Conversation about Global Sales Growth with Doug Brunhke the CEO andFounder of The Global Chamber

Welcome to the Global Sales Mentor Podcast for conversations that drive growth. When you are ready to grow your international sales, join the conversation with your host, Zach Selch.

Welcome to another episode of Conversations That Grow Global Sales. I have my friend here, Doug, from the Global Chamber, and we are going to talk a little bit about what he has done and what his organization does and why you might want to join Uh, the Global Chamber, because it might help you with your global sales. Welcome, Doug. Tell us a little bit about yourself.

Thank you, Zach. Really appreciate it. Uh, great opportunity. Love what you're doing. Uh, great supporter of what, uh, you're doing on the sales side around the world. Like you, I'm a Globie. I'm part of the— what we call the global tribe. I, I'm kind of an accidental Globie in the sense of I went through college, sort of fell into it, right? I fell into it because I sort of like exporters, right? The classic accidental exporter. I'm kind of the accidental global triber because my history was that I wanted to change the world from a sustainability perspective, even before the word sustainability was really around. I became a chemical engineer. I actually was a meteorologist for 6 months and, and that was a little too weird. Like the people were just a little too— Odd for, for even for me.

Were you gonna be a weatherman? I didn't, I did not know this part of your past.

I was actually potentially going to be studying atmospheric issues. I thought that was the way in to clean up the world. I discovered chemical engineering was more broad-based and could be more applicable in a lot of different other things. And the weirdness factor, my neighbor in the dorm was, was a meteorologist. And I thought, I don't wanna end up like that. I was geeky enough.

I didn't want to We all just sort of fight not to be one level more nerdy than we really are, right? We want to draw the line at the nerdy level that we're at, right? Not, not go any farther.

Yeah, the one step further is the danger zone, right? Yeah, definitely go there. So, so I ended up, uh, getting hired by DuPont. So here I am, Mr. Sustainability, and I got hired by them, and I had a choice of several positions and had a series of, of, of jobs, you know, where I was you know, working at a plant because I wanted to do that. I was in engineering design because I'm a chemical engineer. And I also was sent into a research group at the Central Research. It's the largest chemical research facility in the world. They and Bayer still are number 1 and 2. And they threw an engineer in saying, let's throw this engineer in to help guide these chemists that are a little bit too weird. You know, again, we get weird, right? It's like throw a weird chemical engineer in to help harness these weird chemists. So I ended up getting 5 patents out of that activity just by hanging out with really smart people.

Now I gotta ask, so my dad was a chemical engineer in a factory too. Did you, did you used to carry around like a stopwatch and a slide rule in your pocket, or are you Too young for that.

I'm too young for that. My dad was also an engineer. He did, he did kind of high-level secret stuff. Like he designed the communication systems for the U-2 spy plane. He, he was a slide rule guy. And, and I never really figured out exactly what a slide rule was all about. I did when I ended up moving to, um, I was an expat twice and the first time was to Japan. And I very vividly remember walking in. the office for the first time, and right there at the entrance there were the accounting group and there was an abacus there. And I thought, oh my God, what am I getting into here? An abacus? Seriously? You know, what's, what's that all about? Anyway, long story short, the, the Teflon business guy retired and nobody wanted his international job.

Wow.

for Asia. And so the accidental part was me saying, you know, hey, you know, how about me? Nobody else wanted it, and, and, uh, finally they let me have it over the arguments of the Asians who said this guy is way, way too young, he doesn't have the gravitas. But I did have height, I'm a tall guy, I did have a little bit of a streak of gray.

Right, did you have facial hair?

I did not. Yeah, so I was, you know, kind of a babe in the woods to some extent.

Yeah, I remember my first job, somebody was like, Zach, grow a mustache because, you know, you're not old enough, people aren't going to trust you. Yeah.

This one didn't matter because the— I was still 27, and so it, you know— but here was the good news, and this is why I think you have to be friends with everybody and why, you know, certainly I've just had a very emotional week with the anti-Asian hate that is just tearing the world apart, uh, certainly in the US, is that you have to be— you should be, and you— it shouldn't be like a chore, but be friends with everybody. And so, and that's kind of how I've always been. And so my boss was a Hispanic woman, you know, this was 30 years ago, and then her boss was an African-American fellow. So this was, you know, a big company years ago that—

Well, yeah, big company based in Delaware, DuPont, right?

