An engineering company has asked me to help them out with contacting some British engineering companies in order to buy parts that they require for a rather lucrative venture here in Taiwan.
I was chosen because I know the boss, speak Chinese, have opposable thumbs and can type in English. I know nothing about engineering and stuff like that. All I have to do is get the prices and arrange the communication between the two parties.
The Taiwanese company said they will buy me a fax if I need one and are letting me decide about the renumeration for the job.
Thing is, I have no idea what I should charge them.
What are the payment terms?
Are you buying from them and selling to the Taiwanese company? Are they using a Letter of Credit or cash up front
What is your liability, if the parts are crap or their is a problem? You better make sure you have a contract or something that states exactly X Y and Z. Once you pass them to the Taiwanese company, are your hands washed of all this or will they call complaining about this and that
You should charge a commission on what you sell. But since the Taiwanese company probabily know what the cost is you can’t bump it up and skim the difference. Anyway you may not have that much capital to be doing this wheeling and dealing
How exactly are you handling the communication?
Are you translating word for word from one company to the other.Are they using a Letter of Credit or cash up front and you have to process this between one company and another
Altogether you can charge based on your functions and what you do. But when you quote you better make sure you are covering all possibilities and will not end up with your own expenses (Taxis, phone calls etc), and more work later that you never thought of
I wouldn’t get too into it if it could cause you problems. Tell them you’ll charge NT$2,000 an hour for your time with no liabilities and plus costs. Base that sum on the opportunity cost of not doing your own business while doing theirs. Tell them that’s the cash sum and no invoices. Make sure they know you are just acting as an agent: putting one party in touch with the other, and associated work. If you keep it nice and straightforward he might pass some other stuff your way.
The Taiwan company just tells me what they want, when they want it etc. and asks me to set up direct links with the company in the UK, NO AGENTS. All I am doing is doing the talking or writing as the case may be. I don’t need any capital in it. Straight out translation into English of what the boss wants and translation into Chinese for what the UK company can do etc. I guess it’s acting as the middle man but not as an agent because agency fees are something that the Taiwanese boss hates.
I thought of an hourly rate or a per e-mail rate etc. However the Taiwanese company is going to make a fortune off this and I’d like to see a little more than a flat rate for something that he could never do on his own.
For some other things I may need to search the internet for him to find other parts in other countries.
I just don’t know what the fair going rate would be for this kind of service. Is this straight out office worker stuff or something a little more specialised? I don’t think it will take too much time but my time is precious and I think I need to be compensated fairly and at the same time charge the Taiwanese company fairly.
Should I charge on a case by case basis?
Monthy to retain my services - perhaps not, it wouldn’t take much time, just ordering, enquiring, and searching. Perhaps translating problems.
I am an engineer and if you ask what to charge I rekon money though you might settle for bin lang, dunno.
But seriously, I have no clue how much to charge since this has not much to do with engineering or purchasing itself, rather you are charging your translation / mediation services.
(Rates of a highly qualified engineer in the telco industry on a contract basis start at USD250 a day and have been known to exceed USD1000 / day.)
An hourly rate, Bassman, as Hex says. About NT$2,000 is reasonable, at least up here in Taipei. Also, an hourly rate makes it easy to – ahem – “pad” the hours, if you see fit. Not that you or I would ever dream of doing such a thing of course .
You don’t need to talk to an engineer. You need to talk to someone who works in import/export. Engineers usually know dick about pricing. My wife sells to a few trading companies in HK. I’ll ask her what sort of commission can be taken on this sort of deal. Exactly what sort of materials are you going to be handling? That Tomas guy might be able to give you some advice that would be more relevant to a transaction done in Taiwan. I think you should try to do this on commission rather than an hourly rate. You might find that more deals like this could come your way.
A trading company has to worry about customs and making sure that the supplier will be able to meet the customer’s needs. This might require you to travel. It sounds like you aren’t going to be doing that, nor should you want to at this point. You also aren’t having to put up the funds to make the transaction and the price is not a secret to the buyer (I assume). Your only role is to communicate and perhaps negotiate on price. This makes you more of a trade consultant than a trading company. A trading company will make it’s money from a mark-up on the original price. A consultant will make money from a fixed commission or a basic fee (in case no transaction is done) or both. As consultants go, the value added of your services will be relatively low because the skills you bring in are limited (this is your first time at this). Therefore, you should charge a lower commission (but of course take as much as you can get). Make sure that you are not responsible for putting up any money and that you are not going to get involved with customs clearance. Don’t just charge an hourly rate, though.
