Joining us today are Tony Sargis from the U.S. Department of Commerce, Joe Raycraft from the U.S. Small Business Administration's Office of International Trade, and Jay Charkow from International Tariff Management. I'd like to ask each of you to tell our listeners a little bit about the expertise that you are bringing to this conversation.
Tony Sargis is a senior international trade specialist with the U.S. Department of Commerce, U.S. Commercial Service out of Middletown, Connecticut. In this capacity, Tony works with small and medium sized companies to assist them in developing and achieving their export strategies. Tony assists clients with market research, export counseling, trade advocacy and business matchmaking.
Joe Raycraft is an export finance manager for the New England region with the U.S. Small Business Administration and is part of SBA's Office of International Trade.
As export Finance manager, Joe works to promote SBA's export loans through direct outreach to partner lender banks, small business Exporters and Exporter Research Partners. Joe has more than 25 years of private sector business experience, including international roles in the areas of manufacturing, commercial finance and banking.
Jay Charkow is the president of International Tariff Management and a frequent guest on our podcasts. Jay has been working with U.S. Customs for over 40 years
and is an expert in duty drawback services, classification, and free trade agreements.
We hope you will gain some valuable insight into the world of customs tariffs. With all the supply chain challenges the world is facing, our aim is to maximize your duty drawback dollars and boost your bottom line. We hope you'll subscribe to our podcast to stay current with each new episode in which will unveil numerous ways to improve your international trade profitability. Thanks for listening.
Joining us today are Tony Sargis from the U.S. Department of Commerce, Joe Raycraft from the U.S. Small Business Administration's Office of International Trade, and Jay Charkow from International Tariff Management. I'd like to ask each of you to tell our listeners a little bit about the expertise that you are bringing to this conversation.
Tony Sargis is a senior international trade specialist with the U.S. Department of Commerce, U.S. Commercial Service out of Middletown, Connecticut. In this capacity, Tony works with small and medium sized companies to assist them in developing and achieving their export strategies. Tony assists clients with market research, export counseling, trade advocacy and business matchmaking.
Joe Raycraft is an export finance manager for the New England region with the U.S. Small Business Administration and is part of SBA's Office of International Trade.
As export Finance manager, Joe works to promote SBA's export loans through direct outreach to partner lender banks, small business Exporters and Exporter Research Partners. Joe has more than 25 years of private sector business experience, including international roles in the areas of manufacturing, commercial finance and banking.
Jay Charkow is the president of International Tariff Management and a frequent guest on our podcasts. Jay has been working with U.S. Customs for over 40 years
and is an expert in duty drawback services, classification, and free trade agreements.
We hope you will gain some valuable insight into the world of customs tariffs. With all the supply chain challenges the world is facing, our aim is to maximize your duty drawback dollars and boost your bottom line. We hope you'll subscribe to our podcast to stay current with each new episode in which will unveil numerous ways to improve your international trade profitability. Thanks for listening.
Hello everyone, and welcome to our podcast. My name is Jill La Madeleine and We're fortunate today to have a tremendous panel with a vast amount of knowledge and experience in international trade export strategies and financial success. Joining us are Tony Sargis from the U.S. Department of Commerce, Joe Raycraft from the U.S. Small Business Administration's Office of International Trade, and Jay Charkow from International Tariff Management. Thank you all for being here today and welcome. Let me start by introducing you all to our audience. And then before we get into our discussion, I'd like to ask each of you to tell our listeners a little bit about your firm and the expertise that you are bringing to this conversation. Tony Sargis is a senior international trade specialist with the U.S. Department of Commerce, U.S. Commercial Service out of Middletown, Connecticut. In this capacity, he works with small and medium sized companies to assist them in developing and achieving their export strategies. Tony assists clients with market research, export counseling, trade advocacy and business matchmaking. Joe Raycraft is an export finance manager for the New England region with the U.S. Small Business Administration and is part of SBA's Office of International Trade. As export finance manager, Joe works to promote SBA's export loans through direct outreach to partner lender banks, small business exporters and export research partners. Joe has more than 25 years of private sector business experience, including international roles in the areas of manufacturing, commercial finance and banking. Jay Charkow is the president of International Tariff Management and a frequent guest on our podcasts. Jay has been working with U.S. Customs for over 40 years and is an expert in duty, drawback services, classification and free trade agreements. So now that I've taken up all this time, introducing everybody continuing in that order, Tony, can you please tell us about the Department of Commerce and the services that your group provides for companies that export? Absolutely. Thank you, Joe. Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be here with Jay and Joe on this podcast. Well, today's yeah, thank you for the introduction. The U.S. Department of Commerce is the export promotion arm of the U.S., the U.S. government. We assist U.S. workers with exporting their U.S. products and services around the world. Our organization has offices in over 70 countries globally and then for all areas of the world that we do not have our commerce office. We work with the State Department. Again, we're a world wide recognized organization and extremely results driven. We provide in-person counseling to companies and virtual counseling to help them grow overseas. Kind of our four pillars of our expertise and our services fall into the bucket of export counseling for helping companies learn about the export growth and develop an effective market entry and build strategy. Do a little bit on our Joel and on this but in the export documentation compliance world and providing some knowledge on that area of their business and then provide resources and export counseling referring them back by Bank or SBA or some local lenders in the region. The second bucket would be gathering market intelligence or helping companies conduct market research and then prioritize on top market as well as, you know, understanding their standard and regulation that are involved in the export of their product to a specific market. They need to have a, you know, maybe the CE mark or a CE mark for their product that would be exported around the world or additional standards and regulations that might affect the entry of their product to a foreign market. But the other one, you know, business matchmaking. So supporting U.S. companies in identifying prescreened potential partners, whether that be distributors, sales representative, agent, etc. informed market. And again we do that through our embassy and network overseas. And then the last one, John, is had a commercial commercial diplomacy, both supporting U.S. companies, addressing trade obstacles to help them succeed international market and then utilizing, if necessary, our trade advocacy program to support U.S. companies with foreign tenders. So those are the four bucket that I know we're going to get to a little bit deeper on some of the questions. You have to turn it back over to you, Joe. Great. Thanks, Tony. Now, Joe, can you please tell us about the SBA and the Office of International Trade? Absolutely. Thanks, Jill. Pleasure to be here. Yeah. SBA is Office of International Trade. We're a small but mighty organization. I think we number about 30 to 35 individuals. And in my role as export finance manager, there's another, you know, 21 or 22 export finance managers located throughout the country. So we have a nationwide group that covers all 50 states. And, you know, at the Office of International Trade, there's really three things that that we do to support exporters kind of following the buckets that Tony talked about. One is, is export counseling and and providing exporters with referrals to export or business partners such as the US Commerce Department, the Small Business Development centers, score advisors, even, you know, introductions to, you know, possibly to like attorneys or that type of thing for specific questions on regulatory issues and pre trade agreements or those types of things. Our second kind of focus is on providing grant funding to exporters, and we'll get into this a little bit more in the podcast. But there is something called the Step Grant program. It stands for State Trade Expansion Program and the SBA funds that on an annual basis, each state is awarded some money that they can provide grant funding directly to exporters to support, you know, various export related expenses. Just to give you an example, participation in the international trade show, the grant funding can be used to offset some of those costs. So really, you know, really nice program that that helps companies to, you know, gain some some grant funding to do some interesting things overseas. And our third kind of you know, bucket is really on the export financing side of things. So we can provide companies through their banks, we can provide them with specific export financing to support their growing international sales. And you know, the reason why that's important is because typically on a conventional basis, export financing is not really available on a conventional basis. So if a company needs to have some financing, maybe a line of credit to support existing interest, you know, international receivables, having an SBA guarantee in place, allow the lender to lend against some of those or in receivables. So there's a lot of benefits that our export loan programs provide. Exporters. As you know, we'll we'll talk more as we as we go through the we go through the podcast. Great. Thanks, Joe. I look forward to hearing more about that step grant funding. That sounds very interesting. Finally, let's pass it over to Jay and can you provide us with an overview of the services that ITM offers to companies that export? Thank you, Jill. We've been around, as you mentioned, for about 40 years and we help companies in three specific areas and we'll get into them in quite a bit more detail as we move along the podcast. But we help companies work with free trade agreements which are very, very important to exporters and especially companies that want to start to do exporting. We help people with the regulations and requirements needed to file the documentation on exports, such as Schedule B numbers and worrying about the CCN numbers. And we do a very strange thing which could really benefit exporters and that is provide duty drawback services, which in a nutshell is if you export things out of the country and that material that leaves the country has had imported material in it on which duty has been paid, one can recover the duties that you paid and the importation when you export it. And this can be very helpful to exporters that are getting started because it can give them the ability to be very competitive in the international marketplace with lower prices, to make them more successful in the endeavor of developing an export business. Great. Thank you so much. Well, we thank you all for being here today and each bringing a unique but