opens me up to the whole world and i guess you almost have to kind of temper people's excitement when they start going on this export journey right because it can be almost too exciting i think the startup actually the business i mentioned was to actually get them to believe really first instance you know they didn't realize what they had and there's a range of reasons but once they got believing i've seeing this again and again and again particularly with great entrepreneurs and great products and services that input of belief kicks off something that just takes people around the world and then it's about you know managed growth because you can grow too fast and you introduce risk into your business it's a step-by-step approach one of the risks you know getting the right people into your business getting the right systems and processes all these things count are you learning you know So that self-reflection, all these things are really, really important.

19:52You know, you don't learn if you don't have a desire to grow. And we're there to support. And it's not just us. There's a wider network. We're in 108 countries, I think. You know, we've got thousands of staff. There's a piece of research that businesses that are just thinking about exporting or growing around the world do better than those who aren't. You know, because they're thinking about themselves differently. They're thinking about their business differently. they think about taking risks differently let's say i come to you right i'm really interested in what are the questions you would ask me first of all to work out whether i've got a business that actually would work overseas but also i might say um i really want to explore saudi arabia and the middle east but i might say i want to explore australia or i might say i want to explore south america how on earth do you give me the right answer for three very distinct very different places well i think one of the things that i would always say to people is slowly slowly And I had a conversation.

20:48I said to this guy, I said, well, what's your particular Marcus are you looking for? And he said, well, Hong Kong, China, Vietnam, or Singapore, well, the whole of the Far East, really. The Middle East, North America, and Europe. So I said, well, basically, and it was all I could do. It's the first reaction to laugh, isn't it? But I couldn't, obviously. And I said, right, okay. Well, I suggest you're a bit more targeted than that. And that's one of the things that we do in our how-to series. it's the first of the how-to webinars is international market research. If you do your research and do your due diligence, you'll know where to go to if you do it properly.

21:25But that's where I think we work at the UK Expos Academy and the wider Department for Business and Trade is that you can be targeted and we can be laser-focused. So you mentioned Saudi Arabia. I did a webinar not so long back with Aramco, Saudi Aramco, and we spoke with those people and they talked about opportunities that exist in Saudi Arabia, there'll be times when you might think, and you should all know about your products and services. Of course you should. But you don't know how that's going to be received in particular parts of the world. We spoke about culture, Raj, you touched upon it, culture.

21:58That's really important in business because you only get one chance to make the right impression. You know, I bore witness to someone who made a massive cultural mistake in Saudi and never recovered from it. And sometimes, you know, the old saying, you don't know what you don't know. we can help you with that. We can give you that knowledge and that know-how. Well, look, there's some great advice just in the things that you said there. When it comes to advice, if you will think about the times that you've interacted with the UK Export Academy, what is a piece of advice that stands out that was said to you where it kind of helped you to kind of, I guess, see exporting a bit differently?

22:32It kind of joined some of the dots for you, if you like. We've actually had some amazing advice about countries that just aren't really right for us that we would probably have jumped into thinking it feels like a massive market. Feel like we've got a great, we can smash this, but actually understanding that the consultancy service we offer is not something they're looking for externally and actually just knowing that is a great shortcut to not you know wasting a bunch of time but also understanding whether the opportunities do exist so we've you know had some invaluable advice on that level we also talk about the importance of passion and and i guess how being passionate about your business has helped you when it comes to exporting and equally from the two of you how important you find passion when people come to you when when they really have that deep love for their business who would uh you'd like to kick us off Lauren yeah I can go um for us we are really really proud of what we do um we actually uh when we first launched the business um we were making out in Portugal and through the Export Academy actually we learned about these things called free trade agreements um which are kind of our well they're markets and I'm going to paint in broad strokes where if your product is made within the UK you can sell duty-free into those markets.

