Find here the full transcript of China paradigm episode 100. Learn more about Liang Sun’s story in China as the founder of Generate, a B2B sales network in China, and his experience managing a sales consultancy. Find all the details and additional links below.
Full transcript below:
Welcome to China Paradigm, a show powered by Daxue Consulting, where we interview season entrepreneurs and experienced managers in China about the business and experience in the country.
Matthieu David: Good morning. I’m Matthieu David, the founder of Daxue Consulting and its China marketing podcast, China Paradigm, and today, I am very happy to be with Liang Sun. You are the founder of a company called Generate and you founded it 7 years ago, in 2013. Generate is focusing on supporting businesses, especially B2B businesses, but I feel you do more than B2B, especially focusing on B2B sales networks in China. So, supporting B2B businesses in their sales in China. You are very close to Belgium. You have an office in Belgium, an office in Shanghai and you are very involved in the Belgian community. And as for now, you are up to 100 or even actually over 100 independent sales and marketing associates. So, as far as I understand, for people who are listening to us, your company, Generate, has a B2B sales network in China of sales associates, whom you call sales associates or salespeople in China. You are in 6 cities, as far as I understand, and those people have a duty to develop the businesses of the clients you have, especially in B2B. So, thank you very much for being with us and the first question I ask is, about the size of the business and you can always correct me if you think there is additional information to add, but what is the size of your business?
Liang Sun: Thank you very much for inviting me. It’s my pleasure to share our experiences and expertise. So, as I said the core competencies of Generate is our B2B sales network in China, the network of independent salespeople. For Generate itself, we have a small team of four full time in Shanghai and a handful of part-time staff. So, in total, we have roughly seven people and capabilities internally, and half of them are managing the independent sales and the other half of them are siding sales support for our customers or project management for our customers.
Matthieu David: I’d like to understand better on how you work, and I really liked your website because when I went on your website, I saw your very organised way of working and that is matching quite well with my way of thinking. You have sales navigation, sales outsourcing and management, and sales recruiting. It looks like very thorough, very organised and very systematic. Could you tell us more about the service you provide to your clients?
Liang Sun: Sure. When a company wants to export their product or technology to China, whether they are experienced already, whether they have some projects already, we feel like they need help when it comes to sales, localizing the sales force, and therefore, our solution here is we help you, starting with the sales navigation program. We help you select the market segments. For example, the other day my clients told me they have three market segments: material handling, theme park and machineries. I said, “Let’s start with material handling.” Then we would help them understand what is the market competitive landscape. What are the key players? What are the channels to market? How do customers make their buying decisions? Who are the decision makers and influencers?
Then, instead of going on with the tech search, we start mobilizing our independent sales force. They are either networkers or experienced key account managers. We would bring the products to their portfolio, which are usually complimentary products, for them to sell the different products to the same key accounts that they have been serving for the past years or decades to monetize their B2B sales network in China. Once there are a few deals going through, the customer would want to hire their own salespeople, but then they may not have the legal entity to do it, nor do they have their offices to do it. Then we help them with recruiting the right person and then putting them in our payroll and our offices for a couple of years until the customer wants to set up their own office and their legal entity and then we would do the rollover to let them go on with it themselves.
Matthieu David: Got it. I feel you are a very systematic person. I looked at the website and the way you express yourself. I feel you are systematic in organizing your services in very clear steps. How do you charge your clients? For instance, we are talking about sales navigation, sales outsourcing, and sales recruiting; I believe you have a very clear way of charging them and a way of incentivizing on success, as well. What is your business model?
Liang Sun: Yeah, indeed we have our pricing scheme and we are structured as we believe that even small companies should have a process or structure in place. In the meantime, we are flexible, and the small companies, medium companies, and enterprise customers may have different preferences on how they want to pay for our services. So we work on hourly rates, or we work on their rates or we work on project fees, plus commissions. So, it is flexible.
Matthieu David: What is the typical way for a B2B sales network in China? I believe the first step is… sales navigation would be like a product. We look at the product, we investigate the market, we talk to the associate. What kind of channel could work? What kind of channels would not work or maybe your product is not ready for China? You need to work on a new product and come back to China. So, I believe that this is a project. It could be I don’t know, 100 000 RMB, 200 000 RMB, but I feel it is a product and then you have recruiting. Here, I feel that it’s more like a percentage, maybe of the salary of the people you recruit, like head hunters do, which is very typical of headhunting and then you have the sales outsourcing and management and I believe as far as I understand that it would be a retainer, plus performance fees (learn more about recruitment). Would you mind sharing a bit more about, if someone is listening to us and would like to project himself in working with you, what should he expect in terms of investment, and at the same time, an incentive to you?
