加拿大进出口外贸My story on when and how start international business



加拿大外贸

It is about 3 years since i graduated from university. International trade was my dream when i was in senior school, even till now never change. And yes, i am so lucky now to be one of you setting foot in international business. Here i wanna to share some shots on three different periods. Hope it can help some schoolling boys and girls not feel at sea anymore before graduatation, and also can comfort majority friends who are under fighting for the foreign trade life.

Shot 1. University time (Preparations for foreign trade)

So obviously i chose business english as my major. Here i do not want to describe what kind of efforts i have made during the school years. It is not easy to guess what u have to do if u wanna to realize your dream into reality. U never know how i appreciated god, she arranged me study with a group of dilligent and special boys and girls. Most of students in my class are from poor family, they even lived on state Poverty Subsidies. They got up 5:30 am everyday. If u see the girl who hold the Oxford dictionary at each corner of colleage at any time, she must be from our class. When other girls begin to dress up, while there is another part of girls who just make part time job. I learnt a lot from my classmates, and even i never dated with any boy during such beautiful years. Well, there is a sum of people, they just laugh at our out of fasion apperance, even they regard us as bookworm. we encountered with doubts before. So what's up? Today, we get answers. We need to know our dream and plan for future before graduation. Especially for our businss english major, we need to control the basic theory, collect ensentail information and do market research at this time. That is really benefit for your furture trade career.

Shot 2. Graduate and got my first job in a small trade company.

The wordwide financial storm comes when i graduate in the year. Meanwhile, quite many companies fired foreign sales. About 3 months, i never received an interview for foreign sales. But there were some company called me for translation or Manager assistant postition. I was confused whether should continue the dream or not. And sometimes even want to change a city? But i know the possiblity of getting a job in shanghai is higher than any other cities in china. Those 3 months is a really mental suffering period, everytime when i hint myself to consider other work opportunities, i took out the foreign trade book, which reminded me what i have devoted in last many years. Then rather firmed my heart. So the same as usural days that i continue to attend the weekend job fair, hunt job online, even find the hunting company. Finally with my insist, i got my first job interview from a small new setting up trade company. It was a small 7 people team. After passed the oral english and written tests, i was told that they could not offer decent salary, but if i did not mind, they would glad to welcome me as their new teamworker. Well, i really did not care about the salary and even it was a big company or not. God, it was already a comforts for me. My manager tought me a lot of knowledge in this fields. Just because it is a small private company, i have more chances to touch and learn the whole process during foreign trade. From how to collect market information and make market plans, how to arrange production and follow up with both customers and factory, make all documents for custom and customer, book vessle, go to bank, make export tax rebate and etc every details. Basing on the theory i have already controlled, and also with the help of my manager's guiding, i was familiar with all procedures within 1 month. Later our company applied for offshore company, expanded new projects and etc matters, i attended each time. We even worked very late mostly working days. Even when i was a green hand, i had to clean the office each friday. But i did not mind, almost 1 year, my bankbook still shown with 0. Well, Rainbow comes after a storm, it is always right. Opportunities knocked at my door. With my experince i was succussfully recruited by my current working company. I stay here around 2 years. My real start for international business, and got my first order, second and ... here. Till now, i still need to thanks my first company who really helped me a lot. I know there is a lot of friends, might still on considering whether need to find a big company or small one for practise after graduation. Well, it is not really important whether the company big or not. The most important is whether u can learn from your first job, we need to be patient and modest. Even should keep this with us all life long.

Shot 3. Got my first order and balance payment within 2 hours.

It was a common tuesday afternoon. I recieved an email without any detail inforamtion. My frist thought was this mail might from the competitors. But for avoiding loss potential order, i still gave her a reply with simply asking for more company details. In the meantime, i asked her for online chat tools. She still did not tell me her company name, but only skype. I added her, and began chat with her. With the puzzles toward her, i did not talk too much on business, but only other topics as her willing. She gradually began the topic for business, during the chat, i confirmed one point, this customer was from Thailand which i got and confrimed from the conversiation.  I did not quote her my price at first, just shared with her the marketing information at beginning cuz she told me her budget already. Since knew the price is important for her, i chose one item close her budget, but a bit higher. It was okay, i sent her online with elegant product introduction, clear photoes for products, workshop, our office and whole working process. She was impressed with our work, and further trust me. Actually we still chat a lot of other things. Somehow i was a bit lucky at the same time, when we talked about the lead time and terms of payment. I told her TT balance payment in advance. She was a bit afriad and agreed to pay 30% for start prdouction, 70% before shipment. I was agreed. But laterly, we chat a lot not only for business, but also for sharing some interesting things from my customer. Finally might due to this matter, she finally decided to arrange the whole payment in advance online. Then sent me the remittance copy. It was amazing, and my first time to make a customer place orders, arrange the whole paymet all within 2 hours. So when u chat with customer with heart, honest and passion. No doubt, except providing detail product catalogue and inforamtion, we should make customer feel our heart. Everthing happens naturally, do not over mention the business during the chat. Just try your best to help her. She will know. Here i also have another customer who came from South Africa, i knew him from oversea BBS, he just posed his equipment problem online, i found that and just simply gave him some suggestion with my email address. Finally we knew each other, i helped him a lot with techinical questions which i knew. Hence he firmly trust me. Even now we become good friends. Half years later, he placed me first order...These 2 customers who left me deep impression during those past 2 years among all my customers. So sometimes business is simple happened. But one thing is confirmed that as a foreign sales, we should always keep modest, dilligent, open-mind, patient and careful.

Finally wish everyone can persist to the end , keep good attitude and state in later days.

[ 本帖最后由 kuroro24 于 2011-6-6 01:55 编辑 ]

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well,scanning it is too tired

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爱护眼睛,飘过,这个好象发错地方了,应该放到外贸英语版块那里供大家研究,看着眼都困

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Learning a lot......................................

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FOB新人,对版块不是特别熟

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斑竹应该会挪吧???

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写得很好,仔细地看完了整篇,有些感触。不仅仅是故事,也有语言

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Thanks a lot for sharing with us-fresh salesmen

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learn a lot form it,thank u for sharing~~~

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密密麻麻,麻麻密密,看完了。眼花。呵呵。谢谢楼主分享

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thanks so much LZ, left me deep impression ,everything happens naturally,just like this one.

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Really makes me want to sleep at first,but i keep on reading cuz i know it's better for me.Strange feeling.

Thank you.

U let me know my advantage and disadvantage .Most of the time,I complain about the salary,the product,the rest time......I never know,I can do better,maybe if i try my best,I need not to work for others.

We always say if... I don't like this word now.

YOU CAN BE JUST THE ONE YOU WANNA BE.

[ 本帖最后由 semiconduct 于 2011-6-8 17:22 编辑 ]

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Such a good article.

Why nobody care about?

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太长了,我也是略懂略懂

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写的很好啊,楼主,我什么时候能写出如此流利的英语啊,我全都看完了,学习了一些单词,Thanks,希望多多分享啊
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