23:38So free trade agreements are sort of the new kind of agreement we had with the EU. And again, painting massively in broad strokes here. But what that meant was that we figured out through the Export Academy, we had to bring our production back home. So we repatriated our production. It was so hard, Jake. Honestly, it brought us to our knees. We didn't have any fashion contacts in the UK. Everyone is super secret about, you know, sort of who the good factories are and it just took passion to allow us to work through you know lists of factories phoning them sampling with them spending the money taking a punt and and the fact that we were so passionate about what we were doing and we believed that that you know we we could make it succeed love that people buy that passion you know you mark was talking about this kind of demand for british businesses and think the reason that all of us sitting here are running independent british businesses because we really love what we do you know we care what we do we think we've got a great product to sell and people that's what people are looking for and they're looking for that kind of that relationship that passion that people buy from people exactly and i think that's partly about externally how you communicate that passion that vision and then increasingly internally you know as your business grows and you become the leader of that business is actually you know maintaining that vision and holding that vision and really bringing people along the journey i'd go another way and say if you haven't got passion and if you haven't got tenacity the ability to bring it to a sporting context gee what's the saying it's not how many times you get knocked down it's how many times you get up and if you put that into your business that's what you need tenacity we talk about the traits tenacity passion a thirst for knowledge because every day is a learning day for us and if you have that thirst for knowledge we'll satisfy it within the exports academy if i can do it and i'm not i'm nothing special but i know what i was doing and i want to put that over to people as well as part of when i'm come back to the human elements of the department for business and trade we've done it we've been there we've seen it and we want you to do the same one of the things that i found most surprising about our growth and relationships with you know we you know we have clients that are trillion dollar companies you know we're like a tiny group of people in hackney and for years it blew my mind that they would buy from us you know because they're these huge kind of corporates and i always assumed their relationship would have to also be with other big corporate entities that they could trust and they could feel that reassurance and all that kind of stature from blah, blah, blah.

25:57But actually what they want is, you know, a team of really, really good, passionate people who are going to work really hard for them. And actually it took me a good few years to sort of get over the imposter syndrome of having those relationships with these big organizations. But now I understand, you know, why that value lies there. I think it's great. And imposter syndrome, you will all feel it. It's so valuable. What are the traits from both the owners of the businesses, Raj, but also the businesses themselves that you've seen that make successful businesses, they come to you and they are like, wow, they flew.

26:25Like, what do you remember about those great success stories? Humility is one of, and what humility enables is people to learn, you know, because without that, you can't really genuinely learn, neither from your own experiences, but from other people's experiences. And like this passion, you know, there's over 8 billion people in the world. Not all of them understand English, but they all understand when passion is present, you know, and without that, you know, there's something there that you're communicating to them that it's worth giving you a shot it's worth giving you some time it's worth putting the hand in their pocket to take a risk on you you know people understand that's part of the universal experience of being a human being if you're not passionate about your product why should i be it would be disingenuous of us to sit here have this great conversation about going global and being successful and having passion and all the other things that we've spoken about without being really honest as well for the people in the room and the people listening to this wherever they might be on the high performance podcast the difficult times if i was to ask each of you to share with us the moment that stands out as the most difficult time on your journey and the thing that got you through where would you like to take us to i had a container of product on the water all the way over to america 50 000 plus dollars of my product in the container on the ship gets all the way to long beach and the docker's go on straight and it couldn't go in and there's an app you can get on your phone where you can track where your vessel is and i knew what the vessel was all my paperwork was in place the product was perfect it was labeled it was packaged it was absolutely perfect and there it was sitting bobbing up and down in just off the coast of long beach california and it was and all i had and the customers don't want to hear excuses do they you don't want to say oh i'm sorry it's this calls up in the dispute but where's my i won't tell you the words they used and it was quite you know three o 'clock you mentioned three o 'clock in the morning i don't know why as exporters we always are awake at three o 'clock in the morning but staring out down into the garden with the coffee thinking how the how am i going to resolve this but it resolved so there are always hard times there are always if it was easy everybody would be doing it but it doesn't need to be difficult and i bring you back i'm not going to drop the lion's again but there is support there's a network support we're the entree we're the starter if you like and we can put you in touch with people who can help you with funding you know can evaluate whether you're suitable for funding we can speak with international trade advisors we can talk to foreign desks and get you information that way so my mistake was trusting a particular company you know and it would build a relationship it was me that was buying services and products from them and built this relationship over a period of about six months it took some time that they they were operating in shanghai because we're in york a bit of a time difference going on but i you know i dug in and i i worked with them we were working on a project that would make us send our products um over to the u.s to a a 3pl third-party logistics center so like a fulfillment center basically we negotiated the price we'd negotiated um how they were going to right down to the packaging how they were all going to be um organized in the in the the crate everything so much time invested a lot of time they came back and the price had doubled overnight the price that they wanted to charge me i mean it was absolute deflation disappointment that i had trusted these people you know and built what I thought was a good relationship with them.

30:03But, you know, they clearly saw, well, they either saw an avenue to make more money out of me. They blamed it on someone they were sacking. It was all a bit spurious, really. But yeah, it was, that was a really deflating moment. I think one of the big disappointments came from also one of our highs. We were asked to go to America to a conference where we were going to run concurrent our facilitated data escape room at this conference and also presenting it went down really really well we were we were so pumped for all of this we went and we had multiple conversations we met lots of different people over there and I formed a really good relationship with a an organization a health organization in Florida and it was really prospering you know we were having I came back home we were having demonstrations to them we were bringing the rest of their teams in.