cohesive perspective to the subject of exporting. So let's talk about why companies should consider exporting and how they can facilitate an international market. And I think the best place to start is how exporting can benefit a U.S. manufacturer or distributor. And I'll throw that question out to Joe. If you can address that one for us. Sure. Yeah. And I'm sure Tony and Joe probably have some comments as well. But, you know, I would just say, you know, you're tapping into a much larger market when you sell internationally, right? I mean, most customers are located outside the U.S. Most of the population is located outside the U.S. So there's a huge market for U.S. made products overseas. So really good opportunity for companies that have a product or service that is exportable. And so what I say is it's kind of a you know, it's a natural way to, you know, diversify your customer base, which is going to help, you know, hopefully grow the business and grow the sales and perhaps help maybe stabilize sales and, you know, maybe experience some seasonality in this market, maybe by being in other international markets, you can kind of flatten those those revenues out on a monthly basis. I think, you know, exporting companies, it's the it becomes kind of a more interesting place to work because of that international flavor. And I think that can lead to attracting more experienced employees, people that have foreign language skills and, you know, very interested in in the international market. And I guess, you know, that's been well, we'll get into the different programs that are out there, but there's so many programs that are out there to support exporters in so many tools that, you know, again, you've got that exportable product or service. It really there are tremendous benefits to for businesses to help grow those top line numbers. Joe, thank you. I'll I'll I went back there The you know, I'm looking at this quote from the office of the United States Trade rep. And I think this kind of thumbs up export. I'll read this briefly. It's small businesses are the backbone of the U.S. economy, creating two thirds of all new jobs in recent decades. Small businesses which export growth after add jobs faster and pay higher wages, accounting for 98% of all identified U.S. exports and supporting nearly 4 million jobs in communities across America through both direct and indirect export, though, and being in this job for obviously, while you're then seeing companies grow through exporting, we know that it's extremely valuable for for many reasons or for obviously the companies both supporting local communities and making that company more resilient to any potential economic downturn, just being diversified and other sales channel. So just kind of summed it up there with that that quote. So there certainly are a lot of benefits to introducing an international market. So what should a U.S. company know before they start selling internationally? I would say, you know, they really need to understand the market that they're looking to sell to, you know, including the the upside and also the downside risks. There is a lot of government resources out there that can help prepare a company to really do the research. You know, about the specific market or what market is is is best for your product or service. And, you know, and I think, you know, before all of that, you need to have kind of that company management and leadership commitment to the international market and to international expansion. It's not a part time gig, right? I mean, it takes a lot more time to close an international sale than a domestic sale. There's a lot more that's involved, including, you know, international documents you need to do. And it might be a letter of credit or payment. So there's a lot of other things going on. So, you know, from a profitability perspective, it may not be as profitable as your domestic business. It could be it could be more profitable, but you don't really know because, you know, there's a lot of other costs that you need to consider when doing business internationally. So, again, that commitment for management is key. And I think a company really needs to take the time to kind of understand some of these programs that are available through the U.S. Commerce and SBA and the U.S. Export-Import Bank and Small Business Development Centers, because they're available to to help with a variety of services. And for example, the small business development centers, they can they're instrumental in helping a company prepare an export business plan that will talk about what I would say is kind of the who, what, when, where, why of their export business. And, you know, how are they going to sell, Who are they selling to? Are they going to sell through distribution? Are they going to sell directly or through an agent? So a lot of a lot of research and work has to go into, you know, preparing for that that first international sale. And you know, focusing on a few specific international markets. I'll I'll stop there and I'll I'll certainly let you know. Tony and Jay rest their thoughts, too, then. Joe, I totally agree with everything you said. I think it's spot on and just, you know, having that plan in place and kind of thinking through what your strategy is developing in the export business and understanding your products. If you're looking at the big markets, understanding what what is it going to take to enter that market? Are there certain standard then? Right. You're going to have to meet, which is require some type of investment. And I think they even mentioned it earlier, could be things of, you know, duties and taxes that, you know, if you're exporting to a market and you're investigating prioritizing specific markets, what does that structure look like? So you need to know your death code, right? If you're looking at properties for, you know, market for free trade agreement, what does that look like for entering, you know, FDA markets rather than non FDA market, though, having a plan, building that plan out and executing