The Red Review - DBT Partnership, free business growth challenge and winning work abroad
In this episode Jeremy talks to Robin Hill at the Department of Business and Trade about what support the department can offer all UK businesses, our work with them as Growth Ignition and our new free business growth challenge taking place in January
Transcript
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The Red Review is brought to you by Growth Ignition, the transformation consulting, training and enabling tech firm in the work winning space and their product set. The Bid Toolkit, the online bid processing guide with APMP accredited training and tools to download.
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Hello and welcome to the Red Review podcast with me, Jeremy Brim. Really interesting, different episode this time. I'm joined by another grown up actually. And so, I've been doing quite a lot of work with what was the Department for International Trade.
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Now the Department for Business and Trade. And I wanted to get one of my friends from the department on to talk about the great work that they do actually. And so welcome Robin. Great, thank you very much, Jeremy. It's great to be here. Great to have you on. Thank you.
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So Robyn, if you wouldn't mind just telling, telling us a bit about yourself and your role in the department and then we'll get into what the department gets up to, etc. From there. Sure, yeah. Well, it's, it's good to be here and, and likewise, nice to be, interviewed by another grownup.
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I, I am, my functions is working within Export Academy, which is a part of the overall export ecosystem that constitutes dbt and we look to upskill people, give them all the necessary skills they need in order to go overseas with their products or with their services and hopefully, open up opportunities for UK plc.
[01:35.9]
Very good. So, as I was saying, it's really been brought home to me in the work that I do with the department, how important it is actually. And I think what most businesses don't realise is the sheer scope and scale of the resources that you have, both in the UK and in consulates all around the world.
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So, so how, how my relationship started, I won a tender actually to deliver a bunch of training webinars with, with the Export Academy. And I also, at the same time, through my work with Cranfield University, won a separate couple of webinar training sessions, with the Defence and Security part of the department when it was just international trade and so got to train a, a load of SMEs in how to win work abroad, but also a lot of consulate staff all around the world.
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We did some quite big international calls with consulate staff about this stuff and so it, it's really exposed me to the department and, and what you guys get up to. So get, give me an overview of the Export Academy. Oh, sorry, of, of the department, first, of all its areas of focus in terms of international trade.
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What's the key mission at the moment since particularly the rebrand or bringing. No, it's, it's it's one of those things. If I go back about two years ago because prior to two years I wasn't a civil servant. I was very much. I've been running my own businesses most of my, most of my life.
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And then the latter five years I'd worked for a couple of companies. But if I, if I go, go back then and when somebody opened the door and told me what as it was then dit actually provided, quite honestly my, my eyes just bulged. I had absolutely zero idea of the support, the resource, the assistance that this government body can actually bring to a business.
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And I know in my time, selling wines primarily, around the world and in the uk, it would have been extremely useful to me and I just went, wow, yeah, I'd love to have part of that or be part of that. Since then, I do the welcome calls and one of the greatest forms of feedback that we get from people when they join Export Academy was, is I had no idea that this existed.
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You can send me to Finance Options, you can get me talking to a sector specialist in my area, you can talk to, or you can get me talking to a Foreign and Commonwealth trade desk in uae. You can do market research for me, you can even introduce clients to me and you have this fantastic website called great.gov.uk and I can even advertise my services to overseas companies as well as looking at a whole plethora of information relating to different markets, countries and trade.
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It is phenomenal what we can offer, but nobody really knows much about it. People that come into Export Academy, they find out very quickly and we kind of tailor make their journey and get them exporting at their own speed. But we make sure that they've got access to all the information that they, that they need.
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So having worked with Marcus, who, who, who leads the function, a bit to even help him shape some of this actually. So we had a number of calls last year I think, because you, you've reshaped in effect the curriculums. There's some core activities and then brought broader activities.
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And so particularly I've read a couple of times the recent, the last couple of annual reports for the department and, and how trade, particularly from small and med, isn't where it should be. You know, particularly post Brexit.
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My kind of mission for working with the department really is that post Brexit we need to win more work abroad. And UK businesses, particularly smaller businesses need to get good at it and, and do more of it. When actually the stats have been going the other way and, and so it was really the cause for wanting to engage.
