Potential

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"Potential is like a summer crop. If it don't rain, it don't grow." – Charles Oakley

Transforming Global Business Forever

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According to a McKinsey Global Survey of executives, their companies have accelerated the digitization of their customer and supply-chain interactions and of their internal operations by three to four years – transforming global business forever.

For Better or Worse, Working From Home in USA Is Here to Stay

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The shift in attitudes toward working from home due to the global pandemic is likely to stick, according to Stanford economist Nicholas Bloom.

Surveys of more than 30,000 Americans conducted by Bloom and his colleagues show that most full-time workers expect to continue working remotely at least two or three days a week.

Bloom goes on to say that the new normal will be hybrid arrangements in which about 20% of workdays will be carried out from home — a decrease from the pandemic peak but a fourfold increase in the work from home (WFH) rate before last spring.

Read the entire article, "The Pandemic Blew Up the American Office."

Small Businesses Play An Outsized Role in the Global Economy

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Small businesses play an outsized role in the global economy. In fact, they represent 90% of all businesses and employ roughly 70% of all workers globally. 

Governments can and must play a part in helping global small businesses stay competitive in an increasingly global economy.

Read about four ways governments can help small businesses flourish in a post-COVID-world.

Courage to Go Global

©2021 Laurel J. Delaney.  All rights reserved.

"Business expands in proportion to one's courage to go global." – Laurel J. Delaney, founder, GlobeTrade.com and President, Women Entrepreneurs Grow Global®

Today in Global Small Business: How Does the International Entrepreneur Parole Program Work?

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

• These women-led businesses are building a greener world.
• G-7 nations back global minimum corporate tax of at least 15%.
• How can governments keep multinational companies from avoiding taxes by shifting their profits to low-tax countries?
• Quote of the week:  “Our attitude towards immigration reflects our faith in the American ideal. We have always believed it possible for men and women who start at the bottom to rise as far as the talent and energy allow. Neither race nor place of birth should affect their chances.” – Senator Robert F. Kennedy
  
• Why the U.S. is losing immigrant entrepreneurs to other nations.
• Dear Sophie addresses the International Entrepreneur Parole Program.

Gifts From the Universe

©2021 Laurel J. Delaney.  All rights reserved.

"We cannot stop the winter or the summer from coming. We cannot stop the spring or the fall or make them other than they are. They are gifts from the universe that we cannot refuse. But we can choose what we will contribute to life when each arrives."  – Gary Zukav

Let's Welcome Highly Skilled Businesses and Workers Into the US Post-Global Pandemic

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As the US looks to post-pandemic recovery, experts are highlighting the importance of international graduates returning to work in the US.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) should facilitate international entrepreneurs who want to work in the US by updating immigration rules, suggests a new report from the Brookings Institution. In this report, a range of attorneys and social scientists experienced in immigration and entrepreneurship are urging the DHS to follow up on a 2014 memo to welcome more “highly skilled businesses and workers” in a post-pandemic US.

Read on to learn more.

Growing Your Business Globally: 3 Fearless Female Founders Share the Keys to Success

©2021 Laurel J. Delaney.  All rights reserved.

You are welcome to join the SCORE webinar today, 6/3, at 1PM EDT (free of charge).  Laurel Delaney, President of Women Entrepreneurs Grow Global® will be presenting (her lead slide pictured above) along with Jill Bishop, founder and CEO, Multilingual Connections and Cherry Miyake, founder of China Manufacturing Inc.

Here's what you will learn:

• Why going global ignites growth for a business
• How to go global with renewed gusto and emerge stronger
• Why engaging multilingual audiences is necessary to expand your global reach
• How translation can help create trust and ensure brand nuance internationally
• Why China is a market of opportunity
• Where the growth industries and demands are in China
• What can you do to get started in China?

To learn more and to attend, visit:  Growing Your Business Globally – Three Fearless Female Founders Share the Keys to Success

Deloitte's 2021 Global Marketing Trends

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From people and businesses to governments, everyone needs to find new ways to navigate this new world.  How do you uncover and discuss the implications of global marketing trends at a time when the world has seemingly turned on its axis and still continues to change in unpredictable ways?

