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Bill : Hi and welcome to soft land central the hub of market entry knowledge and information so it’s a real great day here we’ve got some folks from the metro Atlanta chamber we have John and Michael who are here to tell us a little bit about both what’s going on at the Metro Atlanta chamber, they are totally focused on working with internationalizing companies so either companies that are offshore coming into Atlanta, and Georgia or companies that are going out, and so they’ve got a lot of great activities going on welcome John and Michael.
John : Thank you. See here.
Bill : Fantastic. Well, do you have John you want to kick off and just tell us a little bit about yourself and a little bit about the Metro Atlanta chamber and your activities.
John : Well sure it’s great to be here against DC bill and appreciate your having our team on our global commerce team Michael my colleague here. I’m John Woodward. I’m vice president of global commerce at the Metro Atlanta chamber. The Metro Atlanta chamber is actually one of the oldest chambers of commerce in the US over 160 years old, started before the US Civil War. And it is the Chamber of Commerce for the Metropolitan Atlanta region which is 29 counties about 23,000 square kilometers and 6 million plus inhabitants. Our team we are the international division or the international team within the Economic Development Division, which has three. Three groups here our group, the project management team, which of course, manages the project as the name would imply, and our ecosystem specialists team, which has, on which we have staff, a specialist staff experts in certain ecosystems that are objectively strong here in metro Atlanta and so their job is to dive into those into those ecosystems for Michael and me, we’re more than generalists. Our specialty comes whenever it’s cross border, and as you as you mentioned in your opening cross border course is a two way street which is just a critical understanding of that so it could be inbound FDI foreign direct investment could be outbound, that is working with our companies in this 29 county region that are considering expanding overseas or investing overseas.
Bill : Fantastic. And John your role specifically if you want to just share, you know what you’re particularly focused on.
John : Well, my, my role. I mean I kind of do a little bit of both dabble in both. I started off on the inbound side, the FDI side. I was director of foreign investment for a VP at the team and actually my background is in economic development. I’ve been here for, gosh, almost 15 years but before that I was director of economic development in the city of Richmond, Virginia, heading at the agency there and actually prior to that though I was in the private sector side and commercial real estate with Cushman and Wakefield. In New York, and even going back further, that was in foreign exchange and FX Trader. That was a while back that was before the euro, so we were doing pesetas and Dutch guilders and French francs are interesting but the point is there’s that whole international aspect to it throughout so, so my, my role is working with our economic development team, both here in the chamber and with our partners, which is a critical element to to mention so again we are the Regional Chamber for the for the metropolitan area of Atlanta, but of course within that area there many local governments many local NGOs, economic development organizations, all of whom we work with, and we were also worked with the state, state of Georgia, economic development shop, which has a lot of great professionals there and so we all work together as a team, both internally and with them. And the idea is to present a seamless team, a seamless organization for any sort of prospect that might be there, they don’t have to sift through so that’s a lot of what, what I do there and I’ll let Michael go on his side.
Bill : Yeah, well that’s great, Michael, do you want to share a little bit about your specific focus.
Michael : Yeah, absolutely. So, as John mentioned I’m on his team with the global commerce team and I’m the director for global business development so I work also on the in and outbound side but historically when I actually started at the Chamber I was more focused on the trade side and I’m still covering a lot of that. So helping companies in this whole process of internationalization when it comes to exports and as John mentioned, we do that in collaboration with all of our partners at the state level regional level, the federal government with the US Commercial Service here. So, yeah that’s kind of to focus. I also work on FDI, but kind of split it up a little bit, and, yeah, excited to be here.
Bill : Oh, that’s great, well that’s cool and you know I have to say just, you know, we’ve gotten to know each other over the last year or a couple of years and I just, so enjoy the way that you all work in a partner, partnering attitude that, that you have, I had the pleasure of meeting some of the companies that you’ve worked with and just the stories they tell about, about your work and your service and just the connections you can help them make, it’s really inspiring so I have tip to you. Yeah, so I know you’re, you’re bi directional, and so maybe we could hop into the, into the attraction and FDI side first and talk a little bit about what you do there. So, you know, we’re in that case we’re talking about companies interested in coming into Atlanta and into Georgia, what are some of the things that You would help a company do in that regard.