that plan with your executive buying is 100% key. Yeah, I think it's extremely important to start off where you have the best opportunity to be successful. And as everybody pointed out, where the U.S. has free trade agreements with over 15 countries in the in the world, it would be a lot better to start with one of those because there's positive tariff implications on goods can move between the borders at a lower cost, which would make the exporter from the United States more competitive. And I would add just on this, the export business plan that Tony mentioned as well, you know, a lot of times we get overwhelmed with that term and we think we have to have a 50 or 100 page document when when I refer to an export business plan, and especially in this context, it's think of it as a road map. You know, what are the what are the key things that you need to accomplish in order to start selling international ideally. And and this can be just a few page document that you can revise over time as you as you learn and gain more experience. And that road map is going to develop into maybe an export business plan that you'll use later on when you approach your lender. So very key, you know, point is, is the planning aspect of it. And you know, the other thing I would mention is, again, with the U.S. Commerce and even with some of the accounting firms, there is country specific guides that you could obtain online that will give you a lot more detail about the countries, about the industries and, you know, how companies sell to those markets. So there's a lot of a lot of information out there that can help you kind of answer some of these questions as you're preparing that. So it sounds like once you get the commitment from your company and you start preparing to sell internationally, you you develop an export business plan. You look at countries that participate in free trade agreements. Are there other things that companies should do as they get started selling internationally that will set them up for success? Yeah, I think I think over this, Joe and with the Starwood that leaf and I think conducting market research and gathering market intelligence we talk building that plan, getting executive buy in and then starting the process of it, even a deeper dive and understanding the market that either priority market you're trying to enter. And one of the really good resources that we have is we have a tool called the Commerce Department, and we can share that like is the market diversification tool, which will can help you understand more detailed information, you know, plugging in your h.f. code, understanding duties and taxes for the market you're looking to enter. And that provides a lot of data to help us trade a data driven decision. Additionally, I'll mention that, you know, for the Commerce Department we have something called Country Commercial Guide with your document for, you know, most countries around the world where we kind of a deep dive in various aspects of that country. But they you know, you're looking at doing business in Colombia and you wanted to review the Colombian country commercial guide that typically comes out annually and that's really tried to touch on everything related to doing business in that market, whether it's, you know, import regulations on the documentation that's required, whether it's top markets for that, for that for that country. It's or, you know, if there's aerospace and defense opportunities, the energy opportunity is typically covered in great detail in those document, as well as even going down to, you know, travel information. If you're looking at Visa, then you need additional details on that. Both country commercial guide will go into detail on those things as well. And then utilizing obviously, you know, finally the resources of the Commerce Department conducting outreach to the embassy and consulate in the market that you're looking at doing better than and having off set up a conversation with them to talk about your product and service. You know, what your your value proposition is and then what are you what's your goal? Are you looking to identify a business? Are binary in that market or are you you know, sometimes companies come to us with a proposed distributor. They have a company in mind that they met maybe at a trade show and they want to do some betting on that entity and then we can assist with that as well. Sanjay, do you want to talk a little bit about the resources in terms of Schedule B numbers and the importance of properly classifying your goods that you're going to be exporting? Sure. The Schedule B number, which as you get involved in exporting, you will find out about is required for the proper classification of goods leaving the country. It's administered by the U.S. Census Bureau, and it's used to maintain statistics on what goods are leaving the country. The other issues involved are OECD numbers, and this is extremely important if you're going to export something because it's a number that's controlled by the export control classification number, which is very important because it is administered by the department and it requires that you control the trace of movement of goods used by military terrorists or proliferation applications, and you must be sure that you have the proper CCN number. Most things go out as is CCN 95, which is not required a license, but some things require a license. And if they do, you better have that license or you can be subject to some significant fines. So Tony and Jay have touched upon some of the resources. Are there any that you'd like to add, Joe, that are available through your group to U.S. exporters or potential exporters? No, I think they touched on them. Again. I think, you know, we're part of the call of the export ecosystem. So if you're talking to me or Tony or Jay and there's a question that comes up that, you know, maybe we can't specifically help you with, we're going to refer you to another, you know, company or agency that can they can address your specific question. So again, I just