 By: Julie Morris
Do you feel like you have more to offer than what you’re currently doing in your nine-to-five job? Do you have a passion you’d like to share with the world? Are you looking for ways to create additional revenue streams? Then perhaps now is the time to take a chance and dip your feet into the gig economy. Today, more and more people are pursuing short-term or freelance work thanks to recent advancements in technology that make running your own business easier than ever before. With so many different platforms to buy, sell, and exchange goods and services, ordinary people have watched their personal passions explode into massively successful business enterprises. If you are interested in starting your own success story or even just creating a small additional source of income, here are five tips to get you started. Find Your Starting Platform Your very first step toward turning your passion into profit will be to take advantage of any pre-existing platforms to give your small business a jumpstart. For instance, if you’re looking to sell your handmade crafts, you should start listing your items on popular websites such as Etsy. For a small cut of your listed price, these sites makes it easier for customers who want your product to find and purchase it. This gives you an incredible amount of reach for just getting started and increases your business’s chance for success when compared to trying to market and sell locally. Similarly, if your goal is to sell goods online, you should look into dropshipping options from existing platforms. For example, if you want to sell clothing online (women’s clothing is an especially lucrative option), working with a dropshipping service allows you to sell your product without keeping any inventory on hand, saving you money and stress while allowing you to reliably send your goods directly to your customers’ doors. Stay Organized When just starting out in the gig economy, most don’t quit their day job. Therefore, most small business owners are juggling two or more different jobs at the same time. To ensure that you are able to successfully manage the baby steps of your small business, you need to keep organized in how you go about your daily life. By efficiently managing your time, you will have a better understanding of how much time you need to dedicate to your small business and how that fits in with your current job. Maximize Your Efficiency Another part of maximizing your new business’s potential is by creating your own workspace to operate your business from. When just starting out, many choose to simply work from home. The benefit of setting aside a room of your home for your small business is that it will help keep you organized and maximize the efficiency of your work. Keep all of your materials and work-related documents in one space, and you’ll be ready to immediately get back to work without wasting any time. Market Your Passion While large platforms such as Etsy will give you a great starting point to reaching new customers, there are other ways you can share and market your small business. Social media is a great way to stay in touch with friends and family, but for small business owners, it’s also an incredible resource for interacting with customers and creating new business. Start by creating a Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook page specifically for your business. By regularly posting, following, and interacting with other pages similar to your business, you can reach a huge population of people and potentially a few new customers. Slow and Steady Wins the Race One of the most important things to keep in mind when starting your own business is to remain patient. You might hear about wild overnight success stories, but the truth is most companies find success through discipline, dedication, and slow and steady growth. Don’t feel like you need to move your business in leaps and bounds. Even if the market is ready for your business to explode, you might find that you are not ready to manage a large customer base in so little time. The best advice is to grow with your business. If you are passionate about what you do, then you will gladly take the time to do it right. Over time, you’ll be amazed at how far following your dreams and investing in your own business can carry you. Just stay patient, and always keep moving forward. Photo Credit: Pixabay.com
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 More U.S. government money intended to counter China’s growing influence in the developing world means more opportunities for U.S. small and medium size companies. About $60 billion will now be available, much of it in loans.