John : Well I’ll I’ll jump in and where I miss Michael can chime in as well, but you mentioned a lot of it there bill is that is the connections when companies are coming in, especially as an SME small medium enterprise, Michi stand in German PMO in French. But if it’s a small medium enterprise, you know, they don’t, they don’t have those connections they don’t have those a big multinational, of course will have a larger network. But those SMEs, oftentimes do not, and so a lot of fundamental aspect of any economic development organization is to facilitate those connections that are valuable, not superfluous but ones that actually move a project or move an objective forward. It’s, it’s, I think it’s boring to note on a basic level that you know when companies are coming in again I’m talking really about the SMEs, or some multinationals but when companies are coming into the US market which is still the largest consumer market in the world it’s still an attractive market, but it can be very scary for those coming in, it’s a huge United States as many times over larger than most all countries you deal with. And when they’re coming in they’re usually coming in for one of two reasons. They either already have a client or customer base that’s here in the US, They’re already servicing from their from their home country, and have been doing so but to grow that business or even to continue that business that customer base or that client here saying well you need a presence here in the US, to maintain this this business relationship and to continue this or to grow this. So in that case is being driven by business already in place and they’re looking to solidify it and expand it. The other one of the two the other main reason that principal reason that a country, a company would come in to the US is simply they built a better mousetrap. They’ve, as we say they’ve got something that, that is better than what’s out there now or they think it’s better than what’s out there now, and, and as I mentioned, it’s still the world’s largest consumer market of the large economy going back and forth with China, but it’s still a tremendous place to enter and if you have that better mousetrap or you think you have that better mousetrap. The potential for coming into the US is enormous. So, one of those two things are what’s driving us market entry in almost all the cases of companies coming in. However, Both of those have different approaches to coming in the former category. If you already have that customer base or that client base. You’ve already got some sort of foundation for entering the US market, you’ve got some sort of path, some sort of deliverables, or certainly parameters that are going to guide your US market entry process and where you locate on the second one, the latter one the better mousetrap one, you know, that’s a matter of where can I do the best with my better mousetrap, and that’s where the economics play in though the various variables the indicators, what will be most beneficial to that company coming on in and, and of course those are what economic developers love to work with because our profession loves to market our respective regions and, and, and speak the benefits of those so those are the two primary categories of companies coming in for US market entry. And then in our case I mentioned, we will work on the connections. We, we are of the opinion that there’s a fundamentally sound business case for Metro Atlanta, and I won’t go into all of that now but, but we will present that business case again we bring in those partners I mentioned, not just on the local and the state level, but the, the academic partners. Atlanta has a tremendous university system, some 300,000 college students every year.
And on a business level. And that’s a significant thing that our particular shop Michaels in my shop can bring into the equation, being the Metro Atlanta chamber. Unlike a lot of Ed O’s economic development organizations in the US, they’re often structured as public private partnerships, if they’re not a direct government agency, state agency or local agency, then if it’s a Regional Marketing Group, which, which we are effectively. They’re often structured as public private partnerships the Metro Atlanta chamber is unique in that we are entirely private by choice. And so we are effectively the business voice of the metro region, again, been around since. 1859. And so because of that are our board of directors. Our Chairperson, are all the top echelons of the major companies in this region and there are some, some major multinational companies based here. And so we can bring in that specifically private sector, focus, and those connections which are so important. When a company’s coming in, you know, they’re looking to do business. And so those business connections are critical. That’s a lot of what our, our department, our division brings to the equation. And I mentioned earlier, the ecosystem specialists. Their job really is to dive down into those ecosystems, those sectors that are strong in metro Atlanta, so it could be advanced manufacturing could be logistics supply chain. Fintech is a big sector here, smart cities is a growing sector here med tech health IT. So we have folks on staff whose job is to really know those verticals. And so, again, Michael and I are the generalist where the cross border ones, but if it is a company in say, health IT. We would go to our health IT person to help with that ecosystem connections and getting into that ecosystem learning about that here. And of course that cross border element which goes across any of those categories, I mean a company coming in needs to do certain things entering the US market. That’s where Michael and I come in, helping with that but having that business connection is critical, and it complements complements with an E. What the government side, brings in, I mean we’re not, we had the Metro Atlanta chamber not handing out incentives, we don’t we don’t hold the purse strings on incentives, those are local government and state government issues. But we work hand in glove with the State governments and local governments, bringing in that business perspective, and when, when needed, bringing in that academic perspective the universities or technical colleges. So it’s really a matter you really hit the nail on the head bill with your word connections, that’s a critical element of what we do. You want to be a resource for those companies coming into the US that otherwise just, you know, that’s what they’re looking for. They’re looking for the resources looking for that information. Looking for that way to help them with this very large process so that they can focus on that better mousetrap that they’re trying to bring into the market.
