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"Thanks to the program's overwhelming success, CITD applied for another grant and received $300,000 from the International Trade Administration's Market Development Cooperator Program," says CITD program adviser Patty Schmucker. The grant was given to help expand exports of U.S. health and beauty products to Brazil, China and the Persian Gulf, and support job creation in California by training small and medium enterprises in California to enter three emerging foreign markets through trade missions. Additionally, by establishing partnerships through foreign trade show organizers, CITD is helping all businesses that will eventually want to pursue foreign trade by setting up a U.S. presence at these shows. In early 2013, CITD-LBCC took a trade mission to Cosmoprof Worldwide Bologna, the world's largest beauty event with nearly 200,000 attendees. Inside its "California: A State of Beauty" pavilion, 23 companies represented 28 brands from California. A few months later another mission went to the Beautyworld Middle East in Dubai, where 18 companies represented 22 brands. BIMA ARRIVES ON THE SCENE Initially set up solely to take companies on trade missions to participate in trade shows overseas, Arellanes and Schmucker found a need to offer more to the participating companies, which were hungry for knowledge and success in foreign trade. "We were finding that the companies who went on the trade missions were having success, but it wasn't always sustained success," says Schmucker. "This need led to the development of our five-day Beauty Industry Market Access training programs, which take beauty companies step-by-step through how to grow their businesses internationally." The BIMA Program assists health and beauty manufacturers and distributors in developing the skills needed to grow their companies through export sales. Each member of the program participates in a five-day learning session, with a class session attended once every two weeks for 10 weeks, allowing businesses the chance to put into practice some of the methods they learn in each class. The program provides practical knowledge of international trade through the tutelage of leading industry experts, includingBarry Shaich from Egg Beauty Labs; Chris Bainbridge from TopIt; Frances Mazur from Mazur Group; the U.S. Department of Commerce; the U.S. Small Business Administration; and FedEx. Topics covered include branding and marketing, Continued on page 80 Do You Qualify? While BIMA encourages every company to consider export sales, only certain companies qualify for program enrollment. Does your business meet the following criteria? • A manufacturer or wholesaler of health and beauty products that has been in business for at least one year • A company that complies with the U.S. Small Business Administration's company size standard found via Code of Federal Regulations # 13 CFR Part 121 • A company with sufficient financial ability to relabel, promote and comply with foreign import regulation standards • A company that is actively exporting or is planning to make export sales a new source of revenue Registration is available online at tinyurl.com/citdbima Testimonial: "I wish this course had existed when I launched my line a few years ago. Not only has the BIMA course been instructive in how to prepare my line for international trade, but it's also been the invaluable crash course we 'non-business school' entrepreneurs dream about. Someone once said, 'The beauty business is not pretty.' That may be true, but this soup-to-nuts, pragmatic seminar sure does make it a little easier to navigate." — Israel Segal, founder, Nola Industries 68 January 2014 | beautystorebusiness.com