Carla Sydney Stone is President of the World Trade Center Delaware, which champions international opportunity through cultural programs, training in logistics and financing, and helps with market research. Its services include finding and evaluating trade leads, direction in hiring oversees, finding partner organizations and agencies, trade missions, and facilitating conferences and exhibits.
An engineer at heart, Stone’s career originated in geophysics and mining, about which she says: “Minerals flunk geography, making it an international industry.” From there she traveled the world; she has been to every continent except Antarctica (which is on her to-do list) then segued into banking, where engineers are essential for proper industry valuations, and ultimately landing in technical assistance to the “alphabet soup of [government] agencies” and academia.
Just prior to the WTC Delaware, Stone found herself at the intersection of engineering and public health (water, energy, avian influenza, telemedicine). Her work with NATO introduced
telemedicine into rural and remote areas of several countries.
The WTC Delaware has ushered a countless number of businesses onto the international stage. Why should companies export? “To start, over 95% of consumers live outside the US,” says Stone. In addition, companies that export are more stable, riding out downturns in the economy better due to customer diversity. They can also easily adjust by way of foreign exchange, leveraging exchange rates and seasonal business, for instance.
A good example is Delaware’s Port of Wilmington, which is not only the largest banana port but also brings to the US produce from around the world. It boasts the largest cold storage and fumigation capacities in the US and organizes its import/export relationships seasonally. Companies that export have a “variety of places to buy and sell. In addition, these businesses are more profitable, stay in business longer, and pay employees more.”
Stone recommends that companies expanding into new countries “read, read, read.” For countries with diaspora communities, don’t be afraid to call related organizations for help with inroads; build relationships with anyone with feet in both communities.
Know that culturally, even gestures can get lost in translation and can affect a meeting insofar as its pacing, attendee reactions, etc. In Bulgaria, for instance, tilting your head left and right means “yes,” a nod up and down, “no.” “Many countries say ‘we will only do business with our friends,’” says Stone, “so relationship-building is essential.”
Links:
https://www.portofwilmington.com/
Connect with Wendy - https://www.linkedin.com/in/wendypease/
Connect with Carla - https://www.linkedin.com/in/carlasstone/
Music: Fiddle-De-Dee by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com
ATTENTION: Below is a machine generated transcription of the podcast. Yes, at Rapport International, we talk a lot about how machine translation is not good quality. Here you see an example of what a machine can do in your own your language. This transcription is provided as a gist and to give time indicators to find a topic of interest.
[00:00:00] Wendy: Welcome to the next episode of the Global Marketing Show, and we're continuing our series of interviews done at the EXIM conference in Washington DC and of course you're going to find people who are trade experts that are here. And so my conversation now is with Carla Sidney Stone from the World Trade Center in Delaware, and I know we're gonna hear some great stories, so welcome Carla!
[00:00:25] Carla: Thank you very much, Wendy. Thank you for asking me to participate in this.
[00:00:30] Wendy: Yes, yes. I'm so excited to hear some of the stories. So tell me a bit about your background and how you ended up at the world.
[00:00:38] Carla: Well, I've always worked internationally. I'm an engineer. I started out in geophysics and mining and work minerals. Don't know how to read a map.
[00:00:49] Basically , they, they flunk, they funk GE geography, they really did . So they don't know how to read a map. And so it's a really, very much an international. Right. So that's how I started. And then I began working and I worked in actually worked in banking because banks have to do valuations and they loan to mining companies.
[00:01:12] So they have a lot of engineers. And I worked internationally. And where did you work? I, I, my headquarters, the, I worked in New York, but I traveled extensively places. Japan and Hong Kong and Australia, and places where minerals are located or manufacturing, finance, et cetera. Oh,
[00:01:38] Wendy: fantastic. Okay. So you did that and that's where you got your background.
[00:01:42] How did you end up at the World Trade Center?
[00:01:44] Carla: I've been, well over the years I've been working internationally, I've done, and I started doing a lot of technical assistance working. One of the speakers, or several of the speakers today called the alphabet soup of agencies around the world and including in academia.
[00:02:01] And so I worked on engineering and water, went over to the environmental side, and then basically my background has been at the intersection of engineering and public health and health because I've worked on everything from water to energy. ing influenza and my last time doing technical assistance was actually in telemedicine.
[00:02:28] Wow. Overseas and, and all the work has been overseas. Okay.
[00:02:34] Wendy: So with telemedicine, you were launching telemedicine access internationally, or what were you doing?
[00:02:41] Carla: This was a project overseas to develop a plan for this country's. , rural and remote area telemedicine services. And are they implemented now?
