THE FOREIGN TRADE CONSULTING BUSINESS

The Royal Academy of the Spanish Language defines two meanings to define the word consultancy:

1. f. Consultant’s activity.

2. f. The office or premises where the consultant works.

And in its definition of the word consultant it shows four meanings:

1. adj. one who gives his opinion, consulted on some matter. U. t. c. s. (Also used as a noun)
   adj. consulting. U. t. c. s. (Also used as a noun)
2. m. and f. A person who is an expert in a subject on which he or she gives professional advice.
3. m. An expert, sometimes lay, who is called upon to advise in councils and in some congregations of the Roman Curia.

I have been working professionally as a consultant for many years and I am an expert in the field of foreign trade. However, I am not an expert in all foreign trade matters. I am very knowledgeable in the five fields covered by the world of foreign trade: marketing and international sales, customs and document management, logistics management, legal aspects and financial management. I can’t say for myself that I am a global expert in all five areas. I am just an expert in all of them. I know how to hold conversations, discussions and solve doubts in each and every one of them but I am not an expert; therefore I should not call myself or consider myself a “foreign trade consultant”.

Returning to the definitions of the RAE, the definition of promotion is framed in four meanings:

Action and effect of promoting.

1. Set of individuals who at the same time have obtained a degree or employment, mainly in the bodies of closed scale.
2. Elevation or improvement of living, productivity, intellectual, etc. conditions.
3. Set of activities whose objective is to make something known or increase its sales.

In recent years, many people have started a consulting or foreign trade promotion business calling themselves “consultant” without knowing very well what the word means and without knowing how to define their level of specialization, without knowing what they are experts in.

Currently in Spain, there are networks of consulting companies that offer foreign trade consulting, some franchises and people with specific training in foreign trade, who independently offer consulting services or promotion of foreign trade. This reality means that the market is in turmoil, that companies do not know who to turn to, who to hire. Bad and good experiences are mixed with services of work agendas, market studies or agency sales actions.

INFEBEX and ACOCEX are launching specific training in the organization and generation of two businesses: foreign trade consulting and foreign trade promotion (both are compatible) to teach experts how to organize their professional work, to know the added value they must bring to different types of clients and, above all, to teach them how to sell themselves and their clients’ products and services.

Methodologies, management skills, reporting, time management, time management, outsourcing, business networking, working with other experts are some of the topics that will be covered in this course.

After more than twenty years in the world of foreign trade; having been an entrepreneur of an internationalized training company, founder of three foreign trade consultancies and international director of two companies in the graphic arts sector I can define myself as:

“expert in international marketing strategies. I am an expert in designing the image of SMEs abroad, giving the answer to why new customers should buy products or services. I am an expert in adding synergies to commercially promote complementary products and I am an expert in knowing what not to do and what to take into account when carrying out a foreign trade operation”.

All the experience and wisdom acquired in different markets, in business schools, universities and from conversations with international directors are made available to those professionals who wish to serve, help and make companies internationalize and, most importantly, sell abroad on a constant basis. All this is what INFEBEX and ACOCEX offer to professionals and to the market.

This course will be offered throughout Spain as long as a minimum number of students is met. We start in Madrid.

Information and reservations at: [email protected]