New help for selling abroad - Behrs International provides information to businesswomen

Nation's Business, July, 1991 by Sharon Nelton

Are you interested in exporting your products and services but unsure how to go about it? To help American women entrepreneurs do business overseas, five Washington women business owners, all with international experience, have formed a company called BEHRS International. The coalition's name is taken from the last initials of its founders:

Katherine M. Bulow is a former assistant secretary of commerce and a former deputy administrator of the Small Business Administration. She is president of The Bulow Group, which helps small and midsized businesses develop export markets.

Nancy Ellis is president of Kinsman Associates, Inc., an international business and energy consulting firm. She is a former assistant to the administrator of the Agency for International Development.

Barbara Hayward is president of Hayward Loach International, which provides Washington representation and public-relations services to international companies and organizations. Hayward is also vice chairman of Republicans Abroad, an organization of Republican Party members in 70 countries overseas.

Gillian Rudd, former president of the National Association of Women Business Owners, is president of The Rudd Co., a marketing and management consulting firm. She also is international vice president of an international organization of women entrepreneurs, Les Femmes Chefs D'Entreprises Mondiales.

Nancy Harvey Steorts, former chairman of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, is president of Nancy Harvey Steorts International, a management consulting firm.

BEHRS offers three levels of services:

* For $250, you can be entered in its database for a year and receive information on international opportunities tailored to your business. Initiating contacts abroad and other subsequent steps are up to you.

* For $5,000 a year, you can become part of a consortium in your service or product line--health equipment, for example. BEHRS will identify opportunities for your group, represent it at trade fairs, assist in obtaining financing, and provide other services.

* For $25,000, you can hire BEHRS exclusively for all these services, including sewing up complete deals, for a year.

The company also expects to offer seminars, conferences, and other educational services and hopes to help women entrepreneurs obtain subcontracts with larger corporations.

BEHRS' first initiative has been a program called Women Organized for the Reconstruction of Kuwait, or WORK. Through the program, BEHRS is seeking to ensure that women-owned U.S. businesses have access to the millions of dollars in contracts negotiated to rebuild Kuwait.

Gutted houses in Kuwait need to be refurbished, and there is a need for consumer products, health-care products, and education and training, Bulow says. "Those are areas where American women entrepreneurs are fairly skilled."

But Kuwait, says Rudd, is just the "carrot that will pull [women] into the international marketplace." She and her partners contend there are opportunities for women business owners throughout the Persian Gulf region, in southeast Asia, and in other parts of the world.

"Women have some special talents going into the international marketplace," Rudd adds. "They're quieter sellers, on the whole. They listen and sell. ... It works extremely well in the Japanese culture, and I think it works very well in other cultures, too."

Rudd says women business owners are seriously interested in getting involved in overseas business, "but most of them are very nervous about doing it because they haven't had the opportunities that other businesses may have had, and we want to provide them with that opportunity."

The BEHRS Group principals say they will also be able to help women entrepreneurs identify barter opportunities and overcome currency exchange problems.

They also expect to assist women in the importing of goods and services. "I see a lot of two-way business coming out of this," says Rudd.

For more information, contact BEHRS International at 1155 Connecticut Ave., N.W., Suite 601, Washington, D.C. 20036; (202) 862-3954.