reiterate how much help is out there for exporters, how many resources there are. Most of them are free of charge. And for those that may have a cost, we do have an answer for that in our step grant program, because that can usually offset those costs as well. Okay. Thank you. I'll probably just mention one more note on the general report then. If you're going to take one thing away, I should three that, you know, as far as commerce goes, you know, matchmaking and not helping companies identify foreign partners, conducting, vetting, vetting on, you know, entities that you might be considering finding of a partner overseas that you might meet at a trade show or through email, etc., You know, you're working well to do that. And then I think finally in Joe Jay kind of mentioned this is, you know, training, right? Though conducting, we do a lot of export related training related to compliance is documentation financing, etc.. We bring in experts like Jay to talk in detail about a topic and help our exporters understand you know, some of the details oriented related to an export topic. So those are two. And then we try to do that as often as possible. You know, typically monthly, we're doing some type of training exercise and then every year in May, we do have a national initiative called Export Week where we'll run about, you know, 30 to 40 trainings in just that one week on all different aspects of exporting. So I think this is a good time for us to talk about the export process and what's involved specifically in regards to export documentation requirements. Import regulations of foreign markets. Jay, Why don't you tell us a little bit about what what's required for an exporter? Well, we've touched on it before, but basically an exporter has to adhere to the regulations created by the U.S. government. And that requires a schedule B number which defines what the product is. It's leaving the country. And as I mentioned before, A, B, C, C in number, which is involved for items that have to be looked at for military requirements. The country does not want goods leaving this country into foreign countries that might use them against us. The other thing that's important is free trade agreements. The free trade agreements are not simple to administer. There's a lot of regulations required in making sure that they're compliant. And one of the things are the rules of origin and the certificates of origin. For example, if you're going to ship to Canada, you need a certificate of origin showing that your goods are of U.S. origin. To prove to the Canadian government that they are entitled to the lower duty rates. So the things that must be followed are rules of origin for the goods going into these countries where we have a free trade agreement. And most people are familiar with MCI, which is the free trade agreement with Canada and Mexico that comes into play a lot. But there are 14 free trade agreements covering 20 different countries. So there's lots of opportunity out there to trade international with a country that participates in a free trade agreement. Yes, indeed. So let's speaking about the foreign countries and moving on to the next part of exporting. What is the best, most cost effective way to attract a foreign customer? And along those lines, what are the best foreign countries to target first, in addition to the free trade agreements, but the best, most cost effective way to attract foreign customers? I think I could touch on that initially. I think. You know, I would think about board business and obviously, you know, nowadays if you pretty much have to have a website, though, you have a web presence, Right. And you should be thinking about your Web presence as you're and we talked about when you're building this company initially, building your kind of initial Web browser, but making a global website from the beginning. So, you know, looking at your company's website that look like you're open for international business, so cost effective way of a foreign entity or customer doing research on some fire suppression product and they do a thorough search and they stumble upon your company. Does it look like your company is open for international business or do they look like you're just coming in a state or a region and you look at small things like Made in America, If you're product, you meet the Made in America requirement. You know, it's good to have that on your websites. You know, country dialing code, we see a lot of companies that will just have our area code here. They think so. And it shows a tick, though It doesn't show what one be tick, though. You know the address that's listed on your website, it might say, you know, I'm from East Berkshire, Connecticut, specifically to the East Hartford, Connecticut, United States. So details showing where you're located. If you have international distributors making a decision on if you want to list that information on your what buy, where you're doing business, who you're selling to, if it's not maybe the distributor directly, maybe a country that they're that distributor, then. And then I think to having, you know, a contact at your company for international inquiry that's available that folks can reach out to. I think number two, probably cost effective way to identify markets of interest in doing research is to do some online research on where your competitors are selling through the what market are they selling to and who are they selling through if if that information is available. So probably competitors you're looking at that and as well as some complementary products as well, is a good way to kind of do some cost effective research. Now, what are some of the those market through your product and other U.S. companies are selling into those foreign market distribution or reps better? If you can get some of that information that could be helpful for you to target the market. I mean, I know that's kind of the next question. But our thirdly, trade shows, you know, when we talk about cost effective, I know Joel mentioned that each grant if if you're