Practical Export Marketing Skills & Generating Export Leads

In the next video I will tell you how do you start the process of exports marketing and what is the approach I have used in this course to share with you some rare skills in the domain of exports marketing.

I'm Dr Vijesh Jain I'll be delivering this course to you, based on my 30 years of import and export experience in the industry, research, training, and academics. Friends, I have run my own company, export company and presently I'm into services exports. I have my own services exports. So friends throughout my export career I have realized that the main skills which are required in export business are very practical in nature. These skills actually cannot be learned from books. These skills can only be learned through practical experiences. So Friends, what I will be doing in this course, I'll be sharing with you different types of knowledge, different types of skills, different types of tools, different types of sources for getting information and the different types of experiences which you get in export marketing. So my approach will be very different from the typical approach of going on marketing concepts.

I'll be talking about some marketing concepts, definitely, but not in the way it is traditionally taught. So what I will be doing, I'll be sharing with you some of the incidents. I'll be sharing with you, some of the case studies I will be sharing, which I myself worked upon in the sense that I did some work in some company and that I converted into kind of case study, wherein I will tell you that how I went about getting business or promoting a business or getting international orders, what problems I faced and how I managed those problems. And very importantly, how do I start contacting buyers? How do I start talking about my products and services? How do I create initial interest? Because when you are contacting the buyers for the first time, they are very much wary about your genuineness or about your capability or about the ability to complete the orders, or they will have a number of questions in mind. They will have N numbers of apprehensions about you when you first contact them.

And the point is that when buyers give their requirement digitally or in any form, they give you a requirement. You come to know about some lead. So there are number of people who are ready to respond, they are ready to give their offers to the buyer according to the requirement. The point is, how do you attract the attention of these buyers? So there are different things. One is, first is, how to create the lead? How to identify the market, how to identify the buyers, and, of course, how to identify the exact Import requirement of a particular buyer? So that is one part of it. The second part is that you have the lead, which may not be exclusive to you. That lead may be available to many of your competitors. Point is, how to convert that lead into a genuine practical interest of the buyer in your offer. So that is also a skill, export marketing skill, which has to be learned, and that in bookish term we say the business communication. So so-called business communication.

But business communication, when we talk, it is very general in nature. What we want to talk about the business communication is the business communication for generating interest in the buyer about your offer. So how do you do that? So I'll be touching upon several practical aspects, several practical information, several practical tools and techniques of export marketing and the practical methods of bringing buyers towards your product range. So these will be my objective. These will be my goal in this course. And I will try to give you the examples and case studies which I myself have gone through. I'll be taking mostly those kinds of examples and case study which I myself has dealt with. So I may not tell you the exact name of the company which I dealt with by may change the name of the company for the purpose of training and education. I would not like to share with you in all the cases, exact names of the companies, but with whatever name the incident and case will be real cases, very practical things. And I'll be touching upon those skills, techniques, and tools which are relevant today.

I will not talk about things that were of Yesteryear or which were relevant in the past. So that will not help you. I'll be talking about more about the digital channels. I will talk about the participation in international trade fairs, that which are needed for you can participate after identifying the countries where you can market your products and services. And very importantly, how do you identify the right countries to participate or to target? And how do you find out the list of buyers or the prospective partners, business partners in different countries, so there is a whole lot of things which is there in export marketing, and with these skills you can absolutely conquer the international markets. It is not difficult. You have to have very good knowledge about your own products if you have good knowledge about your product. You can definitely impress the foreign buyers. And I will also tell you that what goes in the mind of international buyers, what they normally look for when they want to deal with the prospective suppliers, especially from developing countries like India, Brazil, Mexico, Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia. So what goes in the mind of the international buyers? What are their expectations from the prospective supplying partners in these countries and to what extent price matters, to what extent the things which are other than price matter? So these are the different things which I'll be discussing in this course. And Friends, there is one more area which I would like to cover in this course, which is very much part of the export marketing skills, is the operational part also.

What are the operational things which you should know about export marketing, which is in terms of the sales and distribution of your products. Because this sales and distribution, the cost of making the goods available to the end-users and the importers, it has a strong bearing on the possibility of getting business. How do you manage these operations? That is very much part of the export marketing skills. Because even the minutest of the thing, very new thing, very innovative thing if you can do, it has the potential to reduce the unit price of your goods drastically. So I will give you some examples of what are the facilities available, for example, for the Indian exporters on the operation side, that means the distribution side. What is the government support available or any third-party support which is available? How do you reduce the cost of your offering and making your product available in a particular market? How do you bring down that price? Because if you are able to bring down the price, it can drastically change your offer. It can drastically make your offer much more attractive to the international buyer.