Read "Deloitte's 2021 Global Marketing Trends," to discover how some of the leading companies in the world are harnessing customer passion, and learn the seven trends that can help executives break through this wall of uncertainty and take action. 

Exporting Can Boost Small Business Recovery

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By working to enter, or re-enter, the global marketplace, many small businesses are sitting on the precipice of success. 

Nearly 96 percent of the world’s consumers live outside the United States and trade represents nearly two-thirds of the world’s $80 trillion economy. With exporting as a component of a business’ growth strategy, a company can expand faster, create jobs, and pay higher wages — all while contributing to the local economy.

In this particular example, Michigan firms are considering pivoting and enhancing their customer base and revenues via exporting.

Today in Global Small Business: Memorial Day 2021 – Pause, Remember, Reflect, and Honor the Fallen

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

• Honoring lost loved ones.
• Here are some ways to mark Memorial Day in Washington, D.C., both online and in-person.
• Memorial Day 2021:  pause, remember, reflect, and honor the fallen.
• Quote of the week:  “Missing you comes in waves.  Tonight I'm drowning." – Anonymous
• The Old Farmer's Almanac – Memorial Day 2021.
• Tomb of the unknown soldier.

Be the Kind of American Worth Fighting For

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"If you want to thank a soldier, be the kind of American worth fighting for." – Unknown

Become Top Dog in the U.S. Export World of Pet Food

©Women Entrepreneurs Grow Global®.  All rights reserved.

How do you become top dog in the U.S. export world of pet food?  Find out at Women Entrepreneurs Grow Global®'s upcoming wegginar® Wednesday, June 2nd, at 11AM CT when Katie McCarron, Founder, Portland Pet Food Company, talks about how to:

• Create a business you are passionate about and share with the world.
• Find financing for export operation (easier than you think).
• Discover numerous resources to support your export endeavors.
• Plan ahead for exporting, research export markets and consider exporting as a sales channel for your business.
• Become top dog in your field even if you are not running a pet food company :-).

To learn more and to register free of charge – thanks to generous sponsors (see graphic) who support the global growth of women business owners, visit: https://womenentrepreneursgrowglobal.org/2021/05/05/becoming-top-dog-in-the-u-s-export-world-of-pet-food-with-katie-mccarron/

Post COVID-19: What's in Store For Us?

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According to international expert organizations, the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic can become very severe if not critical for many sectors of the global economy.  I wrote about 8 takeaways from doing business globally in the wake of COVID-19 and how globalization will look after COVID-19.

The Signal indicates the greatest losses from the global pandemic were incurred by representatives of small and medium businesses.

What is the connection between small business and the global economy?  Did the global pandemic really affect everybody? Learn more here.

Flipping It to an International Platform

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Chicago-based Elements Global Services has emerged in the past five years in the vanguard of a different kind of PEO. Together with a dozen or so rivals such as Globalization Partners and Velocity Global, Elements has taken the domestic service model and flipped it to an international platform.

For corporate clients—most of them small and medium in size and privately-owned—Elements can expedite foreign expansion, a high priority in an increasingly globalized economy. 

Much of Element's growth is fed by the success of recent globalization strategies, which indicate on average, a company sending a single employee to a new post expands to five people within a year. 

Learn more about a way for even the smallest of companies to expand abroad.

Reducing Poverty Through Global Economic Growth

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The U.S. Small Business Administration and The Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to advance emerging technologies and innovations developed through the Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer (SBIR/STTR) programs. The MOU will help close nation-specific gaps in sectors like energy, sanitation and health, which are set to be pinpointed, piloted and scaled 

The two aim to collectively advance emerging technologies via their resources and realms—and connect U.S. small business innovators with international markets—under the MOU.

Let's hope this unleashes a country's true innovation potential.

Today in Global Small Business: SBA's Export Assistance Can Boost Global Small Business Recovery

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

• SBA's export assistance can boost global small business recovery.
• Boosting small business is crucial to a smart recovery.
• British SME manufacturers expect strong post-Covid recovery.
• Quote of the week:  “Maintaining confidence in international trade will be critical to the broader economic recovery in the post-Covid world." – Liz Truss
• These countries are leading the way on a post-pandemic green recovery.
• Small business shipping to the U.S. bounce back.

