InterTradeIreland has announced that it currently has funding available for small and micro businesses looking to explore new cross-border markets through its sales development programme, Elevate. Through Elevate, InterTradeIreland provides sector-specific sales support of up to £5,000/€6,000 across a range of sectors including food and beverage, ICT and Engineering as well as many others.

Small businesses participating in ‘Elevate’ can choose from a list of more than 100 experienced industry specialists who can then help them to identify sales leads in the cross-border market, negotiate deals, share relevant market insights, identify market research requirements and offer advice on the development of marketing materials.

Thomas Hunter McGowan, CEO of InterTradeIreland said: ‘’In light of the recent referendum result, now is the time to get a foothold in the cross-border market. New trade agreements won’t take effect for some time. It will be more advantageous to evolve your business model in a newly secured market as regulations change than to attempt that foothold in a newly changed market place.

“The cross-border market is an often an underutilised but logical first step to wider export markets, giving experience of varied legislation and working with a different currency but has the comfort of being more accessible.  Once mastered this makes looking at European markets a more realistic prospect.

The Elevate Programme was designed with simplicity in mind to remove as much bureaucracy as possible.  As such, a relatively simple and straight-forward application process was devised and put in place. I would urge all interested small businesses with less than £1million turnover to register their interest and apply to Elevate today.”

For more information on the Elevate programme, including full eligibility criteria visit www.intertradeireland.com/elevate.