[00:02:52] Wendy: Mm-hmm. ? Yeah. Oh, good for you. That's fantastic work. And what a intersection of everything from your background.
[00:03:03] Carla: It really was. And I was lucky enough following that I was at the time working on a project. for NATO actually. And on telemedicine and then working on a book. And at that time I was asked to join World Trade Center, Delaware, and they were very supportive of aid work and technical assistance, and it was a good fit.
[00:03:33] Okay, so in all
[00:03:33] Wendy: your time doing the international travel, you must have run across something funny or embarrassing or. Different than what you had been exposed to. Can you give us like a good cultural experience or cultural shock? ?
[00:03:48] Carla: Oh, I say I can get in trouble in about six or eight languages. Any, any ti any I've been on every continent with the exception of Antarctica.
[00:03:57] Antarctica, right. I'm gonna get there. I'm definitely gonna get there someday. I'm determined to see the penguins in their natural habitat. Let's.
[00:04:07] Wendy: I jump in and say Antarctica because I, I think I, I interviewed a woman, Babs Ryan, who had done business in every continent except for Antarctica. So that story comes up a lot.
[00:04:18] So we're gonna need to create a little business there for all of you who have done business in all continents except for Antarctica.
[00:04:26] Carla: Yeah, I have, I had a colleague who's actually been there on projects twice, so, so it is possible ,
[00:04:33] Wendy: it's.
[00:04:34] Carla: Maybe I said, when do I get to go? You're not gonna use any of this, right.
[00:04:38] Anyway, the I would say the first time I was in Hong Kong, I went out at lunchtime and I was unprepared for how crowded It was Really unprepared. For how crowded at lunchtime. It, it was a different experience.
[00:05:01] Wendy: Tell me more about what that was.
[00:05:04] Carla: I think that we, one of the things you learn, different cultures have different distances for speaking, for passing each other on the street.
[00:05:17] For how we address each other. There are very different distances and in Hong Kong, because everything is squeezed so tightly together, the streets are very narrow. The the streets and the sidewalks seem to blend in some places, you expect to be a little bit more distance, and I had been in the Outbacks of Australia.
[00:05:45] Before I went to Hong Kong. So it was a completely different, completely different kind distance, lot of space and
[00:05:53] Wendy: and distance in Australia and very close. And you were living in New York at the time, which
[00:06:00] Carla: is, but not nearly. But people weren't as close in general in terms of speaking, passing each other on the street.
[00:06:10] It was much closer in Hong Kong. And, and the numbers of. . I just wasn't prepared for that. And I think part of it was a juxtaposition. I had just been looking at mines in Australia and I remember the first time I saw we're, we're driving down a road and the first thing, see this kangaroo hopping down through the road and I'm going, you know, of course as an American, you go crazy, right?
[00:06:40] It's wonderful. People say, well it's similar to deer where you are. Yes. Yeah. But going from one distance to another, and that's very
[00:06:51] Wendy: cultural. Yeah. And so how did you handle it? Cuz it must have felt very
[00:06:55] Carla: uncomfortable. I took a deep breath. Mm-hmm. . And I said, just think about it being on a pack subway.
[00:07:03] Okay.
[00:07:05] Wendy: Okay. So don't get annoyed at the jostling and the touching and the close proximity, but, . Think subway. Mm-hmm. . Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's always interesting to hear what it is that can, that culturally can be challenging or different. Different. Cause you have to be open when you're traveling internationally.
[00:07:26] Carla: I think that had I gone straight from New York, it would've been different experience. Mm-hmm. . And
[00:07:33] Wendy: what about the people that you work with at the World Trade Center? How do you prep them for going out of the country to trade missions? doing international business when the culture is so different,
[00:07:43] Carla: I tell 'em to read.
[00:07:45] Mm-hmm. , read, read, read. If you're going to a country that has a diaspora community in the United States or in Delaware, don't be afraid to call their organization. We partner with a number of diaspora organizations, particularly for that reason, and the diaspora communities are excellent links between the United.
[00:08:07] And other countries. What do you mean by a diaspora? People who have immigrated or their, or their family members or descendants.
[00:08:16] Wendy: So like we have a Chinatown in, in Boston, you know where I'm from. So how would you recommend somebody reach out to the community?
[00:08:28] Carla: There's probably a Chinese American community center or school.
[00:08:32] Mm-hmm. or religious. . Mm-hmm. Language School. You call them.
[00:08:40] Wendy: Just call them and see if you can get together for a coffee and build a relationship. Absolutely. Yeah. That's great. Yeah. We've had people call the, the Global Marketing Show is sponsored by Rapport International and we've had people call saying, I'm going to such and such a country, what should I know?
