Mr. KLEIN. Thank you, Mr. Evins.

The CHAIRMAN. The committee will call next Mr. Walt Marsh, president of the Marsh Stencil Machine Co., of Belleville, Ill.

Your Congressman, Mr. Melvin Price, regrets he is unable to be here to greet you. He is tied up on some other matters, but we are certainly pleased to greet you and thank you for coming. You may proceed as you wish.

TESTIMONY OF WALT MARSH, PRESIDENT, MARSH STENCIL MACHINE CO., BELLEVILLE, ILL.

Mr. MARSH. Mr. Chairman, since you all have copies of my statement, may I proceed?

1. OUR FIRST INTERNATIONAL TRADE FAIR

This story is true. I was in my office in the spring of 1955 when our operator said, "Washington calling." It was the Office of International Trade Promotion and they needed stencils, brushes, and ink to re-mark their shipments at the fair in Poznan, Poland. They had a tight budget. Could we help them?

Certainly we could. Over the years, the U.S. Department of Commerce had been of great help to my company, especially in the field of foreign trade. Here was an opportunity to show our appreciation. I took down a list of addresses to be cut in 1-inch stencils and added several fountain brushes and a supply of stencil ink, which we would send them "no charge."

Then I got an inspiration. "If you can handle the transportation,” I said, "from New York to Poland, we will give you a Marsh stencil machine to use without any cost to the Government. The machine will have complete supplies and you can cut all the stencils you need in Poland and move it to your next exhibit."

Our friend in Washington accepted our offer and we shipped the equipment. Later, we made an outright gift of the equipment to the Government. And still later, I learned that our stencil machine was used in the U.S. exhibit as a sample of products made in the United States.

This was the first time one of our machines was used in the U.S. exhibit at an international trade fair. Since then our products have been in more than 30 international trade fairs in various cities throughout the world. Each year, we are in from six to eight fairs of the propaganda type. In addition, our foreign distributors have their own exhibits in commercial fairs and international packaging exhibitions.

2. COMPANY HISTORY

The Marsh Co. was organized in December 1920, an Illinois corporation, by John W. Marsh and his two sons, Walt and E. J. The products were stencil-cutting machines, stencil inks, brushes, and stencil board; all used for marking stenciled addresses on freight shipments. Herbert Hempel joined the company in 1935 as vice president in charge of engineering and production, and the product line expanded to electric stencil-cutting machines and electric tape machines, and

felt-point marking pens. More than 35 patents have been granted our company covering the products we manufacture.

We have about 80 employees in our plant at Belleville, Ill., located 15 miles from St. Louis, Mo. Our products are sold to industrial firms throughout the United States, some products are sold to the U.S. Government, and all of our products are sold in foreign trade.

Our distribution is through shipping room supply houses, stamp and stencil firms, and retail stationers and similar outlets. We sell entirely through distributors; we do not have a captive sales organization. We believe that business success depends upon three things: (1) Intelligent, progressive management;

(2) Quality workmanship and well-designed products; and (3) Wide distribution of the products.

3. FOREIGN TRADE EXPERIENCE

Our company has a 37-year record of selling our products in foreign trade. We began by exporting to Canada, Mexico, and South Africa, just 5 years after our company started. We have our own export department in our plant at Belleville, Ill. Everything is handled from there. Mrs. Audrey Marsh King, my daughter, is our export manager. Her activities in promoting foreign trade include memberships in regional export expansion committee, world trade development committee, St. Louis Chamber of Commerce; radio broadcasts, speeches before service clubs; and speaker at the Institute on International Trade, University of Illinois, sponsored by the Illinois Manufacturers Association.

Today, we export to 75 countries. Our export sales are about 17 percent of our total business. We expect to increase our export sales by working closely with present foreign distributors and by opening up new markets.

All of our larger foreign distributors have visited our plant in Belleville, Ill., for sales and service training, a 2-day course covering all of our products. And we visit them to see how they operate and to learn how we can cooperate in promoting the sale of our products.

We are on a first-name basis with nearly all of our friends overseas. In many cases, we know the families; we exchange birthday and Christmas greetings; a close bond of friendship exists between us. The businessmen we know overseas are fine, intelligent, progressive, and well educated. They know salesmanship, advertising, promotion, good service. They set a high mark which many American businessmen might envy.

4. WE RECEIVE THE E AWARD

Recently we received the E Award for Export Expansion. The March issue of International Commerce magazine, published by the U.S. Department of Commerce, carried a two-page story, "The Export Manager Is a Lady and Firm Sells Goods in 75 Countries-Wins E Flag."

