Top gun recruited for crucial foreign campaign
9 January 2013
Chamber International has strengthened its team of associates as it helps spearhead Yorkshire’s biggest export drive for a generation.
The organisation has appointed talented export strategist and sales professional Neil Park to head up its export development service and persuade more firms to sell their goods and services overseas.
Chamber International has teamed up with the Leeds City Region Local Economic Partnership and UK Trade & Investment to deliver an element of the “We Are International” campaign.
This key part of the initiative is the formation of the 'Export Network', a seasoned team of highly-experienced Export Champions and Ambassadors, who will mentor and offer practical, hands-on advice to novice or inexperienced exporters in a bid to add £2.6 billion to Yorkshire’s coffers.
Launched late last year by UK Trade & Investment Chief Executive Nick Baird, the campaign will centre on dramatically increasing Yorkshire’s export sales to counteract a sluggish market at home. Despite its distinguished manufacturing pedigree, currently only seven per cent sell abroad.
Many businesses are deterred from exporting for many reasons – cost, logistics, paperwork and difficulties in finding overseas customers.
Well-travelled Neil has a distinguished career in export sales having worked for two large manufacturers in the automotive industry for the past 17 years, seeing year on year increases in sales, margin and market share.
Since 2011 he has run his own company developing international sales for a number of manufacturers keen to develop a business presence outside their own domestic markets.
He has taught the Institute of Export Advanced Diploma Course, responsible for “Physical Distribution”, “International Marketing and Sales” and also “International Commercial Law”.
Neil uses a practical and hands-on approach to assist would-be exporters or those firms with limited experience to export their way to growth. He does this by reviewing and revising their export strategy, looking at areas such as pricing, marketing, the power of branding and finding the right route to market. He has adopted what he calls the “Take 5” approach.
“It occurs to me that one of the biggest hang-ups for companies is knowing how to respond when they receive an international enquiry,” he explains. “My idea is to develop a plan that I can work on with companies to ensure that they have the knowledge and the tools around them to be able to respond to any international enquiry within five minutes.
“It’s about building knowledge and tools that are at hand and give you the chance to get the conversation going with confidence. I believe that if you give people the confidence to respond, half the battle is won.
“Working through a check list, we can make sure that most questions can be answered with a click or two of the mouse, pulling the information from the materials that we can create.”
At the heart of Neil’s approach is not only dispelling myths that exporting is too complex or expensive but finding new overseas customers for businesses.
“In just fifteen minutes with one firm I was able to find them a potential audience of 131,000 customers via global sales and marketing networks at no extra cost,” he adds.
“Also when you look at businesses’ websites often they’re not ‘exportified’ enough. The trick is letting the potential customers know that you are international with global ambitions.”
He also helps firms minimise costs. When one business asked for help with an international distribution agreement, he was able to put a bespoke document together for a fraction of the legal costs that they would have incurred.
The first meeting of the new 'Export Network' will take place on 12 March 2013 at DLA, Leeds. Email info@chamber-international.com or call 0845 034 7200 to attend.
