As I was going back through my 1300 plus email sent files, one
of the most common questions received at our import export
business help web site is: "Can you help me find this company
or any information about them"?
If people would take advantage of our company information page
and the many import export business resources listed there,
they would not have to ask that question.
I really think that many people are just too lazy and expect
that I will do their work for them (for a price I will) but
when it's free, I will educate them on how to do it themselves.
If the information is important to them, they will take the
action.
Here was one of this type of questions:
message: Hi we need the web address for following company.
Lo Bridge Enterprise co, Ltd china.
My reply was as follows:
I suggest you do a search for their name like this in Google:
"Lo Bridge Enterprise"
The quotation marks are what narrow the search down to the
specific company you are searching for. I found several
listings for them when I did this.
Special Note to our blog readers: The quotation marks are just
one of the keys to narrowing or targeting your search. If
I did not locate anything with "Lo Bridge Enterprise", I would
have then taken the search down to "Lo Bridge".
Another great tool within google's search engine is
searching for someone by their telephone number. If you input
the phone number in quotation marks again and in the correct
format for the country in which the business is located,
you will often find their web site, or other information
about them.
Go ahead and try it now, go to google.com and do a search
for: "717-292-5763" which is my telephone number - try these
things out and you will soon find yourself using them on a
regular basis, especially if you are involved in the import
export business.
Next Import Export Business Question and Answer:
message: Dear Sir/Madam:
I would like to contact firms in Taiwan which can
manufacture hourglasses to my specifications.
I want to import them for sale in the United States.
I look forward to your response.
Hello ....,
I would suggest visiting http://embassy.org and looking up
the Taiwan embassy.
Contact them and ask to speak or correspond with their on
staff trade representative. Tell him or her what you are
looking for and see if they can help you.
Special Note to our import export business blog readers:
Most embassies have trade representatives on staff who are
paid to help businesses in their countries promote their
products to potential buyers.
Just be sure you come across as a legitimate business person
in either your correspondence by email, fax, mail or
telephone.
Here are a couple of no cost pointers for you to use in
presenting yourself as a professional when asking for a
professional's help:
1. Do not send a hand written letter, fax or other form
of communication - learn to type or pay someone to type it
for you.
2. Do not demand they help you. Yes, they are being paid to
help promote business for the companies in their country
but they are 'not' being paid by you.
3. If you have to rate how likely you are to get a reply
by the form of communication you use to contact the folks
in the embassies or anywhere in the world of international
trade from your worst chances to your best chances for a
reply - here they are from worst to best:
a. Email
b. Fax
c. Mail
d. Telephone call
4. All computer word processing programs and email programs
have a spell check - USE IT!
5. Do not expect the trade rep to do your research for you.
Do as much research as you possibly can using every
possible search parameter we have suggested in this blog
and on our web site company page.
If you are too lazy to do this preliminary research, I
suggest you find another business because you are not cut
out for this one.
6. Be ready to provide details about you, your business
and the types and quantities of products you are possibly
interested in purchasing. Be specific and do not waste
these peoples valuable time on today's whim or tomorrow's
wishes.
International trade and the import export business are
serious enterprises. If you want to command respect and
response from others, then be professional and treat
others you deal with in this endeavor with equal respect
for the time you are asking them to spend on your behalf.
Before closing this post, I need to rant a bit about how
many time wasters there are in the import export business
and other businesses.
Almost every day of the week I field phone calls or answer
emails from people who clearly do not have a clue as to what
they are getting involved in when it comes to international
trade.
They had a whim or wish for the day to become rich at either
importing this or exporting that. In most instances I ask
if they have ever taken a course or read a book about the
business.
Most will say they read a book or an article but
because they know so and so in this country and have
connections to people in this industry they can jump right
in without having an understanding of the processes that
are involved or required.
In most of these instances I recommend they take advantage
of all of our free information which includes an ebook
about setting up an export business and our free reports
on international trade and business.
After over 18 years in this business, I can tell from the
tone of their voice when they are going to follow thru
with my suggestions or keep calling around to other web
site owners in the hope that one of them will give them
the magic keys to success without having to learn anything.
In most instances, the people never download the free
materials (too lazy) or when they do, they find out that
it will require a learning curve before they can actually
become successful in this business.
They then either run off to the next thing they read about
that will make them their first million in the next 90 days
or they get fooled in to paying some fly by night company
$7,000, $8,000 or more dollars for a supposed hand holding
program that gives them a self ego boosting certificate
to hang on their wall.
In the end, I also let these people know that although our
Import Export Business courses are very comprehensive, they
do not need to read 'every' word of every book, CD Rom or
memorize every detail of every video included with them.
Our Import Export Business courses are probably one of the
best (if not the best) resource libraries in the world for
international traders.
Every international trade deal is going to be different and
having a resource library that you can refer back to as
often as you need it during your hopefully long and
successful career is priceless.
In closing this post, I did not mean to get off on a rant
but it seems like the number of time wasters has increased
dramatically over the past few months.
Either get serious and realize you are going to have to
invest in you and your business to be successful or forget
about international trade and move on to the next scheme
that catches your eye.
International trade is serious business - you are going to
have to invest in learning the processes so that you and/or
the businesses you represent or buy from are not ripped off
in those processes.
Time is your most precious asset - do not waste your time
or that of others if you are not serious - bottom line -
get serious or get out.
Regards,
Ron Coble
Coble International
Import Export Business Help Center