The Global Impact of Investing in Emerging Women Entrepreneurs and Young people

How Three Family Businesses Became Global

©iStock/monticelllo

Meet the three Australian-based businesses that became global.

1. Lucas' Papaw Remedies -- most commonly used for chapped lips.
2. Bundaberg Brewed Drinks -- famous for its brewing ginger beer in a familiar stubby bottle.
3. Blackmores -- international health supplement business.

"They are the engine room of our economy: they may not get the publicity constantly that the ASX-listed companies get, but family business is the bread and butter," says John McLean, chief executive of Bundaberg Brewed Drinks

Find out how they become global here.

Former President Obama: Honest About His Beginnings, Inclusive, and Forever Optimistic About America

A video (disregard the shocking part) that was used to promote President Obama’s book Dreams from My Father.

Today in Global Small Business: Indian Fashion Designers Are Ready to Go Global

©iStock/VSanandhakrishna

What's affecting me, my clients, my colleagues and other global small business owners:

• How companies step in to fund small businesses. 
• Thai startup Eko Communications Inc., a business messaging company, will take on Slack.
• How to finance exports creatively (WEGGinar™ on 9/6 free of charge but you must register to attend: https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/4753604763900421122; I'll be on the call).
• New technology is powering Australian small business export growth.
• Trans-Pacific Partnership will help SMEs go global -- that's according to AmCham.
• Indian fashion designers are ready to go global.

Take a PAWS for Dogs and Cops in Chicago

©2017 Laurel J. Delaney.  All rights reserved. 

©2017 Laurel J. Delaney.  All rights reserved.

©2017 Laurel J. Delaney.  All rights reserved.

©2017 Laurel J. Delaney.  All rights reserved.

"Canine officers trust their canine partners to conduct building searches, detect narcotics and explosives, and search for evidence and even missing people," says Phil Cline, executive director of the Chicago Police Memorial Foundation.

The 54-inch-tall fiberglass dog statues are part of the K9s for Cops campaign to pay tribute to the canine unit, honor fallen Chicago police officers, provide financial assistance to families of those wounded or killed in the line of duty, and raise money to support the spay and neuter program offered by PAWS Chicago.

Learn more ...

Laurel Delaney's Interview with ForbesBooks Radio

Here's an interview I did with the fabulous host Gregg Stebben at ForbesBooks Radio.  It's about my book, "Exporting:  The Definitive Guide to Selling Abroad Profitably."

The interview is available at many places:

• Click here for the interview at ForbesBooks.com
• Click here for the interview on iTunes
• Click here for the interview on SoundCloud

I am honored to have been given the opportunity.  Thank you Gregg and ForbesBooks Radio!

How Small Businesses Can Make An Impact in Our World

Binghamton University doctorate student Justine Lewis is shedding light on ways small businesses can make a big impact around the world.  She was the featured speaker recently at Binghamton's Noon Rotary.

Lewis worked in Washington DC for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).  The federally funded program offers grants for small businesses in the U.S. to help solve global issues such as extreme poverty.

Learn more here.

Is It Time to Scale Globally?

©iStock/ChrisGorgio

Perhaps you have a small online business supplying homemade jelly and all your stock is stored in your basement. What will you do if you get an order for 10,000 jars of jelly from the UK or Argentina?

Make sure you assess whether your chosen systems -- how you make the product, ship it, and get paid --  can withstand increased orders.  Otherwise, you might need to start an overhaul. What will that cost you, in time and money, to implement?

Read more ...  

How to Cater to National and International Tourists

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A cozy restaurant, bar and patio, Nomads Global Lounge, tucked into the Motel Du Beau, is bringing a taste of the world to Flagstaff, Arizona -- one plate at a time.

The idea for the name of the lounge came from the globe-shaped fire pit, which they first saw online. The name comes from a combined the idea of the nomadic world traveler and the image of a world globe. The globe theme can be seen in the porch lights, door and even the wrought iron railing enclosing the patio of the lounge.

That's how you cater to a national and international tourist audience.  You make a place warm and cozy with a world theme.

Read more ...

