My U.S. Export Story—Finding Customers Around the World
SBA and Visa sponsored a contest: Create a video telling the story of your small business's success in exporting.
We are pleased to announce the winners in the Exporting Video Contest:
1st Place: Building Beyond Our Borders (Agribusiness category)
2nd Place: Exported from Detroit (Technology category)
3rd Place: Exporting: Success Beyond Borders (Manufacturing category)
4th Place: From Small to International Business (Professional Services category)
5th Place: Grow Your Business One Country at a Time (Consumer Products category)
Congratulations to our winners!
Contest Background
The videos will inform small businesses about the advantages of exporting and increase awareness of government assistance available to support small business exporters through the first-person stories of successful entrepreneurs.
Watch this video to learn more:
Contest rules and additional information are found below:
Contest Rules
Eligibility
How to Enter
Judging Criteria
Winners/Prizes
Awards Ceremony
Privacy Policy
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Contest Rules
- Videos must be 3 minutes or less in length and provided in a high-resolution format.
- Videos must not contain violence, profanity, sex, images of a prurient nature, or direct attacks on individuals or organizations. SBA will disqualify any entries it deems to contain offensive material.
- The video must be your own original creation and must not infringe on any third party rights. Entrants are responsible for obtaining all necessary permissions. No copyrighted music, video, or images may be used in submissions to this contest without appropriate permission.
- Do not use the SBA seal or logo or the Visa logo in your video.
- Videos must be educational, not promotional in nature (i.e., a commercial for the exporter’s company). Display or mention of commercial brands, logos, goods/services or organizations should be incidental to the exporter’s story and discussion of the Federal program or service used.
- Only one video may be submitted per business.
- Videos must not have been previously produced for compensation or posted on any SBA or Visa Web page.
- Winners must provide a copy of the original video file to SBA to receive an award. Winners will be contacted by email to provide the original video.
- By submitting a video to this contest, you grant to SBA and Visa a perpetual royalty-free license to copy, distribute, modify, display and perform publicly and otherwise use, and authorize others to use, your video for any educational purpose throughout the world and in any media.
- SBA and Visa reserve the right to make your video available to the general public from their respective web sites and to distribute it to groups and any other organizations interested in showing it for educational purposes, including, but not limited to, Internet sites, conferences and events, on television, and other media outlets.
- SBA reserves the right to not select a winner if none of the entries received are judged to be high quality based on the Contest Rules and Eligibility requirements.
Eligibility
- The contest is open to U.S. small businesses that have successfully completed at least one export transaction.
- Any videos developed with federal funding, either grant, contract, or loan proceeds, are not eligible to win. Federal employees and their immediate families, current SBA contractors and SBA grant recipients may enter the contest but are not eligible to win.
- The business owner(s) must be a U.S. citizen or legal resident and at least 18 years old to enter and win.
How to Enter the Contest
- Review all contest rules and eligibility requirements.
- Create one (1) original video three (3) minutes or less in high-definition format. Contest participants must end their video with the following words: “That’s my exporting story. Where will your next customer come from?” along with a referral to www.export.gov for assistance. This referral can be spoken, written, embedded or delivered in any appropriate way deemed effective by the submitter.
- All videos must have a unique title or they will not be judged, e.g., not “My Export Story.”
- All videos must be submitted through SBA’s YouTube contest site by Sept. 30.
- All contestants must include the following information in their video's description. Please select one of the following five categories for your video: manufacturing, consumer products, professional services, technology and agribusiness.
- You may begin submitting videos on Aug. 1, 2011. Entries must be received by Sept. 30. Winners will be notified via e-mail and announced at a later date.
- You will not receive a notification of submission of your contest entry.
- E-mail questions to oit@sba.gov.
Judging Criteria
- All eligible videos will be judged by a panel assembled by SBA on the following criteria: inspirational nature of the message for potential exporters and effectiveness in promoting exporting; creativity and uniqueness of video concept; value of lessons learned/communicated; and use of U.S. government program/service. Winners will be selected based on overall score. All judging is in SBA’s sole discretion and all decisions are final.
- The judging panel will select five winning videos; one from each of the following categories: manufacturing, consumer products, professional services, technology and agribusiness.
- The five winning videos will then be posted on SBA’s YouTube site and made available for public voting from Oct. 14-28. Public voting will determine the first-fifth place rankings. The video receiving the most votes will be awarded the first place prize; video with the second highest number of votes will be awarded the second place prize and so forth.
Winners/Prizes
One video in each category will receive a prize. A total of five prizes in the form of cash, airfare and hotel to participate in an awards ceremony in the continental United States, and Gold Key matching service and/or various other trade related events funds will be awarded to the first, second, third, fourth and fifth place winners as follows:
First place: $12,000 award, includes cash; an expenses-paid trip to be honored at the National District Export Council Conference** in Las Vegas, Nevada from November 2-5, 2011; and $1,000 towards a Commerce Department Gold Key service, and/or various other trade related events.
Second place: $10,000 award, includes cash; an expenses-paid trip to be honored at the National District Export Council Conference** in Las Vegas, Nevada from November 2-5, 2011; and $1,000 towards a Commerce Department Gold Key service, and/or various other trade related events.
Third place: $8,000 award, includes cash; an expenses-paid trip to be honored at the National District Export Council Conference** in Las Vegas, Nevada from November 2-5, 2011; and $1,000 towards a Commerce Department Gold Key service, and/or various other trade related events.
Fourth place: $6,000 award, includes cash; an expenses-paid trip to be honored at the National District Export Council Conference** in Las Vegas, Nevada from November 2-5, 2011; and $1,000 towards a Commerce Department Gold Key service, and/or various other trade related events.
Fifth place: $4,000 award, includes cash; an expenses-paid trip to be honored at the National District Export Council Conference** in Las Vegas, Nevada from November 2-5, 2011; and $1,000 towards a Commerce Department Gold Key service, and/or various other trade related events.
If no eligible videos are received for a particular category, SBA reserves the right not to offer a prize for that category.
Awards Ceremony
Awards will be presented to the top winner in each category at the national District Export Council conference Nov. 2-5 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Privacy Policy
Any personal information collected from video submitters to SBA’s Export Video Contest will never be sold. The information collected for this contest will only be used for purposes of the contest to contact video submitters in direct relation to the contest.
The contest winners’ names will be announced publicly, after consultation with the winners, as a part of SBA’s contest award recognition process.
Any videos posted to YouTube will be subject to YouTube's privacy policy.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: What constitutes “immediate family?”
A: “Immediate family members” shall include spouses, siblings, parents, children, grandparents, and grandchildren, whether as “in-laws”, or by current or past marriage, remarriage, adoption, co-habitation or other familial extension, and any other persons residing at the same household location, whether or not related.
Q: Can videos be submitted that have already been released to news organizations and other groups?
A: Yes, although we seek to have the development of new videos, the rules exclude videos that have been previously been published for compensation or any video that would infringe on third party rights. All videos, regardless of when published, must meet all the contest criteria in order to be eligible (e.g., length, ending with www.export.gov).
Co-sponsorship Authorization #11-7080-11SBA
SBA’s participation in this cosponsored activity is not an endorsement of the views, opinions, products or services of any cosponsor or other person or entity. All SBA programs and service are extended to the public on a non-discriminatory basis.
