On April 19, 2013, the Corsicana Daily Sun ran an Op-Ed piece by Bill McNutt on exporting. It is fascinating reading. Check out this link. http://corsicanadailysun.com/opinion/x1520508500/Guest-Commentary-On-the-topic-of-exporting

A graduate of SMU, Bill McNutt invests in and operates several businesses. He is based in Dallas, Texas. He can be read on http://billmcnutt.tumblr.com/ and http://billmcnutt.com/

By Bill McNutt:  Co-Owner of Tradesman Truck Accessories Located in Winters, Texas

In the 1990’s, California was America’s export champion. In 2002, Texas took the lead and never looked back. Is your small to medium-sized Texas-based company ready to jump on this wagon train traveling across borders in search of new prospects, customers, and profits? How do you get started? Where do you turn for help in the Lone Star State? 

When my partners and I bought Tradesman Truck Accessories seven years ago in the little West Texas town of Winters (population 2,562), we were the most unlikely of export candidates, or so we thought. We were wrong.

At Tradesman, we build from scratch the shiny aluminum storage boxes you see in pickup trucks and sell them under names like “Husky” and “Tradesman.” You see them all over Dallas County, from construction sites to the Park Cities. Very few countries use the pickup truck the way we do in the United States, but in Mexico they certainly do. The North America Free Trade Agreement, initiated by President Ronald Reagan and signed into law by President Bill Clinton, gave us an opening. The governor’s office helped us seize the opportunity.

We turned to the Office of the Governor’s Economic Development Department. They have an office in Mexico City, headed by the ever-helpful Mónica Sánchez (msanchez@governor.state.tx.us) and her knowledgeable hard-working staff. We call them NAFTA-gators: folks able to help us avoid the potholes and formulate a successful export plan. They quickly confirmed two things. Number One, Mexico was a market of great potential for us. Number Two, we would not have to make any adjustments to our products to sell south of the border.  

The State of Texas Mexico City office maintains a database of Mexico-based companies by sector. They used our existing marketing materials to gain comments from Mexican companies and potential distributors about our products. By the time our CEO David McGuire and I got to Mexico City, Ms. Sanchez and her team were full of information, tips, and tactics for our company. Best of all, they had the profiles of seven Mexican distributors who were interested in a business partnership with us. 

The State of Texas office did not stop there. They arranged face-to-face meetings for us in Mexico City and their staff members accompanied us. Long distance calls to prospective manufactures reps and partners in Guadalajara and Monterrey took place as well. Today, we are blessed to have two representatives in Mexico and sales are flowing.

We also used the U.S. Department of Commerce Trade Specialists at the United States Embassy in Mexico. A U.S. Embassy will typically have 12 to 20 U.S. government agencies operating within its walls. These include Immigration, Agriculture, Commerce, State Department, C.I.A, Social Security Administration, etc. The highest-ranking commerce official in Mexico has the title of Commercial Counselor.  His trade promotion group is called the U.S. and Foreign Commercial Service. It is a wealth of information about your industrial sector from automotive to health care, from oil and gas to manufacturing (www.mexico.usembassy.gov).

Outside of relying on the State of Texas and the U.S. Department of Commerce, our best suggestion is to form your own export outreach team: identify employees who speak foreign languages, have lived abroad, traveled, or worked for other companies who export. Once your team is established, participate in webinars, read how-to books, consult with freight forwarders, and participate on a Trade Mission that targets your industry or attend a U.S. government sponsored trade conference in the region that shows the most promise.

Adapting your website for foreign search, prospects, and customers is a must. If you think Brazil is a market, have some information in Portuguese. This will help the search engines and foreign prospects find you. Finally, consider the remarks from an unlikely trade source, actress Sissy Spacek once said: “I was always proud about being from Texas. Maybe that was part of fearlessness. I love the fact that Texas is so big; you don’t feel small because of it. You can achieve your dreams.”

