Selling Abroad : A small Compton company proves by its persistence that you don’t have to be big to make inroads in overseas markets.

If America’s fortune could turn on the example of a little company in Compton, U.S. exporters might find it easier to sell overseas and buck the criticism that they don’t try hard enough to develop international markets.

Murdock Inc., a 35-year-old, privately held manufacturer of highly specialized metal-forming presses and aerospace tools and parts, is forging ahead to sell its products to companies in a dozen different countries. It recently sold a $1-million press to one Asian country and is building a $600,000 press for a Japanese client.

Today, foreign sales account for 25% of Murdock’s annual revenue of $30 million. As recently as 18 months ago, exports amounted to only 5% of total sales, according to Allan Roberts, vice president for finance.

“We devoted a lot of effort toward the international market about 2 1/2 years ago,” he said.

Although Murdock makes expensive, heavy machinery, the firm’s steady growth in exporting provides an example that other would-be exporters might follow, regardless of what they make.

Murdock, a subcontractor whose aerospace clients include McDonnell Douglas Corp., Boeing Co. and LTV Corp., has exported products for nearly 30 years. The company’s big push overseas, however, came in 1986, when it started exhibiting at trade shows in the United States a new machine that transforms carbon fibers into sheet form.

Roberts said “a lot of international visitors stopped by” Murdock’s booth at the trade shows and asked questions. The visitors, in many cases, were less interested in the new machine than in the company’s expertise in titanium, which is used in aircraft parts.

More often than not, the international visitors later came to Compton to visit the sprawling Murdock plant with its 400 workers.

“As they saw us and visited with us, their confidence in us grew,” Roberts explained. That led to business relationships and orders and some showings at overseas trade shows. “Now our name is known worldwide.”

As a result, Bud Murdock, president, decided to develop an international marketing group, with a director of international sales, S.F. Hill III.

Murdock has a Japanese trading partner, Murakami Jitsugyo Inc., which has taken the U.S. company’s marketing into Japan. Earlier this year, Murdock entered a joint venture with Japanese steelmaker Nippon Yakin Kogyo Co. It is now manufacturing a $600,000 titanium super-plastic-forming machine for Nippon Yakin.

When it comes time to ship big orders, Murdock typically requires a letter of credit, a secured form of payment from the customer issued by a bank according to stipulations and terms agreed to by Murdock and its customer.

For one order from Asia, however, the company had to seek outside financing. The $1-million sale of a super-plastic-forming defusion bonding press was to a government agency of an Asian country, which the company prefers not to identify. The buyer wanted Murdock to put up a standby letter of credit of nearly $1 million as a sort of collateral to ensure that it would deliver the press.

“We have a good line of credit but we needed it for normal business,” Roberts explained. “We were and are growing, but we needed working capital to handle that growth and we didn’t want to inhibit that growth” by tying up the company’s regular credit line to finance the standby letter of credit for the press sale.

Murdock’s longtime bank was reluctant to extend the funds. “When you ship overseas, banks look at you a lot differently than with just domestic shipments,” Roberts said. Instead, he found alternative export financing through the California Export Finance Office. The state agency packaged funds for the needed amount through one bank loan guaranteed by the agency itself and another guaranteed by the Export-Import Bank of the United States.

The standby letter of credit was no longer needed once the press was delivered. Today, with more of a track record in exports, Murdock has a $250,000 line of credit for export transactions.