Liang Sun: Sure, as you said, the sales navigation program is a product. It has already indicated a certain level of commitment, should the customer choose the product, and before that, usually the customers have experience in navigating the sales themselves or through us, so, often than not we would start with a day or two’s work. They would give us a clear mandate. “Liang, can you talk to three potential customers or three sales? Give us feedback on our product. Could you investigate this competitor?” What are their products? How do they sell? How do they charge? So, then for us, it is quite easy. It is a few phone calls because we have a professional network for B2B in China to get the information.
Matthieu David: This navigation is a few days. It’s nothing exceeding a week, right?
Liang Sun: No, sales navigation as I said, it is a certain level of commitment. It could take three months. Before the customer commits three months, we want them to have a feeling about how does it look to work with us. So, if a mandate is a few hours, we will take it with an hourly rate. If the mandate is two days, we will take it and then deliver a one-page report. That takes us two days to work on.
Matthieu David: I see, so sales navigation you feel that within three months is enough. Three months is a pretty sizeable amount of time for a company when they want to make decisions. It’s not short either. So, three months is good for you to go through different aspect, to explore things with different associates. So within those three months, are you dividing the different steps or you spend time and explore whatever you can? How do you organise those three months?
Liang Sun: Yeah, so the scope is to select the market segments, contacting the market competitive landscape research, and mobilizing my sales force. So, in practice or operationally we would induct my full-time project manager for up to a week and let him or her get familiar with the product mandate and then what we would do is up to 5 independent sales associates to the project manager, for her or for him to induct those sales associates. Then those sales associates would bring the product in front of their customers over tea or dinner after their own product is selling, they will say, “Hey, would you like to see something else that is cool?” for their feedback. If the Chinese customer wants to initiate their business discussions or put their customer in the shortlist. So, after three months, we would be given our European principles. The feedback from the sales associates, the feedback from the customers, the shortlist of the prospective partners or customers and a cost indication on how you want to move forward and usually, the sales navigation program would end with a proposal for a one-week commercial agenda arrangement in or near Shanghai for the European process to come over here to meet 10-15 potential partners or customers.
Matthieu David: I see. I am on your website and indeed, so you talk about the scope and then the deliverables and so it’s a few pages of feedback and prospects and so on and then you have the options and options is more of activation options, being exhibitions, commercial agenda or execution of the program and it would be more what you would do next, which is to actually sell for them; sales recruiting in China and so on. Is it correct?
Liang Sun: Yes, because sometimes the customer wants to participate in an exhibition, sometimes they need us to induct them on the Chinese business culture and so we have add-ons for them to choose from.
Matthieu David: I see. So, that was the question I often have for people who do exhibitions. We have clients who go through exhibitions and we know companies who only organize exhibitions for them and so on. How useful is it to go to exhibitions, because every time I go to an exhibition, I see someone who wants to sell me something and I want to sell something to him. It’s a one-way talk only. So, everyone is here to sell, but nobody is here to buy. So, what is your feeling on exhibitions? Do you still feel it’s useful? What do you feel or maybe I was not at one of the good ones?
Liang Sun: I am very glad you asked me the question. We don’t believe in exhibitions to put it in a simple way, although most of our clients still want to participate. It is good for them because they can have a feeling about what the industry looks like in China just by talking to the people during the exhibition, and if we were the European company and we want to go to China, we would not have a booth; it’s an unnecessary cost. We would simply walk around. We did a test with a customer when we said, “Could you give us half of the budget for the booth and let us do something creative?” I asked my entire team of 4 people, wearing the customer’s T-shirt and then we brought cardboard with our tops and we had lollipops or mint or flower or whatever, the promotional products in our pockets, just to catch random participants or visitors for a few minutes’ conversations. “Have you heard of this product? What are you doing here? Would you be interested in our product or could you give me some feedback? We are new here. We don’t know what to do. Where should we go?” Often than not, it is so much more efficient. You have no idea how willing the visitors or participants are willing to share as long as they don’t consider you as a competitor. So, rather than sitting in our booth, waiting for the people to come and sell us something, we mobilize our team to walk around actively looking for buyers.