Bill McNutt is the Co-Owner of Tradesman Truck Accessories

Winters, Texas

He can be reached at (214) 537-9311 or http://billmcnutt.com/

By Bill McNutt

http://billmcnutt.com/

From the minute Texas Ranger owner Tom Hicks hired Noland Ryan in 2008, the sixty-one-year-old Hall of Famer knew a succession plan was important for the organization. Today, the owners of the Texas Rangers are being unfairly demonized for using common sense business tactics to protect the franchise.

Succession is always a challenge for any successful organization. Succession for less than successful organizations is easy. All, and I mean all professional organizations have a succession plan.

SMU President, Gerald Turner is sixty-nine years old and he is the oldest President in Conference USA. SMU has a succession plan.

Texas Instruments CEO, Richard Templeton is fifty-four years old. Texas Instruments has a succession plan. Why are sports fans shocked that the Rangers have the same thing as Texas Instruments and Southern Methodist?

Without a succession plan you have nervous employees, a questioning media, and a disincentive for good people to come to work. It’s time for Ranger fans to move on to the next story such as beating the A’s or the Angles. Enough time has been spent on basic business practices.  

A graduate of SMU, Bill McNutt invests in and operates several businesses. He is based in Dallas, Texas.

By Bill McNutt

http://billmcnutt.com/

Having just returned from a trip to Austin and San Antonio, it gave me a chance to speak with fans, high school coaches, members of the Board of Regents, and other knowledge folks about the University of Texas football program. Here are some of the things that were learned.

Every year a great number of THE best high school players in Texas comes down to signing with the University of Texas or Texas A&M. Texas traditionally gets 60% to 65% of these players to come to Austin for four years. Once A&M announced it was moving to the SEC, the number became roughly 50-50. Now that A&M has had a breakout year, the majority of the boys are going to be wearing maroon and white.

58% of the players signed by Texas in the past five years committed in February of their junior year in high school.

Texas has missed on a lot of great quarterbacks especially in not offering a scholarship to Heisman Trophy winner Johnny Manziel aka Johnny Football. They also missed when they told Cam Newton that QB Gilbert would be the starter if Cam came to Austin. (He went to Auburn instead followed by Heisman followed by National Championship.)

Players want to play in the best conference. It appears the SEC tie-in is helping the Aggies in head-to-head recruiting matchups with the Horns. The next few years will be fun to watch.

A graduate of SMU, Bill McNutt invests in and operates several businesses. He is based in Dallas, Texas.

By Bill McNutt

http://billmcnutt.com/

The fiscal cliff. The budget shortfall. The great compromise. Everybody in Washington seems to be focused on taxes going up, or not, for citizens making more than $200,000 if you are single or $250,000. This debate is keeping us from solving the real problem and removing the greatest challenge to our nation, our entitlement programs. It is a known fact that if we taxed 100% of the income over $250,000 a year you can only run the federal government for 98 days.

Medicare takes up 15.5% of the federal budget. With the retiring baby boomers, the numbers skyrocket. ObamaCare will add increasing burdens.

We need to get away from this politics of envy in this country and salute those who not only create wealth but risk their own money to create jobs for others

Unless we solve the entitlement challenges, college graduates will keep living out their twenties in their childhood bedrooms, staring up at fading ObamaChange posters and wondering when they can move out and get on with life.

Look at what private people, investing in the private market can accomplish. As of this fall, U.S. natural gas prices were one third of European levels. Not 33% less, but one third of European prices. In a few short years, North America will no longer need a drop of oil from the Islamic world. The strategic burden will fall on Europe.

The Eagle Ford in South Texas is thankfully private, not federal government land. It is 400 miles long and 50 miles wide. It is now THE largest oil field development in the world. The oil does not stop at the U.S. Mexican border. But on the Mexican side, where the government owns all mineral rights, there is little to no activity. Lesson learned!

