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Use advisers, says export specialist
From the Amesbury Journal, first published Thursday 5th Aug 2004.
A BUSINESSMAN who helps small and medium-sized UK and United States enterprises find export markets, is urging entrepreneurs in the UK to use organisations such as Business Link to help them on the road to exporting success.
Tom Burgess, who grew up in Wilton, worked for a company on the west coast of the United States for eight years before setting up his own business, Lion Trading Company.
His mission is to find high quality ornamental antiques, garden statues, arches, planters and furniture in the UK and export them to architects and retailers on the west coast of the US. He has now extended that service to Africa.
He is working with two companies in the US, bringing their goods to the UK - a high quality watercolour effect wall paint and an ergonomic-handled kitchen knife.
He is also helping Kenyan potters export their wares to the US.
"The reason I went to the States in the first place was to learn to fly," said Mr Burgess.
"I got my private pilot's licence and, after marrying my wife Heather in 1993, came back and did a landscape design course before moving back to Seattle to work.
"I decided I wanted to branch out into international trade, so last year the family and I came back to south Wiltshire to give me that opportunity and to enable the children to experience something of the English way of life."
Mr Burgess said he had found several companies in the UK with the right products and distributors and clients for them in the US.
"There is a great opportunity for small and medium sized enterprises to export to the north west of the US," he said.
"Small businesses are so important to the economy and there are a lot of them in the US - it is the American way. Business Link in Wiltshire and Nigel Crowe, its international trade adviser, have been very helpful to me.
"They have put on export seminars at Salisbury Racecourse - everyone should tap into these resources."
Mr Burgess has now turned his attention to Kenya.
"People there produce garden pots and are paid a fair wage for them," he explained.
"I am selling them in the States and in each pot there's a message saying where it was made and that part of the profits go to help primary school education in Nairobi.
"This is one of the things that drives me forward - helping to educate the American public that we have an obligation to help Africa get back on its feet," he said.
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