In Delaware, yeah.

So still unusual. But it's still unusual. Yeah, it's still unusual.

Exactly.

That's great.

Well, the combination of those 2 kind of came back and said, look, you know, you're basically trying to, to, to have this younger guy, you know, hold him back. And, and I think they understood that basic idea, so they, they, they pulled for me. And lo and behold, when the— and I'll end the story, but it's because I probably spent too much time on it— but I, but I ended up uh, going to lunch when the Asian, uh, head of the organization came over, and I was in the back seat, he was in the passenger seat, and Ann Zaragoza was driving, my immediate boss. And he turned to her and said, he's too young, he won't make it. You know, this is after they already told me I had the job, right? So it's like, oh, okay. So it's sort of like the Andrew North, you know, am I a potted plant here or what?

Right.

Like, what's going on? So, so they had a little bit of an argument, and then finally it was like he really didn't have a choice. So, so that was my entry into the international market. But the good news was my first assignment, my first trip was to, to Korea, and, and they were very much more accepting than the Japanese. It was like, we'll only— we'll take help from anybody, even, even some young guy who barely knows, you know, how to spell his name. So, so it all worked out. That was 34 years ago. I had the time of my life on that first trip, and I realized even that first day, this is it. This is what I wanted.

This is what you want out of life, right? Yeah.

And it further went as I visited customers and they had questions. And, you know, when you work for a big company like DuPont, you know, they think you're like some messiah, right? And so So, so it's, it's a role, it's a responsibility, but it's also an opportunity. And so I tried to do my best and I worked very hard and, and succeeded and, and had, had a lot of fun with it. I came back on that first trip and I told my grandfather, you know, who's my mentor, he was like, Pops, this is it. I've found my, found my calling. He unfortunately passed away like 2 weeks later, like literally.

Oh.

So it was like, but at least I got to do that.

At least he got to see you in that position.

He got to see me like find it, right? It's like, this is it. I'd always felt like I found it, but this was the find for sure.

That's really cool. So, and then you spent a period of time living in Asia, in Japan, right? You were an expat in Japan.

Yeah, the first year or two I was basically handling Asia, you know, uh, traveling, uh, and doing it. And then another accidental thing happened where, uh, one of my co-workers, he really wanted to live in Japan, and he somehow figured out that there was an expat opportunity. So he wrote with my help, you know, which, you know, I was— I was like, hey Bruce, you know, I, I want to help you. So he, he wanted a role in Japan He wrote it all out and they picked me. It's like, thank you, thank you very much. I really appreciate that. So my first expat role was in Japan, and then my second one was to Singapore. After, in between, I got an MBA. So it was, you know, a really great start.

And so I'm thinking about the math. Those were the years when Japan was really the number one market for American expats. exports, right? That Japan's, uh, market was booming at that point. You were there in the, in the early '90s, mid-'90s, right?

Correct. So like, you know, it really started in the late '80s where I don't remember when the Pebble Beach purchase was, but, but there was a significant amount of, uh, hubbub about Japan taking over the US in, in the world for its GDP. Interestingly, I just found out it was— we just did an event last week at Global Chamber about investment of Japanese firms in the US. And at that time, the investment in the US— I hope I have the, the right number— is— it was on— it was around $20 billion. That seems like a small number, but it was $20 billion foreign direct investment. And they— and everybody just went crazy, like Japan is taking over the US, we have to stop it.

So again, doing the math, I'm guessing you were born in what, '63, '62, something like that?

Right around, actually, '58. So I'm a little bit old.

Okay, okay. So '58. So here's the thing. When we were kids, first of all, Japan was still— you still had the uncle who fought in World War II in Japan. There was always somebody in the neighborhood who didn't like the Japanese. And then also, in the '70s, Japanese products were sort of a joke. Everybody would laugh about Japanese products being shabby. And then suddenly in the '80s, it was like, they're our friends and they make fantastic products. And we really want a watch from Japan. We really want a car from Japan. Right. It was an interesting change right around that time we were teenagers or late teenagers. Right.

