10 reasons to train in export

admin on November 30, 2018

EXPORT TRAINING 10 REASONS

Export training can be really relevant for some jobs, departments or companies as it allows staff to know very varied and useful aspects to avoid making certain common mistakes, gain confidence and define a good international strategy.

 

1 You will have international knowledge

Receiving a good training in export will allow you to expand your international knowledge, so that you will begin to know the situation of markets around the world and you can make your plans with a greater strategy, improve your results or plan an expansion.

 

2 You will negotiate better

Besides the mercantile or economic contingencies, it is very important for businesses and human relations to know the keys of each culture and the aspects to take into account, something that you will learn with the formation in export and that will help you to negotiate of different form in each market.

 

3 You will be bolder in your choices

In order to make good business, economic or employment decisions it is important to have a good background, and having a background in export will give you enough knowledge to choose a good international partner and not make a mistake, as it will determine the success of the business.

 

4 Successful recruitment

If you are a team leader, department or company you may have to select personnel on several occasions, especially if there is an international expansion, within the export training you will learn to select the best independent sales agents in a foreign market, for example.

 

5 Better sources and documents

In order to execute a successful job, it is necessary to manage the protocols, information sources and productivity tricks, so the work and times will improve when you have trained in export because you will learn which the information sources of each market are and which the necessary documentation for export is.

 

6 Best knowledge of options

Sometimes we make decisions based on the possibilities we believe exist, something that in the workplace can be unproductive, when you do an export training you start to know the export modalities and the different forms of shipment so you will make the most appropriate choices.

 

7 Tricks and real knowledge

All this information is very good, but it is important to receive it in the context of training in export since it will be the way in which a series of professionals will transfer to you all the tricks and all the real ways of applying the knowledge, something very difficult in a self-taught way.

 

8 Improving productivity

Thanks to the new approaches, strategies and the new vision of the international markets and their logistics, you will have the possibility to be more productive for your company and use more agile methods than other people, who are not trained in the field, needing less time to adapt to the processes.

 

9 Improving company presentations

One of the important skills you will acquire in export training will be the ability to make good company presentations with the right international prospections and the necessary knowledge to create the desired impact on your recipients.

 

10 Improving the internationalization strategy

Thanks to the training in export you will know how to design a good strategy of internationalization of company and you will be able to begin to move to another level, to which you could not have acceded without these notions; multitude of countries will now be to your disposition.

 

 

Other links of interest:

Discover our training in exportation service

Discover the sources of information to search for commercial agents

Discover the aspects to consider when selecting a sales agent

Consult the account of our group export training at the Maresme Comarcal Council

The best sources to find suitable sales agents

admin on March 23, 2018

The best sources to find suitable sales agents

Before starting with the selection of agents, we recommend spending some time to compose a certain document. For instance, you can reflect the list of activities or complementary products of yours. With this in mind you will be able to find the most appropriate profiles. And then the searches for information will be more concrete.

What are the sources to find sales agents?

We make a list of the most common sources, in order of success ratio:

– International fairs of the sector. Through the list of exhibitors of the fairs you can find companies that manufacture complementary products or services. Through them, you can find the commercial networks that they have in each of the markets of your interest.

– Professional social networks. Such as LinkedIn, Viadeo (strong presence in France) or Xing (Strong presence in Germany) through which one can get a professional network in your sector. In addition to using them to locate the most relevant commercial agents, you can use them for publicity and to position yourself as experts or specialists through high quality content of interest

– Purchase database. There are companies that are dedicated to the sale of databases of commercial agents, repertoires by sector and activity. The biggest drawback is that in most cases theses databases are not up to date. It´s also possible that you find people in this databases that are retired, have changed their profession or who are currently commercial employees of a company.

– Study of competition. Following the competitors (consulting companies) helps in two ways. You learn which agent has a peer portfolio, which no longer works for the competition and which could be qualified for the product or service of your company.

– Associations of commercial agents and federations. Allow to put advertisements that are published among their associates to find appropriate profiles. Usually this method has a low response rate.

– The free search in Google. If you look for networks of companies in the consulting area, you may find company lists with international coverage area, which could help.