Today in Global Small Business: Best Place to See the Great American 8/21/17 Eclipse

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What's affecting me, my clients, my colleagues and other global small business owners:

• The best place to catch the Great American 8/21/17 eclipse. 
• What would a better NAFTA look like?
• How to win at the international trade game with creative export finance (WEGGinar™ on 9/6 free of charge but you must register to attend: https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/4753604763900421122; I'll be on the call).
• Flying warehouses?  Coming soon from Walmart.
• Can working overseas influence your worldview?  One man's perspective.
• How to launch your startup in an Asian market.

America Was Built on Courage

©2017 Laurel J. Delaney.  All rights reserved.

"America was not built on fear.  America was built on courage, on imagination and an unbeatable determination to do the job at hand." -- Harry S. Truman

Safest City in the World?

©iStock/vwalakta

What's the safest city in the world?  Oh that's simple:  Abu Dhabi. Who says so?  Numbeo.  Who's Numbeo?

Numbeo is the world’s largest database of user contributed data about cities and countries worldwide. Numbeo provides current and timely information on world living conditions including cost of living, housing indicators, health care, traffic, crime and pollution.

Abu Dhabi came in first, scoring the lowest crime index of 13.09 and the highest safety index of 86.91 in the past six months.

The UAE's capital was followed by Doha, Qatar, which came in second globally,  and Basel, Switzerland, which came in third.  Other cities that were ranked in the website's top 10 list include Munich, Germany, Osaka, Japan, Singapore, Singapore, Quebec City, Canada, Taipei, Taiwan, Boise, ID, U.S., and Bern, Switzerland.

Read more ...

Looking Beyond Borders for Business

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Making the decision to export as a small business can be a daunting one, but there is considerable help available to help you realise your goal.

There are valuable export opportunities for Australia’s small business sector not only in China but also in the United Kingdom, the United States and Malaysia (to name a few overseas partners). However, for some small businesses, the perception can be that the export market is difficult to access and full of obstacles. 

So here are a couple of things you need to do to overcome export challenges.

Staying Relevant

©iStock/BrianAJackson

Some global small businesses are very good at staying relevant. Some not so much.

Think about the well-documented stories of Sony Walkman failing to take advantage of the digital music era, the taxi industry doing little to effectively battle Uber and many, many more examples. This is all comes back to a loss of relevance with an audience and it is one of the biggest risks facing all of us in business today.

So how do you make sure you stay relevant?

Read more ...

How to Create a Sensational E-Commerce Website with Wordpress

Today in Global Small Business: What Makes For a Successful Global Business Leader?

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What's affecting me, my clients, my colleagues and other global small business owners:

• Read these 10 books on globalization. 
• What makes for a successful global business leader?
• Learn how to win the trade game with creative export finance (WEGGinar™ on 9/6 free of charge but you must register to attend: https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/4753604763900421122; if you participate, I'll be fielding your questions).
• How a woman business owner took her business from a hobby to a $2 million international business. 
• To become an international player, you must develop a global mindset.
• Speaking of global mindset, developing a global mindset is a key leadership attribute.

What's Your Place in History? Mine Is Clouds

©2013 Laurel J. Delaney.  All rights reserved.

"All of us have a place in history.  Mine is clouds." -- Richard Brautigan

A Golden Age for Small Business

©iStock/krung99

Since President Trump took office, small-business owners have grown more confident in the economy.

The businesses in the survey [The National Federation of Independent Businesses’ Index of Small Business Optimism] reported increased confidence on nearly every front, saying they expected higher sales and planned to hire more workers, increase inventories and expand their business.

Corporations are currently taxed at a lower top rate than pass-through businesses, which account for 75 percent of small businesses. They pay the same tax rates as any other worker.

President Trump:  “America is on the verge of a golden age for small business,” he said at a recent White House event with more than 100 small business owners.

Read more ...

How to Develop an Insanely Natural Brand

©iStock/Smileus

“Shane [Shane Wolf, Lead Farmhand at Seed Phytonutrients] came to me [Brad Farrell, vice president of global brand marketing at L'Oreal] and said, ‘I’ve always wanted to break the rules and have an insanely natural brand.’ I knew this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to work on something I believe in.”