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But I, I was really overwhelmed by when Marcus showed me the full set of the training and development that companies can get for free. With the academy. It's really fantastic because it's when you look into delivering services abroad, even if it's just training services like I do by webinar, you know I've been doing a load of work with clients in Australia and different bits of Asia and thing things recently, English speaking stuff but just you know, exchange rates and visas and insurance and all of that kind of commercial stuff.
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None of it's actually rocket science but just having the guidance to know what to do in what order, in that scenario and particularly more for companies that are selling products, shipping stuff, all of that kind of thing, is really powerful. Is it? Particularly in this new trading environment where we're, you know, we're not part of some clubs as we used to and we're getting into new clubs and things.
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You need to know what's what, don't you? So I find that's really powerful. Yeah, yeah. There's, there's lots of things that people maybe overlook or they, they approach business overseas as if they're business in the uk but there's so much more to take into account.
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You mentioned their visas. What's the worst case scenario that can happen there? You apply for your visas late, they don't come through in time. That has a knock on effect on your delivery, on your service delivery maybe it could well be that you don't get a long enough one. So therefore your staff that are in country working for you, delivering your service, delivering your products, whatever it may be, they get kicked out of the country before the job's finished.
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And that's just a really, really simple thing to be thinking about. So there's a, who whole list of things that people really need to prepare for and that's what we try to do is we try to get them to think about that preparation so that everything goes as smoothly as it possibly can when they're overseas, when they're delivering whatever they're doing.
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And you mentioned the department. Yeah, the department. I mean I've often heard the, the figure of the government's aiming for a 1 trillion level of sales. I think it was 650, 660 billion in 2022. So we've got a way.
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But when you bear in mind that that's only one in 10 companies, UK companies that are actually achieving that figure, just think of the opportunity that's out there. And if we only got that to 2 in 10, then you know, just doing the very simple maths, we are at a trillion, a trillion plus.
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So you know, people really need to try and understand that there is opportunity, there's opportunity for the right companies. It's not a fix all, it's not a panacea for problems in the UK or with your company operating in the, for example.
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And the reason I say that if your company's in a bad state here, going to export is not going to help you because you need money, you need commitment, you need staff, resource, you need training, there's an awful lot for you to do. And taking your eye off the UK ball will just make things, it'll just exacerbate the situation for you in the uk.
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So really there's, and that's just a couple of things I've mentioned there that are really, really key to you being successful overseas. You then start looking outside of that and you take into account different languages, different cultures. How often, how easy is it to offend somebody these days in our country?
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Speaking the same language, being in the same room, maybe, you know it's very easy. But you take that, you extrapolate that out and you go to the other side of the world. It then becomes much, much easier to you know, to, to upset people. So you have to understand the culture, the way of doing business and really em it.
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What I can say from my point of view is exporting is great fun because you do meet new people, you do meet new you, you embrace new cultures, new clients, new new ways of doing things. It opens your eyes to so, so much and the like I say, and I say this all the time during my welcome course, the opportunities really are endless out there.
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And if you are in a business sector where perhaps the UK is overpopulated, why not look overseas? Because when we talk about overseas, of course everybody's thinking, well China, America, they're the big glamorous countries.
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Well you know, if you think about it and you have a product or a service that's appropriate, why don't you look at somewhere a bit closer to home, possibly Southern Ireland, same culture, same language, same time zone. So you're starting to make things a bit easier for yourself as you look to extend your market reach and it will be a lot easier.
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And it's easier to go over there, it's easier to spend time there, it's easier to build relationships with declines. And there are some French fringe benefits. You know, the Guinness is very good over there. Apparently it's meant to be a lot better than it, than it is over here, in the, on the, on the mainland.
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And so, you know, this thing about exporting, it doesn't have to be thousands of miles. It can be almost on the doorstep. Absolutely, absolutely. And so. Well, it's been a really interesting journey the last year or so, delivering the. So I've been delivering a series of webinars.
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So I won a tender, to deliver some webinars for Marcus and the team. So we've been delivering four. We've been delivering one on value propositions, one on, marketing 101 for winning work abroad, one on, pitching, presenting to clients, and one I've just delivered today, actually, on bidding and negotiating deals.
