No matter how many times one attends the WCA Annual Conference, and as founding members we’ve attended many, the scale and scope of the event is always overwhelming. We believe WCA is the best network of its kind offering a chance to meet with new and existing partners from around the world in one central place. If we tried to visit so many clients, partners, and potential new connections it would take weeks of traveling and thousands of dollars spent chasing these opportunities one at a time, all of which are here in a single place to hold meetings and network.
Because Coppersmith has been part of the WCA since its inception, we are fortunate to have a very close relationship with the WCA president and his staff which gives us many advantages. We are in a unique position to pick and choose which agent we prefer to work with across the globe. As Coppersmith’s main face and liaison between us and the agents, many of which we have worked with for many years, I am lucky to call myself personal friends with almost every agent. For Coppersmith, maintaining these relationships is a top priority.
This year, the focus was on meeting all of our current agents to go over previous twelve months, and set goals for 2019, while courting new agents for some of the more challenging origins. The conference is always a great resource for networking and finding new partners. It’s humbling to see the incredible interest from other agents to work with Coppersmith and we already have business with two new agents we met at this conference.
Coppersmith believes in keeping our portfolio very diverse. We aim to handle all kinds of commodities to avoid being too invested in one particular market segment which can be risky. Our plan is to continue to find niche markets and keep our business very diverse for both imports and exports. The connections we made at WCA allow us to find new markets and bring more efficiency and value to our current clients while building our expertise for new opportunities.
