EXPORT EXPLORATION
Town hall-style meetings to be held across Cape Breton over four-week period this fall
Cape Breton Partnership holding town hall-style meetings to explore export market opportunities.
A two-year pilot program aimed at encouraging small and medium-sized businesses to enter the export market will see 11 town hall-style events held on the topic across Cape Breton this fall.
The Cape Breton Partnership initiative received $135,326 in federal government funding in June to identify and assist businesses across the island interested in exporting their products or services outside the province.
The sessions for the Think Export N.O.W. (Navigating Opportunities Worldwide) Export Growth Service beginning Sept. 18 in Ingonish will give businesspeople a chance to “explore the opportunities of exporting,” that they may not have considered, said Cape Breton Partnership president and CEO Carla Arsenault.
“These town halls will ensure companies will become informed about export opportunities, become knowledgeable of export or web delivered training, and become aware of financial supports capable of assisting in exporting,” she said in a release.
The Cape Breton Partnership has hired an intern to create a database listing the companies currently exporting and those businesses potentially willing to explore the possibility.
A development team of five agencies – Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, Nova Scotia Business Inc., Business Development Bank of Canada, the Nova Scotia Community College and the Cape Breton Partnership – will have staff work “very closely” with each business, Arsenault has said.
Osborne Burke, general manager of Victoria Co-operative Fisheries Ltd., which is based in Neils Harbour, said it takes a lot of networking, persistence and familiarity to form relationships even before signing the first contract with a customer.
Currently in China attending seafood trade shows, Burke said meeting face-to-face is an important facet to building up trust and a rapport with a prospective client.
“It’s a lot of hard work standing around at trade shows, shaking hands, handing out information and brochures, talking and networking,” he said on Tuesday.
“One contact leads to another and somebody who has had a good experience with our product will speak to another as well. The best advertisement you can get sometimes is when customers get your product, they’re
very pleased with it and tell their counterparts in the industry as well.”
Burke said in some cases a customer isn’t satisfied or doesn’t want your “standard product,” and instead is looking for a change to the product or a value-added option, making it more valuable to the distribution chain.
“In some cases, you may need to change your packaging size. It may not be what they’re used to. You may have to change the form of the product because they don’t necessarily want it in the form you’ve been selling to someone else. You’ve got to know your market,” he said.
“For new exporters, there’s programs available that get them to trade shows and have them walk the trade shows, to see what’s out there and really do some research on the market they want to break into … and it all takes time.”