eligible for the grants, there might be some funding available for you to be at a trade show where you can attract some foreign customers to your booth to meet with. And, you know, most trade shows nowadays that are even domestic are obviously overseas. They have an international presence and then, you know, I would say lastly, but obviously we talked about this, the Commerce Department is utilizing our services to help you identify partners overseas, whether that be distributor sales rep. VAJRA But I think we're looking at those for things. And then and then to your next question, was that the target market, you know, what are some of the target market? You know, I think you could look at them trade data, see where your products are being exported around the world, where they're being imported to look at where maybe some of your competitors are falling and who that might be. You know, good information as well as complementary products and then work with off to as you are every identify those priority market. Work with us there. Do some outreach to our embassies and consulates in those foreign markets to have a discussion on your objectives and and how we generally deal with it. But if it's a good market for your product or service. Great. Thanks, Tony. Yeah. So you had just mentioned it a few moments ago, and Joe has mentioned it to the step grant funding. But maybe, Joe, you could tell us more about what funds and or grants are available to help businesses get started and what those specific funds can be used for. Sure. As I mentioned before, the step grant, it stands for state trade expansion program in the almost every state has has a program. I know that, you know, we're all here in Connecticut, but if there are lists in areas that are in other states, you can certainly find out more on the space website about the step program and how it's being administered in your state. And that's you can go to S.p.a. slash International and you'll see some links there for the STEP program. But step is again, it's here in Connecticut, it's administered by the state. It's the Department of Economic and Community Development. And there is a pretty simple online application process for companies that are existing exporters or companies that, you know, have a plan to start exporting. I think in Connecticut, in every state, it's a little bit different in terms of the amounts that's available for grant funding. I mean, Connecticut, it's a reimbursable grant for up to 75%. And I think the total annual amount is about $10,000. So, you know, it's not a lot of money, but it's it's enough for, you know, a smaller company may, you know, be the difference maker between participating in international trade show or not. But besides. You know, participation in trade shows, it could be used for, you know, maybe some website work if you need to do some translation or website optimization and localization where it's helping you to sell more internationally. Those types of expenses are eligible if you need some sort of like product compliance testing and the STEP program can be used for that as well as any of the services provided by the U.S. Commerce Department. You know, research reports. Really, again, any and it's a pretty exhaustive list, but I tell companies, even if it's you can review the application guidelines and you don't see a specific use of proceeds of the grant funding, but you feel it's specific export related costs that would be helpful to you in in approaching and expanding in international markets. And you should kind of write it up and make a case that you should, you know, that it should qualify for the grant funding. So just because it's not on the list doesn't mean it doesn't qualify. So you you have the ability to be creative as well. Great. Thanks, Joe. I'm going to ask Jay just for a few minutes to talk about an incentive for companies to export specifically if they import import duty on components that go into the product that they export or the product that they're exporting. If you could speak to that briefly. Yes, I can, Jill, thank you. There's a law that was put on the books back in the 1700s. That's a long time ago. And it's the duty drawback regulations. It was 1789. And why that law was put on the books was to help U.S. companies export into the world. And that's what we're talking about here. It applies to avoiding the cost of duties on raw materials that you might use in your manufacturing process that you pay when the goods are exported. And it gives you a tremendous incentive. For example, if your company is buying something from China with the three or one tariffs on them, and these tariffs are 25%, if you pay something for $10, you're paying two and a half dollars in duty on those items coming into the United States. And if those items get exported, you can get back 99% of all of the duties that you pay on your importation. And the interesting thing about this over the years that we've been working in this marketplace is that you need not be the direct importer. You can buy a raw material from someone domestically, and that person could have been the importer of the raw material. And you can still benefit and enjoy the recovery of the duties. So the point being here, Jill, is that it's an incentive to export if there is imported material that you use in your manufacturing process. It's also allowable if you don't do any manufacturing, if you just import a pen, for example, and pay a duty on it and that pen gets exported, you can get back the duties that you paid. So it's an incentive to export if you have duties paid and any raw materials that you use in your manufacturing process. Perfect. Thank you. So we've talked so much about the benefits to U.S. companies becoming exporters, expanding their business, creating U.S. jobs, participating in a drawback program. There's so much support when you're contemplating putting together an international market. There's so much support available. It's such an exciting opportunity as we as we finish up our discussion today, I am going to ask each