Not All Those Who Wander

©2021 Laurel J. Delaney.  All rights reserved.

"Not all those who wander are lost." – J.R.R. Tolkien 

Be Creative and Innovative When You Take Your Business Global

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Many small businesses are still feeling particularly vulnerable coming out of the global pandemic, whether they are in a brick-and-mortar retailer that's temporarily closed their doors or an online business that's experiencing a spike they are not anticipating. The pandemic has completely turned around the global economy and disrupted how people live, work, and communicate.

With every economic crisis comes an opportunity that cannot be put to waste to emerge stronger as markets recover.

One thing that is essential during our recovery:  launching a compelling and impactful digital marketing strategy.

Here are some things to consider for being creative and innovative with your strategy.

How to Streamline and Increase Collaboration For Your Global Small Business

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If you want to learn a project’s status without having to hop on a call or schedule yet another meeting, productivity software may be the answer.

During the pandemic, productivity and collaboration tools became essential for companies transitioning their staff from in-person to remote work. The global market for collaborative software is expected to grow 17% in 2021 and keep trending upward in 2022.

These tools can help global small businesses improve communication and increase productivity.

Relax with a Kitty Cat in a Parisian Cafe (Music Video)

Episode #3: How She Went Global™ Podcast from Women Entrepreneurs Grow Global®

©2021 Women Entrepreneurs Grow Global®.  All rights reserved.

Women Entrepreneurs Grow Global® releases Episode #3 of its How She Went Global™(HSWG) podcast featuring Kara Goldin, Founder and CEO, Hint, Inc., Author, Undaunted. Overcoming Doubts & Doubters.  This month's theme:  Turning No and You Can’t, Into Yes and I Will  

©2021 Kara Goldin. All rights reserved

Kara discusses growing her unsweetened flavored water business to more than $150 million in annual sales, the challenges to going global, the advantages to selling a Made In USA product, and what prompted her to write a best-selling book.

HSWG podcast is brought to the world by Bluedog.

About HSWG

Successful women entrepreneurs and business owners share stories about going global, and offer new ways to take on the world, stay inspired and have fun! 

You can find HSWG on Apple Podcast, Spotify and Podomatic. Tune in and subscribe.  

Today in Global Small Business: Sometimes It Pays to Call a News Reporter

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

• Oshawa, Canada business owner Alex Pilepic runs a motorcycle apparel store and qualified for $40,000 in aid. But he didn’t get a commitment from the government to pay until he called Global News reporter Sean O’Shea.
• SmartyPans, a San Mateo, Calif.-based startup founded in 2015, developed a “smart cooking pan” that communicates the nutritional contents of the pan to an app and tells the user when their food is fully cooked.
• Israel-based Zeekit works with major retailers like Macy's, Adidas, Levi’s to develop virtual fitting rooms.
• Quote of the week:  “Ideas are easy.  Implementation is hard.”  –Guy Kawasaki, Alltop Co-Founder and Entrepreneur
• Remotion is working to create entire virtual office experiences that feel more like the cozy HQ employees were used to.
• Monitor, explain, and analyze your AI in production with Fiddler Labs.

Tulip Fever

©2021 Laurel J. Delaney.  All rights reserved.

"'Tulip Fever' did change my life.  It did that thing that sometimes happens when a book takes off - it opened doors on to whole other worlds." –  Deborah Moggach

How Global Small Businesses Stepped Up Their International Sales To Survive the Global Pandemic

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Due to the global pandemic, more small businesses spread their wings to sell around the world, new research from the UK shows.

• Two thirds of SMEs (66%) recorded an increase in online sales from overseas
• Three quarters (73%) said the ability to transact business abroad was a financial lifeline
• Most (68%) expect to continue selling abroad – more than before the pandemic
• But it's still a tough environment for SMEs as overall earnings drop by 43%

A rapid acceleration of digital online sales helped drive this, but the shift online also helped open up conversations that people were now willing to have remotely. 

There is increased optimism in spite of challenges.  Read more here.

Taco Bell Is Globally Rebranding the Quarter Moon, Calling It the Taco Moon

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Taco Bell, the Irvine, Calif., Mexican fast-food chain, is rebranding the quarter moon as part of the company’s first global marketing campaign. The “taco moon,” as the company calls it, appeared in the night sky on May 4, 2021.

