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The SolutionFor help, she turned to the U.S. CommercialService. The services she used including checkingout potential distributors. “They would say, ‘Yeah,these guys, you know, whatever weirdness you’regetting from them, that’s actually how peopleinteract in that part of the world. They’re OK.’ Oractually, like the people in Brazil, I was able to getsome information that the U.S. Commercial Servicegot from the embassy that really ended up helpingme make the decision to not work with peoplewho would have gotten me into trouble. So accessto those people on the ground there is like havingyour own consultant network for free or very lowcost. So how great is that?”She also took the advice to participate in a bigGerman trade show that focuses on medicalequipment. She went to MEDICA in 2009 becauseshe wanted sales in European countries. She said:“This was the place where I met a lot of people. Wewere treated like royalty by the U.S. governmentstaff who worked at the USA Pavilion. We had ourown interpreter. He made appointments for us.They brought us coffee. I felt like a CEO, which isthe name of the program. We ended up havingconversations with distributors from differentcountries. And as a result of those meetings, weended up having agreements that are still in placein Germany, Australia, and Italy. So this was thefirst year that we decided to go international. Andif we hadn’t gone to MEDICA and hadn’t used theU.S. Commercial Service, I think that would havedelayed us by several years.”Lessons LearnedShe believes that being a global company givesNuStep a competitive advantage over othercompanies who don’t have an internationalpresence. She said: “When you’re present andmindful, you see things going on there that areprecursors to trends that will eventually come tothe U.S. So we sometimes have the opportunity tosee the future. It’s like a crystal ball, and you haveto be observant.”A second lesson was that as a woman she canmove in mostly male business circles withconfidence and mutual respect. “I was a little bitnervous, I remember, going to Japan for the firsttime because I had done some homework. I hadread up on their culture, how women are still kindof kept out of the corporate world. But when Iwalked in and I was there to do business and I wasexcited and happy to be there, I had prepared,I had done my homework, I had shown themrespect by taking their culture very seriously—therespect was reciprocated.“So whatever was going on inside of their heads,whatever discomfort they may have felt at beingwith a woman—and in fact, the first time I went,I traveled with my boss, a male, who’s a VP in ourcompany and they kept on talking to him andasking him questions. And he would then ask mefor the answer. And I could see the confusion intheir faces the first day or so. They just didn’t knowhow to deal with that. But eventually they gotover it. So being a businesswoman and dippingyour toe in the waters and stepping out is atransformational opportunity not only for myself,but also for other people that I interact with.”NuStep’s products can improve health throughexercise, regardless of age or level of functionSuccess Story: NuStep133