[00:08:55] And so we'll talk 'em through some of the basics there. But I love that idea of going out to the community and the, the dias. Communities and making connections before you go. That's fantastic. Another
[00:09:06] Carla: example now is I had taken a group of people with me when I was working and living in Bulgaria and someone was really upset by something and she said, don't you say this.
[00:09:21] Don't you see this? And I said, see what? And she said, what is that guy doing? The gestures and I said, oh, it's like my grandfather. Don't worry about it. It doesn't mean anything. And it was it was eye opening to me that something I took for granted was so, if you will, foreign to someone else
[00:09:45] Wendy: that they were offended by and didn't realize that this person was just making normal gestures in the country, but were offensive to.
[00:09:54] Carla: Well, she didn't understand what it meant, what the gesture was, and it was, for instance, how you nod the head. She just had a terrible difficulty. That means no.
[00:10:07] Wendy: Oh. Where you raise your, your head goes up and down where it means
[00:10:10] Carla: Yes, in the United States and this states, you know? Yes.
[00:10:14] Wendy: Okay, so up and down meant no.
[00:10:16] And shaking. Like babbling. Your head meant no. Meant yes.
[00:10:20] Carla: Yeah. As opposed. No, and this is in Bulgaria. This was in Bulgaria. You also see it in parts of Greece and other places. But yeah, it's very Bulgarian. Okay.
[00:10:31] Wendy: Okay. So also reminds, has ambulance of India where the head goes back and forth. But that's not a No, that's a, yeah, well, maybe
[00:10:40] Carla: different meaning.
[00:10:42] Different meaning. And we're not aware of how gestures translate or don't translate. Mm. very much. We we're not aware of that. And it can affect a meeting, pacing of a meeting. Yes. How you speak, how you, how you answer
[00:11:04] Wendy: a question. Yeah. So give some more examples on that.
[00:11:07] Carla: I think that Americans are very, very direct and it can. Interpretive as very brusque, and it can be almost offensive to some other cultures that tend to be far more formal. We tend to be very informal as people, so I think that without knowing it, you might offend somebody by the familiarity or or robustness that you can be or.
[00:11:42] Mm-hmm. ,
[00:11:43] Wendy: right? So it's better to take the time and build the relationship, cuz most other countries you have to have the relationship first.
[00:11:51] Carla: You'll hear in many, many cultures, many countries, we only do business with our friends. And so how do
[00:11:59] Wendy: you go
[00:11:59] Carla: about developing that friendship? You have to, it's a relationship that you have to build and you build and you build and you build.
[00:12:06] It's not. Right. I, my guess is when we all start going out in the world again, that there's going to be a transition from e-commerce. Think about Americans are very transactional. Mm-hmm. , we tend to, you go, you wanna sign the contract, that kind of thing. And e-commerce fits in very well with that. You either make the sale or you don.
[00:12:34] Right. And yet we'll have to learn social niceties as we go overseas again.
[00:12:40] Wendy: Mm. So interesting. I just read something about Elon Musk's Musk's rules like corporate rules. And he talked about meetings that if it's a big meeting and you don't have a purpose there, get up and leave cuz you're wasting your time and you're not gonna be any value added.
[00:13:00] If a meeting's lasting too long, it's good to end it, you know, or, or get up and leave. And you only should be in a meeting if, if you know it's, you've got a reason for being there. And so it's going on and on like this and it's so anti building a relationship. Like some meetings you just have. And to build that trust and that that relationship, and I kind of laughed.
[00:13:22] I'm, I'm an entrepreneur, I don't like meetings,
[00:13:26] Carla: but , I know the value of
[00:13:28] Wendy: pulling together different brains and different opinions to get to a better consensus. So that is like US independence on steroids. So it goes back to what you're talking about with e-commerce. Just be efficient.
[00:13:44] Carla: Very much so. And I think.
[00:13:48] Americans are very uncomfortable with silence in the meeting. Hmm. And other countries will take more silence. More silence, slower pace, more silence. Silence does not always mean I disagree with you. It can mean I'm taking a moment to think before I say something.
[00:14:12] Wendy: That's a really good point. So this is.
[00:14:15] Such valuable information for anybody that's doing international business and at the Delaware World Trade Center. This is some of the kind of advising that you do. Right?
[00:14:28] Carla: Well, we don't get this specific. Mm-hmm. , but we do have cultural programs. We have training, we primarily on things like logistics, financ.
[00:14:43] How to do business in a particular country what the resources are to do business, whether it's X in the US commercial service, the World Bank, how do you find a trade lead? How do you evaluate a trade lead? And we can help both import and export. Because remember, there are many, many companies that have to import components that they're going.