Matthieu David: Yeah, I feel though to add on, exhibitions could be good to understand your competitors. I have a sense of partners or people who may have additional products to sell with you, as you said with your sales associate and their B2B sales network in China, you make sure that they don’t sell them products as a conflict of interest, but they may sell a door because actually, a door system or entry system because they are in the building industry and the new mall needs an entry system, but that’s not their core business, so, it is complimentary. So here, you may find complementary partners, but indeed, trying to find clients within exhibitions, exhibitors should not sell on it, right? They shouldn’t talk about finding clients for exhibitions. That doesn’t exist, right?
Liang Sun: Actually, more often than not, our customers leave the exhibition with a few solid prospects or even purchase orders. So, it works. Whether the purchase order is solid or not is another matter. Still, they find that their return on investment is fine, but what I want to say here, is the follow-up after the exhibition is more important than the exhibition experience itself because when they are back in Europe, how are they going to follow through with the process, given the different language, the different time zone, and the different response time expectations. It is quite challenging and that’s why we provide sales outsourcing so that our project manager can be their part-time or full-time representative in China following up with the process.
Matthieu David: Going back to your sales associates and the B2B sales network in China, I have the feeling that something you emphasized, you mentioned on average that they are 42 years old and so that means they have experience and they have at least 15 years of working experience. There are several questions: How do you recruit them and how do you make sure they are good ones. And finally, how do you make sure there is not a lot of conflict of interest, because you may have one guy who may want to have a lot of things to sell, but actually within the different things he is selling, you may have a conflict of interest selling the same products as competitors.
Liang Sun: Yeah, let me answer the question in this way. First of all, it is a private network. It is a network built upon trust. I would say everyone in our team, including me, work with less than ten sales associates directly and our sales associates may have their sales associates. So, we know each other. It is not like we only have a few phone calls. We meet each other on a weekly basis and working with sales associates is a cost-effective way, meaning more variable costs than fixed costs and also, it’s easier to get started with and easier and also less commitment. Your full-time sales know a lot more about your company than the part-time external sales force. Whether you want them to avoid conflict of interest or not, you can’t control them because they are out meeting customers. So, working with part-time and external sales force it is safer.
Coming back to your questions about conflict of interest and overlaps, it doesn’t matter to us because we sign the non-compete, non-circumvent, and confidentiality agreement with our principles and then we co-sign the confidentiality and the non-compete with the sales so that they can get on with it. We gave them a questionnaire for them to pre-qualify the Chinese customers’ interest. Once there is a qualified lead, we nominate the leads at our European principles. Once the nomination is accepted, we bring the buyer directly in contact with the seller for them to initiate the business discussions and our project manager may assist in the communications and our sales associates, who are closer to the customer over dinner, over drinks or karaoke, often than not may influence the customers buying decisions. That’s how it works. So, as a result, more qualified hot leads coming and also, the deal closing rate gets increases.
Matthieu David: I see. Your clients are incentivizing you to the volume of sales you do and also the number of leads you bring, or the time you spend because it could be a very long process in B2B sales in China. They may spend a lot of time to translate, it may be technical. It may be very costly for you, and if they pay only with the volume or most of your earning comes from percentage of sales. You may have to wait for a few years before being profitable. How do your clients reward you?
Liang Sun: Yeah so, we are a consulting company and we are not a sales agent working on commission. So, we do have our overhead and expenses covered. In the meantime, we are result-oriented, and we consider ourselves pricing quite aggressive. We often describe ourselves as street fighters, helping customers find shortcuts on signing deals, and getting projects. So it is competitive and yet, we cover our overheads and expenses and make a small profit on those fees already.
Matthieu David: So, the second step is sales recruiting. When you say sales recruiting in China is it that you recruit full-time sales for your clients or is it the associate you activate?
Liang Sun: Yes, so after the three-month navigation program, often than not, there are prospects that are ready to buy or that are already buying, and then we would say you need a full-time salesperson and to follow up closely or to serve your existing customers. We can help you find one and we can put them in the office. The principal would pay us a monthly fee, which includes the offices, employment, and sales support. They can stop the project and the whole recruitment with a months’ process and then we will take care of the hassle. So, again, for them, it is less commitment, but faster setup and same results.