President Trump signed the Better Utilization of Investments Leading to Development (BUILD) Act into law on October 5, 2018. This legislation will reform and strengthen U.S. development finance capabilities into a new federal agency to help address development challenges and foreign policy priorities of the U.S. The U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (“USDFC”) will be a modern, consolidated agency that brings together the capabilities of OPIC and USAID’s Development Credit Authority, while introducing new and innovative financial products to better bring private capital to the developing world. That according to a press release from the news agency. When the reimagined government agency gets back to business, it will provide the U.S. more flexibility to support investments in developing countries to “drive economic growth, create stability, and improve livelihoods.” In truth, the monies available are dwarfed by what China is spending and prepared to spend on high speed rail lines, dams, roads and other infrastructure. Still for those countries wanting to avoid the strings that come with China aid, USDFC is welcome news. How does the program work? OPIC can meet the long-term capital investment financing needs of any size business in a wide variety of industries such as information technology, health care, education, infrastructure, telecommunications, financial services, housing, and agribusiness. The majority of OPIC’s financing is used to cover the capital costs—such as design/engineering services, facility construction or leasehold improvements, and equipment—associated with the establishment or expansion of the foreign investment (the “project”). OPIC can also work with financial institutions to fund the expansion of lending capacity—such as microfinance, small business lending or mortgage lending—in a foreign market. OPIC does not consider financing requests that are solely for the purpose of making an acquisition, though limited acquisition costs may be financeable if additional capital will be expended to expand or rehabilitate the investment. OPIC seeks to support early stage projects that demonstrate significant potential to achieve a positive social or environmental impact. These projects face obstacles to adequate financing in emerging markets because of their relative size and early stage of development. If you represent an innovative, earlier stage company with that is committed to a high level of social impact, please read more about OPIC support for your company through OPIC’s Portfolio for Impact Program (PI). OPIC does not finance stand-alone export transactions. U.S. and even non-U.S. companies in need of trade finance should consider the Export-Import of the U.S. and the Small Business Administration. To learn more about other U.S. government programs that support exports, please visit www.export.gov. OPIC is not right for every business interested in making investments in developing countries. For those considering, the application process is not a walk in the park. But this year there’s a lot more money available and there will be the usual competing pressures on the new agency of spreading the money around. Enjoy this blog and want more insight on global trade? Check out the WebPort Global blog at https://www.webportglobal.com/Blog-Community/International-Trade-and-Global-Business If you want more information on how WPG can help your business grow & go global contact Stephanie Misar at smisar@webportglobal.com for more information.  In a previous post, we discussed the importance for small and midsized business engaged in cross-border trade to have in place strong cyber security policies and procedures. This is important because 58 percent of companies subject to data breaches worldwide are small businesses.
Many of these companies do very little to protect themselves, largely because the topic itself is for many people perceived as overly complex and expensive to manage. In truth, it is neither—if you know the steps to take. Not taking them leaves you vulnerable to economic losses and reputational damage caused by having customer data, intellectual property and data used to manage your business stolen by cyber criminals. And not all such criminals are focused on hacking Target, the U.S. Office of Management and Budget or Marriott Hotels. It’s worth applauding the Cyber Awareness Institute (CAI), a non-profit that recently kicked off operations at an event in Washington, DC. https://www.cyberreadinessinstitute.org On hand were MasterCard President and CEO Ajay Banga and former IBM CEO Sam Palmisano. They serve as honorary chairs of CAI and know a thing or two about the subject. The concept for an organization to do education outreach to small companies came from a bipartisan commission that flagged the growing problem of our collective vulnerability to all kinds of bad actors including individual crooks, organized crime syndicates, gangs and even nation states whose policy it is to destabilize other countries and steal money to fund their own budgets. Hardening the targets What keeps good people up at night is the understanding that our global economic system is only as strong as its weakest link. And there are plenty of weak links out there who can provide hackers with an easy-to-access back door to some serious motherlode data. This is because many small companies are involved in complex supply chains whose efficiency depends on the sharing of data between many suppliers and goods forwarding companies. The more players of different sizes and data protection capabilities, the greater the risk of a soft target that can expose the firewall to a successful penetration. The CAI proponents are counting on enlightened self-interest and an understanding that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts to animate small companies to act before they become a victim and a statistic. To do so, they created a website intended to demystify what it takes to engage in “data hygiene,” or safe cyber. The site is easy to navigate and the explanations of what and how to do it mercifully short and free of geek speak. One module on the importance of passwords included commonsense