By Bill McNutt

http://billmcnutt.com/

Living in the football dorm at SMU, we would wait for the afternoon delivery of the Dallas Times Herald to arrive to keep up on our Southwest Conference opponents and to see what Blackie Sherrod, America’s leading sports writer thought about football.

I had the pleasure of traveling with Blackie and Verne Lundquist to the World Cup in Germany in 1974 while playing football at SMU. They were roommates, but had a falling out when Verne revealed to Lamar Hunt that Blackie slept with a blackout mask on his face!

Ol’ Blackie was the world’s first blogger in some respects. But his Sunday Scattershooting column, a little bit of this and a little bit of that, was a favorite of Texans everywhere.

Here is my version of Scattershooting from today’s world of business and sports.

Today, one in six is over 65, the highest proportion ever recorded and likely the highest in history. This is good news for certain kinds of food that have great texture and strong flavors. As we get older we get more and more enjoyment from the texture in foods. This is good news for cookies with lots of nuts, and the traditional fruitcake.

Everybody knows the first man to walk on the moon, Neil Armstrong. But, few know the name of the last. His name? Gene Cernan. Soon, there will be no one living who knows the lunar surface “up close and personal.” That will be a sad day for mankind.

Very few of the masters’ apprentices can duplicate their success. Bill Belichick of the New England Patriots has enjoyed seeing his former employees rise through the NFL ranks. They tend to be terrific successes or terrible failures with very little in between. An example of success is Thomas Dimitroff of the Atlanta Falcons. They have lost only once as of Thanksgiving weekend 2012. The failure is Scott Pioli, the Kansas City Chiefs’ general manager the last four years.  They have only won once this season.

The Paralympics Games have nothing to do with paraplegic. It is shorthand for parallel. The Paralympics first started in 1948, and ran along side of the regular Olympics.

Final thought:  The greatest adventure is what lies ahead.

A graduate of SMU, Bill McNutt invests in and operates several businesses. He is based in Dallas, Texas.

By Bill McNutt

http://billmcnutt.tumblr.com/

“Festive is an understatement” said David Koch from Wichita, Kansas as we watched the gold medal soccer final in London at the 2012 Olympics. Mexico upset Brazil and I got to spend a couple of hours with a thoughtful, fascinating America patriot, and sports fan.

I had never heard of Mr. Koch until 2009 when the free spending and regulation heavy Obama-Biden Administration came to power. He and his brother Charles have dug deep from their own pockets to fund think tanks, political organizations and candidates. All are dedicated to putting some limits on the intrusiveness of government.

Having attended nine World Cups and nine World Cup Finals I have come to appreciate how special any match is between Brazil and Mexico. The fans of each national team are fun loving, passionate, dressed in uplifting colors, and not mean spirited like some other countries supporters. Into this amazing atmosphere ventured Mr. Koch and one of his buddies. He quickly engaged me with a series of questions about soccer, a sport he knew little about. His quick and curious mind was aflutter with comments and observations. In short, we had fun as we sensed we were seeing Olympic history and a large upset in the making. (Mexico won 2-1 after going up 2-0)

At one point he looked at his watch and said “I can tell you now, Paul Ryan is being announced as the Vice President.”  I was stunned and checked my I-phone to confirm that Virginia Beach, Virginia was the location of the event! He spoke of the uphill challenge facing the nation faced to stop the catastrophic overspending. I was impressed with how open he was given the death threats, cyber-attacks and critical news stories he and his business had endured.

Given that I had worked in the Reagan White House, I think he felt comfortable with me. But more importantly I had something he needed, quality information about “the beautiful game” as it was called by Pele. On a rare sunshine afternoon in merry old England, we shared some prospective on life, sport and politics. Then, we went our separate ways. He was kind enough to give me his card and pose for pictures. In the end I felt just like the Mexican team, an unexpected winner in ways I could not have imagined when I entered the stadium.

A graduate of SMU, Bill McNutt invests in and operates several businesses. He is based in Dallas, Texas