[11:09.1]
So 45 minute talk, 15 minute Q A largely pretty highly level stuff. But what's interesting and really opened my eyes to the need really is the Q and a bit that, that 15 minutes, has really opened my eyes because the level of maturity in the questions I'm being asked isn't high.
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And we need that to change. So we need to help UK businesses in getting better at winning work aboard. Because I'm being asked some pretty simple questions that are actually just uk, you know, they should be good at this stuff in the uk, let alone winning work abroad.
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And so that the opportunity to move the dial even just a fraction, it will make such a big difference. And so there's been a lot of learning from that. And you've won, you, we've met before because you've run one of those webinars with me. I can't. It might have been the pitching one. I think it was bidding and pitching.
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Yeah, yeah. And so, you know, when we've had a good time doing that together. So, the department came to me four months ago or so and asked me to think about how we could turn the volume up on that, which I was very happy, to talk about.
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And also to help co market, you know, the export academy more widely. So step number one was get Robin on the podcast Tick. So we've done that bit. But the next bit is we're going to change the format of our webinar, series into a free business growth challenge.
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So we're going to add a first module on market research and business planning. So it's going to move to five. So it'll go market research, business planning, value propositions, marketing for winning work abroad, pitching to clients, bidding and negotiating deals.
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But for each of those sessions the audience will receive some free tools, so a business plan template, a marketing plan template, etc. Etc. Through, through that model. And we'll set them some homework between each session. In effect go away and do some research on this or think about these things.
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And so we'll try and make it a more valuable, coordinated, cohesive, single valuable programme, which hopefully will lead people to buy a bigger version of that from me and also lead people to other, types of development with, with the Academy, as well.
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So that's, that's a really exciting new venture together to co market something for the, the benefit of the country really. So just wanted to flag it that anyone's welcome to join that. And so really great to be able to build a closer partnership, change the format, all of that kind of stuff.
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But the, the point was really, it was that maturity bit. And so working together with colleagues like you, Robin, we really need to help, particularly those small and medium enterprises understand the scale of the opportunity, abroad and, but being infantry, not snipers, because it is a big world or sometimes it's a small world.
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But, for instance, you know what we learned from this Q A? What I guarantee every session I do, I will get a question about basically market research. How do we figure out the market sizing, where to target, etc. Etc. And every time my answer is talk to Robin and colleagues and go and use the department for market research.
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Because you have people in consulates all around the world and market research capability they might have to pay some money for. But you know, it's a really valuable service and the department has those people in consulates around the world that can provide introductions.
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We've been shaping some stuff with colleagues in defence and security, for instance, around helping shape trade missions and helping prepare UK SMEs for those conversations with foreign governments and primes, you know, big, prime companies that are perhaps foreign, that are going to go after big deals with foreign governments and things that they can play a part in.
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So I, I think that's a real front where we as work winning professionals in my discipline need to support you in following through on that. So it's really exciting stuff, really exciting stuff. Yeah, it's, it's interesting you say about the, the questions because we get a fair, a fair few questions at the end of the sessions that we deliver.
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And sometimes they're, they're straightforward but sometimes they show a real, a real interest, a real passion, a real willingness to embrace and understand. And sometimes you know, I won't be too specific but I remember one occasion a chap came on, said he'd invested something like £350,000 in a product, it was a viable product and he was talking to the Brazilian and the German police force, and he was just at the point of putting some figures together.
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Now he'd only just come to export Academy, he'd never sold anything overseas. And I said, I took it as a cry for help really. Although he was, I guess he didn't realise the depth of potential problem he was in because he's about to start pricing for something that has to travel overseas where he needs accreditation and all the rest of it.
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So we did an emergency referral there. We got him into to see an international trade advisor. And from there everything grew and he was, he was saved. I worry about maybe some companies that would have gone further, start quoting, start tendering, accepting pricing from, from overseas bodies.
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They then have a problem. It's very difficult retrospectively to rescue that situation. And that's why you know I come back to this thing all the time about preparation. People must prepare, they must get on there, ask the stupid questions, the silly questions, however you want to call them.
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Yeah. Because to you, you know, they're important. You need to understand and I, I'd answer them all day long if people at the end of it we're going to take that information away and, and do something with it. And I, and I do. People ask all sorts of questions and as long as to them it's important then it's important to me and we can build them and we can build their confidence.