Bill : Yeah, I’m almost in my head envisioning, whether it’s a concierge or a quarterback but but you’re sort of acting as the central point of contact to resource, all of the various specialists within the ecosystem
John : that and it depends entirely there’s no, some people say well what you know what’s the uniform. You know what’s a set thing to be done. You know there is no set thing, frankly, some, some are very independent, some are going through. They don’t they need just minimal help, or, or connections or anything like that, others really need to have their handheld, all the way through the process. And so, and you know one point. An important part of this of this line of work is knowing exactly how to gauge that level of assistance but, I mean we have for example, an in house research team here at the Metro Atlanta chamber and Michael and I use them a lot because, again, international companies coming in, they don’t know the US market as well as a domestic company would And so providing that research providing that data that’s relevant for that company can be very helpful. Some of them, that might be all they need. They just need of, you know, how many. I don’t know how many widget makers are in this particular area or something like that or what’s the wage rate of this or, or some sort of economic data. And that might be all they need. Others would actually utilize our project management team helping to find locations, or helping define employer interviews or things like that. Others still may indeed engage the ecosystem side for that deep dive into that sector that’s for them. And with those connections there so it really varies. It runs the gamut of some need a lot. Some don’t need that much at all but the bottom line is, any audio wants to be a resource for those companies, as they’re going through this, through this process again so they can focus on their business at hand. That makes sense.
Bill : So, Michael, maybe you could just take a minute and then John gave a little snapshot to some of the industries that are most prevalent or dense and strong in the Atlanta region. He talked about advanced manufacturing and logistics. There was some mention of health care, but, what are sort of the big verticals in the region.
Michael : Yeah, I’m happy to talk about that part and as John mentioned we have experts and staff for some of those sectors, and of course the state has as well, and they work closely together on growing those industry sectors. John mentioned a fair amount of them already and I mean, one big of course is manufacturing, advanced manufacturing, logistics, I mean Atlanta is essentially the logistic hub and has always been so it’s still one of our big economic sector industry sectors. But of course there are a lot of new like new technology sectors, including fintech. Of course cybersecurity is a big one and the creative industries, especially in the areas of eSports and film and film production I think that’s something that resonates really often really well with foreign companies that are coming over here and because people are aware of a lot of the productions that came out of Atlanta over the last decade. And then of course the smart city component we actually have someone on staff who was focusing on smart cities and IoT and that whole connectivity sector and then of course the area of bioscience and medtech health IT, of course, was the CDC located in our region that’s of course a big driver and a couple of other institution that work in this space. And as John mentioned, I mean we really want to grow those sectors and John correct me if I forgot something. But, yeah, we focused, I think one big and the reason why we forget sometimes to mention one sector, it’s just because one big component of this region, it’s really the diversity in industry sectors and that’s very beneficial in, in any kind of economic situation and especially last year that we have really this diversity in industry sectors. So, yeah, I think that is kind of a, an overview, John.