Yeah. And, and to some extent that, that period did kind of bring in the next wave of anti-Asian, anti-Japanese hate. Right.

There was, and there was also this whole feeling of they're buying everything.

Exactly right. Interestingly, at that time, at the peak of that, it was around $20 billion. Today, it's $60 billion. So it's 3 times the size of what it was then. And I think a couple things have evolved and changed, one being Japan, you know, its economy, and it's because of its slow birth rate, it's less of a threat, if you will.

Right.

Um, and the other thing is, I think the Japanese government have— has done a really good, uh, PR campaign to a large extent to help. Um, and I'll give you that event I mentioned that we did just the last week. The Japanese government paid Global Chamber to encourage Japanese companies to invest in the United States. And so that was a program that we did, which is a cool thing, you know. And so that— so they're doing things like that that make it much more palatable for people. Obviously, there are other things going on that's creating this, the hate and the, and the violence, but hopefully that gets resolved quickly.

Right. Well, and like people like you and me, I think we realize that peace comes from familiarity, right? And from trade and from doing business. And if you're doing business and you have friends who are Japanese and Korean and Chinese and, and Arab and whatever, You're gonna think better of them and you're not gonna be suspicious of them, and it works better that way. So I, I always think of trade as really driving peace and going hand in hand with peace. So I, I love that part about what we do.

I agree, totally agree.

These things help more and more people. You know, when, when you— when we were teenagers or younger, you know, nobody really knew that much about Japan or knew any Japanese people that much, and nowadays it's much more common. So Yeah, you have crazy people out there hating, uh, the, you know, Asians, but you also have a lot more people who are more familiar with the culture and, and that kind of thing. And I think that's, you know, a good trend, right?

Yeah, there's no question. I mean, a lot of it is based on ignorance, especially in smaller towns, you know. And in my high school, there were 544 graduates of my high school. I think we had one African American, and I don't think we had any Asians or Hispanics. And so this was, you know, a while ago, right?

I hate to say this, right, but in our day, like, I remember we, like, we would lump all the— you know, I had a couple of Asians in my junior high class, but we sort of lumped them all together and you couldn't tell who, like, what type of— you know, we didn't know what type of Asian they were. We sort of lumped them together. And the same thing with, with the Hispanics or Latinos, right? And I think we've come a long way.

When you have that basically ignorance or unfamiliarity, you know, kind of combination, when you mix that in with, you know, economic distress, right? So that, that's the dangerous part, right? It's like if you just don't know about them, you just say lots of stupid things. But then when the economics turn south, then you're looking for somebody to blame. Not us, but—

That's exactly it.

Right? And so now they gotta blame somebody and punish somebody. And, you know, who is it? It's often women, has been, you know, up and down. And then when it's people with different colors of skin and different— there's something they wearing on their head, you know, it's— and it's not just the US, as we know, it's, it's around the world. There's—

Around the world, yeah.

There's ignorance, you know, even in Japan, there are these groups that— right-wing groups that drive down through the city of Tokyo with with loudspeakers on the trucks blaring out hate speech. It's like, seriously, you know? So, so I think, you know, long story short, right, we got to stop that, right? And how do you stop it? You do trade, you know, you interact with people. We get more people involved with trade so they can understand that those people are us, you know, we're all the same, we're part of a global You know, tribe, if you will, as what we call it. And that is the kumbaya behind what certainly we're doing at Global Chamber. I want, number one, to be able to help companies be successful. Too many companies fail in their exporting, but by more people exporting and not just each person being more successful, but getting more and more people involved.

Oh yeah.

Those help society.

Yeah, somebody asked me to do a talk at a high school in a little village, a little town in upstate New York. So I'm doing a virtual talk to the high school about, like, the possibility, like, what it's like to be involved in international business. It was sort of like one of these things, you wouldn't be willing to give half an hour for this. And I thought about it, I was like, sure, like, what can it— like, it's a half an hour out of my life, and if it gets these kids to be thinking Again, because there's, there's nobody Asian in that town, there are probably no African Americans, probably no Latinos. It gets them thinking a little bit about the benefits of working with the world. And I was like, you know what, I'm, I'm open. If anybody asks me to do this, I'm open to throw half an hour at them because it can't hurt.