For this reason, I'll be discussing with you the operational part also, which is very much part of the export marketing skills. So with so many of these kinds of practical tools and techniques, methods of doing exporting, Friends, I am very sure that by the end of this course you will feel very much confident about the process of exporting, getting buyers, getting orders, getting information, and understanding the market and the consumers in the international market. So that is my purpose. That is my goal of this course I would encourage you to watch all the upcoming episodes in this course and try to write down some of the tips and techniques which I share with you.

So Friends, welcome back to episode number two of this VJ Exports Mastery Course titled - Learn the practical exports marketing skills. So Friends today in this episode, I will start with a very interesting story. In this episode, I will share this story, which is a real story, and this story is very close to my heart, although it's a very, very old story. But why I'm sharing this story is because it will serve as a very good foundation for you to understand how export marketing works, that is very, very important. And this story is also related to the very first year of my experience with exporting. And it was way back in 1989, which is really very old.

But Friends, this story is still very important, very pertinent, very useful even today, so I'm sure that you will find this story very interesting and some of the names in the story I will not reveal, but you will get the gist of the story, which is very, very important. So Friends way back in 1989 when it was in the first year of my career in exports after I completed my MBA in exports and imports from Indian Institute of Foreign Trade in New Delhi, I got a chance to visit Europe with my immediate boss. So he was a person with whom I went for the first time in my life out of India, and the main agenda was to visit Budapest, although we went to some other countries also. But the main agenda was to spend at least three weeks in Budapest to attend and display certain samples and goods in an international trade fair and Consumer Products Fair, which is very famous in Budapest, and it is held every year in the month of September or around that. And it is called BNV Fair. So Friends, for me, it was a totally new experience and I went to certain countries and then we reached Budapest and we had a quite large stall in the international trade fair in the Indian Pavilion, which was organized by Indian Trade Promotion Organization, ITPO, because in most of these international trade fairs India's pavilion is managed by International Trade Promotion Organization, which buys the space in the trade fair at highly concessional rates. And the stalls, which are given to Indian exporters by Indian trade promotion organization, are heavily discounted. And if you are a new exporter, in any case, you get market development assistance.

If you are a member of the respective Export Promotion Council, then the government of India provides you almost half of all the expenses, including the stall expenses or travel expenses, or hotel expenses. So all the marketing expenses, which you do almost 50 percent, is paid by the government of India to promote exports from India. And of course, our company had a quite spacious stall where we had many types of consumer goods and items because our company, which I represented there in BNV Fair was a consumer goods trading co. I was in, the consumer goods division of the company, and there, just next to my co stall, there was a very, very small stall of another Indian person named, Mr. Dhillon He was just next to us and this person was new to exporting. So he did not have much knowledge about exports and imports, but he just came because he wanted to try his luck in the export business. And we became quite friendly because we had to spend almost three weeks in this international trade fair. So we were in very good talking terms. And this, his stall was almost empty. He had some samples of some grey fabric, cotton fabric, a few things he had brought just to taste the waters. He just wanted to check whether he can actually do some exports. He was just exploring. And since he did not have much knowledge about exports, so he could not actually bring many items and his stall was also very small. So he had actually not spent much money in the whole thing. So when we had been talking, he came to know, more about exporting and export marketing, and he was quite friendly to me. I shared with him some skills of exporting at that time because I was a graduate of Indian Institute of Foreign Trade in this area,

So I had certain knowledge about the process of exporting, although I was also quite fresh in this area so I could not share much experienced knowledge, but some knowledge could help him. So what happened that I helped him in explaining that how pricing is done, how export prices are reached, what are the different types of cost, which you have to add before you quote the price to the international customer? So he was receiving certain customers in the trade fair and he was talking to them in some mixed-up English language. But he was not very fluent in English, was not very educated also. But he was a smart young fellow. And with my help, he could do some products costing of the fabric swatches, which he had brought samples, and he could get interest of some of the international buyers and local buyers from Hungary, Budapest also. So when this trade fair was about to end and we had been packing up and all these things. So I talked to this person, Mr. Dhillon, how it has been and he was quite upbeat that, OK, he got some good buyers and all and he wanted to stay back for some more time to explore the market.