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We can give them the information and, and send them on their way and move them up the chain. Not so long ago was it last week, the week before I was talking to They beat well I say brand new, probably trading 12 months shoe related product.
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And he wanted to take his product overseas and he's looking Australia, New Zealand. I set up a meeting with one of our sector specialists. Sector specialist went away a week later, came back with a load of potential clients for him. This gent sent out details, he got an appointment straight away.
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He had an 8am meeting with a company over in Australia. So it was There, I think seven, sorry, it was at 8:00pm this, this buyer over in Australia got up at seven, 7:00am to hold a meeting with them. Now that's an amazing result.
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He didn't have to do anything for that. Yes, he had to research. Yes. He had to send the emails out. But we were able to help him there. And that is the kind of practical help that we can give. Absolutely. It's really powerful stuff and so important to sort of UK PLC really.
[18:28.2]
So what's the, what's the split? Is, is a lot of your work with products or is it services? What's the kind of split between sort of professional services and services or products? And I take, I, I take a bit of a lead on services myself.
[18:43.9]
I've sold both in my, in my background as a broker so selling broking services and also selling wine. So I've, I've done both. So I don't, I don't have a particular leaning but I do seem to deliver a number of master on selling services, professional services.
[19:00.3]
So I get quite involved with that side where typically people come into the, the export market by accident very, very easily. They don't even refer to it as exporting. They call it selling internationally. It's a, it's a different kind of approach but it's just as well.
[19:16.4]
It's probably more important to UK PLC than selling goods. I mean I think it's about 50, 50 at the moment. But as a services selling nation with the second, the second biggest in the. Really appreciate that. And this whole UK plc, I encourage people to trade on the coattails of UK PLC because we are highly regarded overseas.
[19:41.4]
Made in UK still counts for a lot. UK services are very, very highly regarded. I can think of a company that took recruitment, services over to North America. One of the things that came out of their market research very much that English recruitment companies are very well, or highly thought of.
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That was one of the final sort of pieces in their jigsaw that made them take the plunge and set up overseas in North America. So things like that. Yeah, it's really interesting isn't it? And because I've been working with some companies in Asia, like I say, I've been working with some Norwegians recently, and others and you know we, we are, there's obviously positives and negatives to every nation in terms of, terms of perception but we are seen as you know, innovators that bring real quality.
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And there is There is a lot to be said for that. It certainly helps me with winning. Winning work abroad where I'm, I'm training people internationally or big global programmes and things. You know, I was in Basel week before last, doing some training in key account management, with a bunch of people.
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It's really fascinating place, Basel actually I hadn't quite or bowl as depending on where you're coming from. You know it's fascinating to come and come to the exit of the airport and there's one door for France and one door for Switzerland because you're right in the corner. And then, yeah, when I got in a Uber and it, the getting out of the car park, you go sort of around the edge of the car park and you know you get a text message when you join a different country's network, phone network.
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Yes, I got three because the car went through a little bit of Switzerland, a little bit of France, a little bit of Germany and back into Switzerland. But it was just a fascinating melting pot, of people who had travelled for that course from Switzerland itself, but from France and Germany and Belgium and the Netherlands.
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For people from across this engineering business, and their different perceptions of each other and clients that they work within. They, they work largely in pharmaceuticals and data centres and complex environments and things. UK owned business, but quite a big, big you know, group of people working across Europe.
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But it was, it was my, part of the course on key account management is about understanding other people's social styles and understanding your own social style, kind of your personality, DNA and how you like to be communicated with. So that was fascinating with some, you know, different people from different countries in the room.
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I'd not delivered that in a long time internationally. And it was interesting, you know, the impact of COVID and obviously Brexit for us before that. And particularly Covid and the post working world.
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Post Covid and people working more remotely and what that means for international working. You know, in a lot of cases, if it's more office based stuff, you know, you could base parts of your business abroad, offshore stuff more easily than ever before.
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And the onset of AI and automation and all that stuff will bring another lens on, on that kind of world too. So it's an interesting changing world that UK businesses have got great opportunity in if they can just engage and get up to speed using your services in, in how to export.
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Absolutely. Well, we're here, we're here at various levels because people sometimes get a bit concerned. Well I'm a bit big to use a service like that. And then you've got the ones that say, well, I'm a bit small to, to go to the grand dbt. We welcome everybody, we really, really do. And whether you're a, big company, some staff training, we can train them.
