Before I started my own business as a sourcing agent in China, I had worked as an international sales for a few companies, even if I got quite good sales volume back then , but my world was still relatively limited to think as open as I do now. Sometimes I’d give a small speech in front of all other sales in our office. I remember the most important point I liked to emphasize was. Is that they need to put themselves in their client’s shoes.

But by the time I fully understood the importance of such factor was. Is that when I started to work as a buyers to communicate with tons of international sales in China and even across Asia. After hundred times of visiting factories all around China and following up with different sales. I came to the conclusion that I overestimated the percentage of qualified sales over here.

The reality is that most of times they do need someone in between to push them over and over again. Otherwise you will never get what you wanted in the first place. Also from what I have seen and what I have heard from my customers. Sometimes it is really difficult to get a mutual understanding between them. And it did waste lots of time.

Here is one typical example I went through with one of those Chinese vendors.

Once I went to a machine factory in Guangzhou with my Arabian customer my role was an  interpreter, So the sales was taking us around in the factory. And we saw some workers were moving some boxes of products into a truck. My customer felt curious, then he asked the sales what is the material of that product. That sales girl reacted like that question was absurd for her, because later she said “ how would I know, I am just a sales, I am not a purchaser to buy material. This is a question for our purchaser ”.

Even if my customer didn’t complain about her response in front of her. But both of us did really get shocked by her answer. As she missed the crucial number 1 for being a sales, which is to study and understand what you are trying to sell in your company.

Since the Arabian customer already placed order to them. So I needed to help him to follow up and get some documents arranged. Anyway, later I got to talk to the sales to work few things out together. But not to mention that she had very poor understanding of the very basic knowledge of some relative documents. She even felt reluctant to cooperate on some details.

So she ended up to even complain. From what I knew was that she didn’t spend time studying what matter and what don’t matter to ship that batch of goods to Saudi Arab.

I still get many such stories to tell based on my own experience with chinese vendors, but in other articles I will share gradually.

The point is that, besides the excellent products you are aiming to get. You also need to be cautious with the person you are trying to communicate with in the next when you are trying to select your best Chinese vendors