Matthieu David: So, you recruit for them and you hire the people for them with your structure, right?
Liang Sun: In the accounting book, yes. They are on our payroll. The customer pays us a monthly fee to cover the employment and also the cost of our sales support and payroll services.
Matthieu David: I see, but when they sell actually… the company in Belgium, where you are going to involve the client because you cannot invoice for them.
Liang Sun: No, so what I do is I invoice the customer in China. They get the project fees, they share a commission with us because we also charge a commission, so that our fixed or upfront fees are quite aggressive and we want to get rewarded by commission mainly. Then we would give part of the commission to the sales because the sales representative has a job. It is a low risk for them and it is comfortable. But we take all the risks and so we have a higher sales commission than the full-time salespeople that we employ for our customers.
Matthieu David: I see so, so what’s going on is that those clients you have don’t have to create their own company in China. If they do sales, they would invoice directly from Europe, their end-client, and then they would give you some commissions as a reward, or percentage of sales. You are consultants and so you are a consulting company, advising on how to negotiate a dealing and supporting them, but you are not invoicing for them. Am I correct?
Liang Sun: Nope, unless their customer requires it, but sometimes the Chinese customer will require RMB invoices. Typically, it is a service contract for IT serves, project management services and we will assist because we have legal entities both in Belgium and in China and so we can help in that.
Matthieu David: I see. Then, the tricky aspect of your business is that, if you are successful or if you do well in your job, you should lose your client. Your client at some point would start a company in China, have their own structure and so on and that is actually what you say, that after 12 months or until your objective that your client has a company in China and he is successful in his company, what is the next step after the recruitment of a sales advisor and sales in China, by your structure?
Liang Sun: So, we consider ourselves successful if the client wants to leave us within 24 to 36 months because that means that we have succeeded in helping our customers enter into the China market and have a solid footprint. We usually don’t charge a rollover fee, which means after 24 months, our sales can become your sales. They are free to go and please, refer other customers to our business. This is the way that we believe, and in two years clients are already better than a market research firm’s three months clients. You will be surprised how often our customers come back to us for due diligence support or other supports because they trust us.
Matthieu David: Is it the reason why you have now digital marketing, brand strategy, design, and social media campaigns, trading? It seems you expanded and that I think I was not very clear on. Those words, digital marketing, brand strategy, design, social media campaigns and talk about Weibo and WeChat, are B2C? (read about optimizing Wechat marketing in China)
Liang Sun: Not exactly, because B2B sales and marketing in China also need WeChat.
Matthieu David: Can you elaborate on it? I think it is a misconception with a lot of B2B businesses, thinking that WeChat is B2C.
Liang Sun: Okay so, the reason we started the digital marketing exactly, is because our clients were asking for it. We have succeeded in helping them sell and they want to market because they have a budget to spend, to create a brand, and market awareness. We tell them honestly, the path on WeChat you need to outsource the work to professional firms and more often than not, we outsource to Chinese firms because we believe they are cost-effective and their foot is on the ground, they are local. Then the customer needs our support on project management and language communications, and they believe in our model. We work on project management fees and to answer your question on the B2B marketing and sales in China, yes, WeChat is a good B2B marketing tool in China (find a guide to B2B marketing in China).
I will give an example. We are helping one of the largest Belgian companies in industrial machinery sector on managing their China marketing and the starting point is starting up a WeChat account, they have a factory in China, for their sales people in China to use as a tool. So when they are done with meetings, they can say this is our company brochure. There is our QR code, please subscribe to our WeChat account to see our project references and news and exhibitions that we are attending. With WeChat, it is so much easier to share news or project references or information to the prospects who can then share internally or externally to other people because everything in China is on WeChat these days.
Matthieu David: I see, so basically even B2B when you are at an exhibition, people follow you on WeChat and that means that it is also used for B2B sales network in China because you build a connection, not only through a dinner and lunch, but also through WeChat and people keep your contact and follow you, right?
Liang Sun: Yeah.
Matthieu David: Talking about sales recruiting in China, how do you recruit a good sales person in China? What is a good sales person in China? To give you a bit of what people think, it’s that a good sales person is someone who is good at networking and relationship building in China. So, basically you would always favour people who are 50 years old with a lot of experience, more than someone who is let’s say very inventive, more than someone who is actually a good speaker. I found that a lot of people tend to think in terms of sales people and recruitment by their guanxi, network, which is very often difficult to assess (learn about leveraging guanxi for business in China). People may say, “I know this one and a lot of people,” but how do you assess it? So, basically an open question: how do you assess a good sales person in China?
