No Fred Kaps

Department of Commerce Undersecretary Francisco Sanchez started out explaining he was like Fred Kaps.

Fred Kaps was the guy who followed The Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show. Fred who?  Yeah, no one remembers him.

Sanchez followed Commerce Secretary Blank and others on a full agenda for the IEDC/White House Economic Development Summit I attended Tuesday.

Turns out.  He was no Fred Kaps.

I'll share the top three things that Sanchez shared that make the case for exporting and why economic development organizations should be engaged in helping to boost exporting.  They're memorable.

Jobs associated with exports pay, on average, 15% more.  That explains the wisdom of a strategy to help companies export more.  It's a local economic boost all the way to the household.

95% of the World population is outside the U.S.  This is a fact that is easy to do the math for, but we need reminded of this.  To only sell in the U.S. is to exclude 95% of the population.

Exporting companies grew revenues while non-exporting ones lost out.  During a multi-year period looked at that included the Recession, Commerce found that exporting companies increased revenues, on average, 38%.  During that same period, non-exporting companies saw revenues decline, on average, 7%.

Yep.  No Fred Kaps.