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Successful Negotiating in China: Be Yourself
By andrew | March 7, 2007
I’ve been in China long enough to have gotten into the habit of handing people my business card with two hands, the way they do it here. Whenever another ex-pat sees it, we both laugh. It’s more or less a holdover from earlier times.
Now I council clients and other newcomers not to do that. I tell them not to print up special cards in Chinese. (Years ago I removed my Chinese name from my own business cards.) I recommend they don’t try to follow the rules of Chinese business etiquette that they read in airport newsstand paperbacks and traditional international business guides. Instead, they should try their best to be polite and patient and open-minded when learning about the Chinese business environment.
You have a choice: You can pretend to be a polite Chinese person, or genuinely be a polite western person. If your card has Chinese on it but you can’t speak a single word of Mandarin then you are just confusing people. If you start your relationship from a position of submissiveness and weakness, then you are going to have a jarring transition back to the tough, no-nonsense professional that you are when the real business starts. You can only fake it for so long. (Personally, I don’t like it when new associates ‘BS’ me, and think less of them for trying. I like counter-parties that feel the same way.)
China has 1.3 billion people living in it. Shanghai is home to around 18 million. You will have time to see 8 or 12 of them on a typical 3 day business trip. Your goal is to find the ones that you CAN do business with, comfortably and honestly. If you counter-party is going to be completely flummoxed by a westerner who hands him his business-card with the print pointing gin the wrong direction, then this is probably not your guy. The supplier or partner who forces you to smoke cigarettes, drink horrible liquor and eat weird animal parts before he can sell you bathroom fittings or battery rechargers is probably going to be just as difficult when the shipment comes in short, late or defective.
I went to a party last night where there were Chinese, Americans, Europeans, Chinese-Americans, Chinese returnees with US experience, and Chinese locals with careers at multinationals. These are sophisticated people who see their business as neither Chinese nor Western – but INTERNATIONAL. That is the kind of partner most businesses entering China should be looking for.
It’s a bit tricky to find them, but it’s a whole lot easier if you aren’t spending hours with inappropriate counter-parties who have no experience doing international deals – and who will never understand your goals, methods or requirements.
Be yourself, and find people who you can deal with comfortably and professionally. China has LOTS of good options.
Topics: General China, Business Entry |
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