Liang Sun: Yeah, let me start by saying that we believe sales is a service, it is an art and most importantly it is a process and we divide the process into three aspects; the lead generation part, the sales follow-up part, which is usually technical and the deal closing part, which is where the network comes into play, guanxi. It depends on the principal’s needs. If they need a sales engineer to follow up on the existing leads that they have, or they need a lead generator, a door opener to get new leads, or they have leads and engineers, but they need a super networker and client relationship manager to close the lead, spend time with the customer to understand what they want. So, typically one person can be very good at one or up to two of the three parts in the process, and we think we can do the sales recruitment because over the last 7 years we have done many cases. We only recruit sales people, because we as a company or me as an individual are sales person in the core and we believe it takes a sales person to understand what a good sales person is.
Matthieu David: Maybe I should have started with this question, but I really want to understand your business first and I think the people listening to us also want to go in depth in understanding what you do and how you serve your clients. But if we go back in time, 7 years ago, what made you start this business?
Liang Sun: That’s a very good question. I started the business 7 years ago because I was lucky enough to have a mentor and he taught me one day, he said, “Liang, never hire sales people.” He came to China for the first time in 2013 to close down a factory and office because the sales people were turning the company inside out. The invoices and goods were going out, but they never saw the money and so they fired everyone. Then this general manager, my mentor, turned the payments terms from 60 days post-payment to 100% pre-payment and because of that, they lost 80% of the customers and kept 20% of the customers, and then the company started to be profitable. So, he taught me, Liang work with sales agents. Let them get on with it. Give them commission. Don’t tell them too much. Hence, I started this model because we believe in partnerships. We respect people’s privacy and we work in teams. We believe in incentives and transparency, and we share referrals.
Matthieu David: How do you build this professional network of references in China because what you described from outside looks like a perfect world, but in fact when you have intermediaries, you have people you need to share with and so on, it is something difficult to have a contract with someone. It is somehow difficult to make everyone happy and to make sure that everyone understands what you are doing as well. How do you work with all this?
Liang Sun: Yeah so, I started business when I was 26 years old; just a fresh graduate from grad school in Belgium. So, the same mentor introduced his best sales person to my network. Now, we are talking about the sales person that was generating the best revenue, whether the revenue cancelled or not was another matter, but a great sales person in their own way; they make money for themselves and their customers. Then, I spent enough time with them to let them understand what products I have. They were in the construction industry, selling floors, selling roofs, waterproof membranes, selling walls, paintings and then I said, “Would you like to sell Belgian roof top solar panels? Do you want to sell the warehousing racks?” It is all to the manufacturing facilities or project directors, general managers. So, clients and our sales people were motivated because they are money driven and they want to be more helpful in front of the customers and at the same time, they are very careful about sharing their professional network for B2B in China. So, I have to pre-qualify the credibility of my European principle so that I will be comfortable to bring a mandate to them because we care about our relationships and our reputation. This is how I started and this is how I work.
Matthieu David: What direction of the leads you meet with when you may describe those kinds of networks? I believe some European or US companies believe it is a bit too blurry now to go through networks, or guanxi and relationship building in China. It may create a bit of anxiety and people may be a bit nervous about not understanding what’s going on and you talked about trust again, trust enough to contract. American and European businesses want to contract. They want everything clear and written, transparent. I mean transparent by the end client and everyone to be and here, you have to protect their own network, their own wealth, right for the people who introduce you, the good salespeople? So, how do articulate this?
Liang Sun: So, you mean the cultural difference, one is contract-driven and in China it is relationship-driven, right?
Matthieu David: It’s kind of culture, but it is basically a business practice. The business practice is that people own networks. They don’t want really to share it because of the wealth they have, it’s a property, and to go further I longed so that LinkedIn could not have been as successful in China as in the West because people don’t want to show who they are connected to. I studied in Beijing University and I really have this feeling that people wanted to show that they are connected and are relationship building in China, but they don’t want to tell with whom.