While my boss and myself had planned to go back to India after the trade fair and did not spend much time, maybe one or two days, just for follow up with some of the inquiries which we had received in Trade Fair and what we had planned, that we can catch up with these inquiries later on from India. I also knew I was also not very much conversant with the overall process, whatever my boss told me. So we agreed that, OK, we'll spend one or two days more after the trade fair and we will go back to India after that. So we came back, we did some follow up work, we could do certain orders and business with some of the good companies in Europe and Hungary where my, mainly my boss was involved and my role was, not that much because I was new. So about two months after that incident, when we came back to India and two months after that, I received a call from Mr. Dhillon He had a house in Delhi, New Delhi, and he invited me to his house. So I went to his house and he told me that he spent almost more than one month after the International Trade Fair and he could make some very good contacts in Budapest and neighboring countries. And he also told that he actually has got some very good orders for cotton grey fabrics and different things. And he was focusing more on those items. And he was quite happy that I helped him in the pricing of the samples and how to talk to the international buyers. So he was quite happy and he acknowledged my contribution for his initial success, and that is how I came to know that he spent almost one month after the trade fair and he made some really good contacts over there. So that was a knowledge for me, that this is another way of dealing with the international buyers, that you go to International Trade Fair and you get some inquiries, you follow with them right there and spend more time in that country or neighboring country and go deeper like what Mr. Dhillon had done.

That was something very interesting, which he himself improvised. That was not my suggestion, but it was a learning for me from Mr. Dhillon that this can be done like this, and with his very limited resources, he had gone to this trade fair and somehow he managed there. I really don't know how he managed there, but he actually managed there. And later on, I came to know that he established himself in Budapest itself, and he had his office. He had his probably permanent house also later on. And he actually became very active both in India as well as Budapest, he was, later on, I came to know that he expanded his business very handsomely. After certain years I happened to visit Budapest, I came to know about him and I came to know that he was doing quite well.

So This particular experience of myself, so much long back, 1989. still, it is very much suitable. The learnings are still alive, suitable, even in the present times that in export marketing, you have to be, near the buyer, possibly wherever possible, although in present time you have digital modes, you need not be physically present many a times, but especially when you are starting new, you are a new exporter. Probably your physical presence, in the local market, internationally, maybe very important. That is one learning which I got from this story, and this is a real experience that I came to know. And another thing which I understood, and it was a learning for me in my initial years, is that it is not just the physical presence, it is also the focus on certain products and certain few buyers and a very narrow area. For example, in this case, Mr. Dhillon, focused on especially Budapest and neighboring areas and few customers who visited him at the trade fair and he followed up with them. He must have met several times these people, and he would have really slogged a lot with them to get his first order. But he persistently, without major knowledge about exports, not even he was not even aware of how to do the costing of the fabric. But he was a good learner.

He learned things very fast, whatever English speaking, he had communication skills, whatever he had, he managed that. And a smart person with good acumen, business acumen, this person actually became very, very successful. And as I know he is actually very active in Europe and he is actually doing great business in these countries. And he's very well-established international trader in Europe. And of course, he has got very strong ties with India. So, Friends, I started this course with this story, a real story because this story is also linked to my own story with exporting and importing my own export career. At the start of my export career, I encountered this case study, this story, which is very inspiring, which is, which gave me a lot of insights into the process of export business.

And if you understand the story and go deeper, it has got some really interesting facts that a person without very strong training on exports with very limited resources and with the help of the Indian government, Indian trade promotion organization, he got a very small stall in a very simple and less costly international trade fair in a European country, at the right place, at the right time, and I don't know how he got to know about this trade fair and how he identified that he can go there with very limited resources and try his luck. And he tried his luck. He succeeded with very few items. He could actually make it big. So there are so many elements to this story, so many learning from different perspectives. And there is a lot to learn from this story.

That is the reason I started this course with this story to you. So in this course in the episodes later on, whatever I'll be sharing with you, you will be able to relate the story directly or indirectly with the experiences, examples, case studies, concepts, which I'm going to discuss in the coming episodes. So, Friends, I am quite confident that this second episode will be very, very useful to you in understanding the contents of the coming episodes, which I'm going to share with you. So with this belief, I request you to start episode number three at your convenience. Thank you very much.

Choose only one answer

Choose only one answer

Choose only one answer

Choose only one answer

Choose only one answer

Answer the one that is best.

Choose only one answer that is best.

Answer only one that is best