tips such as change passwords often and make them reasonably complex. In other words, not pet names or birthdays. Surprisingly, some pretty valuable stuff is hidden behind names like “Annabelle.” CAI also likes the capabilities of the cloud and supports companies keeping their valuable data there rather than on premises. The argument is that the professional keepers of the cloud are the most adept at safeguarding customer data and staying a couple of steps ahead of people who want to hack into them. Once on CAI’s website, you’ll be asked to register and can opt-in to receive a newsletter that includes new threats and what’s being done to thwart them. Tips and tricks are also included. Best of all, there are best practices to share with employees to make sure everyone in the company is practicing good data hygiene. Everything is free and supported by private donors. This is a valuable and important effort. Too few of us know enough about the dangers we and our data face. The good news is that it takes remarkably little time and effort to substantially improve security while doing our part to protect the larger business ecosystem on which we all depend. Enjoy this blog and want more insight on global trade? Check out the WebPort Global blog at https://www.webportglobal.com/Blog-Community/International-Trade-and-Global-Business If you want more information on how WPG can help your business grow & go global contact Stephanie Misar at smisar@webportglobal.com for more information. Warren Wright
Second Wave Learning Each generation in the workplace has its own nuanced way of communicating – while Boomers can have a “My Way or the Highway” attitude and Gen X is the “Just Do It” generation – Millennials are a little bit different. Older, First-Wave Millennials grew up with “The Get Along Gang” on television, and Second-Wave Millennials are even more inclined to seek common ground with colleagues and management. This is the “Friend me!” generation, and many Millennials don’t know how to manage conflict in the workplace. One of the soft skills Second-Wave Millennials are lacking is how to respectfully disagree with someone. They don’t know how to agree to disagree. Fortunately, like many other soft skills, this can be taught. How to Teach ‘Agree to Disagree’ in the Workplace There are three ways those who are managing and coaching Millennials can teach this important professional skill. Lead by example. In meetings, in hallway conversations and in collaborative projects, make sure you’re leading the way and demonstrating effective communication. How do you respond in office disagreements, both physically and verbally? Do you, as a manager, accept feedback and new ideas? Do you remain approachable and open? Millennials look up to their managers as professional coaches and will emulate what they see in the workplace. Give them language. Teaching Millennials to use key words and phrases in the workplace when they disagree with someone can go a long way toward helping them communicate. Teaching them to use phrases such as, “I understand what you’re saying, but…” can make them feel comfortable. Encourage them to ask questions about how someone arrived at their conclusion: “Can you tell me more about your approach to this issue so I understand more?” Teaching them to listen with the goal of understanding goes a long way toward peaceful conflict resolution in the workplace. Teach empathy and help them develop EQ. EQ (emotional intelligence) is a person’s ability to recognize their own emotions and relate to others. Have your Millennial employees take time to reflect on their conversations and interactions with others, and have them assess their behaviors and reactions to conflict and adversity. Having a high EQ is one of the most important predictors of career success and satisfaction, and it can help them learn to agree to disagree with confidence.
For those of us doing business in Northern Virginia, Amazon’s decision to choose Crystal City for part of its new headquarters makes a lot of sense. Amazon was looking for a location that could attract world-class talent, and the greater Washington, DC area possesses the most educated workforce in the country. But while the decision might seem inevitable in hindsight, Amazon’s team no doubt spent countless hours analyzing every variable that would affect the desirability of its new location. So let’s dig a little deeper and look at just how Northern Virginia built itself into an attractive brand for one of the world’s leading companies and its employees.  Above: a Google Trends report on search interest for “Crystal City”. Do we think it got a brand lift? 1. Brands are Built on Strengths Crystal City’s original developer, Robert Smith, was advised by his father to abandon the project due to the land’s lack of perceived value. But Smith looked past the dilapidated junkyards and warehouses that littered the area and saw that his property was close to the newly constructed Pentagon, National Airport, and of course the federal government. Smith knew he had the biggest strength in real estate, location, but little else. So focused on promoting his strength. He went out and sold the government on the convenience (and affordability) of his land, and convinced federal agencies to locate offices outside of Washington, DC for the first time. He brought in the public by building apartment buildings a stone’s throw from the highway and in close proximity to their work (the first one to open featured a large crystal chandelier, giving rise to the name Crystal City). Once these deals were in place, Crystal City’s true strength began to shine. 2. Brands Communicate Vision In Arlington’s statement announcing Amazon’s decision, County Board Chair Katie Cristol made a key point: “Arlington’s real strength is the decades of planning that have produced one of the most vibrant, civically engaged communities in the world.” The Crystal City Business Improvement District has worked tirelessly to make its neighborhood an exciting place to live and work. But that BID wouldn’t exist if Arlington hadn’t focused on building itself into a world-class community for generations through its Comprehensive Plan. What do you see in the center of that plan? A clearly defined vision of a community that embraces mass transit, public spaces, and sustainable development, all features that Amazon mentioned as desirable selling points in its announcement.  3. Brands Engage with Their Communities
