In The "Three No" Enterprises, How Do Foreign Trade Beginners Work?

With Chinese enterprises heading for International market More and more small and medium-sized private enterprises began to recruit foreign markets. Quite a number of graduating students and other professionals also applied for job hopping or job hopping. foreign trade Salesman. These enterprises often do not have mature foreign trade departments and personnel, and some have never even had experience in direct foreign trade. So, in such a channel without foreign customers, no employment. experience Without a mature business manager, how does a novice develop work under the guidance of a "no" environment? Apart from the practical guidelines before this book, some non business factors are also important.

First of all, both business owners and business novice must be clear about two facts:

1. foreign trade companies are not the enemies of factories but friends. For a long time in the development of enterprises, foreign trade companies can not do without cooperation. Through foreign trade companies selling goods abroad (not for export, because customers are foreign trade companies), of course, they will lose a lot of potential profits. This is also a lot of factory bosses brooding on their own -- but it is the only way for most small and medium-sized factories. Foreign trade companies are familiar with international market and foreign trade operation, and cooperate with them not only can greatly reduce the risk of entering the international market, but also gain valuable experience on market demand. These experiences are very important for improving products to meet the needs of international buyers. In addition, when supplying goods to foreign trade companies, foreign trade companies will stipulate many requirements for packaging, transportation and documentation production. Do not belittle and weary of these rules, because this is mostly the requirements of foreign buyers. Follow the requirements carefully, and communicate with foreign trade companies, and strive to know more about the causes and consequences of these requirements for your future reference.

Therefore, as a new person, the first thing to pay attention to is to cooperate with existing foreign trade companies seriously and actively. Foreign trade company will be your first teacher.

2. the foreign trade market can not be developed in one or two months. Foreign trade is a systematic project. Besides the most important price, other transportation and document transfer is also the key. So it's not as simple as a general deal: price, customer acceptance, sign the contract. Even if you find an interested customer, the customer needs time to understand you and observe you to make sure that you can deliver quality and quantity on time and submit documents at this price. Because they do not meet each other for thousands of miles, this process is longer. Moreover, many times, customers will not buy your ready-made products, but you need to make minor changes, confirm sales samples and so on. You should learn not only foreign trade, but also product knowledge so as to answer customer enquiries and increase customer confidence in you.

So it's not surprising that you start working until you get the first order, which takes three months to half a year. Of course, if your product has absolute advantages, or has the opportunity to participate in the fair and other large fairs, the process may be shorter.

Therefore, in the first few months, we should be psychologically prepared and work actively, but we need not be anxious to succeed. However, if there is no intentional inquiry or reply during this period, it must be reviewed in time. It is the price reason, not the wrong choice of the target market, or the wrong way of work. This is the second point to note: rational treatment of market development, do not expect instant results. Next, do some necessary preparations. One job is to learn foreign trade, and one job is to familiarise ourselves with products.

A good way to learn foreign trade is to take documents as the center and key points, and use documents to link up all the steps of foreign trade process. Through the factory business data, peer exchanges and Internet downloads, collect common foreign trade documents such as invoice, packing list, commodity inspection, bill of lading, certificate of origin, draft, beneficiary statement, letter of credit and so on. For factories, product categories are relatively fixed, export procedures are very similar, and a complete set of documents has been made. In particular, letters of credit are numerous, and letters of credit from Europe, the Middle East, Southeast Asia and so on often have their distinctive regional characteristics and special clauses. If there is a chance, you can choose the representative letters of different letters of credit. Meet special terms, record processing methods, accumulate experience. Familiarity with product knowledge is the foundation of successful foreign trade salesmen. The more you know about products, the more respect your customers will have. If you have more time to work in the workshop, consult the workshop director and the old skilled worker. If the conditions permit, you may even personally operate some production links. This is not only good for interpersonal relationships, but also important for getting to know some of the books and books that do not exist. Understand the production process of the product, easy to cut corners, main raw materials, raw material origin, raw material quality and the resulting product quality differences, quality testing methods, technical parameters, common quality problems and causes. Understand the composition of the production cost of the product, the equal accounting of hydropower and artificial packaging. In this way, the price of the product can be estimated in the future, and the bottom line of the price is well known. This is the key for a foreign trader to carry out his own business independently.

Actively make friends or teach a few teachers. One is the freight forwarder, the other is the Commodity Inspection Bureau (if the product belongs to the scope of commodity inspection), and the other is the International Settlement Department of the bank. These three aspects are often required to be consulted by novice foreign trade in the future. These friends and teachers make a little effort and get twice the result with half the effort.

Communicate with your boss or direct department leaders. In many cases, bosses or leaders themselves do not understand foreign trade, and they are apt to commit unprofessional conduct and eager for success. Seeing you busy all day sitting in front of the computer, but there is no actual order, it is hard to avoid suspicion. Therefore, at the beginning, we should communicate with them, report on their work, keep informed of progress, problems and solutions at least try to solve them. Let the leader know what you are doing, which is very important, otherwise hard work will not get the affirmation and support, which will affect the mood of the work. Respect the senior colleagues or colleagues you may meet. Regard them as your opportunity to learn. When a novice is on the road, he does not expect to earn a lot of money by blowing rice and rice. The foreign trade industry is tedious and trivial, but it is also an opportunity to learn things in a down-to-earth way. Although it is a trivial matter, there is always a difference between knowing how to do it and actually doing it. When you are assigned to do these little things, you should try to do as long as you do not interfere with your duties. Customers who are struggling to develop will not be too fussy about being grabbed by their predecessors, because it is likely to be motivated by the boss's intention to keep customers in a safe way. At the same time, this is also a common phenomenon of novice in most industries. Finally, observe professional ethics. Reputation is very important in foreign trade. The place where you work is also a place for you to learn the knowledge of the product industry. It is more likely to become a project you run throughout your life. No matter when you jump to another factory in the same industry or make your own foreign trade, the industry circle is so large and well-informed that once the reputation is polluted, it will be greatly affected. For foreign trade novice, it is important not to do "private life", not to sell business secrets (such as customer information) and not to take kickbacks. Because your base is unstable and your relationship is not wide enough. Once an accident is impossible, it will be impossible for you to solve it.

To pay attention to the above points, we can create a relatively relaxed and healthy environment for our novice career, avoid technical problems and interpersonal problems, and devote more effort to market development.