Related to this, any advice on work in Taiwan that would prepare somone to start a trading company? What type of positions. I am no longer in Taiwan, but remember years ago many companies would give you a “international sales” title but very little actual sales duties.
Folks I will try to provide a little more input as the weekend rolls around.
That’s exactly my experience too. Taiwan has an advantage in speed and flexibility, and they can compete in higher quality and small volumes. That goes for my business as well.
[quote=“Ed en Vadrouille”]
Due to personal tastes, I am looking to deal more in products with a higher added value, whether high-tech or not, and Taiwan is for me the place to start production before maybe moving it to China once the competitive environment change.[/quote]
Well, when I started, I could not even afford a plane ticket to China, so I ended up focusing on Taiwan and the customers happy to buy from Taiwan. It’s a good place to learn, as the environment is a fair bit more forgiving here.
And if you get owned by a supplier, you can actually sue them and get a decent result here.
One issue I have always had is to find the companies interested in sourcing. If you for instance were on the beat in Europe and could spend the time to get to know people, finding companies interested in sorcing something is a bit tough. I got around that one by finding a product and then pushing that, and building my network around that, however if there had been a faster and easier way, I would have taken that.
I do agree that the best skills you can have is the skills to sell. I would add attention to detail, the patience it takes to find the right suppliers, and tonnes of persistence, however if you are not a great salesman (I am honestly not) then patience and persistence are key anyways.
Working in a Taiwanese company in a job where you actually get to sell is good experience, the environment can be tough, but that’s good for you if you suddenly are you own boss.
A smaller company might be better, as you have a better chance to get to know more sides of what’s going on.
[quote=“kfed”]Related to this, any advice on work in Taiwan that would prepare somone to start a trading company? What type of positions. I am no longer in Taiwan, but remember years ago many companies would give you a “international sales” title but very little actual sales duties.
Thank you Mr. He for sharing your experience. I find this thread very helpful.
I have worked for three different small manufacturers for the purpose of learning international sales. Most companies will fall over backwards to hire foreigners but in all 3 positions i struggled with the language and cultural barriar and isolation which made it difficult for me to focus on my original purpose of learning sales. There is small tool manufacturer in Taichung i worked for for about 3 months that I feel was good learning experience. Lots of opportunites to travel (trade fairs) and i was writing and making phone calls directly with customers. My boss fired me only to call me back a year later asking me to return. But he’d love to have a foreigner work for his company so if you are interested please feel free to contact me for more information.
Well, I would try to pick up Chinese as well, it makes a difference.
Moreover, the companies hiring foreigners usually do it for 2 reasons:
I know it may sound like a cliché but I believe it is true. A friend always tells me that “people like doing business with people who are easy to do business with.”
For the past six years part of my work has involved acting a buyer, that is also heavily involved in operations, management etc. In other words there are times when I am stretched pretty thin, and will not deal with suppliers that make doing business difficult.
So I can tell you that I like suppliers who are easy to do business with. This relates to what Mr. He mentioned about the importance of details.
As an example when a salesperson/supplier (regular or ongoing supplier) knows what type of products I need (details—restrictions etc) it is very helpful and results in sales for this company/person. As an idea they present me with a solution to a problem that I may have mentioned in a prior conversation, or tell me how another customer is solving this problem. I have suppliers who have put me in touch with other customers /“competitors” to discuss common issues and challenges.
But perhaps more importantly when they make doing business easy. Not to sound like a nerd, but it is related to the idea of “relationship selling.” Where the seller acts as an advocate for the buyer (customer) within his company (supplier.)
This may be a bit off topic, but I do think it may help a salesperson and or a person running a trading company.
Thanks to everyone for contributing to this thread. Thanks Canyon for your input about sales positions inTaiwan. Currently I am in the us working, but am seriously considering returning to Taiwan. So any information and or leads is very helpful.
Hats off to Mr. He for being so open about the path that you have taken to start your business.
[quote=“Mr He”]
Moreover, the companies hiring foreigners usually do it for 2 reasons:
Very well put, indeed.
Here is my 2 cents on International trading, being that I work as a purchaser for the European HQ and trader with the HK office.
As with any business, starting without knowledge of the play is quick recipe to disaster.
As I found out recently, trying to propose business to everyone also gets you sometimes into the right bed, as per say… I’m starting a new project with India and the MENAR (Middle East and North Africa Region) that will probably land me some 1 to 2 Million USD in profit, this year alone. Although the company I work for is not mine, my salary is well connected to my performance.