Liang Sun: Yeah let me give an example. We were mobilising ourselves here to sell the Belgian rooftop solar solutions and we let ourselves introduce a prospect factory in Suzhou, and all of a sudden my sales people and sales associate disconnected and disappeared for one week and after a week I called them up and said, “Hey, what happened? Are you okay?” He said, “Liang, sorry, I was busy with managing the relationship with the security guards at the door and the decision-makers. We had a lot of fun and they are ready to sign a contract.” He gave me some invoices after dinner and said, “Look, you guys had a lot of fun. Good. Let’s sign the contract then.” I am result driven. I don’t ask questions too much. I trust my sales, but they do bring results.
Matthieu David: Yeah typically, I mean fortunately you are here because a lot of European and American businesses would not be comfortable by this kind of absence of communication, having to spend so much money on entertainment, when you have so many regulations in Europe on the amount you can spend on entertainment, for instance.
Liang Sun: Yeah that’s also why we exist, because we can be localised when it comes to our operations and also, we comply with the European and American anti-bribery or anti-corruption act. So, to give our European principles and production and comfort that they need.
Matthieu David: What is the expectation in terms of timeline to get some sales? What is your experience when you entered B2B sales network in China? Should your client expect to get some momentum after 3 months, 6 months, 1 year? I know it can depend on the kind of business. It can vary from one industry to another, but could you give a sense of what expectation they can get?
Liang Sun: Yeah, B2B sales network in China and it really depends on the sales cycle. It can be as short as 3 months; It can be as long as 3 years and the customer understands it. The company that I mentioned that has 3 market segments, material handling, machinery and theme parks, for the material handling, for example, they want to sell to China Railway and they know it is after 3 years.
Matthieu David: It depends, but I think what we can remember is that minimum 3 months basically you are saying it is not serious to expect results before 3 months. It is a minimum of 3 months to get a bit of something and it can go up to 3 years when it is a very large partnership unit with like China Railway where it will take time and we understand it.
Liang Sun: Let me give another example. If the European company sells floors or furniture, then if we manage to give them the right contacts to the distributor that wants to try the container, then the deals can go through very quickly. So, it really depends.
Matthieu David: We are in April 2020 and everyone is talking about the same thing in all the media. It started first in China and now it is Europe talking about it, impacted. It is the coronavirus. How did it impact your business and your clients?
Liang Sun: Let’s talk about our clients. If they are in manufacturing settings in Europe, then they are busy with business continuity planning. Overall, they are quite busy conducting the business the best way they can and therefore so are we. We decided not to take new projects for the foreseeable future to focus on supporting our existing clients to go through the crisis. At the beginning of the year, we signed a few new projects and for the sales navigation program and after the virus outbreak, we gave the customer the option to postpone the project or even cancel the project because we told them simply, we are not comfortable with conducting the market research because it may not be valid in 6 months and the people in China have other priorities. Thankfully all of them took their money back, so our burden is off. To give you a question, it is going to be a very hard year for us which is fine, because we are financially strong. We believe in long term. We believe in value we create and the money will come, eventually, but so far, we focus on the existing projects and we don’t take new clients for the next say three to six months.
Matthieu David: The clients you were representing with your sales associates and your B2B sales network in China, those people that you hire for them, what is the situation now? Do you feel we are back to business in China? I am currently in Shanghai and I see a lot of people in the street walking. I see all the shops open, but I see a lot of shops are also closed, who didn’t get back to business. It could be restaurants; it could be coffee shops. I also see much fewer or people in malls and stores. I was checking the Apple store and it was pretty empty. Maybe it was too early. I went early to check, but I think it is not back exactly to the level we were before the crisis. What about you in B2B? Do you feel business is back?
Liang Sun: People in China are going to all places, which is a really good sign and whether the business is back, I still think it is too soon to tell because the impact on the businesses and the revenue loss, which is negative, but the government subsidies are positive. How will it impact the industry on the macro level and the individual businesses on the micro-level? It is too soon to tell. It takes a few months. So, right now we feel like the business conversations are still going forward, but whether they would make a buying or selling decision, would still take some time to go back to normal.
Matthieu David: I saw on your LinkedIn profile that you are lecturing and among the topics you are covering, there is made in China, 2025 and this topic seems very wide and a bit theoretical. So, my question is what practical do you get from this made in China, 2025. What practical conclusions do you get that you could bring to your clients and in your lecture?