The first place I worked was a place called Beaumont, Texas. So I, when I came out of college, I worked for DuPont and I had a selection of places. I said, I want to work at a plant to see what a chemical plant is all about and be an engineer. So, so it was this Beaumont, Texas, was supposedly a suburb of Houston, which, you know, 84 miles is a long way to be.

Right.

That quite, quite honestly, it's, it's a little bit of a crazy place. But around this racism part, the first person that I dated, she had never been outside the Golden Triangle. So Beaumont, Port Arthur, and, um, Orange, Texas. The 3— that's on the eastern side against Louisiana. That's the—

that's the—

they call it the Golden Triangle, probably because the air is golden from all the plants there. But, but, but she had never been outside. She hadn't even been to Louisiana. And that blew my mind. So I was really not a globie at that point, but—

Right.

I, I was somebody— I was human. And, and, you know, I had family who had emigrated to the U.S., and so I was used to kind of like at least travel. And I thought, wow, there's people in the world that think that way. And the capital for the KKK is still in Vidor, Texas, which is within the Golden Triangle.

Right.

The town where the plant was, 80, uh, 18 or 19,000 people, all white, not a single Hispanic or African American. And Beaumont at the time was 30% and it bordered it. So clearly a redlining going on there. And so these were the beginnings of me thinking about like, wow, you know, we are ignorant. You know, we, we're not exposed like we need to be. And so, you know, fast forward to through all of this, you know, it's something I think about almost every day. So I commend you for speaking to that high school.

Hope—

I don't know if it was— I, I grew up— my high school was in upstate New York too. I doubt it was mine. But we need to, as Globies, keep talking about these issues, right? We need to be— we need to bring more people in, which we're doing every day, or, you know, that's our, our goal to continue. And then to, to speak out and support. One of the things, um, I just wrote a, a long blog post, and it was inspired by one of our people who's our Baltimore-Washington chapter head who's born in Korea. And so she—

I know her. Yeah.

Mi-Jung.

Yeah.

So, so she, she wrote me an email right at the time I was thinking, I've got to do something, I've got to do something. So she wrote me an email and said, you know, somebody wrote me this note, which was really just like, hey, Mi-Jung, I'm really thinking about you, you know, I love you, I— we love Asians, you know, I feel really bad for you. Hopefully I'm not speaking out of turn, but I just wanted to show my support, you know. It was a very simple you know, clean email to say, hey, you know, you're one of us. And she— it really meant something to her. So I said, okay.

That little thing sometimes means a lot to people.

Yeah, exactly. So, so she— I, I wrote this thing that— because— and then I actually sent it to her before I fully drafted, fully, uh, finished it. And then she, she picked a couple things out that she said, probably that one went a little too far. I got a little bit too excited, and so I pulled those out, and now, now it's up. But I think, you know, business is business, and we need to continue to grow and be successful because people, you know, can benefit from that, right? Wealth around the world, you know, is something— you know, when you think about Africa, for instance, you know, why are they growing raw materials, sending them someplace, and then having them come back 10 times more expensive? They can do that. We know they can do that. So, so I think overall, you know, within the Global Chamber, certainly one of our really driving points is how can we help people get more involved and successful in exporting, you know, not just in the US but in Africa and in Nepal and places like Nepal that don't quite get capitalism or don't quite get—

Right.

Kind of how business works. to, to the, to the level that we understand it, right? And, and, and pushing that forward— and, and pushing might not be the right word, but moving forward within their culture to be able to have them be more successful in the world is good for them, and it's really at the end good for us.