John : Yeah, you, you get the sectors, right I think you mentioned eSports and digital media and filming, of course, is a big one and films FinTech cybersecurity. I would add on a, on a general level you covered. You answered those questions, ECOSOC perfectly on a general level is, you know, again, our board is made up of the top executives of major companies here for companies coming in and much of your audience build perhaps in soft land, is those SMEs looking for a soft landing. Are you in a general level it’s a corporate hub here in Atlanta. So it’s a hub of fortune 500 headquarters fortune 1000 headquarters, these are the largest publicly traded companies in the US. And to be honest, they don’t have a specialty. They are if you look at our fortune 500 headquarters or fortune 1000 headquarters. It runs the gamut of industry sectors, which we find we believe is a good thing. The underlying stories is good in general for business, but these are major, oftentimes multinational companies, some are household names like delta and Home Depot and Coca Cola, but in a plug for the hometown and and others are, you know, again, large multinational companies but they run the gamut. The. But the other thing that’s along that line is that Atlanta is also a hub for Inc 5000 companies. Now the Inc 5000 are the fastest growing privately held companies. So you have a combination of the large publicly traded companies, the legacy companies if you will, and yet also a concentration of the fastest growing private companies which not only run the gamut in ecosystems that as Michael was explaining, but also in size, I mean fastest growing as a matter of percentage. So to have that combination of giant legacy companies and fast growing private companies is really an unusual thing to find. Not many US cities really are in the top level of both of those. And for companies coming in international coming coming again for that soft landing that provides, Again, a very solid, very foundation of resources, you know if it’s that first category mentioned, they already have customers or clients, it might very well be one of those fortune 500 companies, it might very well be a Coca Cola or Home Depot, that’s driving that. But on the other hand, they also have this eco This is foundation rather of Inc 5000 These fast growing private companies. So many of them are you know getting up on their, on their on their legs and running forward and so again it’s a, it’s a unique combination of legacy giant companies that be driving it, but also a foundation of fast growing private companies that you know they’re all They’re kind of running together so and that’s regardless of the ecosystem, you throw in the ecosystem specialty, and then that goes even further, some of those 5000s are in those ecosystems one trust for example, is actually the number one company now on the Inc 5000 So the fastest growing privately held company in the US is in Atlanta company called one Trust, which is in the cybersecurity field that Michael was mentioning. So, where you have all those coming together, then of course, it becomes a homerun for those companies coming in.
Bill : That’s, that’s great and actually a really good segue to talk about the trade side of your work. Yeah, obviously the, the strong ecosystem there has created a base of companies that are selling outside the US and are going and opening up operations and and also exporting all around the world and maybe we could shift it to talk a little bit about your work in terms of helping the Atlanta region companies go abroad, what are some of the things that, that you do in terms of supporting the trade side of your work.
Michael : Yeah, I mean I think it’s a it’s a, it’s a great topic actually very timely because this week, Georgia was ranked among the top 10 states and exporting exporting states in 2020, which I think speaks really for that resilience last year of a lot of Georgia businesses, a lot of them small, medium sized businesses. So, that’s of course great news for the whole state of Georgia. We worked really closely with the state of Georgia and as I mentioned at the beginning, also with the US Commercial Service and a lot of regional partners the district Export Council, the Small Business Development Center. So really to build this whole e trade ecosystem. So we want to make sure that all of us talking to each other that when a company reaches out to one of us, they can’t get access to everyone. And usually I mean we do a lot of different things when it comes to trade but I usually try to sum them up in the three words, educate activate and connect those are kind of the the the key words I use for that on the education side it’s really about educating companies about the benefits of exporting some companies understand the benefits, some companies don’t really want to take the risk of exporting and I mean as John mentioned you have a big consumer base in the United. United States a lot of companies focus on the US market. And then there are others that either proactively want to grow their customer base or they get an someone reaches out to them for their products or services from abroad and they just react to it. And so we want to make sure that the companies know about the benefits that come with exporting, but also knowing about the resources that are out there that they can use and not every company is aware of all the resources that they are that are often free and we’re very inexpensive, from all different kinds of actors here, and on the activation side this is actually something we have done for the last five years now. It’s a program that’s called the Atlanta metro export challenge, which is a large grant program that we’ve been operating for years with our partners again. And this is really every year companies in the region, kind of, for grants and mentorship through that program, so every year we work with a cohort of companies, and they have access to a reimbursable grant that they can use to an anomaly your travel or to trade show or visit with customers, but in a time like this using a specially to build out the export business at General, which means they could globalize their website, they could. They can do market research with it, they can spend it on paperwork and have to do insurance things like everything that can help them build their international sales and so in that year they get that grant they also get access to a mentorship group people trade specialists that work with the company throughout the year. And so we have successfully run that with our partners, since 2016 it originally came out of a collaboration between the Brookings Institution JPMorgan Chase with JPMorgan Chase as one of the founding fathers of this full program, and we’re still running that and so we’re going into the fifth court this year actually fun for 2021 court, relatively soon. And the last piece really is the connection piece and John and I talked about it at the beginning already but we want to make sure that the companies know about resources here in the region but also the resources we have in other markets because, as you mentioned, we are generalist when it comes to sectors, also with regard to countries. So of course we are not export in every country a company wants to export too so we rely a lot on our partners here in the market but also abroad, to connect companies to the right resources, similar to what we do when a company comes to the United States. And so the great thing is that, for example, the state of Georgia has offices around the world, in 12 different markets, the federal government, of course with the US Commercial Service has offices around, around the world. So we want to make sure that companies are connected to them and then the last thing I want to mention that context is, we of course work a lot with the private sector to and that can be partners like soft land partners for example, these kind of networks are very crucial for, for us, because we know people that work in that same ECOSYS on the same same world that we do, just in a different market and be concerned companies over there and I can get the systems. I think that’s probably summing it up. We do a lot of different things as I mentioned, but I always tried to kind of structure it a little bit.
