If you want to:

• Increase sales and profits
• Balance growth
• Lower costs
• Minimize seasonal sales fluctuations
• Extend your product’s life-cycle
• Tap into previously unknown markets

You should consider selling your product or service outside the U.S. (in addition to your local, regional or U.S. markets).

Loudoun Economic Development wants to make it easy for you to learn how to export successfully. We’re teaming with George Mason University and the Virginia/D.C. District Export Council to offer a one-day Export University seminar on March 29. This seminar will help you:

• Increase your sales overseas by selling on “open-account terms.”
• Effectively exhibit at business-to-business trade shows – you’ll learn what to do before, during, and after the exhibit to maximize the return on your investment.
• Learn elements of a global market-entry strategy.
• Identify and prioritize foreign markets.
• Understand the resources available to you from state and federal governments and universities.
• Review export documentation requirements and how to work with freight forwarders.
• Understand the key legal aspects to doing business globally.

Did you know that Loudoun companies already do $1.9 billion in exports per year? That’s equal to 10 percent of Loudoun’s GDP. Our county has the highest per capita of exports in the D.C. metro area. When 95 percent of the buyers of American products live outside the U.S., it means that exporting your products overseas offers you a huge opportunity to gain new customers.

We have a solid team of exporting professionals lined up to speak to you on March 29. Please join us at the Mason Enterprise Center at 202 Church Street SE in Leesburg from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Breakfast and lunch are included in the event fee; please register early so we’ll have plenty of food for everyone.

In the meantime, feel free to contact me if you have questions about Loudoun companies that are already exporting successfully, or if you want to get connected to one of Loudoun’s 120 foreign-owned companies, or to find out about international business in general: 703-737-8954.