Definitely. Look, I, uh, like you, uh, I was an expat in India And 20 years ago, there was a huge push by a couple of individuals, and really you can trace it in India back to a few individuals, to really try and share the wealth by helping to educate people about specific things that they could use to do business, right? So this whole push towards teaching people English, getting cellular communications and the internet out into the hands of the masses, You can really trace these to 2 or 3 individuals back around 20 years ago in India, and it's created a massive amount of wealth, not necessarily with rich people, but tens or maybe hundreds of millions of Indians who are now lower middle class who wouldn't be if it wasn't for this. They are buying stuff from America. They're doing business with America. Trade is not a zero-sum game. The more we can help Africa, and South Asia, and the ex-Soviet Union, and all these places develop their business, they will buy more from us. They will buy more from our partners. They will buy more from the world. There'll be more stuff in circulation, and everybody benefits. These people who think of this as a zero-sum game simply don't understand economics. Right? We are driving more and more stuff out to the market, and it's better for everybody. And so if we can do anything— I actually also now run— I do, and I was going to tell you about this for the, for the Global Chamber. I run a couple of masterminds for sales managers from African high-tech companies and sales managers from South Asian companies because they can't afford my coaching services. People reach out to me and they're like, well, can you coach me? And I'm like, yeah, but you can't afford me. So I was like, but I do want to help them. So what I do is I do like a group session to help because I'm very much— I want them to be able to help succeed. Right. And I actually wanted to reach out to the people in the Global Chamber and sort of publicize this in their markets. But the thing is, if we can help these people— and why do I— I'm doing this from a combination of a little bit of altruism and a lot of personal— thing. Because I know that if, if I help them today, in a year or 2, they're going to be able to afford my services, right? So why not help them, right? I want them to build up and start selling more and more and build up their high-tech industry. Because then, you know, they'll have more money, and it's good for everybody, right?

Yeah, no, I love that idea. And, you know, let's, let's definitely collaborate on that, because we love love to help. I mean, I think what makes American companies lazy— and why lazy may be an over-exaggeration— but, uh, they're, they're fearful of exporting or getting involved because probably they fail.

Right.

It could be one thing. Uh, many of them do end up becoming an exporter through accidental exporting, like, like we talked about. But 85% of business in the next 5 years is outside the US. And so back in the 1950s, you know, this whole kind of thing of let's, let's go back to the future kind of thing. Let's go back to when it was so good back in the '50s, whatever. Um, you know, that was when the US had a much higher percentage of the world's GDP. And—

Right.

You know, what changed is the world has come up, you know, all around the world, and we need to, as Americans, participate. So there's a, there's a practicality now involved that we can't close the borders and be happy fat and happy with themselves anymore. Most of the activity is outside. So if only 1 out of 100 companies is exporting, that's 1 company that goes after 100%, but there's 99 companies going after 15%. That to me is bad.

That is, and right, and the— but the problem is these companies don't know what— really don't know what they're doing. There isn't a way for them to learn what they're doing. There's nobody to teach them. Like you said, you fell into this and you figured it out. And how many people do you know who are in exactly that same position? Some of them it worked out well for them. Some of them it was a disaster. And what we have to try and do is figure out ways to make it easier for them to start their exporting, to learn how to do this, etc. And I think that's— so tell us a little bit about the Global Chamber. How— why you started it, how you started it, what services you guys do. Because There are lots of different organizations that are out there to work with international business, but you are, you know, one of my favorite organizations. So tell us a little bit about that.

Thanks. Appreciate it. Yeah. The, you know, when I started Global Chamber, it was really a need that I thought needed to happen because I saw the failures and I saw not enough companies being involved. And honestly, I was frustrated by what you brought up there is that You know, why should I, 30 years in, you know, why do you need 30 years to be, you know, a quote unquote expert, right? You should be able to do that a lot faster. And so I wanted to improve that process. I wanted to get people—

I don't want you to say anything bad about your alma mater, but you studied international business, right? I mean, that's where you got your MBA. When you got out of school, did you know what you needed to know?

Well, you know, on my BS, you know, I was chemical engineering, so I, I knew how to do a distillation column, you know, you know, and how to pro— you know, manufacturing chemical plant process.

Right.