Bill : Yeah, and it seems like between your work in on the attraction FDI side and the trade side, you must have a fairly significant needs assessment that happens up front, can you talk a little bit about sort of how does, how does the process start with a company that you’re working with, how do you find out, as you mentioned John I think you said that, you know, there’s a real variety of or variants in terms of what one company needs or wants versus what another company needs or wants, what do you do upfront needs assessment to evaluate that for the inbound or outbound either, either way I would imagine you probably
John : Have some questions today some similarities between both. And and and I’m sure Michael can chime in, I mean, a lot of it is, they, they, they don’t know what they sound so they don’t know what they don’t know. Sure. And so, so many times a company, certainly for coming in. And I’ll let Michael chime in on the on the on the going outside but for coming in. As I said they have that better mousetrap they want to bring into the market or they have those customers already here but they’ve been servicing them from their from their home country. It’s an entirely different kettle of fish to actually set up in the US and to do the business in the US. And so, so a lot of what Michael and I will do again with our partners, is to is to help, help them through that process and frankly go through things that they may not, they may not be aware of and and that they may not have thought about because they’re concentrated on that better mousetrap or they’re concentrated on keeping their, their client happy. So in setting up the US, obviously their, their, their issues of incorporating in the US, structuring that way and which is principally a tax issue, Nate, initially, how, when, how it sets up that corporate structure, we don’t do that we’re not lawyers or accountants, but, but certainly we again connect with folks and discuss it in general terms, and also frankly letting companies know it’s not a difficult process, frankly, setting up a US entity is in and of itself, not a very complex process, it’s, it’s fairly easy certainly here in the state of Georgia. It’s fairly easy, not very expensive, and, and then having that set up so when that business does really start generating significant revenue. Now us generated revenue so you have that customer base already perhaps in the first category, or you built that better mousetrap you start selling that better mousetrap to US customers. You want to have that US entity in place to handle that the US side of your business. Again, not a difficult process. But it’s something to have in place, companies need kind of to be walked through that process sometimes. And then it’s a matter of, you know, if that better mousetrap requires logistics, supply chain issues, how does that go through again the US is, is, is in almost every circumstance unless maybe we’re dealing with China or Russia is a larger country physically than almost any country coming into here or Canada, perhaps. So, how do you get those, those products, those that better mousetrap out to your potential customers it’s a logistics question that is often fundamentally different from what they’re used to in their, in their mother country US insurance issues are different. We have a reputation of being a litigious society, somewhat justified but somewhat overblown. And many of that can be can be addressed upfront with appropriate insurance but insurance in the US is, is largely different from insurance even if they have that in their, in their mother country so again these are, these are issues that into your question of needs assessment we sort of go through and and have they considered these issues going on through, even something that may be very fundamental and basic for US citizens, such as opening a bank account or getting a driver’s license or social security number or a tax ID number can be a hurdle for an international company coming in so we walk through that a lot of that narrative though is really not that complex and we try to provide those those connections those resources that direction. Our consulting services, our ecosystem specialists, our project management team. All of that is gratis, and confidential so we’re here to be a resource for those companies going through, but those are again things that they may not have thought about, about coming into the US. We want to put those issues in front of them, but at the same time, let them know that you know it’s not, it’s not that that that giant hurdle that that you need to address it, but it’s not really a showstopper you can you can do it and with the appropriate resources and appropriate direction, you can get through, and then get on to your business at hand of that better mousetrap or servicing that customer you already have.
