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WINNIPEG FREE PRESS   3/18/2002

How to accomplish your trade mission 
By Murray McNeill 
 

It is one trip Joanne Klassen is glad she didn't turn down. Two years ago, the Winnipeg human resources  consultant was invited by the Canadian Foreign Affairs Department to participate in a trade mission to  Washington, D.C. 

Although a 1999 trade mission to New York didn't produce the benefits Klassen had hoped for, it's been the exact opposite with the Washington trip. 

She said she has already landed two U.S. contracts as a result of the contacts she made on the trip and has  established a working relationship with a large, Virginia-based management training firm (Management  Concepts) that could lead to at least three or four consulting contracts per year over the next few years. 

"This is exactly what I wanted to have happen," Klassen explained during an interview. "It (Management  Concepts) is the kind of organization I would have hoped to find and to work with." 

Klassen, who specializes in designing and delivering training programs that help managers and employees  deal with organizational transformation or change, is proof of the potential benefits that can be gained from  participating in government-sponsored trade missions. She has no hesitation in recommending them to other  business people. 

"If their goal is to do international work, a trade mission is one of the best ways to do that because of the  contacts you can make," she said.  Being part of a government-sponsored trade mission gives the participants instant credibility with the  contacts they meet, she added. 

Caution
Although she sings the praises of government-sponsored trade missions, Klassen adds a few words of  caution: Before you sign up, make sure the trade mission will put you in contact with people in the field  you want to do business in. 

She said the reason the Washington trade mission was so beneficial for her and her company, Heartspace,  was because it was designed specifically for human resources specialists.

The people they met on the trip all work in that field in the U.S. and are interested in forming partnerships
with Canadian human resources specialists. 

The New York trade mission, on the other hand, was designed for anyone who was interested in doing  business with the United Nations, Klassen said. As a result, the participants and the people they met were  from a wide range of fields. 

"So it was hard to find the right people to talk to, and that's one of the secrets of success for a trade mission to find the right people to talk to." 

Location is another factor to take into account, Klassen added. She said Washington was perfect for her  because it has such a huge concentration of government and private-sector organizations.  "There's more training done there than anywhere else (in the United States)." 

She said she's had chances to go on trade missions to places such as Mexico, but passed them up because most of the training programs she'd be delivering there would likely be aimed at Spanish-speaking employees and  she doesn't speak Spanish. So Mexico wouldn't be a good fit for her company. 

Klassen said that in the last two years she's also had offers to partner with other U.S. consultants, but turned  them down so she could concentrate on developing a relationship with Management Concepts. 

She described its Virginia training centre as "the Disneyland of training centres" with its own program  development department, its own marketing department and even its own printing department.

She said it  delivers hundreds of training sessions per year throughout the United States.  A contract she landed with Management Concepts since the Washington trade mission requires her to design and deliver a training program in Washington next month on its behalf.

Klassen said Management Concepts officials have already told her they may get her to do at least three or four such training sessions per year.