Successful Small Business Export Strategies: Eight-City Exports Live! Seminar Series Brings Together Small Businesses Thriving During Tough Economy
Washington, D.C. - A half-day interactive seminar series has been created by six federal agencies to demonstrate how local businesses can successfully leverage government export assistance to expand sales of U.S. goods and services in foreign markets and increase their bottom lines. The first seminar will kick off at New York City's Marriott Marquis hotel on Oct. 5, 2009. It will be followed by similar sessions in Boston (Oct. 6), Miami (Oct. 26), Houston (Oct. 27), Chicago (Nov. 10), Los Angeles (Nov. 16), Seattle (Nov. 17), and Detroit (Dec. 11).
The eight-city Exports Live!: Real Deals, Real Profits seminar series will review strategies and partnerships used by local small and medium-size businesses that have already discovered how to increase profitability through exporting.
In difficult economic times, it is even more important for American industry to take advantage of every opportunity for export-driven growth, said President Barack Obama.
Although 95 percent of the world's customers are located outside of the United States, the vast majority of American companies aren't currently accessing this global market because of perceived difficulties in successfully finding and financing foreign sales, said Fred P. Hochberg, chairman and president of the Export-Import Bank of the United States (Ex-Im Bank).
The seminars will feature presentations and Q & A sessions by successful small-business exporters that have benefitted from export services and solutions provided by federal, state and local trade organizations. Representatives of these organizations also will be on the program and available later in the day to offer one-on-one sessions.
Leading these seminars will be: Chairman and President of Ex-Im Bank Fred Hochberg; Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke; Ambassador Ron Kirk, U.S. Trade Representative; Small Business Administration Administrator Karen Mills; Leocadia Zak, acting director, U.S. Trade and Development Agency; and Dr Lawrence Spinelli, acting president, Overseas Private Investment Corporation.
For more information and to register for the nearest Exports Live! seminar, visit www.export.gov/exports_live/ or call toll-free 1-(888) 966-2009. Please note that space is limited.