Bill : Sure, now that that’s good to understand so Michael Nina could switch to you, and let’s talk a little bit about some of the mistakes that you see companies make in, you know, in either direction. But what are some of the challenges that you see that are, are, maybe most either prevalent or, or, or maybe important that that companies are challenged by in terms of either internationalizing from the US or or entering the US.
Michael : Yeah, no, absolutely. And again, probably split it up into, again the inbound and outbound side because I think it’s very different. What kind of mistakes are involved in that and for the outbound set it’s difficult, it’s I don’t think it’s like a list of mistakes that are very common and very, very varies on where the company stands in their process, like have to export it before they’re new to exporting and what kind of size, the company is in which markets they focus on so there are different things that play a role there but I think the underlying mistake that I seen with companies is probably not accessing the resources that are out there, like the essential, especially the free resources that are out there. A lot of companies are either not aware of it, and so that’s why we do a lot of education around making companies aware of it, but also not using them and doing things by themselves, which is, which is fine for some company that works really well. But of course, there’s always a risk associated with exploiting and we want to be honest about that there are challenges of course in both. Every country is different, every industry sector is different, different regulations. And so what I always recommend to companies is to really go out and using the resources that are there people that have worked in this field for a very long time and can really help you kind of initial steps. And then I think that was really connected to a second mistake is kind of underestimating the investment you have to make when it comes to exploiting, and I’m not just talking about financial investment, I talk about time commitment to. And so what I really often recommend companies to do is, is picking someone on a team having someone in place that has kind of focused on that international expansion, someone that is kind of the go to person that goes through the whole process that worked with any partner and a respective state they’re in or the different region and really work on market research and working on understanding kind of the requirements per market. And I think then you can evade or avoid a lot of the mistakes that that companies make when they, when they expand into another mark and
John : That’s true both ways that having that person really to manage a process, whether it’s the inbound side or the outbound side, absolutely right.
Michael : Yeah, I think that’s probably sums it up pretty well. But again, it really depends really on the markets and sectors that you’re in and they have different requirements for different markets and you know they’re experts in each market where you often end. It’s very different if I work with a company that has a very straightforward exploiting process like they have a physical product they put in a box in them to ship it out and there are certain requirements, different documentations, you have to, to focus on and it’s different for a company that sells that technology and as John said we are generalists when it comes to industry. First, but we also generalists when it comes to what kind of companies we work with when it comes to exploiting could be technology could be a service, it could be a product and for each of those different categories of course the different requirements, but it becomes to a vendor, whether it’s about data privacy or whether it’s about shipping requirements or documents they need at the port and things like this so we try to navigate that. The probably goes a little bit back to the question you earlier, you asked earlier about kind of how do we, how would you do need assessment. And we hear about those companies with different sources whether they reach out directly to us whether we reach out to one of our partners where they meet them at the event, or if they require any expert certification reach out to that channel, we kind of tried to figure out how can we best help them, are we the ones that can provide a good resource or Someone at the US Commercial Service or the state may be better equipped to provide that particular information and we kind of know who is an expert in which field, an expert and in what what field and so then we can make that introduction and make sure the company gets the, the access to the right information as quickly as possible.
Bill : That’s great. So one of the things that I heard you say Michael and maybe John you could chime in on this was about companies, in some cases not either, knowing the resources that are available or or not accessing the resources, and I love your thoughts on on something John and that is what, what role these, do you see this is, it’s something that’s always curious for me. What role do you see ego playing in. In, how a company succeeds or fails at expanding internationally. Why did you flip that question to me, because I knew you could handle it.
