Selling Beyond Our Borders

By Carolyn Sloan

Spectator

NovaNewsNow.com

In helping local businesses expand their markets, the Annapolis Digby Economic Development Agency hosted a Trade Team Nova Scotia workshop, Selling Beyond Our Borders, to educate the public and private sectors on export development.

On September 17, representatives from businesses and non-profit organizations, and government officials came to the Annapolis Basin Conference Centre to mingle with Trade Team Nova Scotia members and to gain insights from Nova Scotian businesses already exporting their products worldwide.

Trade Team Nova Scotia is a virtual organization that is made up of 23 federal, provincial, and private sector partners who have interests in exporting. A resource for Nova Scotians, TTNS can channel businesses to information about exporting and help them address any questions of concerns they might have. Through their partners, the organization offers mentoring services, export counselling, and the opportunity to go on trade missions around the world.

Among the participants last Monday afternoon were local representatives including MP Robert Thibault and MLA Harold Theriault, Annnapolis County Warden Peter Newton, and Bridgetown Mayor Art Marshall, who came to find out more about what they can do to help local businesses get into exporting.

“I think my main interest in coming was basically to get the information on what kind of opportunities there are for exports from our area,” Marshall explained. “I think in order to sustain our area we need to have small businesses, home-based businesses, finding opportunities to market their products, not just domestically, but internationally.

“Any opportunity to see growth in economic development in rural Nova Scotia is something we have to be aware of and on top of.”

While some participants gained valuable information from the panel of guest speakers, others found what they were looking for through networking with other businesses and Trade Team Nova Scotia members. Participant Judy Ameriault of Ameriault Photography in Digby has been running a family business for 40 years. While she has begun to export to the United States, she came to the workshop hoping to learn more about marketing to buyers across the border.

“We’re just building a new website, an ecommerce website, so we are actually quite prepared to sell anywhere in the world,” said Ameriault. “So what we need to know now is how to market that website, and it isn’t just wholesale, it’s retail as well.

“When we came in this morning, the people that were here representing various organizations, I thought we already picked up enough information to work with and go straight for the wholesale market.”

The export development workshop is the first of a series of workshops the ADEDA will be facilitating over the next year. The economic development agency is planning two more workshops this fall and winter, including one on experiencial tourism and another aimed at helping local retailers.