A photographic enlargement of the E certificate was sent to all of our foreign distributors. When I visited Europe a few months ago, I found the framed E Award hanging in the offices of our foreign distributors. They were as proud of it as we were at home.

American products and American business firms are admired and respected in foreign countries.

The CHAIRMAN. At this point, Mr. Marsh, without objection, we are going to have this E Award citation and the statement in connection with it, included in the record.

Mr. MARSH. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. (The citation and statement referred to follow :)

[From International Commerce, Mar. 4, 1963]

ACTIVE IN TRADE FAIRS-THE EXPORT MANAGER IS A LADY AND FIRM SELLS GOODS IN 75 COUNTRIES-WINS E FLAG

AUDREY MARSH KING BOOSTS COMPANY'S EXPORT SALES TO ONE-FIFTH OF TOTAL BUSINESS; FIRM ONLY EMPLOYS 80, BUT SELLS STENCIL CUTTERS THE WORLD

OVER

(By Erna S. Hallock, staff writer)

There are many "she's" in U.S. export trade, but only a few of the "she's" are women. Usually they are ships.

Audrey Marsh King is the exception. She is one of the exceptional women in American export trade. Both at home and abroad she is known as the dynamic export manager of the Marsh Stencil Machine Co., in Belleville, Ill.

Her company's oversea sales-boosted to one-fifth of its total business-demonstrate that she is an expert in export.

So does the golden E-for-Export pin she wears. The pin, symbol of export excellence, was presented to her when the company won President Kennedy's E Award last December. Among all the U.S. export managers who have helped to win the award for their firms, Mrs. King is the first and—to date the only

woman.

Marsh Stencil, employing about 80 Belleville workers, is a small manufacturing plant. Its export business is big, and Mrs. King is making it grow.

Stencil-cutting machines and supplies, electric tape machines, and felt-point marking pens for marking and sealing freight shipments travel from the Marsh production plant to every part of the world. Their products are sold in 75 countries, from Austria and Japan to Southern Rhodesia and Venezuela. Every third stencil machine produced is shipped overseas.

Mrs. King helps to drum up business by traveling abroad, attending trade fairs and meeting with Marsh distributors. At home, she welcomes oversea distributors when they visit the factory for sales and service training. Twenty distributors have come in the past 2 years. The company encourages them to make the trip.

"We like to do business with friends," Mrs. King says.

She also sees to it that Marsh export shipments, clearly marked and securely taped with the firm's own products, reach their destination.

WATCHES MINOR DETAILS

"Success in life, love, and business is mostly a matter of minor details," according to a Marsh sales message. Mrs. King is convinced that paying attention to minor details is particularly important in the export business. Errors in export shipments "can mean delays, fines, and bad customers relations," and Marsh Stencil's export manager is determined to keep them from happening.

Mrs. King, a member of the company's board of directors as well as its full-time export manager, has been contributing drive and enthusiasm to the firm's export business for the past 10 years. At the University of Illinois, she was graduated from the school of music. Now she is ringing up export sales in the company of which her father, Walt Marsh, is president. Over the past 5 years she has

been ringing them up to the tune of a 90-percent increase.

When Marsh Stencil began to export 37 years ago, it shipped to just three countries-Canada, Mexico, and South Africa. The company, founded by Mrs. King's grandfather, her uncle, and her father, was then 5 years old.

Using the sales, traffic, billing, and other facilities which had been developed for domestic sales and service, Marsh Stencil pioneered its export business. Without excessive cost or risk, the methods that worked in the United States were successfully adapted to oversea markets.

From the beginning, the export business has been handled within the company. The firm is a built-in exporter.

The recent spurt in exports, stemming from an intensive sales drive inaugurated by Mrs. King, won the "E" for the company. The "E" citation, in which Secretary of Commerce Luther H. Hodges commended the company for its outstanding contribution to the export expansion program of the U.S. Government, attributes Marsh Stencil's export success to "an aggressive and sustained sales campaign, product development, participation in trade fairs, and personal visits to oversea distributors."

40 NEW DISTRIBUTORS

New oversea markets have been opened to Marsh products with the appointment of 40 additional distributors. The company now has 65 distributors in as many countries abroad.

A new product, the Marsh electric tape machine was introduced into export, and sales in 1961 went up by 40 percent.