John : Mike Michael is so humble, so he. Well now it’s, it’s, I would say that the ego there I mean, that’s that’s a, that’s I’ll tiptoe kind of a little bit around that is, I would say that, regardless of ego or regardless of that, I mean any sort of Site Location decision should be data driven, let’s put it that way. And so, just like the company would in its home country. I mean if it’s if it’s a, if it’s a Mr Shawn in Germany or or a payable in France or SME anywhere. They built up their business, they’re obviously very good at their business. Clearly, they, they, they, it’s been a methodical business decision in doing that. And there may be some ego or some hubris if you really done very well, but building up your business is a is a is, you know, is a data driven process no matter what the company is, and data on all sorts, whether it’s the data of the productivity of the mousetrap you’re making the widget you’re making, or the data in the spreadsheets and managing the cash flow, and it’s a data driven objective exercise in growing that business, the site location process should be no different. And so, whether it’s or or or preconceived notions, some sort of non business foundation non data driven. Why would a company make its US market entry decision or location decision on not using data not using business principles that are important to their business. So to kind of twist around your, your, your, your thing there we you know we see a lot of companies. It’s a tech company for example they may go to locations which are known tech locations and again, ecosystems are important. They might go to known tech locations in the USA. But some of these can be very expensive locations. And, you know, we suggest looking at data that’s out there looking at economic indicators, looking at the whole picture of the data. Where are those ecosystems in place. What is the cost going to be that what are those as Michael mentioned the investment, both for outbound and inbound that’s required. What is that investment going to be, what are those operating expenses going to be, what is the burn rate of that company that’s coming into the US. Unless it’s got that customer already lined up that we mentioned, you know it’s probably going to be going through, not making a lot of money, the first few years, which is fine, that, that, that’s how you build the business, but what does that burn rate going to be and it can be more severe in some locations than in others. This is a data question. And so, we always encourage companies to look at the data, the data that’s relevant to them. And again, that could be any range of economic indicators, cost of living index, tax index. It could be mechanical issues or functional issues like logistics, getting back to the mother country, getting to your customer base. Is it by plane or by train or by truck. These are all, you know, data based decisions that should go into that location decision process. And then, you know the end of day, there could be some subjectivity or, you know, you got both things that are recall and then you might like one over another. But, but a site location decision should not necessarily be where a company had its best family vacation in the US, or what they see on TV on US television that’s in the call sometimes the CSI effect of certain backwards CSI was a was a big series but you would have certain us locations and that, you know, that’s all well and good on a TV show but that doesn’t is not germane to the business at hand so we always encourage a database decision, just as that company is doing to grow itself in his home country should be the same principle in that in that US market expansion and so, you know, that would be my sort of turnaround experience to that.
Bill : Sure. No, the yeah I think ego is always an interesting thing because we wouldn’t get out of bed, we wouldn’t have the motivation to cross an ocean to enter another market. If it weren’t for ego. On the other hand, at least our experience has been on kind of the marketing side and the revenue generation side.
John : I mean if they’re looking to come in as two different things actually they’re looking to come to the US, I guess, ego you’re calling out called entrepreneurial ism or or getting every if they’re looking to expand to the US if we’re on the US market entry side, you know, they’ve already reached that point you’re right I guess ego might be the word for it or entrepreneur or or expansion, they, they say hey we want to, we have built that better mousetrap, or we have those customers we want to expand and make make our make our footprint in the US make our name in the US. And, or it could be a matter of sometimes of their home country is, is only so big, you take for example a Nordic country, you know, the country of Sweden, let’s just use that for example beautiful country, we have a lot of Swedish companies here, do a lot of work their country, Sweden, the population is about the same as the population of the state of Georgia. So if you’ve got a Swedish company and they’re expanding in their home market. You can only expand so much, and so if they’ve got that better mousetrap or something they want again go to that largest thing that might be ego driven, it might just be a matter of functionality they want to do that. But again it’s, and then, but then conversely on the outbound side and Michael can can speak to this many times on the outbound side, we’re encouraged as Michael said counseling, we’re encouraging our companies to go overseas, we’re, we’re saying hey look 95% of the world’s market is outside of the US. So for the outbound side and Michael can can speak to some of this, a lot of what we do is really encouraging them maybe, you know, try to build up their ego, but say hey look, look at this market out there and he looked at this opportunity, and I know you know Michael you do, you do a lot of that so you know it’s different on either side there, right.