According to Taco Bell, the moon may not be made of green cheese but it definitely looks like a taco twice a month.

Only 628 of the company’s locations are outside the U.S.—which runs counter to sister chains KFC and Pizza Hut, both of which have an enormous presence in international markets.

Read more about how Taco Bell is hoping global marketing in the chain’s famous irreverent style can help move the global growth process along.

Directed Opportunism: That's How Wal-Mart Went Global

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How did Wall-Mart go global? By using a strategy of "directed opportunism." And knowing how to clone its corporate DNA.

Becoming global is never exclusively the result of a grand design, though certainly it cannot be the result of incremental, ad hoc, opportunistic and random moves. The wisest approach would be one of "directed opportunism" - an approach that maintains opportunism and flexibility within a broad direction set by a systematic framework.

Wal-Mart stores is one of the best examples of the power of an explicit and systematic process to analyze the complex set of factors involved in becoming a global player.

Expand Your Global Business Outside Your Core Industry

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Don’t assume you already know all the pain points that your customers face.  When's the last time you checked in with them and had a conversation?  That's a start.

Mastered your market, whether local or global?  Companies over the past five years have either pursued at least one activity in a new category, have considered it, or plan to do so in the next five years according to a McKinsey Global Survey.  So we know it’s happening, but how does one execute it successfully? 

The article – ways to expand your business outside of your core industry – published by Small Business Trends will help by listing ways to expand your business outside of your core industry.

Today in Global Small Business: Happy Belated Mother's Day to All Moms Worldwide

©2021 Laurel J. Delaney.  All rights reserved.

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

• Wishing all moms a belated Happy Mother's Day.  There is no role in life that is more essential than motherhood.
• In case the world missed it, Elon Musk takes his turn on Saturday Night Live (SNL) 5/8/21.
• Apart from the reach, hyperlocal marketing provides an incredible return on investment.  It's paving the way for global marketing success.
• Quote of the week:  "When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favor." – Elon Musk
• Brush up on your reading:  Top 10 business magazines in USA.
• How the busiest people get 'deep work' done.

The Customer is Always Right

©2022 Laurel J. Delaney.  All rights reserved.

"Right or wrong, the customer is always right." – Marshall Field

Kick Back for 10.16 Hours and Listen to Great Soft Rock Songs from the 70s, 80s and 90s

What's a K Shaped Economy?

©iStock/Pavio Stavnichuk

Small businesses are a powerful and influential piece of the economy.  In fact, 99.9% of all businesses in the U.S. qualify as small businesses, collectively employing almost half (47.3%) of the nation’s private workforce.

Unfortunately, they’ve also been one of the hardest-hit sectors of the economy amid the pandemic.

The World Economic Forum (WEF) talks about the K-shaped recovery, where some industries see more improvement compared to others that stagnate in the aftermath of a recession.

Read on to learn more.  The good news?  Despite the continued hardships, the global entrepreneurial spirit endures.

WEF says:  "Even in the face of a global pandemic, the perseverance of such metrics prove that the innovative American spirit is unwavering, and spells better days to come for small business recovery."

You might also take a look at the visual, "Mapped:  The State of Small Business Recovery in America."

The Wider the Reach, the Bigger the Market Share

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More than just publishing a website in another language, global marketing also has to do with building a customer engagement strategy and then zeroing in on which channels and types of content will effectively reach those customers.

To know if your business is ready for global (online) expansion, discover which five questions you need to ask. 

What's the True Cost of An eCommerce Shipment (Landed Cost) Once It Reaches a Customer's Doorstep?

©2021 Women Entrepreneurs Grow Global®.  All rights reserved.

Are you running a global business?  Have questions about the global supply chain?  Run an e-commerce business and wonder how duties and taxes affect you or your customers?  

Find the answers to these questions plus more along with what the true cost of an e-commerce shipment is (landed cost) once it reaches a customer's doorstep.  

Join our wegginar® on Wednesday, May 5th at 11AM CT to hear Kat Sun, Head of Operations at Passport Shipping and Kaitlin Mogentale, Founder of Pulp Pantry talk about "What to Expect When You're Expecting (To Go International).