I knew that. So that really wasn't, you know, the purpose, right? But then when I got my MBA, honestly, you know, it did allow us to get more because some of us were global. And in fact, my final project getting my MBA was How do you make an expat assignment more successful? So I'd already had an expat assignment. I went through the MBA and several of us already had international experience. So we, we kind of steered things that way. And then I had my next expat. And ironically, and sadly, you know, my first expat assignment was spectacularly successful. It was amazing in every way. You know, you know, in Japan. The second one, after studying and learning how these fail— and at the time it was 80% of expat assignments fail, largely because of family and your family not— so my second one was a disaster in every way because of my family. So, so it was like I, I knew what the problem would be. I worked very hard to avoid that happening, but I, I couldn't control it.

Yeah.

I couldn't control the place and it didn't, it didn't work out. So, so sometimes you never know. Your question was, does it prepare? But fundamentally it usually doesn't unless you're going to Thunderbird or some school that really is geared toward international business. And that's why Thunderbird has its, its niche. Even IE Business School is really good at that. Thunderbird is spectacular at that. And, and Thunderbird was part of the inspiration for me to start Global Chamber because Glendale, Arizona, where it originally was.

Right.

is probably the least international place you could ever visit other than Beaumont, Texas. Glendale, Arizona is like nowhere. Um, and so when you come onto campus though, there's all these people that are like you, that are like talking international business and like, and different people from different countries. And it was so inspirational for me. It's like, wow, I want to be part of that tribe. And And I don't necessarily— I already have my MBA, so I'm not sure there's anything I can really do. So how do I create that sensibility and get the trusted resources together in some formation? And that was Global Chamber. You know, that was one of the kind of thought processes to get there.

So tell us a little bit about what the Global Chamber does, what type of services, if you are— and I know you work with a lot of different things. So there are financial things and there are legal things. But if you're trying to sell internationally, talk a little bit about the kind of things that, that we can get from the Global Chamber and why it's worth being a member.

Yeah, the first and foremost target for membership are exporters. And so we, we also have importers and investors, but really, I think even to this day, exporters are kind of the core of who we are and who we look to help. They they need to find clients typically. Right.

That—

and so they don't join to get the best lawyer in France.

Right.

But they do join for the clients, and then along the way they do have other needs. And so that's, that's who our target member is, is exporters who they may not be doing it yet, or maybe they're accidental to one or two countries and they want to take it to the next level. or they're in 10 or 20 or 30 countries and they want to get to the next 5, 10, or 20. Those are our peeps. That's who have— that's who we, we support every day. And then we surround them with resources that can help them get there. And that includes bankers and lawyers and marketing and sales like, like you.

Mm-hmm.

And accounting and all of the different components that is different typically on the international side than it is for domestic. So it's often a different kind of resource than that, that somebody would normally recommend. Our world is a filter of international. And so we identify who the skilled people are on the international side of it. You probably know people who do sales, right? But if they don't do international sales, how can they really help you? And quite honestly, I— they can't, you know.

Right.

To some level they can, you know, basic, basic stuff. But more than likely, if you're thinking about international, you've already jumped over that speed bump, you know, with, with help. Now you need somebody like Zach on the sales side to say, hey, should it be direct or indirect? And then if it's, if it's through distributors, you know, Zach has all these connections. So, so why not? And so, so that level of resource is what we surround folks. So, so it's growth. We're not a, we're not a chamber that is a bunch of lifestyle companies that are, you know, out on the golf course all day just enjoying themselves. You know, they're enjoying themselves growing their company, being successful around the world. And, and many of them, maybe most of them, but at least many of them love international. Not all of them.

Yeah.

Some of them are business people that just say, hey, I want to grow. And, you know, the market is there. So, you know, help me get there. So they're not, I mean, they're in the global tribe, but they're not globies from the standpoint of passionate about having a tuna sandwich in Tunisia. They're passionate about growth, and that's just fine. That's cool.

Definitely. Look, in the end of the day, it's about return on investment, right? It's about, can you make money from this? And like you said, 85% of the money is outside of the United States, so you should be chasing it. And very often There are 2 things that I always tell people that they sometimes either don't know or forget. Let's say you're a medium-sized company making a really good widget. You sell $500 million worth of widget in the United States. You have 50% market share of your particular type of widget. It's expensive to keep growing market share once you hit market leadership.