Michael : Yeah, it really goes back to some of the early comments I make made on the education side. It’s, you know, companies start for different reasons. Some companies get a request from the foreign market and they just think it’s they react to it and then the other ones that really proactively go out and want to export but then there are a lot of companies, they’re just satisfied. Having a good customer base here and they don’t necessarily want to take that risk of export and we kind of try to help them on that. That initial kind of step and go should push, push him out of the nest. And so yeah and then again like John said it’s data driven to like you do your market research before you get on the plane and fly somewhere and I mean we might go to a conference that might be helped, might be helping you to see kind of what the interest in your products and services are, but you also do your market research and you focus on the markets you notice the demand for your product and service and technology, and you maybe focus on one or two at the beginning and then after a while you add more to it. And instead of focusing on too many at the same time. So I think again it’s really focusing on where the demand, and we try to get them to that point, and then afterwards to really help them to really enter that market.
John : No errors and whatever. But again, there’s different factors that are there, the operating expenses the cost of living, the business, the logistics, the is a customer base there can you get to it. It’s a, you know it’s a range of different factors but you know they can be quantified, and so it’s a matter of really seeing what’s there and capturing that data and and and making it relevant to what you need to do. Turn your finger way, frankly, either way you never,
Bill : I guess what I’m hearing is that the most valuable skill is the in the in the process. Certainly, you’ve talked about network but also the skill of listening and that may be observation, obviously a lot of different ways to listen, but to listen to the data. And I, yeah, my reference to ego was, was more about those that come in that tend to not listen. And there are a variety of parties that they might not listen to right they might not listen to, you know, any, any data, or, or kind of select, and I guess I was really referencing that that challenge that, again, if you don’t have some ego. You won’t, you won’t get out of bed, but on the other hand, so much and you stop listening to customers you stop listening to employees you stop listening to the you know the market. And so, in any event, it’s, it’s always an interesting thing because we tend to focus on you, quite often very hard skills, and sometimes it can be, it seems the soft ones that, that can really hurt us. Hardest the most. So, yeah, we’ve got a, just a moment, maybe two, if you want to share what, what if somebody wanted to activate a relationship with you all. Obviously we’ll put your contact info in in the in the description down below. But what’s the best way to get a relationship started or to investigate, working with the Metro Atlanta chamber. Well,
John : We certainly appreciate you put the contact info in we’re happy to do that Metroatlantachamber.com is our website. I’m sure you would include that Michaels in my emails. I mean, just reach out to us, we’re fine or reach out to you, Bill, you know how to, you know how to reach us and we’re happy to do that. I mentioned earlier, many of these, we call them consulting services. Many of these resources we provide or are gratis they’re confidential. You know we and we will do things that are we, we do our best anyway to be relevant for the company at hand. And I goes back almost your initial question about the ecosystems. If it was not a good fit in Atlanta, you know, we’re not going to try to try to push that but we might, I mean, I use the oil and gas industry as an example, you know, Atlanta is not an oil and gas hub. There are oil and gas hubs in the US, we happen to know people there, we’re happy to make appropriate connections if that’s, say a sector of theirs, but on the other hand, we are hubs in, you know, a host of other ones logistics FinTech health IT some that I’ve mentioned. And we’re happy to make connections in that regard. So we’re really here to be a resource for companies coming in if, if we’re not able to address a question, you know, given Michaels and my collective experience, given our team’s experience, given our board of directors and the business resources we have, we probably know people who can. So, we’re here to be a resource and, you know that would, I would mention that and Michael coming on the side for the local side well we can do for them.
Michael : You mean like here if someone reaching out. I mean, same, same thing, I mean it’s like we want to function as a resource. Sometimes we can help. And sometimes we know someone who does who can help them. And then of course, having networks like this often partner next net network having networks of commercial service officers and state around the world we can maybe inter make introductions there. So it’s really about the reaching out, and we make sure that you get to the right, to the right place and the right contact
Bill : this has been great. I really appreciate you both taking the time today and really helping our audience see some of the opportunities, both in terms of being successful as a internationalized but also in a nice visit to the Atlanta region as well.
John : We welcome that certainly.
Bill : Absolutely. Well, hopefully your weather warms up down there soon. It’s your, your weather’s like ours right now,
John : we’re a little bit warmer, I think, but at least we’re not under, under a huge winter thing like much of the US right now so come on in sunny south.
Bill :Well, it was so good to see you today. Thank you for spending the time.
John : Thank you.
Bill : All right.