[00:15:08] Or as a cert, or they will need to hire people overseas to staff an overseas office. It can't all be necessarily filled by Americans. So we, we help companies evaluate. We also do a lot of job posting. We work with other organizations with, oh, with funders. Training partners, US government agencies, multilateral funders aid organizations, just all these kinds of programs.
[00:15:46] Us, tda, we do trade missions, we do exhibitions. We, so, and who do you, you, you provide so many services. Who, who do
[00:15:56] Wendy: you work with? What kind of people, what
[00:15:57] Carla: kind of company should reach out? Both service providers and product makers. It could be a small engineering firm, it can be an agricultural technology firm.
[00:16:09] Water. Can you give a couple examples of success stories? Sure. We worked with a small agritech company and worked to help them. A plan for going for going overseas and took them to trade show and gave them a lot of information, help them network and do research and start developing those kind of contacts they needed and develop their plan.
[00:16:42] And about a year or two later, the company wrote a letter to the governor saying, we're looking at millions and. And millions of potential dollars of sales. No, that's really nice. When one of your companies succeeds.
[00:17:01] Wendy: Wow, that's fantastic. And then writes a letter to the government about, I mean, to the governor about how well you did in helping them.
[00:17:08] Carla: And it's, it's a feminine cap for Delaware. It wasn't just us, it was a lot of people. Right. We, we helped them with different agencies in the US government, we information sources. Yes.
[00:17:23] Wendy: Why should companies export such a big market in the us?
[00:17:28] Carla: Well, over 95% of all consumers live outside of the United States.
[00:17:34] That's one good reason. But companies that export tend to be more stable. They're able to ride out downturns in the economy better because they have a diversity of customers around the. Everybody is not going to be in a downturn. At the same time necessarily, you can make adjustments in terms of foreign exchange.
[00:17:59] So there's, there are different times. One country's exchange rate will be, say on a par with the, you might be on a par with the United States another time. The dollar might be much, much stronger in another economy, in which case that particular economy is unable to. You're good. So you wanna be where the exchange rates are more, even if you're looking for customers.
[00:18:26] Other times if you're an importer, you want that stronger dollar. But we do import, we have a port in Wilmington that is, has is number one in a number of of things. It does, for instance, it has.
[00:18:42] The Port of Wilmington is the number one banana port in the Moroccan clementine's come through the Port of Wilmington. All kinds of produce comes through. Through the port of Port of Wilmington's, highly specialized, they have the largest cold storage in the country, onsite cold storage, the longest, largest fumigation in the country at the Port of Wilmington.
[00:19:06] So that's an important relationship on the times of year that we are not growing grapes or particular products, so they can bring them in from South America or South Africa. Morocco, the Clementines come from Morocco. And so that's, that's one example on the import side that we, we can help with. We help companies very large and small, build those relationships.
[00:19:37] So as a importer, you wanna have a variety of places to buy. As an exporter, you wanna have a variety of places to sell. Companies that. Are more profitable, stay in business longer, more stable they and they can pay their employees much more. Yeah.
[00:20:01] Wendy: Yeah. Yeah, it is. Well, if you're listening to this episode and you know anybody who owns a business or works for a company that has something they could export, they definitely need to forward this episode along whether they're in Delaware or not.
[00:20:15] Cause I'm sure you have connections in other states if, if you can't. ?
[00:20:19] Carla: Well, the World Trade Centers Association has over 320 world trade centers around the world in almost a hundred countries. So if we don't have the connection or the answer, one of our partner World Trade Centers will, right? And we can ask a World Trade Center anywhere in the world, a question, and they ask.
[00:20:43] Wendy: All right. Well, we're, we're, we're running out of time, unfortunately, cuz this is such good information. I've really enjoyed this. What's your favorite foreign word?
[00:20:53] Carla: Loda. Loda? Mm-hmm. . It's Bulgarian and it means thank you. Oh. And it's fun to say. It is
[00:21:03] Wendy: a fun word to say. Blow . Good. Well, where can people reach you if they'd like to learn more?
[00:21:13] Carla: We're in Delaware. We're also on the internet at www.wtcde.com.
[00:21:24] Wendy: Okay. And so they can find you through there or submit a contact form, right? Absolutely. Okay. So Carla, Sidney Stone, and she's from the World Trade Center in Delaware, WTC de. It's in the show notes. Thank you so much. For the stopping by today at the EXIM conference and taking the time to chat with us.
[00:21:46] Carla: Thank you very much, Wendy. Well, good at you. . Good at