As for Taiwan vs China, I can tell you that Taiwanese are 20 times better than Chinese, but still beaten out the crap by Japanese. If you ever can land a good distribution contract with Japanese, you’ll make yourself happy - they are fantastic in terms of conditions they give you to win a market. Of course, most of the time you won’t be able to win markets, but to develop them. Taiwanese are fairly good at this, although their “you do the talk, we take care of the price” strategy not always work well. I like when companies offer shared marketing plans, and do not rely completely on our ability to do the talk (sometimes, we are just too busy to go on doing the talk for them, and a lot of business is lost due to lack of market perception). With Chinese, they say “you buy, we make, we don’t care”. It is kind of a tricky business, although you can be ripped off by many - the tools at your disposal if you are ripped off are what differentiates the 3 countries (anyone heard the major ripoff that Emtec, Hana and Bluetec had with USB flash drives? That was a lot of goods that were supposed to be 4GB and 2GB, and inside where only 1GB with a specially programmed chip…).
I don’t speak of Koreans because I have very bad experience with them, and I don’t want to be here bashing the whole country just because of a few big brands…
As with any biz, what matters are connections. If you have them, then it’s good. If you don’t… find them… Go to trade shows and get as many cards as you can get, for as many products as you can think you can do…
That was a very valuable response, the Chinese are tough to work with, the Taiwanese are a bit easier. I don’t know koreans very well, but I am not too happy with the ones I have been in contact with.
I for one started out with not that much sector experience, but I gained that as I worked along. Connections and perseverance is key.
My company was paying royalties to use a well known Korean brand, but when we found out, the brand had been put into liquidation… in the end, it was 400K € thrown out of the wagon cause we couldn’t use the brand anymore… we had to dump all the goods we had in places where people don’t check brands…
Thanks for your input and description of different business styles.
I work with a Japanese company, and have been involved in some merger/acquisition activity, and I can tell you, at least the Japanese company I work with does take a long-term approach. Almost painfully methodical in these merger activities.
One thing I have always admired about Taiwan is the entrepreneurial spirit; this is one thing that is not so common with Japan. In fact I remember at a trade show in Las Vegas a Japanese VP explaining to me how they do not like to fire people and on the flip side workers do not like to quit jobs.
Sorry folks but at that moment I had some fond memories of Taiwan and mentioned how it is said that in Taiwan no one talks back to their boss, however, after receiving their yearly bonus they do their talking back by leaving the company and starting their own operation and taking customers with them.
I have always felt and it seems to be supported by the comments on this thread that Taiwan is a good place, a good balance for people wanting to trade in the region.
Have any of you guys ever dealt with/ exported the water heaters that are used in Taiwan?
Now Taiwanese companies make you sign agreements that if you leave the company and join/create a similar company, you need to return all/part of your yearly bonuses received…
Mr. Boogie.
Are you based in Taiwan?
Mr. He
It sounds like that after considering your options that you chose an industry and product line and went full force in this direction?
“One issue I have always had is to find the companies interested in sourcing. If you for instance were on the beat in Europe and could spend the time to get to know people, finding companies interested in sorcing something is a bit tough. I got around that one by finding a product and then pushing that, and building my network around that, however if there had been a faster and easier way, I would have taken that.”
Do you mean it was hard to get companies interested in sourcing from overseas in this case European companies ? (before you committed to a product line) I mean before you represented a particular product or category. However, once you committed to your product/industry/category you were able to get companies interested?
Yeap. I work in TPE/Yilan, depends on the mood…
Most Taiwanese companies will give you the goods and support, but only at a local level. At your market level, they only want to know about your orders… Main reason why my company failed to work with 90% of the IT companies in Taiwan. This type of mentality works for huge companies, or very small numbers… but on the middle of that is where most of the guys will be… and they cannot come with a plan on how to evolve in a market…
They will tell you:
You will be our agent in that market - we give you fob prices, so you take care of the logistics, warehousing, marketing and whatever. What we will try to do is to give you the best goods at the best price. More than that, it is up to you to work for the sake of my brand. Then, when my brand has recognition, I will sell it to your customers directly, after I send a team of sales there (if the market justifies it). If not, it will be you who failed miserably in understanding your own market, we will keep looking for the next looser that comes along.
[quote=“kfed”]
Do you mean it was hard to get companies interested in sourcing from overseas in this case European companies ? (before you committed to a product line) I mean before you represented a particular product or category. However, once you committed to your product/industry/category you were able to get companies interested?[/quote]
If you go and see a buyer, it’s a good idea to have something to sell him.
If I were a buyer and you visited me and you did not have anything to sell, but merely wanted ideas, I would suspect the following:
You are a newbie with no experience in the industry I am interested in sourcing from, unless you are able to probe the opposite by for instance bringing samples and display that you know how to satisfy my needs.