30:56We had to get on what was called the Florida marketplace to enable us to be able to sell into them. Didn't really know what I was doing. Did it anyway. Got on there. You know, we were all set up for this sale to happen and to us to have an ongoing relationship. I was even thinking I was going to get another trip to Florida, which was like, oh, that's quite good as well. Add that in there. And then multiple things can bring about disappointment. And this was something completely out of our control, they suffered a major cyber attack. And all of a sudden, the business that they were going to put into data was moved away to respond to the cyber.

31:34And it was through no fault of theirs, no fault of ours. It just stopped. It's paused. And it's like, okay, so you've put all of that investment, you're at the top of that roller coaster, and and you've just slid all the way back down, and you're like, okay. And there's nobody to hate. There's nobody to be annoyed at, because it's just reality, isn't it? So you turn the chapter, and you move on, but you learn something. And I learned that we, as the Data Escape Room, are on the Florida marketplace, so if anybody in Florida wants to buy our services, they can. There you go. But you know, the important thing is, and we did this the other week with the business culture in the US, everyone thinks America is the same as us, right?

32:16they speak the same language they're not but let me tell you the thing to do now is keep it warm by keep following up with phone calls and emails and keep yourself up front and center of them so that when things change because they do you're still there up front and center that's the important thing to do and lots of people say well that's it's finished it's over no it's not keep it going keep it spinning we'd see it as being pushy you know we all get the pushy phone calls don't we they love it and that's what you've got to remember so you have to be a chameleon and think like they think and make sure you follow up with phone calls and emails uh raj before we open up the uh the floor to questions from our our audience if people have listened to the things that have been discussed and thinking i need to i need to pick up the phone or i need to send an email i need to do something what should they do right now to reach out to the uk export academy so go on to great.gov.uk forward slash global that's one way to get in contact with us register with us yeah and uh i know everyone's busy there's gonna be we plan around about two to three months in advance there's going to be stuff there that you like but you can't attend as long as you register we will still send you the recording and we'll still send you the slide deck so there's no need to miss out on what's what's available in terms of information knowledge we're there to help fill that knowledge gap as a starting point great thank you so um who would like to go first and ask a question to me or the panel or to members of the uk sport academy higher just wait for the microphone to come over and do tell us your name as well before we get going i'm Rachel, Rachel Stone from East Sussex.

33:43I just wanted to ask, I know it's a silly question really, but I expect many people will think of it. Once you put your products into the distribution chain, who actually owns them until they get to the customer? So what's the legal standpoint of, you know, you talked about your£50 ,000. Who owns it once it leaves you? Yeah, first of all, there's no stupid questions. That's one of the things that we always insist at the Export Academy, there's only stupid answers. The answer to your question is, and Laura touched upon it before, what international commercial terms of trading you are trading on.

34:18When I had my container going in ultimately to Chicago, but via Long Beach, it was CIF. So it was my responsibility, my products. I sent the paperwork over for him and he cleared it on the Chicago ramp effectively. So it depends on what commercial terms of trading you use. And is it 11, Raj? there's 11 different 11 IncoTerms so if you want to know come along to the how-to we touch on it in IncoTerms is one of the sessions Hi everyone I'm Dan I'm from East Sussex but I'm also Scouser so I'm a Okay Dan yeah all good They're everywhere Have we kicked off yet Dan? No So I run icons.com and we are the world's best signed football memorabilia company so we already sell to 110 countries around the world but our biggest market is America So we flew to America a month ago and met lawyers and opened a business in America in 48 hours.

35:18From start to finish, you had an employee, a warehouse, a LLC. We're fixing up a website and we're getting an American bank account. We have the World Cup license. So the World Cup's over there. So we're going to be using that. But the point is, what are the pitfalls about trading in America that we should know? or do the panel have any suggestions as to what to do in America? I think one thing we always say is treat America as 50 separate countries, so it depends on where you're landing. Each of them have different regulations and different opportunities. We can support you with that. We've got teams in America where we have international trade advisors that can, there's eligibility criteria to engage with that, but really we can help support you making the right choices.

36:04And at the heart of that is the market research. which America's not just one place. It's many places and you need to find the right landing spot and we can help you with that. Great, thanks. Well, listen, thank you all very much indeed. Thank you as well to our brilliant live audience for being in the room. Please put your hands together for everyone on the panel today.

36:25And for you listening to this episode on your podcast player, I really hope it's provided value for you. And if you're keen to learn more, if you want to get ahead, if you want to dive into exporting yourself, please please check out the free training and resources available at the uk export academy by heading to great.gov.uk slash global or just click the link in the description to this podcast thanks for listening

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