Will you act as their buying agent or will the goods actually pass thru your hands?
If you just act as a buying agent, you should go for a couple of %. Moreover, if it’s a one shot deal, then it’s not worth the trouble for you to set up a trading co. to take care of the deal.
Seems most people are reading far more into this than I am. Consultant, trading co. … All Bassman is being asked to do is type a few letters in English, probably along the lines of “I want you to tell these Brits A, B, + C but I don’t want you to mention E or F. Get me their price list and their product catalogue and I’ll tell you what I want to order.”
More the job of an English secretary, as I see it.
I used to work for a computer company that imported 3D software from Israel and render software from France. I was given a 10% cut. Good months saw $13,000 USD commissions; bad months saw around $3,000USD. Too bad the market dropped
And how are you going to prove that to them. First they will want to know your cost, and then they will negotiate on this
If you say 2000NTD per hour and then come back after you do the job and say it took me twenty hours, they are going to want you to prove it is 20 hours, or may argue the price per hour or the time for doing it. I have seen this practise with MPR systems except the other way round. The guy gives them a quote for the time it will take to update/modify it, and the customer starts saying it shouldn’t take that long, thats too much, else is over their shoulder watching them
However in this case they came to you so maybe you can pad it more.
Maybe negotiate on a fixed number you come up with yourself.
Then before working out what charge you should do this for, maybe you try and work out the time it will take.
Everything you do you document. You say it took 20 hours and you have a complete accounting of all the 10 minutes here, 20 minutes there, etc., plus what you spent that time doing. They’ve already agreed to the price per hour. So if they start dicking with you they’re just dishonest, so it doesn’t really matter what you agreed to beforehand in any case, does it?
Of course YMMV. I’m just speaking from my personal experience.
Demanding a % cut for typing out a few letters for the boss seems a bit over the top to me.
[quote=“sandman”]Seems most people are reading far more into this than I am. Consultant, trading co. … All Bassman is being asked to do is type a few letters in English, probably along the lines of “I want you to tell these Brits A, B, + C but I don’t want you to mention E or F. Get me their price list and their product catalogue and I’ll tell you what I want to order.”
More the job of an English secretary, as I see it.[/quote]
Uh, you just described a trading company’s job on a smooth day.
Oh, I forgot, the reason I am looking for an engineer is that I may want to hand this stuff over as it gets a lot more busy and someone who talks the tech stuff might get off on it.
I would share the details with anyone in engineering that is interested and can speak Chinese.
Wouldn’t a trading company be involved in either buying stuff or selling it? Bassman says he’s being asked to do neither. According to him, he’s being asked to translate the boss’ letters into English and translate the replies into Chinese. That’s it.
He is doing communication, and does not need an engineering or trading background, but it wouldn’t harm him. He might be communciating between the two groups on nuclear weapons or crayons. Its all the same if he is just communicating facts, figures and schedules
He is doing communication, and does not need an engineering or trading background, but it wouldn’t harm him. He might be communciating between the two groups on nuclear weapons or crayons. Its all the same if he is just communicating facts, figures and schedules[/quote]
Right. So he doesn’t need to set up a company or be a consultant or any of those things. He certainly shouldn’t be asking for a % or even a commission. Its translation and letter-writing, pure and simple.
NT$2,000/hour for your time and effort, Bassman. Keep careful note of what you do and how long it takes.
It doesn’t matter what the job involves, and being “fair” about what to charge shouldn’t be an issue. I know I have said this a million times before, but it is all about the money.
If you want the big money, work on commission. Ask for a % and the worst they can do is to say no. If they say no on the commission then ask for the $2,000 per hour, or whatever.
People who don’t have a piece of the pie don’t get rich.
[quote=“Bassman”]An engineering company has asked me to help them out with contacting some British engineering companies in order to buy parts that they require for a rather lucrative venture here in Taiwan.
I was chosen because I know the boss, speak Chinese, have opposable thumbs and can type in English. I know nothing about engineering and stuff like that. All I have to do is get the prices and arrange the communication between the two parties.
The Taiwanese company said they will buy me a fax if I need one and are letting me decide about the renumeration for the job.
Thing is, I have no idea what I should charge them.
Any ideas?[/quote]
remuneration–maybe it should be renumeration, but it isn’t.