Other related information:

Aspects to consider for the selection of the sales agent

The sales agents meeting in Paris between Spanish metallurgical companies and French agents is coming to the end

B2B meetings between Spanish companies and French sales agents

Aspects to consider for the selection of the sales agent

admin on March 15, 2018

Aspects to consider for the selection of the sales agents

The sales agent is a key figure especially for those companies that offer a customized product / service. They need a good agent who knows how to identify opportunities and knows the clientele of their geographical area/ sector. Before starting with the selection of agents, we recommend spending some time to write a document where you reflect the list of activities or complementary products of your company to be able to find the most appropriate profiles.

What are the key aspects when selecting a sales agent?

There are certain key issues. Even though they are not definitive and may vary depending on the type of product. Also time of the export project or the need for market penetration are influencers. Thus we will show you the most important ones:

– Age: Young agents are dynamic and maintain a very proactive attitude. On the contrary, they may lack a deep knowledge of the market. On the other side, those whose age is close to retirement have extensive experience. Moreover, they have many contacts resulting from years of presence in the sector. With a simple call you can get quotes and open commercial doors. There is no recommended age and it will depend on the speed of market penetration that you want or need.

– Experience: Some agents have been sales agents throughout their professional career. Others may come from industry businesses, commercial sector etc. Some agents have made their professional career in the same sector, while others have been changing their course.

– Percentage of commission: It is important to know the different percentages of commissions for the various sectors. This is important to be able to negotiate adequately. In the industry we usually speak of a compensation of 3% to 8%.  For interior products, for example, 10% to 15% (France, Spain).

– Portfolio of representation: It is important to know the existing portfolio in order to filter out the complementarity with the one from the company.

– Billing: It is important to know the level of billing (global or in commissions) to determine the value of the candidate you are interviewing. We often find sales agents that bill more than one national SME. This will also determine the interest that our portfolio may arouse, depending on the amount that can be invoiced with it.

– Geographic coverage area: No sales agent can adequately cover an entire country of large dimensions, such as Germany, France, Spain, Italy or the UK. It is advisable to limit the coverage area in addition to doing it by sectors.

– Typology of clientele: It is convenient to ask him about the type of client he worked with. The cadence of his routes and number of active clients that he has at the present time are also interesting.

– References: It is important that you can call any of the clients of the agent to request references and evaluate the degree of moral and professional integrity of the candidate.

– Structure: Some agents work completely alone while others associate with colleagues by creating representative agencies. The most common is to find agent who use back office or telephone support to their commercial prospecting.

– Languages: Although it is not a key aspect, it is always interesting to know what languages the candidate speaks if he has to interact with a neighboring market.

– Training: If the product / service is very technical it is important to know if the agent had a proper training and is qualified to work with it.

The sales agents meeting in Paris between Spanish metallurgical companies and French agents is coming to the end

admin on October 12, 2017

sales agents meeting in Paris between Spanish metallurgical companies and French agents

On October the 9th of 2017, Barcelona Export organized a B2B meeting between French independent sales agents and Spanish companies from the metallurgical sector.

Of whom does it consist?

Organized in Paris, this meeting has allowed 10 national companies, members of the Plametall metallurgical cluster to meet more than thirty French idependant sales agents which had been selected previously, according to their profile (Read our article B2B meetings between companies and independent sales agent).

What are its objectives?

The purpose of this day was clear: initiate the entry of those companies on the French market by permitting them to meet their future commercials partners in a professional setting, but also more informal, around coffee breaks and meals offered by Barcelona Export, in order to create contact and establish the foundations of a trustworthy relationship.

sales agents meeting in Paris between Spanish metallurgical companies and French agents

Which type of companies participates?

All along the day, French independent sales agents from the industrial and metallurgical sectors have been meeting companies specialized in:

– Industrial air filtration systems
– Industrial structures for civil engineering and grand dimension boilerwork
– Conditioning and positioning systems for plastic flasks and bottles
– Forest work and gardening machines
– Laser cut and metals manufacture
– Fixations systems, anchors, screws, and personalized products
– Accessories for cutting and surface-treating tools or machines
– Scales, working platforms and custom-made scaffolds
– Welded and calibrated tubes of very high precision and very low steel diameter
– Special and custom-made profiled bars, hot-rolled and stretched under cold conditions

Final results

In total, more than 55 interviews have been led and almost ten independent sales agents contracts are already on-going after a week.

The whole team of Barcelona Export is glad to have organized this event and would like to thank companies and agents for their trust, without whom nothing would have been possible.

See you on next edition!