You are a jack of all trades but a master of none. Knowing one industry takes time and hard work, knowing 5-10 is bloody impossible, unless you are a big trading operation with big overheads.
If I am pressed for time, I don’t want to sit bandying ideas around and educate you. I want answers and I want to be told if you can do it or not.
I was working in a company, and a customer told me he wanted a product. I found it for him, and as he was interested, it went full bore after that.
There are buyers for most items being made, so I would not worry about that. It would be a good idea to start out working with a buyer you already know well, when you are to get the initial grip on things.
When it comes to spreading out into other products, if that’s what you want to do, then wait until you have a couple of customers who are buying, and ask them if you can get something else for them. That approach is - if they like you and want to do more business with you - likely to give you new ideas all over the place.
I was asked to get the following during my last business trip:
And then a few others, I can’t be bothered to write.
It was the result of 12 sales calls, IE more than one additional request from each, and that was from people already buying my main product.
Now, if I want to take my business in another direction, I would appear to be spoilt for choice, and some of the items are things, I then could turn around and market to other customers. However, I would have a hard time building up the requisite expertise for all those products, so I look into the ones I find relatively straightforward and realistic, and forget about the rest.
[quote=“mr_boogie”]Yeap. I work in TPE/Yilan, depends on the mood…
Most Taiwanese companies will give you the goods and support, but only at a local level. At your market level, they only want to know about your orders… Main reason why my company failed to work with 90% of the IT companies in Taiwan. This type of mentality works for huge companies, or very small numbers… but on the middle of that is where most of the guys will be… and they cannot come with a plan on how to evolve in a market…
They will tell you:
You will be our agent in that market - we give you fob prices, so you take care of the logistics, warehousing, marketing and whatever. What we will try to do is to give you the best goods at the best price. More than that, it is up to you to work for the sake of my brand. Then, when my brand has recognition, I will sell it to your customers directly, after I send a team of sales there (if the market justifies it). If not, it will be you who failed miserably in understanding your own market, we will keep looking for the next looser that comes along.[/quote]
That one can be countered, because if they give you agency, you will in some markets be able to stop them from entering.
Now, Chinese and Taiwanese are great at making stuff on the relatively cheap, and that’s good. However their idea about branding leaves a lot to be desired. Therefore I would not bother with their brand and do some homework instead. If I suspected that they would try something funny, I would:
Register my own brand, and make sure that everything, repeat everything was branded with my brand. I would print my own catalogues and my own manuals. The name plate would say "Made for Mr. Boogie’s gadgets in China/Taiwan.
Do my homework before starting. Making sure that I knew the competitors of my supplier and make sure that there would be alternatives, in case my supplier tried anything funny. At the end of the day, the value of the brand is built by your service, your reliability, and your quality, which IMHO is not limited to mere product quality. I would test samples at regular intervals, so I knew where the competition was, and if possible I would take different versions of the same proudct in from more than one supplier.
If supplier A one day started to cut me out, I would basically stop selling theirs (but avoid from telling them so) and switch to supplier B, which I by doing my homework would have a reasonable assurance would fit the bill. I would then present it to my customers as an “upgrade”, and use the purchasing power I got by building my brand up with supplier A’s products to wring a better deal out of them.
After all, if we assume that you were suceeding with supplier A’s product, the increased sales and the improving sales channels you’ve been building with your brand would make sure that you can ramp the volumes for supplier B faster, and that you can commit to larger volumes much faster.
At the end of the day, if the customers rally do care what corrugated iron shed in greater Chian, their products come from, then there’s something you have not done right.
Most could not give a hoot, actually, as long as the quality, the service, and the support, you provide, is good.
I thought they took that out of your last paycheck anyways?
I have never been asked to sign anything saying that, and I would refuse if I were.
Mr. He, the OEM part works well when you have a operation capable of selling them. My company doesn’t.
As for the brands, Taiwanese prefer to sell OEM, as that involves only manufacturing. They are not good at selling themselves. A quick look around Taiwan would make you realize that…
[quote=“mr_boogie”]Mr. He, the OEM part works well when you have a operation capable of selling them. My company doesn’t.
As for the brands, Taiwanese prefer to sell OEM, as that involves only manufacturing. They are not good at selling themselves. A quick look around Taiwan would make you realize that…[/quote]
Still, I would put my own label on them, if I were a taiwanese trading company. I would also get my own materials and manuals made, all of this is a few thousand NT.
OEM, yes, but they still like their branding, even though it’s done with a massive lack of talent.