Learn the story behind Seed Phytonutrients, a personal care brand that embraces organic farming both philosophically and practically, and how L’Oreal’s global chairman and CEO Jean-Paul Agon, embraced the creativity, sustainability, and especially the entrepreneurship of the project.

Put a Dent in the Universe

iStock/Vladir09

As Chris Myers says, "We tend to think globally and then try to apply our ideas locally. While this makes for a catchy slogan, it’s often easier said than done."

After all, most entrepreneurs want to solve big problems, disrupt age-old processes, and as Steve Jobs put it, put a dent in the universe.

He goes on to say, "By thinking locally and then scaling globally, entrepreneurs can create a thriving business and still make a splash on the global stage."

Read more ...

Chinese Women Must Liberate Themselves

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Professor Jin Jiang, who studies gender in modern China, told Axios, "once [revolution] happens, it's really difficult to go back … before, women were liberated by the state … but now women have to liberate themselves."

Women empowered by equal access to education and economic opportunity have the resources to upend the socio-cultural restrictions of traditional Chinese gender roles, Pieke [Professor Frank Pieke at Leiden University] says.  "They're saying, 'Why not allow [men] to live in an imaginary world in which they think they are the boss? When, really, we [women] are the ones calling the shots."

Read more ...

Today in Global Small Business: Ways Outsourcing Can Save a Businesss

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What's affecting me, my clients, my colleagues and other global small business owners:

• Actions to restore trust and confidence in the global economy. 
• Global small business financial services, technology and data platform Kabbage receives $250 million investment from a subsidiary of SoftBank Group Corp.
• The challenges to translating President Trump's manner of speaking.
• Ways outsourcing can save a failing business.
• Learn how to win the trade game with creative export finance (WEGGinar™ on 9/6 free of charge but you must register to attend: https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/4753604763900421122; if you participate, I'll be fielding your questions).
• Global e-commerce site eBay honors a California woman who immigrated from Colombia with nothing more than a suitcase and later co-founded a successful e-scrap company. 

What Would Life Be Without Home Grown Tomatoes?

©2017 Laurel J. Delaney.  All rights reserved.

"Home grown tomatoes, home grown tomatoes
What would life be like without homegrown tomatoes
Only two things that money can't buy
That's true love and home grown tomatoes."
-   John Denver, Home Grown Tomatoes

A Well Thought Out Export Business Plan

Best Summer Reading List to Learn How to Go Global

©iStock/BongkarnThanyakij

There are so many good books on globalization -- some old, some new.  Summer is a great time to get caught up on them.  I had to think a long time here on which books to feature -- but I made my selection.  Kick back.  Relax.  Enjoy.  Ponder how you plan to take on the world before the start of a new year.

Get going.  Read these 10 books on globalization.

Digital Natives, Undefined

©iStock/lluzishan

Is Amazon a retailer?  E-commerce giant?  Cloud-computing service provider?  Logistics king?  Fulfillment behemoth?

Organizations such as these [see below]—digital natives that are not defined or constrained by any one industry—may seem like outliers.

Focusing on other companies such as Rakuten Ichiba (Japan) and Tencent (China), it becomes tough to categorize the industries these firms are operating in.  Why should we?

It's clear that digitization is shifting industry boundaries.

Read more ...

How to Take a Business Global (WEGGinar™)

©2017 Women Entrepreneurs GROW Global.  All rights reserved.

Have you ever thought about selling your products via e-commerce?  Questioned whether a Kickstarter campaign might fuel and fund your idea?  Wondered how to handle the fulfillment and transport of your products?  Debated on which online e-commerce platform will handle your global transactions? Worried about how to collect online payments from customers worldwide?  Lost sleep over how to put all this into place in a cohesive, strategic and global fashion where the end results spells success?

Well then you better sign up for the next WEGGinar™ on 8/2 over at Women Entrepreneurs GROW Global.  It's free but you must register to participate.  Sign up here.  Oh, by the way, I'll be on the WEGGinar™ to moderate the Q&A.  And it's the co-founders of Beddys.com who will be talking about how they did it: took their bed business global.