Proximity: The Essence of an Export Trade Agency

International trade theory synthesizes your market potential based on the size of the market and your distance to it. 

Mexico is a big market, but European companies still lack presence. Distance, almost 10,000km, plays an important role. Our natural markets in Belgium are France, Germany and the Netherlands. Our cities and highways are packed with German and French cars. Almost none from the United States. 

Nearshoring, always and again that word, is eventually just a way of reducing distance and creating proximity with the market. Having a factory in the country or close by reduces final cost and cultural barriers, and provides local staff while shrinking delays. 

But for exporters with no footprint in the market, calling from Belgium with a +32 and no Spanish speakers available requires a huge amount of effort to convince a Mexican customer if you are not a market leader. 

In a sense, one of the most important tasks of an export agency, without always realizing it, is to reduce that distance. It’s to create proximity. 

Being in the country, physically present, is the first step. No time zone, being easily accessible, knowledge of what’s going on economically, politically and culturally in the country, having an address, and sharing the same atmosphere as the potential client creates instant proximity, or at least reduces the distance. Delivery time is also key, but there is not much a trade office can do in that regard.

Language is important as well. Contacting local companies in their own language makes things easier. At our office, we contact Mexican companies for a first introduction to Belgian companies when we have the feeling that the potential is there but they don’t have Spanish speakers within the company to provide a bigger impact in this first contact. We believe that calling or sending an email in Spanish instead of English significantly increases the answer rate. 

Trade offices within our agency often combine a Belgian expat with a local staffer. The expat creates proximity for the Walloon companies, as she or he knows the Walloon industrial and commercial context in Wallonia. On the other hand, the local staffer knows the local market. This duo creates proximity in both directions. The Walloon company has access to our office in Mexico and Mexican companies can connect with Belgian companies via our office situated in the heart of Mexico City. 

We reduce uncertainty, making business as easy as possible and helping companies to overcome the hurdles specific to the market. Sharing clear information about compliance with norms, customs specificities, administrative obligations, or connecting them to local experts, such as lawyers and custom agents, considerably reduce uncertainty. This uncertainty is always harder to bear the greater the distance. The Walloon companies can receive clear – at least I hope we are being clear – information about the market. Similarly, helping them to identify clients or distributors has the same effect. They don’t need to rely on websites in a foreign language as they can receive some suggestions from our office. 

Finally, and I personally think that this might be the most powerful secret tool that we have, we heavily rely on information shared with us by the local representatives of Belgian companies already active in the market. We don't use an accounting firm at our embassy, so when I’m asked who I can recommend, how can I know? I can ask our Mexican prospects with whom we work frequently but it’s often easier to ask the representative of a Belgian company who trusts me. It works the same way for clients and distributors, making sure of course that their products don’t compete. We did this recently for frozen waffles. Belgium exports dozens of temperature-controlled containers of frozen fried potatoes. Most of the clients are in the food service industry. During our participation at the ANTAD fair in Guadalajara, food service companies showed interest in both fried potatoes and waffles. It was obvious for us to recommend those importers already importing Belgian products as they have the exact same distribution channel. And for the waffles company that stayed in Belgium, presenting a distributor with a successful track record to a Belgian company and importing weekly containers from Belgium just makes it feel like Mexico is not so far anymore. Being the one-stop office for our exporters in challenging markets helps us to gather a lot of information via the hundreds of different Walloon companies contacting us. It allows us to be able to help improve every single one of them: It’s a huge leverage.

Communication tools also reduce distance. We send newsletters to Mexican and Walloon companies informing them about what we do in Mexico and what our companies have to offer. LinkedIn and my article with Mexico Business have the same objective. We want to be contacted to be able to identify business opportunities and to share them with our companies. We are not experts in every sector, but we have experts in Belgium if needed, and if we believe there might be a suitable Walloon company to fill a need in the Mexican market. 

We must connect the dots, just as planes connect airports.