The company, represented by its traveling export manager, has racked up sales and lined up distributors at trade fair exhibits around the world. Mrs. King is "sold" on the the value of trade fair displays in opening new markets and expanding export sales. In 1961, Marsh Stencil participated in seven U.S. exhibitions staged by the Commerce Department at trade fairs abroad. Last year it participated in eight.

Mrs. King's export know-how increases her popularity as a public speaker as well as the market for Marsh products. As a speaker at export conferences and seminars, she shares her experience with businessmen who want to learn how to start exporting or how to expand their export volume.

Export trade is like breeding thoroughbred racehorses, she said at a recent conference on export trade in Chicago. "You can't breed nothing to nothing and expect to get something. A second-rate product, slipshod business methods, an on-again off-again attitude about exports will not enable you to get in or stay in export business.

"ODDS IN YOUR FAVOR"

"But if you manufacture high-quality products, determine they can be sold abroad, use sound business procedures, have established sales techniques, have respect for your oversea friends, and maintain a consistent and enthusiastic approach to export business, the odds are in your favor that you can be very successful."

Attendance at a week-long international trade conference helped Mrs. King herself learn the techniques of exporting when she was getting her start. That conference, plus attendance at international trade conventions and membership in international trade clubs, has been of special value to her in doing her job, she tells those who seek her advice in getting ahead as exporters.

It's a good way to meet people who can help you learn the "facts of international business," she says.

FORMULA FOR SUCCESS

Mrs. King's five-point formula for export success :

1. Make a decision now to start exporting.

2. Set up your own export department.

3. Ask the U.S. Department of Commerce for information you need.

4. Appoint a list of qualified distributors in foreign countries.

5. Prepare, promote, sell, and work with your oversea distributors just as hard as you do in the domestic market.

Another success formula-which Mrs. King would be too modest to suggest― might be "cherchez la femme"- -preferably a "femme" like Audrey Marsh King.

5. HOW AND WHY WE STARTED IN FOREIGN TRADE

Mr. MARSH. When you distribute your products nationally, you look at a map of the United States; study the SIC or Standard Industrial Classifications of Manufacturers; get lists of firms who can use your product; appoint and train distributors and salesmen to sell your products; prepare, promote, and sell aggressively in the home.

market.

In foreign trade, you follow a similar course. You look at the world map; you get complete data on each country; what they export and what they import; what competition you will have. You get lists of possible distributors; you get reports on them; and either by correspondence or personal visits, you get to know these people and select your foreign distributors. Then you prepare, promote, and sell.

To be successful, you must give the same energy, attention, and effort to your foreign distributors as you give your distribution in the United States. You must learn to be flexible and adapt your plans and methods to fit the people and conditions in foreign countries.

You should get into foreign trade for several reasons:

1. To expand your sales and profits. And let me say right here that "profits" is a nice word, a good word; it is the key word in the American free enterprise system. It means that you are creating, that you are successful, that you are paying good salaries, and that you are paying taxes to support your Government.

Mr. ROBISON. In other words, there is nothing immoral about profits, as such.

Mr. MARSH. Without profits, there wouldn't be any United States of America, let me say.

Mr. ROBISON. Yes; that is true.

Mr. MARSH. I have got a separate lecture on that and I hope some day to send you a copy of it. Thank you.

2. Your foreign sales help stabilize the balance-of-payments problem. The more you sell in the foreign market, the more you contribute to the strength of the overall financial position of the United States.

The CHAIRMAN. What this committee is trying to do, I might parenthetically inject, is to increase these foreign sales to help this balance-of-payments situation, among other things.

Mr. MARSH. Yes, sir; I understand that. I think I cover something about that a little later.

6. OPPORTUNITIES FOR SMALL BUSINESS IN FOREIGN TRADE

Only 6 percent of the manufacturers in the United States are in foreign trade. Any of these are big business. Is there an opportunity for small business in foreign trade? Definitely, I would say that any sales manager who knows the U.S. market can learn the export market. A five-point program might be:

1. Makes a decision now to start exporting.

2. Set up your own export department or work through an export house.

3. Ask the U.S. Department of Commerce for information you need.

4. Appoint a list of qualified distributors in foreign countries.

5. Prepare, promote, sell, and work with your oversea distributors just as hard as you do in the domestic market. Travel to foreign countries, learn by firsthand experience.

A small manufacturer told me that his wife and daughter were touring Europe this past summer and that he had never been out of the United States of America. "Bill", I told him, "you are the one

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