Industrial Revolution in the news!

Usually I get to tell you about the latest ice cream ball article. For a change, here's an article about us and our company instead of our products. It's from a small local paper called the Renton Reporter.

Program helps small businesses become exporters

By DONALD J. WARD, Staff writer September 06, 2005

Exporting is one of the keys to economic growth in the Puget Sound region. Although much of this weight rests on the broad shoulders of international corporations like The Boeing Co., Microsoft Corp. and Weyerhaeuser Co., the King County Office of Business Relations and Economic Development has implemented a program to help stimulate export capacity from small to midsize local businesses and to develop a market for their products overseas.

The Export Mentor Program is in its second year of operation. The heart of the program is its pairing of mentors, oftentimes a trade-savvy member of a large local corporation with a small- to medium-sized firm that is just getting its feet wet in the world of international markets.
So far, many of the results have been promising. Several local businesses and manufacturers have signed up for the program in hopes of expanding their business to meet foreign demand.
"We're looking forward to benefiting from it a lot," said Steven Llorente, director of sales and marketing for Redmond-based Industrial Revolution Inc. The company manufactures camping products and employs nine workers.
The company had exported products in small quantities in the past, but it was done almost by happenstance, and there was no real plan.
After signing up with the mentorship program, Industrial Revolution has forged business relationships that often would not have been possible. Llorente's business was paired with Andreas Udbye, the director of the World Trade Center in Tacoma.
"This is pretty high-powered help. A small company like ours would have trouble arranging that on our own," Llorente said.
A company that has already had success has been Orca Pacific. The SeaTac business specializes in water-treatment chemicals. The need to learn how to develop a feasible export plan arose after a bad experience shipping its product to Poland.
"Everything that could have gone wrong, did," said Aaron Kimura, company vice president. After experiencing difficulties with customs, language and setting up methods of payment, Kimura, who co-owns the business with his father, said that they needed get educated in a hurry.
During King County's first Export Mentor symposium in 2004, Kimura was teamed up with an overseas trade expert from Weyerhaeuser, Jennifer Spatz of Kent.
"From a mentor's perspective, it was very interesting," Spatz said. "I wanted to go through the exercise of helping a small company write a marketing plan."
She added that many small companies are initially unaware of the questions that must be answered when it comes to exporting: How do you ship a product? What will the packaging look like? Will the brand name conflict with the local culture?
Through the program, problems that seemed insurmountable before were instantly addressed. Sometimes a solution was as simple as learning how to read a credit application or learning how to evaluate risks and potential profit margins.
"The two-hour commitment was the best investment we have ever made," Kimura said.
Orca Pacific's initial business plan was to ship water-treatment and purification chemicals to China. That strategy was modified when it was soon realized that the company was unable to compete with China's domestic chemical producers that were already in place. With the guidance of Spatz, Kimura said that they were able to find a market for one of his company's secondary products, a specialty shampoo that's in great demand in Asian markets.
The company's exports have grown from nothing to $500,000 last year, and it's continuing to expand.
Kimura, who spoke with small-business owners taking part in the 2005 mentor program, said that even though he has had success, companies still need to do a lot of leg-work to realize the program's full benefit.
"Whatever you put into it is what you will get out," Kimura said. "They won't do the work for you, but the resources are available if you choose to go ahead."
Spatz, too, got something out of the program. She and her husband own their own business in Kent, International Credit Assistance Inc. The experience of serving as a mentor for Orca Pacific has paid dividends for her business-consulting firm.
Funding for the program has come in part from a grant by the U.S. Economic Development Administration and by the Port of Seattle and Davis Wright Tremaine.
* For information on the King County Export Mentor Program, visit www.metrokc.gov/exec/bred/ed/export/exportmentor.htm.