SteelMaster was recently featured in Compass (a UPS publication) after winning the first UPS Growth Through Global Trade Award. The Growth through Global Trade Award recognizes the company as the top U.S. business with fewer than 500 employees that most effectively exports to international markets. UPS created the award in 2010 while conducting a series of export seminars targeting small- and medium-sized businesses established to encourage participation in President Barack Obama’s National Export Initiative (NEI) to double U.S. exports by 2015—an increase that will support two million jobs in America. Read the article from Compass below…

Mastering New Markets

Trade award winner SteelMaster focuses on expansion.

The strongest buildings start with a solid foundation. As a manufacturer, designer and supplier of prefabricated arched steel structures, SteelMaster Buildings (steelmasterusa.com) understands this concept, and knows how it applies to building a solid business strategy. That ability to see the big picture and to focus on each step of the process is one of the reasons SteelMaster is the winner of the first UPS Growth Through Global Trade Award.

About five years ago, when the U.S. dollar was weak, the company decided to explore the possibility of exporting. “We were very aware of how competitive the marketplace was and viewed exports as a way to increase our business without having to rely solely on U.S. sales,” says Rob Poellnitz, vice president of SteelMaster, based in Virginia Beach, Va.

SteelMaster also hired a specialist, Emma Granada, to explore new markets and create and develop overseas business opportunities. “Having a person dedicated and focused in the development of our international business has been crucial in our strategy to expand abroad,” Poellnitz says.

To reach prospective customers, SteelMaster relies on its website, which offers introductory pages in several languages and a complete site in Spanish. The company also gained exporting expertise by turning to agencies like the Virginia Economic Development Partnership and the U.S. Commercial Service.

Five years later it has established distributor relationships in more than 50 international markets, including Australia, Costa Rica, Haiti, Korea, Mexico, Nigeria, Peru and Romania.

“We realized after just a few conversations with embassies from across the world that there was a great network in place to help companies like ours,” he says. “This resource helped us better understand the markets we were targeting for expansion. Without this, we would have been pretty blind, just picking up the phone and [cold calling] a prospect.”

Read the full article in World Trade 100 magazine here.

For more information about SteelMaster Buildings, click below.