Originally published: Insight on Manufacturing Magazine, September 2023

 

For most American manufacturers, 95% of their customer base is beyond U.S. borders. Businesses that export — which in 2020 numbered about 7,300 throughout Wisconsin — earn higher revenues, create more jobs, pay better wages and are less likely to go out of business. This is according to data from the U.S. International Trade Administration, which recently released its 2023 National Export Strategy with the goal of getting more, diverse companies to take the global plunge.
 

Within the cohort of small and medium manufacturers that already export, some fall into the category of “accidental.” In the digital age, it’s easier than ever for companies to start receiving orders from overseas — in fact, it’s one of the telltale signs they should start to strategically export.
 

But don’t wait for a sign, urges Chris Wojtowicz, an international trade consultant with the Wisconsin Small Business Development Center. Exporting is for everyone.
 

“You should be exporting,” he says. “You should look at it as a way to not only build your brand or as a way to stave off some of the domestic effects of inflation or market downturns, but as the same thing as selling domestically — with just a couple of extra steps.”
 

The school of exporting
While “accidental exporting” can be a conduit to international trade, it could also be a description of the career path for WMEP Manufacturing Solutions Director of Global Engagement Roxanne Baumann, who has developed Wisconsin’s ExporTech program into the most successful in the nation.
 

The Appleton native went to college to be a French teacher, but she couldn’t find a job during the Teacher Glut. To make ends meet she accepted a role as bilingual secretary for a company that had received a big order from French-speaking Algeria. From there, her world widened; she soon found herself being sent to non-French-speaking countries like Brazil and Turkey, running meetings and making deals. She would go on to work on six continents.
 

Baumann’s career included high-powered international business roles, including for Harley-Davidson Motor Company, before she joined WMEP in 1999. There she found a way to marry her teaching expertise and international business acumen when Wisconsin became one of the first states to launch ExporTech — a 12-week export expansion strategy development program for C-suite executives — as a partnership between WMEP and the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. Baumann has been leading ExporTech, which is now offered in more than 30 other states, in Wisconsin from the beginning.
 

Until a company can make about $150,000 in sustainable profit overseas, Baumann says, the job of exporting sits in its CEO office. Her job with ExporTech is to serve as a trusted advisor to busy C-suite leaders, helping companies identify and capitalize on exporting opportunities, as well as offering encouragement in the face of what can feel like an intimidating pursuit.

“I have the background; I’m not just a facilitator. I can look these [CEOs] in the eye and say ‘I was that girl who went to Brazil in the 1980s; you can do this,’” Baumann says. “My job is to get them a good strategy, the right target countries where they can make money as fast as possible, and make some money so they can hire somebody to continue building it.”
 

The timing of Wisconsin’s ExporTech launch in 2009 was no coincidence: The Great Recession laid bare the need for American businesses to expand their reach and explore global markets. Experts agree: Weathering fluctuations in the U.S. economy is a top advantage of exporting.
 

In the years since launching ExporTech, Baumann has built a list of success stories and collected letters of gratitude from Wisconsin manufacturers, as well as some major awards. Gamber-Johnson, a Stevens Point-based maker of rugged mounting systems for electronic equipment in fleet and public safety vehicles, was an early student of ExporTech that saw immediate success through the program, as well as its associated WEDC International Market Access Grant.
 

Baumann’s research turned up the United Arab Emirates as a top exporting target for Gamber-Johnson. Initially skeptical, company leaders visited the nation and quickly reported back that selling there was “like shooting fish in a barrel.” And Gamber-Johnson hasn’t stopped, growing from $200,000 in sales in 2012 to more than $20 million in 2022. The federal government annually presents eight President’s E-STAR Awards for exporting excellence to U.S. companies; Gamber-Johnson has received the honor not once, but twice — including for 2023.

“Gamber-Johnson is our superstar,” Baumann says. “When they came in, they would tell you they didn’t know anything about exporting. But they have methodically used the strategy and kept building, growing into the next market and the next market strategically. It’s just been a whirlwind.”
 

Wisconsin ExporTech graduates have received a total of three President’s E-STAR Awards, as well as five national “E” awards and nine Wisconsin Governor’s Export Awards. Marinette-based Winsert — a maker of alloy cast products for the transportation, aerospace, energy, industrial and food processing markets — received the state honor in 2022.
 

Exporting has long been part of Winsert’s business strategy, representing about half its business on an annualized basis and growing as high as 65% in the wake of COVID-19, President Mark Coduti says.
 

“Without our desire to export, we wouldn’t be anywhere close to where we are as a business today,” says Coduti, whose company recently turned to ExporTech for help expanding into Asia, particularly Japan.
 

“Japanese engineers are known for high precision, high reliability — so they use better materials, and that’s ultimately what Winsert is,” Coduti says. “So we have established a representative organization in Japan, and we’re continuing to work through that process. We wouldn’t be doing that today if it wasn’t for the involvement with ExporTech.”
 

International compliance is the biggest area in which Winsert has leaned on ExporTech, Coduti says, including understanding nuances in marketing and communications and crafting disclosure statements like those required around conflict minerals.
 

“Either we’re hiring a pretty expensive legal team to do those things, or we’ve got local resources that can actually work through it,” Coduti says.
 

Here to help
Wisconsin has a wealth of local resources available to manufacturers looking for support in either starting or continuing their exporting journeys — and many of them are completely free, says Wojtowicz, who directs Go Global for the SBDC in addition to chairing the Wisconsin District Export Council.
 

