"The MSBDC’s Massachusetts Export Center helps us by doing research that we can’t do," observes Rob Potash [photo right], marketing director of Stoughton-based CSMi, a leading designer and manufacturer of human performance testing, rehabilitation, and documentation equipment.

CSMi serves the physical therapy, sports medicine, industrial rehabilitation, and exercise science markets. Founded in 1982 by Potash and his brother, Rich Potash [photo left], the company for its first 21 years designed and sold a software product (HUMAC) to owners of the CYBEX Extremity System, which is used in the testing and rehabilitation of human joints. “Owners of the CYBEX System would buy our software, which replaced the system’s chart recorder, to improve their machine’s performance. With our product, they wouldn’t need to buy a new machine,” explains Potash.

In December of 2003, CSMi purchased the rights to the CYBEX Extremity System product line. “That not only changed us overnight from a software developer to an equipment manufacturer, but to a substantial exporter,” notes Potash. “Before we bought the CYBEX line, exports accounted for 10% of our sales. After that, we realized that at least 50% of our sales would come from exports,” he recalls. That’s when, Potash and his firm first contacted the Massachusetts Export Center in Boston.

“Within a few weeks, the Export Center delivered a report with the names of prospective customers and distributors—typically five to ten per country—for us to consider,” Potash continues. “The depth only listed distributors in our market, but included the products that those distributors were selling. That allowed us to pinpoint our interviews to distributors with like products (i.e., capital goods for physical therapy in exercise science), learn where our distributors were selling those products, and provide our distributors with prospects for our products.”

The Export Center offered CSMi a wealth of additional services, including research and advice on tariffs and other taxes, guidance with unfamiliar product registration regulations, and news about international trade show opportunities. Says Potash: “The Massachusetts Export Center is a great resource to help answer what may be commonly known questions that are not so obvious to the new international marketer. Those questions might involve subjects like proper export documentation, what agencies and people to contact for export licenses, and recommendation on common export practices in different countries.”

The Export Center’s director, Paula Murphy, has an unrivaled grasp of exporting and its nuances, emphasizes Potash. The Export Center’s BreAnne Yothers not only helped CSMi find new distributors in Australia, but helped those distributors to identify new prospects, including hospitals and sports medicine clinics. To acquire a special export license to do business in Iran, CSMi drew on Murphy’s expertise in navigating through a labyrinth of U.S. agencies including the Commerce, Treasury, and State Departments. In the end, CSMi gained a narrow exemption to sell its CYBEX system in Iran as a medical device.

“Four years after our first contact with the Massachusetts Export Center, I’ve learned a great deal about the basics of exporting, but I continue to communicate monthly on an ad hoc basis with Paula and the center,” observes Potash. With the center’s encouragement and assistance, CSMi today exports to over 30 countries. Exports account for 60% of its revenues and the company’s overall sales exceed $4 million. Before buying CYBEX and moving decisively into overseas markets, CSMi was a four-person business. Today, it employs fourteen. Potash travels overseas about twelve times a year to participate in trade shows and to do business with customers and distributors. What’s next on the horizon for CSMi: “With the Export Center’s help, we expect in the near future to establish distribution in Russia and Poland,” notes Potash.