I was approached in January by a not-for-profit organisation
in Finland to deliver international trade training services in April to a group
of companies from the creative industries sector, most of them young or start-up
companies, but also one or two more established businesses. My initial
discussions with Christer Sjoholm centred on a two day project, with a
presentation on general aspects of international trading on the first morning,
followed by a series of one-to-one sessions with interested companies for the
remainder of my visit.
Anticipating that we would have anything between six and ten
one-to-one meetings, we allowed one hour for each followed by a 15 minute
note-taking and comfort break. Each company was required to provide a single
page summary of what they wanted to achieve out of the session, and the
deadline for those summaries was one week before my visit. As the deadline
approached it became clear that we would fill most of the remaining day and a
half following the presentation, and by the time the deadline passed, thirteen
companies had signed up!
Never afraid of a challenge, I embarked upon what I thought
would be a punishing schedule, but the truth is that I was energised by the
enthusiasm of each of the companies, their fantastic creations and ideas, their
plans, and in some cases their complete lack of a plan! Time just flew by, and
I am sure I could have squeezed in a few more one-to-ones had there been more
companies to see. I have worked before
with companies from the creative sector, and quickly learned that their passion
is in what they create, not in getting their products to market, understanding
international business, or even in basic business organisation.
There was a diverse group of companies: illustrators,
graphic designers, textile designers and manufacturers, photographers, writers,
a wholesaler, a soft toy manufacturer, an established Finnish fashion brand,
and a specialist manufacturer of electric bass guitars. All of them knew their
products intimately, and all had great stories to tell about how their product
or service was conceived. Like so many smaller businesses, they felt that they
were not receiving the professional help they needed to drive their companies
forward into international markets.
The real issue is that they were actually more interested in
creating products and ideas rather than in developing business. In most cases,
they wanted someone else to take the pain and hassle of getting their product
to market. In one case, it was suggested directly to me that I would become the
Sales Agent for a range of products, to which I suggested directly ‘No’, but it
was a good try and it highlighted exactly the deficiency of many similar
companies, in Finland, in the UK, worldwide. It’s one thing to create, it’s
quite another to sell.
Jakobstad is located in an area of western Finland where for
historic and general conquest reasons 90% of the population is Swedish, and the
vast majority of them have a very good command of English. There is a strong
awareness of international markets and a tradition in the area of selling
products overseas. Most of these younger companies are just putting their foot
on the first rung of the ladder, and they need the kind of handholding that
almost all companies need in their formative years.
I very was surprised that social media has not been embraced
in Finland as it has been back here in the UK, especially given the profile of
the companies who I was talking to. In isolation individual social media sites
are of little worth, but collectively they can act as different shop windows
for your products and services. You can use each social media to present your
products in a different way, to a different audience, and at a different time.
It is all about getting your marketing mix right and about you controlling your
online presence rather than it controlling you!
But most of all, why would you not want to use social media
to maximum effect when it is largely free? And why would you not want to use
social media when you can get your message across several times a day, while
spending only a few minutes doing it. Social media is an online trend, and we
have seen many of these trend come and go in the short time that the world has
had the Internet, so it is important to companies large and small to work with
the trends of the day and to anticipate those that are just around the corner.
And that was part of my message to the companies in Jakobstad.
I also helped to put them directly in contact with
specialists offering a mix of professional international services, from
intellectual property rights, currency exchange, customs & excise, to
financial and logistics services, and in most cases I was able to suggest key
target companies in the UK for their products, and provide guidance in how best
to approach the market. So now we await the arrival of some of those companies
in London during Design Week in September, to see how they have progressed and
what they have learned. And in the meanwhile I will enjoy communication with
every one of them, and to do my bit in helping them to realise their ambitions.
JOHN REED, EXPORTAID
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