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You know, if you are a small company but you've got aspirations to be big, we can help build you. You know, we, we really want to work with any company that wants to export. It really is as straightforward as that and we, we welcome them.
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Nobody's ever turned away. And I think probably people will find that once they've got the, the essential skills for exporting all the, the stuff that's coming around in export academy because we have this core people, but then outside of that we have all the master classes, we have all the sector classes, stuff that you've been involved in, Jeremy, you know, delivering on pitching and so forth.
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Because a lot of companies will be very good at what they do, they'll develop something, but they're not salespeople. They're not used to negotiating, they're not used to pitching a product. They're scoping out, understanding, listening, asking open questions, all the things that you need to do to fully understand what it is your client wants.
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So, you know, we bring you into the equation as a professional, you then deliver that service. But we then have selling in China, we have selling in India, Saudi Arabia, but then we'll look specifically at farmer markets. We'll look at, what was I on the other day, Halal for the beauty sector.
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We have so many, resources that are floating around. People can come in, they can help themselves, it's free at point of use. And they can upskill themselves really. And it gives them insight because not everybody knows what they, where they want to export.
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So it might help them to choose a country. It may well be that they have family there, friends, they've been there on holidays, they know the culture, they know they've got a few kind of starting points to get them going. But we can offer them suggestions, we can help them to, to make that final decision.
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But you know, it's the resource that's there is just all encompassing really. You know, if I had, I think I said earlier, if I had access to that kind of information probably 20 odd years or so ago, I'd have filled my boots, I really would.
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Because it's priceless. And when you think that there's 5,000 or so people within DBT all over the globe, they are all batting on your side to make you a successful exporter. Now in terms of the real world then you know that's, that would be an expensive buy in to get all that resource, all that experience and so forth.
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But you know we're, we're free, we're there, we're there to help. It's as straightforward as that. So there you go. I think we've sold it Robin. It's almost like we're in sales, isn't it? So. No, that's really good. So with the podcast episode I'll put some links and things to the Export Academy itself and to the new programme we're running.
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The, the Free Business Challenge, Business growth challenge from 11 January over five weeks following that. And then there'll be links to. We, we're going to run a summit on the 15th of May next year which will be open free for my clients.
[26:33.5]
And there'll be discounted places for people that join the challenge, the free challenge. And then there'll be a build on the free challenge. We're going to run a much bigger, almost like a mini MBA in Business Growth. A business, a full business growth training programme that people can buy places on, that the marketing of which will start in, in the next week or so.
[26:56.2]
So off the back of that, that people might be interested in that take them through all the way through. So three hour webinars, 11 of them with a half weekly webinars with a half term break in the middle that take you through market research and business planning, marketing for winning work abroad but particularly key account management, capture of pursuits, bid writing.
[27:17.8]
So four three hour sessions on bid writing and then a session on client experience, client feedback, client voice, CRM in effect to tail that off. And again people that go on that programme get a free ticket for those. The, the summit that follows that same kind.
[27:35.2]
There'll be talks and panels about those same subject areas from specialists in those areas, people from Cranfield University where I teach. I've got Bid Solutions involved, the apmp, the association of Proposal Management Professionals, the association of Key Account Management, as well.
[27:54.0]
So lots, lots of really professional voices coming together I think for the first time in that sort of forum. So I think our free challenge is completely unique as far as I'm aware of its type. The big programme is definitely completely unique in the world I believe.
[28:11.0]
And that summit as well, taking you through that arc joining the dots through that arc. I think it's going to be a unique experience, a unique day together too. So I'm talking to the department about playing a role in that, Robin, at the moment, actually. Hopefully. They're certainly, obviously through the free challenge helping, but hopefully I'll have them on board for the summit too.
[28:30.4]
So thank you very much for your time, Robin. It's like I say, working with the department's been a real breath of fresh air, actually. The enthusiasm around UK business, and getting us out there and it's just vitally important for the country moving forwards, whatever.
[28:45.5]
It doesn't really matter which way you voted on Brexit and the rest of it. Got to make the best of it now. And these resources are there to help. So thank you very much. Great. See. Yeah, thank you very much.