MAKING THE MOST OF YOUR 1:1 MEETING

Plan your time well

It should only take about 10 minutes to brief the trade officer about your company, its

products/services and your current plans in the context of exporting to the country in question.

Remember, the primary role of the trade officer is to determine (in just 20 minutes) how best

they can help you to establish your business and find channel partners and customers.

The trade officer will usually be interested to know about the following topics, so when

preparing for your ExploreExport meetings, you may find it useful to think about answers to the

following questions.

NB there’s no right or wrong answer to any of the following questions!

Choice of market

- Why it is that you are interested in the particular country in general terms?

- What is it about the country that appeals to you?

- What is your draft business case? Importantly, what challenges or even obstacles have

you identified (and which your trade officer can help you to overcome)?

Past experience

- Do you have any prior experience of doing business in the country in question?

- Do you have any experience of exporting to other countries? If so, which countries?

Are they similar in terms of their respective markets?

Timelines

- What are your time scales? Months or years ahead?

- Is your interest driven by time-critical demands? If so, what are they?

Business model

- What is your proposed business model?

- Do you want to (or even need to) set up a subsidiary company in the country in

question?

- Are you thinking of “partnering” with a local company, perhaps under a distribution

/ representation / agency / franchise arrangement?

- Do you need your trade officer to try to identify potential partners for you?

Competition

- Do you know who might be your competitors? Your trade officer can help with that task

as well.

Government assistance

- Do you know about the availability of government grants or subsidies? Locally and/or

from the UK government.

Intellectual Property

- What steps have you taken (where relevant) to protect your intellectual property in the

country in question?

- What steps have you taken to find out if there might be a conflict with prior IP rights

owned by a company in that country?

- IP conflicts are possibly the least understood of the potential problems that can be

encountered by exporters. As always though – forewarned is forearmed.

Staff and operations

- Is it likely that you will need to employ local staff? Employment laws and regulations

differ markedly from country-to-country.

- Do you intend to send people on secondment (or even permanently) to the country?

- Remember: that working visas can sometimes take a while to be issued by many

countries and eligibility requirements need to be investigated. - Do you need to lease office space or factory/warehouse space? If so, where are you in

terms of your investigations in relation to site locality, availability and cost?

Your trade officer can help with that task.

Next steps

What would you like your trade officer to do for you in the short/medium term? i.e. how can

he/she help you during your 20 minute 121 meeting?

Generally speaking, you need to leave about 7 - 8 minutes for your trade officer to ask further

relevant questions and to explain what it is that he or she thinks that they can do to help you, so

please make sure you allow your trade officer sufficient time.

And finally…

Your trade officer will be able to discuss these issues with you and/or introduce you to an

appropriate local professional adviser as required (if that would be helpful).

NB not knowing the answers to any (or all) of these questions is certainly not a reason not to

attend ExploreExport. Quite the opposite - it’s the perfect reason to attend!