Right.

is going to cost you money. Now, going international might actually be that you can grow cheaper because you're not fighting those 10 entrenched competitors that you have in the United States. So that's one thing, right? If you have solid market leadership, if you have 40% or 50% or 60% of the US market, you might be better off growing internationally. Now, the other thing that I tell people is if you're— let's say you sell $100 million and you're in the US and your company is worth $200 million. If you add $10 million to your US sales, your company is probably still worth $200 million, right? But if you add $10 million in international sales, your company is probably now worth $300 million because you're a global player, right? So there are some serious advantages to expanding internationally, aside from the fact that you either— on the one hand, you want to take your wife to France. On the other hand, you want another buck, right? The thing is, that buck internationally might be much better strategically than that extra buck from Cleveland, right? Yep.

The way I would see that practically and why that, that plays out and why I think multinationals got the idea first, right, that they had the resources and, and agreed with what you're saying, is what I saw when I— my first expat assignment, right, uh, when I, um, saw a different market. And, and for instance, Japanese market, and a lot of what I did was in automotive and aerospace, and they had they had progressed the market there much further than the US. And so by competing in Japan, you're now at a higher level. And quite honestly, a lot of my efforts were, other than, you know, selling and getting, you know, people to buy our stuff, you know, in Japan and in Asia, was going back to headquarters and saying, oh my God, we are—

And pushing that, right, yeah.

We're so far behind, I can't even imagine. So let me explain to you you know, what we need to do to be competitive there. And they made a lot of decisions not to be competitive there, but they also made some decisions to be competitive there because it elevated the whole game, right? Now your product quality, the way you deliver product services and products in that case, elevated everywhere. And so that's, you know, that's how it practically works, right? You get better. Faster.

Definitely, definitely. Do you remember, were you in the late '90s in Japan and Korea?

I was still traveling over there, sure.

Do you remember people watching, like, on the metro, watching television on their phones back when that was science fiction in America? I would come home, like, people would say, oh yeah, you know, we have this great product, but maybe the Japanese and the Korean market aren't ready for it yet. And I'd be like, Are you kidding? They are watching television on their phones, on the trip. Nobody could even imagine that. Nowadays, that's what my kids do, but 20 years ago, the Japanese and the Koreans were doing that and nobody else was. They had some very, very serious high-tech stuff that we didn't have. People in America didn't believe that because we always were arrogant and we thought we had the best.

Yeah, no, I think when you're a world traveler and, you know, I've lived in Singapore and my trip to Jakarta was mind-blowing, you know, in terms of like, oh my God, you know, this is nothing like what it, what it was, you know, when I visited 20 years earlier.

Right, right.

The world is changing and there are ideas that you can bring to the world. And so more knowledge of that, and that's actually part of what we also do normally at Global Chamber. It's all about connections and connecting to people. But also connecting to ideas and markets. And, you know, gee, I have this product, I have like a— let's say it's a, an ag product or ag tech or even just fertilizer or whatever, you know, where can I do it? Well, you know, they grow stuff all over the world, you know.

Right.

It's like, this is something we can help with, you know, let's open the doors. And so, so, so keeping mind open to those things is just so, so critically important. And so, yeah, it's These are all things as part of any— I think hopefully more and more, uh, more and more successful businesses, that they keep their mind open to the possibilities.

Right. So before we end, what was the funniest thing or the weirdest thing that somebody made you eat in Japan?

Oh, that's funny. So I'm a foodie, right? Um, and I, I've debated this. I think I even mentioned this in Clubhouse recently, is when you, when you eat everything and you love food, telling people that you do that, that you eat everything, creates a challenge in their mind.

Challenge. Yeah. And then they're trying to find where you'll draw the line. Exactly.

And so I, I imagine there is a line for me. I've not reached the line yet. And so, for instance, um, things that are alive, you know, are— I think it's probably politically incorrect, but ikizukuri in Japan is, you know, fish that are alive, you know, that are, you know, on your table and you're eating off the side of it while it's still alive.

Yeah.