of you to let me know or let our listeners know what you think the most important consideration an companies should make when they're expanding their sales market and what they should pay the most attention to when they're embarking on this type of opportunity. And Joe, if you want to go first, I'll I'll pick on you first. Sounds good. Yeah. Again, from the banker in the room, I'm going to focus on kind of the the cash flow of any any expansion, whether it be domestic or international expansion, any expansion is going to have a cash flow impact. So it really has to be again, in that in that plan, it's got to be well thought out as you don't want to put too much financial pressure on the existing business in order to fund the expansion. So again, with that plan, in that game plan that you can't come up with or we're exporting now, you want to determine what are if there are financing needs, what are they? So if you are, again, selling a product or service and you're expanding, you're going to have additional sales, incremental sales internationally, what does that mean for cash flow? Does that mean you need a larger line of credit or do you need a specific line of credit to support your export sales? So depends on on how you're selling. If if you're a company that a lot of manufacturers sell based on purchase orders, so maybe you receive a large purchase order, you need to be prepared to be able to fund that large purchase order. This is again, this is incremental business to the company. So you've already got your working capital needs for the domestic part. Now you have these additional working capital needs for international. So just to be prepared, you know, for that financial daily and a lot of times it's it's simply an additional export working capital and a credit or it could be some additional term financing where the company because of its expansion and maybe it's expanded the company is expanding both internationally, but it's also growing domestically. The company may require some fixed assets. They need new machines. They need fixed assets to be able to increase their overall capacity. And so from an SBA perspective on a lending perspective, we can help your lender provide both term financing in that short, short term working capital financing that might be necessary. And in the expansion. And and I guess the other kind of touched on it, but very important to, you know, determine what your payment terms are going to be with your international customers, whether you're selling directly to the customer or you're selling through distribution. But are you going to offer net 30 or net 60 day terms and you're going to require an upfront payment and you could require 100% prepayment. Are you going to get a letter of credit? So these are things that you really need to understand and including your plan, because these are the questions your banker is going to ask you when you're looking for that line of credit, because they want to understand the nature of the business and how that cash flow works. So that's that's a really kind of would be my consideration for when expanding overseas. What about you, Tony? What do you what do you think's the most important piece? Yeah I Aug about Joe covered. I think obviously the financial aspects of it is super important because at the end of the day, if that doesn't make that through your company, then at the pass kind of pill to swallow. But I mean, I look at the commitment in general from our side and the companies that are deciding to, you know, if they might already be exporting to a couple of markets or they might be due to export. And are they committed to that market expansion? Do they understand, you know, short term, medium term and long term what they're going to have to do to meet those objectives for their, you know, the local customers and serve them here domestically? And then obviously overseas. And and obviously, all of those factors are important, though, being committed to it. Don't overextend yourself and overextend yourself with the resource that you currently have at your company because it's going to pick up time and energy. And I think for small companies, small to medium sized companies especially, which, you know, we heavily work with, they only have so many they own with that they only have so much time in a day, though, and they only have so many resources, both financial and, you know, labor available to, you know, of their domestic and hopefully some overseas customers. And I think your overseas customer the bringing to expect that commitment as well if you're distributors everything that you're thumbing through, you know that short, medium and long term commitment and being able to continually service those orders that come in with that additional expansion. So commitment would be the number one thing for me. The only thing I would add is that for a company, it's a great way to extend the life of a product. Your product might have run its course in the United States and there might be a whole new opportunity internationally. And the other thing you can do is can avoid market swings. If the U.S. economy is down, the economy in Europe might be booming. And it gives you an opportunity to enjoy a better cash flow situation, as both Joe and Tony mentioned, when the market in the United States is not doing too well. So I think the over overwhelming theme we've we've covered here is to be prepared to do proper planning and most importantly, use the resources that are available. Tony has told us about what the U.S. Department of Commerce has to offer. Joe has talked about the Office of International Trade and their support, and Jay has talked about the supports that international tariff management can provide. I have found this a very interesting conversation. I thank the three of you for joining us today. I hope that our listeners have learned something as well and perhaps we can participate in another conversation sometime in the future. So thank you all very much for being with us today. Thank you, Joe. Thanks, Joe. Thank you, Joe.