All business owners operating in the B2B and B2C space who run an e-commerce business should attend.

To learn more and to register (no charge thanks to our generous sponsors), visit:  Women Entrepreneurs Grow Global®.

Today in Global Small Business: Finding Answers To Your Questions About International Travel

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

• Finding answers to your questions about international travel.
• Center for Disease Control and Prevention:  Find your destination to determine whether you can travel there or not.
• Canada will require using a vaccine passport for entry.
• Quote of the week:  "We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time." – T. S. Eliot
• Seven (7) countries are planning for international travel. 
• Where can you fly right now?

What God Can Do

©Laurel J. Delaney.  All rights reserved.

"Spring shows what God can do with a drab and dirty world." – Virgil A. Kraft 

Shoppable Pins Brought to You By Pinterest on a Worldwide Basis

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Shopify’s Pinterest app, which launched last year in the US and Canada, is now available in 27 additional countries.  The Pinterest app for Shopify stores lets merchants upload their product catalogues and convert their products into pins.  Users can then buy products featured in a merchant’s pins without ever having to leave Pinterest.

This gives 1.7 million merchants the ability to turn products from their e-commerce store into shoppable pins.

What Are You Best in the World At? Have You Found Your Personal Hedgehog?

Everyone Needs to Go At Ventilator Speed

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A Time Magazine article says that every company is a tech company now.  The disruption is just beginning.  For example, "March 2020, as businesses across the world sent non-essential workers home to slow the spread of the coronavirus, a 2.6 million-sq.-ft. General Motors plant in Kokomo, Ind., sat idle. At the same time, ventilators—the breathing machines essential to keeping critically ill COVID-19 patients alive—were in frighteningly short supply. And so within a week of pausing the plant’s operations, GM CEO Mary Barra launched it back into action, quickly transforming a dormant engineering building into an assembly line that delivered 30,000 ventilators in five months."

Barra says that approach, incubated in the crisis of the pandemic, is now a permanent cultural shift that has already led to faster timetables for GM’s bet-the-company push to sell only electric vehicles by 2035. “Now as we approach different projects, we say, ‘You know, we’ve got to go at ventilator speed because we know we have the capability to do that,’” Barra says.

Read the entire article here.  We are in the midst of a reset.

The Backbone of Our Economy: Global Small Businesses

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Global small businesses are vital to the USA recovery from the global pandemic yet micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) can power an even stronger recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, due to their innovative and opportunity-seeking nature, but they need more support.

Such support should be aligned with the priorities of the post-COVID-19 social and economic recovery, said the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) Acting Secretary-General Isabelle Durant.

Read on to find out how supporting small businesses is critical for COVID-19 recovery.

Today in Global Small Business: Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) or All Things Crypto

©iStock/Marina Funt

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

• Fungible (adj.) — able to replace or be replaced by another identical item; mutually interchangeable.
• Speculative crypto art market takes off.  Why?  "Our digital lives are surrounded by countless digital objects. NFTs are a way to imbue such objects with financial value. When that happens they take on a new level of significance and importance."
• Lindsay Lohan sold a photo of herself for $17K – and then tweeted about it.
• Quote of the week:  "Billionaire Mark Cuban is selling a motivational quote as a NFT for $1,700. " – Markets Insider, March 13, 2021
• Shark Tank celebrity and owner of the Dallas Mavericks Mark Cuban sold a tokenized version of one of his tweets for $952.  The sale was made via the Valuables platform. 
• A clip of LeBron James blocking a shot sold for $100K last month.

Coca Cola Is One

©2021 Laurel J. Delaney (all photos).  All rights reserved.

"There are good examples of companies – Coca-Cola is one – that invested before there was a huge market in countries, and I think that ended up playing out to their benefit for decades to come." – Mark Zuckerberg

Embracing the Love-Hate Relationship of Remote Work

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A May survey from Intermedia showed that 57% of surveyed owners of small and midsized businessessaid they likely would keep increased remote working options long term for their workers.

Embracing remote work has been a love-hate relationship for many global small and medium-sized business (SMB) owners. Yet, even before the pandemic hit, Global Workplace Analytics had estimated that by 2025, 70% of workers will work remotely at least five days per month. 

What are the lessons for lenders?  Find out here.