Or a live, um, lobster where the tail is peeled away. If now when you talk about it, seems horrifically Inhumane. However, it is quite delicious. And so those—

Yeah, I've had— yep, I had some moving pieces of fish. I'm not sure they would be categorized as live, but I've had— you know how when they chop off the tentacle of a baby octopus and then immediately give it to you? So I've had that. So it's sort of moving in your mouth. And I had a piece of a giant clam Where it was really interesting. Obviously, he cut a piece off, put it on some sushi, and then he slapped it and it moved. And it was the weirdest thing. It was just so damn fresh. So I know it was actually dead, but it was still moving when it was in my mouth. Those were some weird experiences. But it seemed to me everybody was trying to get me to say no to food in Japan. They were like, ooh, let's try this different organ and see if Zach will agree to eat it or not, you know?

Yeah, exactly. So, you know, most of, um, you know, I've, I've acclimated particularly to Japanese food. So foods that most people don't like, like sea urchin, I love. I mean, I, I, I, it's like the best. And then something like natto, fermented, um, soybean. Most people have a really hard time. That one actually I've had to eat multiple times to get, you know, to the point where I like it. Shiokara, which is salted squid intestines, is a very popular appetizer in the summer with beer, and that one I, I acclimated to much quicker. The first taste was a little shocking, but then by the second time, I really like it, and I would— I'd love to have some of that. It's just not available, you know, in places like that. I enjoy all of that. And my— the— I've hosted many Americans, you know, in different places around the world, along with, you know, our partners. And the, the worst case, I think, uh, for, for me was our head of research when I was, uh, had come over to Japan. And he told me ahead of time, I said, look, he goes, look, I know you eat everything, but I don't. And, and I'm— but I'm pretty flexible, but I will not eat octopus. So, so when you take me out tonight, just make sure I don't eat octopus. And so, so we end up at a bar in Ginza. I think it might have been the Second Place, and it was really nice, really spectacular. And so I don't exactly know, I think I might have slipped it out that he really liked octopus.

What?

Oh no, I know what it was. That the owner just randomly It's like I didn't have him even mention it. And so he's like, he's talking to— I even forget his name. It'll come to me later. He goes, so I want to tell you about what our specialties are. Number one is octopus. Seriously. And so that's when I said, oh, he loves octopus. And so he looks at me like, yikes. And so he— we had then a series of foods that were all different kinds of octopus, including one that was something like was cooked and frozen. I don't know what it was, but it was amazing. So, so you and I, I think sounds like we share, you know, a lot of passion for food. We share passion for different culture. We share a passion for people, you know, and the uniquenesses of people and their culture. We don't always get it.

We— Right.

But, but the— a lot of the fun is trying to understand. You know, kind of where we— where things are. And I think it goes a long way if you're sincere, and sincerity is understood by people when you say, look, you know, you know, I really— I, I love you, I love working with you, you know, let's, let's find a way. And along the way you do make mistakes, there's no question about it.

Definitely.

But, but just like Americans do when foreigners make mistakes in our culture, You know, I think generally, you know, if we can tell who's real and who's not, and that's part of the fun certainly that we have every day.

Right. Well, thank you very much, Doug. I gotta, I gotta let you get back to running your organization and helping people export. So very quickly, just tell me a little bit about how people can find you.

So our website is globalchamber.org. So globalchamber.org. So jump in and, and learn about us. We, you know, when I first formed it, my thought and dream was it needs to be everywhere because local chambers have come—

And you have branches everywhere. You have— how many branches do you have now?

5— well, 525 that we publicize, and it's actually higher than that, but we're sticking with that number. The, the idea being your local chamber helps you with your local town or city And even in one city, it might not even help you in some of the towns that surround it. We, we think in metro regions. So, right, right. So Chicago or New York, it's all of the places. And then I want to grow to Paris or Tokyo or whatever.

Right.

That's how we spend our days. And so, so the focus for us is for if you're a company that wants to grow within the region, meaning your metro or your state or multiple states within a country or pro— province or across. That's how we help. So jump in to globalchamber.org, take a look, and if you have any questions, just reach out. We're happy to help.

Great. Well, thank you very much for being here, Doug. Thank you, everybody. Uh, please, if you enjoyed this, reach out to Doug, reach out to me, subscribe to the podcast, join us every week. We are coming out with conversations that grow international sales. Thanks again.