Liang Sun: In a nutshell, we believe that made in China would help the Chinese manufacturers to export more and more high-value added products to the world and those products are created in China and they are made in China. This is also a business that we are starting to get involved in. We ourselves, buy and sell high-value products from China to Belgium and we also have our clients finding not sourcing and not manufacturers, but we call supply chain partners from China. Because of the incentives, it’s a trend that we believe and we ae spending more internal resources supporting the European companies buy high-value products from China.
Matthieu David: So, the next step for your business would be actually to do what you did from foreign businesses in China, to do it for Chinese companies in the west?
Liang Sun: We decided not to think of it that way. We decided to keep our clientele as the Europeans and the Chinese companies that we introduced to the European companies are our stakeholders, but now some of them are becoming our suppliers because the relationship and trust is there. We told them that there is a market opportunity in China and our European clients may become our clients again, but not for export into China, but for buying from China. It is all about relationship building in China and trust and product and the money flow and good flow from an operational level. The network is built upon trust.
Matthieu David: Very interesting. It is time for the last questions and you received them before the interview. Typical questions that we ask at the end of the interview, what books inspired you most during your entrepreneur journey?
Liang Sun: I would say it’s the Robert book, Rich Dad Poor Dad. You probably have heard of the book. I only worked for a company 6 months in my life and I will never work for a company again. Part of the reason is the book. I believe my capabilities in managing my money more than the government and I equipped myself with good lawyers, accountants and bankers and so, this book made me start and continue and made me keep my head up when I had bad times, because I will never work for someone again and I may fail, but I will never go back to another company and I believe eventually I will succeed because I need to succeed once.
Matthieu David: Can I ask you a personal question because I understand the desire of working on your own and as an independent, but it sometimes is made at a price. The price being that you postpone some decisions like getting married, like having kids. Are you married? Do you have kids because I believe when you’re an entrepreneur that is something you think like 10 years after others?
Liang Sun: I totally agree with you. A lot of people say that they want to keep a work/life balance. I don’t believe it, or a work/family balance. I also don’t believe that. I believe that either you go fully committed to your business or career development or you connect to your family more. I don’t have kids, but when I do, I want to sell my business and be a freelancer so that I can afford to be a good father, which is the most important job of all time. Right now, my business is the most important job.
Matthieu David: Yeah so, the good side is that you are independent and you make your decisions and reach that conclusion you have in mind. The down side is that indeed, you have to postpone some things in your life. Some people don’t realise when they start a business just after studying that it will cost a lot of things. What do you read to stay up to date about China? What are your favourite newspapers or magazines, even Chinese ones? Are you reading Caixin, Renmin, SCMP?
Liang Sun: All of them. I would say I only read the titles nowadays and I do read the Economist and CNN, BBC and then I read the titles in the Chinese media channels so I can make my own judgement, which news is true or false, in my opinion, but most of the time I keep being informed by talking to my network and the successful people in the industry.
Matthieu David: What kind of resources would you trust more or what newspapers would you trust more in China to get very accurate numbers, good information? I tend to like Caixin. How about you?
Liang Sun: I would say I remain skeptical on all news channels. Every media outlet has their own agenda and they are trying to be as objective as possible. So, all the numbers and the data and opinions I use them as a reference and combine those resources with my network and my own judgment, and then I can make my business decisions.
Matthieu David: What book would you recommend on China? A book that you would recommend to foreigners to understand China better or a book that you liked because you understood your own country better as well?
Liang Sun: Well, I think if you ask a foreign entrepreneur living in China, they can answer the question so much better because I believe there quite a few good books in English, written by foreign entrepreneurs living in China and so I read them. What I do is, I live in the country I do business with and now I am spending a decent amount of time in Belgium, because that is what I believe is the best way to understand how business is done in Belgium and living in the country itself is like reading books. I learn so many new things everyday by talking to the people there.
Matthieu David: What productivity tool do you like best? I don’t think WeChat is that productive. We waste a lot of time on WeChat, I feel. What productivity tool do you like to use in your daily work?
Liang Sun: My team uses quite a few tools that I introduced them to: Monday.com and Pipe Drive as a CRM tool, Trello as a management tool. I still use Trello every morning or what I do is I put less than 3 things on the to-do list of the day and the other 5 forecasts I have is urgent and important, which is what I do today. Urgent and unimportant, I let my team get on with. Important, not urgent I schedule another day to do it and another thing is the unimportant and the unurgent, then I will remove them. So, the reason I make sure there is less than 3 things is that I want to be free before 10am. I start my day very early. I start my day at 5am. In China I start my day at 7am, after the workout. It is quite cool and then I a full of energy and so, the purpose is to empty my to-do list and forget about all the tools before 10 am and from 10am to 6pm I do the things that my mind tells me to do and usually I am very productive. I call the customers or suppliers I need to talk to. I call the team I need to talk to. I call my government officer contacts for tea. It is productive and it is the way I find productive.
