Cracking the Global Market. - book reviews

Nation's Business, Feb, 1988 by Steven Golob

Exporting By The Book Export Sales and Marketing Manual Exportise No. 2 Cracking the Global Market

Read a book, become an exporter. It's not that easy, of course. But if you are about to venture into foreign markets or you've just recently reached them, you might boost your confidence and your profits by tapping the expertise contained in various publications--particularly three new books--written to help business people succeed at exporting.

Several books and booklets on the subject--many from accounting firms promoting their services--deserve attention, particularly if you already have some experience as an exporter.

If you are a novice, you may save time and money in your exporting efforts by examining the three new books--a how-to workbook, a reference book and a reminiscence.

The Export Sales and Marketing Manual is a how-to book by John R. Jagoe, an export-marketing consultant in Minneapolis who specializes in small and midsized businesses. His step-by-step workbook has 320 pages in a three-ring binder and costs $295. There will be quarterly updates, each 20 to 50 pages, for $200 a year, or $350 for two years. To order, call Export USA Publications, (612) 893-0624.

If you want to see the book before buying it, you can examine it at some Commerce Department district offices or at the world trade centers in New York, Atlanta, Baltimore, New Orleans and Milwaukee. It soon may be available at libraries.

The manual's 15 chapters include "Pricing Your Products for Export" and "Budgeting for Export," which provide extensive treatments of these highly complicated areas. Both begin with simple statements that nonetheless may be surprising.

"You can charge lower prices in foreign markets than in the United States, and earn a higher after-tax profit," opens the chapter on pricing.

The chapter on budgeting begins: "Do not plan to earn a profit in the first year of exporting." That is obvious to some, surprising to others. The chapter continues with five-year plans for becoming profitable and increasing profit-ability.

Addressing the subject differently, John C. Rennie has done an exporter's reference book called Exportise No. 2 for the Small Business Foundation of America [to order, call (617) 350-5096]. The $29.50 book is a revision and expansion of the original, published four years ago.

Rennie is president of the Bostonbased foundation, a board member of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and head of Pacer Systems, in Billerica, Mass. Pacer is an aerospace company that provides technical services and products for program managers developing large military systems.

"Some how-to books go on for page after page on how to fill out a customs declaration or an export-license form," Rennie says. "We tell the small-business executive you have no business filling out those things. There are people who make a living doing that. They do it right, and they don't cost very much." Exportise No. 2 explains what they do and shows where to find them.

While Jagoe's how-to manual is so-phisticated, offering far more than simple instructions on filling out forms, Rennie's 255-page reference book, at one-tenth the price, would be sufficient for most first-time exporters.

Cracking the Global Market [17.95; available from Amacom, a division of the American Management Association, (212) 586-8100] is subtitled How To Do Business Around the Corner and Around the World.

Writing in a friendly, first-person style, author Jack Nadel of Los Angeles tells how he has done business around the corner and around the world for the past 40 years.

He relates efforts that soured, and he offers tips for success. For example, use high-quality stationery, he says, because it may be the only tangible impression you make on people overseas.

And he tells stories, including some chestnuts that may be good for your company's next sales meeting.

Nadel has been involved in just about every phase of international business, and has made a good living at it. His exports have been mostly disposable items sold to companies for use as promotions. His book--less of a "how-to" than its subtitle might suggest--is marred in spots with prejudice and preaching. Yet a rookie exporter can learn a lot from this wily veteran.

Good sources of information abound in addition to the three publications mentioned above. Many pamphlets and books are available free or at nominal cost from accounting firms. Following are some of the publications in the international area:

Foreign Exchange Information: A Worldwide Summary and Doing Business in Germany, two booklets in Price Waterhouse's series of more than 70, were updated recently and are free at Price Waterhouse's 113 U.S. offices.

A Survey of State Development Authorities: Concerns of Small to Mid-Size Businesses Wishing to Go International. For $2, Arthur Young (202/956-6154) will send you the results, due out this month, of their survey. For $6, you can get An International Overview of Tax Rates, Tax Incentives, Government Grants and Loan Programs in Selected Countries.