Brands ultimately are conversations about values with a particular community. In the case of Amazon, the Virginia Economic Development Partnership (VEDP) brought Alexandria, Arlington, Fairfax and Loudoun counties together, knowing that it would take a collaboration at all levels of government in order to match the scale of Amazon’s needs. During the negotiation process, Arlington’s County Manager and the VEDP presented proposals outlining various incentives to encourage Amazon to choose Northern Virginia. If you read through these documents, you’ll find something interesting: while Arlington certainly offered a number of incentives, many of them are contingent on Amazon bringing in the number of employees and business travelers promised. You’ll also see a significant amount of incentives related to infrastructure development and energy efficiency. What do these incentives mean? Quite simply, that the keepers of the Northern Virginia brand were able to have a good-faith discussion with a potential member of their community while also ensuring that the vision for the county’s plan remained strong. These kinds of conversations are how a strong brand stays that way. Conclusion A project of this size and scale is generational in scope, and it will be decades before we can analyze its impact. Amazon’s decision is really the culmination of Northern Virginia’s decades of work building its national profile, and those who have worked to grow its brand should be very proud of what they’ve accomplished. About the Author Tim Young is the president of Young Marketing Consulting, a strategic marketing consultancy and full-service marketing agency that delivers sustainable solutions to marketing challenges. Learn more at youngmarketingconsulting.com  Small and midsized exporters want to know on which new export markets they should focus. Until now the best approach available was to look at indictors such as GDP, tariff and non-tariff barriers, political risk and so forth. For exporters who like data and aren’t intimidated by online data tools offered by the federal government, there are data available on what countries historically purchase from the U.S.
Thanks to advances in big data analytics and government’s so far limited use of them, exporters now have a more sophisticated tool to hone in on best markets for specific products. Named Market Diversification, this tool supports a favorite goal of past presidential administrations to get smaller U.S. companies to increase the number of countries they sell to. Historically, the majority of small business exporters sell to only one market, typically Canada, which is geographically close and relatively easy to deliver products to the buyer. So, imagine the impact on employment and bottom lines if U.S. companies can, say, double markets served from one to two! It is a great reason to celebrate moves by the government that help exporters. What’s different about Market Diversification is that it scores potential markets based on a number of factors. Instead of dealing in generalities, there is now some quantitative rigor behind selecting markets to enter. And even if the tool does nothing more than validate hunches or less rigorous forms of analyses, the knowledge that a lot of data have been crunched on your behalf should be reassuring. The first thing you should do is go to the Department of Commerce trade promotion website and the new section devoted to the tool. https://beta.trade.gov/marketdiversification . Here you’ll enter your Harmonized Code Number, a string of digits that represent in general terms the product you are selling. The Code is used worldwide, in part to help customs officials to know what’s in the shipping box, track what comes in and to apply the appropriate tariff to the value stated on the shipping documents. Here’s an online tool for finding your HS codes if you don’t know them or if you do but want to double-check. https://hts.usitc.gov In addition to adding your HS Code Number, Market Diversification will ask what other countries you export to. This enables the algorithm to determine whether there are similar markets you should be considering. You can filter results by region of the world, specific country, or you can choose to see all of the results worldwide. Eleven factors are involved in the analysis and include:
You will end up with a numerical score. The higher the number, the more suitable your product is for that specific market. One interesting feature is the purported ability of the tool to spot markets that are underperforming as importers of this product compared to other similar country markets. By crunching these numbers, the tool calculates the underperforming in percentage terms. If the number is 1o percent, one way to view it is to conclude that based on the information available, this market could be importing more. While it doesn’t answer the why or how questions, it does suggest a potential market for you and suggests questions to ask during additional research. Indeed, the government authorities encourage users of this tool to view it as but one means to get a fuller picture of where you might concentrate your resources. We’re not quite yet where we can ask Siri to tell where the best markets are for our products. But we’re getting closer. Enjoy this blog and want more insight on global trade? Check out the WebPort Global blog at https://www.webportglobal.com/Blog-Community/International-Trade-and-Global-Business If you want more information on how WPG can help your business grow & go global contact Stephanie Misar at smisar@webportglobal.com for more information. |
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Northern Virginia Chamber of Commerce
7900 Westpark Drive, Suite A550, Tysons, VA 22102-3853 Phone: 703-749-0400 | FAX: 703 -749-9075 Home of the Fairfax County Chamber of Commerce |
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