“Wisconsin has a very robust international trade ecosystem,” Wojtowicz says. “There’s a lot of organizations out there just dying to help you, provide you resources, and be your ambassador to get your products sold overseas.”

With Go Global, Wojtowicz says his goal is to become the “first call” for small and medium-sized Wisconsin manufacturers looking for help navigating exporting pain points like “how will I get paid” and “is my stuff going to get caught up in Customs.” His organization has helped a barbecue sauce maker capitalize on the trend of American barbecue in foreign markets, helped a high-tech forensic analysis toolmaker understand licensing requirements around a product that could have national defense implications, and even prevented a skin care business from getting scammed out of hundreds of thousands of dollars. No business is too small to receive SBDC’s support, he adds.
 

“Trade compliance professionals and attorneys aren’t cheap, and small mom and pop companies can’t afford that,” he says. “But if they come to the SBDC or some of these other resources that are out there, you get us for free — and we’re confidential.”
 

Another trusted exporting resource for Wisconsin manufacturers is the U.S. Commercial Service, which is directed in Wisconsin by Koreen Grube. Grube describes her office as a “concierge” service that manufacturers should feel free to consult any time. She also points to the wealth of free resources available at trade.gov, including country commercial guides that are updated annually for exporters looking for details on different countries’ economies, political climates, industry sectors, documentation requirements and more. In addition, the U.S. Commercial Service’s advocacy center works on behalf of Wisconsin businesses when bidding a foreign government tender. And if the commercial service can’t respond directly to an inquiry, Grube says, she and her colleagues will always help get them routed to the right place.
 

“If companies are really green and aren’t sure where to get started, I send them to Chris [Wojtowicz],” she says. “I’d say where our [U.S. Commercial Service] sweet spot is are those companies that are more reactively exporting or they’re just exporting to one market and want to expand.”
 

The U.S. Commercial Service also sponsors events for prospective exporters, something Grube says is a favorite aspect of her job. While the pandemic got some people out of the in-person meetings game, she says, it’s still essential in trade — particularly with certain countries.
 

Trade Winds is the largest U.S. government-led trade mission and business development forum. The trip annually connects up to 50 businesses with commercial diplomats and networking opportunities, as well as the option to participate in customized business-to-business “matchmaking meetings.”

“Companies really love it because it’s very economical,” says Grube, who is helping organize the 2024 mission to Istanbul and will be in charge of planning the 2025 event on behalf of the Great Lakes region. “It’s $2,200 and they get to go to all the mission stuff and get all their B2B meetings.”
 

Entities like WMEP, WEDC, the U.S. Commercial Service and the SBDC frequently refer each other’s services to Wisconsin manufacturers based on their needs and their stages along the exporting journey, Baumann says. Ultimately, it’s about positioning the “Made in Wisconsin” brand on the global stage and boosting business across the state for the benefit of all.
 

“Wisconsin has a really amazing team of international people that support this,” Baumann says. “All of us play in the sandbox together beautifully. We’ve got it all covered with some really great people here.”
 

Why Wisconsin?
Even beyond the bounty of local resources and cheerleaders available to exporters, Wisconsin’s value as a state from which to export is growing, Wojtowicz says — including through significant enhancements on the logistics side.
 

“We learned a lot of things from the pandemic, when things were stuck in the L.A. and Long Beach ports, when things were delayed and containers were costing $40,000 apiece and it was just ugly,” he says.
 

Closer to home, he adds, Chicago and Minneapolis were major hubs that also experienced bottlenecks, prompting action.
 

“Somebody saw this and decided the Port of Superior should be able to handle this type of freight and beautiful, it does so now,” he says, adding that less than container shipping is the next frontier being pursued at Superior that could benefit manufacturers.
 

Utilizing Superior has had an impact on “everything north of Kansas City,” Wojtowicz says. But the state has also improved its position around rail at Chippewa Falls and New Richmond as well as around air freight, with regional airports like Central Wisconsin becoming transit hubs in their own right. Trucking companies have also stepped up their game, he says.
 

“A lot of the regional trucking companies we have here have grasped that issue and filled in where necessary,” Wojtowicz says. “They went out and invested in their own infrastructure to make sure they could handle some of these overweight loads. All of that has been going on silently for the last few years but really came to a head last year. And this year [it] has just gone gangbusters.”

Another major reason Wisconsin manufacturers should export: the global reputation of American-made products. Countries are clamoring for them, Wojtowicz says: “Everybody loves the Made in the U.S.A. brand.”
 

The U.S. is the world’s largest exporter of services and second-largest exporter of goods, Grube says, and “a lot of countries see Wisconsin in particular as having quality products and customer service. And people in Wisconsin are just nice and easy to work with — that plays a huge role in international business.”

Out of about 450 participants in ExporTech, no more than two have completed the program and decided exporting wasn’t for them, Baumann says — and that was just because they were too young and hadn’t shored up their domestic strategies yet. The market for quality, American-made products is tremendous, and the opportunities to trade are plentiful.
 

“We’re very industrialized in the United States, and when you look at some of these other countries, what we maybe take for granted is unique and special to them,” Coduti says. “So you could be providing something unique and special at good margins.”
 

Winsert is one company that needs no convincing. In fact, Coduti says exporting will be central to the company’s strategy for years to come.
 

“We want to do the right things to transform this business to be around for the next not just 45, but 145 years,” he says. “That’s going to require some additional markets, some different things besides just pure endurance. We’re putting a lot more structure into our approach to growth.”