Matthieu David: It is very interesting. I am happy we met through the nonimportant, nonurgent for the podcast. I am glad you considered it as important to schedule the call. I am very curious about the tools you are using, Monday.com, Pipe Drive, and Trello. The first thing I am surprised of is they are all western tools. Second thing I am curious about is, how do you learn about them? I knew Monday.com because it’s everywhere on YouTube. I know about Pipe Drive because I listen to a lot of podcasts and I think they were sponsoring one of the podcasts. I know about Trello because I will use it at some point. My third question, sorry, I have questions on this because I feel that you have a very organised mind, so I am sure you have a process. So, the third question is how do you choose one tool over another one? Pipe Drive is in competition with Salesforce, with Zoho, with so many other CRM and so on. I understand it is more B2B here, so how do you choose? The first question is, why only western tools? The second question, how do you find them and third one, how do you select them?
Liang Sun: Yeah so western tools is because we have both a European and China team and the China team are English speaking. The European time may not be Chinese speaking. So, we have western tools and all the tools that are mentioned, including Google Docs, Drop Box. They are high Chinese alternatives, equally as good, if not better and we don’t spend too much time on making choices because we believe how we use them is more important than choosing the tool itself. So, now we have been using Pipe Drive for a couple of years. We know there are better and cheaper ones, but we don’t change because we are used to it and it is good enough.
Matthieu David: Interesting. I always have a hard time choosing software because I would go with it for years, and if they go bankrupt, I don’t know why they don’t raise money to go on. I have to start again. I always look at the exit strategy to be able to extract all the data easily. I’d like to have your opinion on an unexpected success or an unexpected failure you witnessed in China? The reason why I am asking this question is because Peter Drucker, the thinker and consultant of business strategy, he wrote many books on business strategy. He says we can assess innovation when we look at unexpected success happening or an unexpected failure happening and this unexpected success or failure gives a sense of direction of what is changing in society or in business. What would you say over the past 3 or 5 years as an unexpected success you witnessed or failure in China which can give us an idea of the changes that are happening here in the country?
Liang Sun: Yeah, I know the book you mentioned. I know the person. I have heard of him and he is from the innovation perspective, from the entrepreneurship perspective. I consider myself more a businessman than an entrepreneur. So, the way I see it, the unexpected failures and success is more than the right time and the right place or the wrong time at the wrong place. So, I believe luck plays a large role in a business success or failure. If you ask me the recent success, I will say the medical companies or the medical supply companies are masks manufacturers. They don’t need to do anything. They need to be at the right time and at the right place, they will be successful for a year or two, at least. The failure is the same. I mean, so many good companies are not going to go through with this because it is not a good time for them, but the good ones will go back up after the crisis is over because we believe the best time to start a business is after the crisis.
Matthieu David: That is interesting. Basically, you don’t believe what Peter Drucker is saying because what you are saying is that an unexpected failure or an unexpected success is based on timing, is based on luck and not necessarily showing a change in society or business. That is an interesting way of seeing things because that’s in some way, how much timing is important in success and it is random. Facebook succeeded, but MySpace failed in a few years of difference and we can see many, many examples like them. Thanks Liang, for your time. It was very, very instructive. I really enjoyed talking to you. I really enjoyed when in the podcast I see that there is a process in mind with the person I am talking to. They have thought about what they did. They chose tools, they know about what they do and they have a process and clearly, you are this person. So, thank you very much for spending time with us on to China Paradigm, the China marketing podcast where we interview entrepreneurs in China, and I hope you enjoyed it.
Liang Sun: Thank you very much Matthieu.
Matthieu David: Thank you everyone for listening. Bye-bye.
Liang Sun: Cheers.
China paradigm is a China business podcast sponsored by Daxue Consulting where we interview successful entrepreneurs about their businesses in China. You can access all available episodes from the China paradigm Youtube page.
Do not hesitate to reach out our project managers at dx@daxue-consulting.com to get all answers to your questions
