Personal Data Name: Ashton Udall Country of Origin: USA Location: HK, Shenzhen, Shanghai Time in China: 3+ years		"The devil is in the details. Be polite, persistent, and patient when working with Chinese manufacturers to accomplish your goals. Try to leave your expectations and assumptions from your home business environment at home and be open to learning."
Global Sourcing Specialists Position: Partner Industry: Consulting / Sourcing Website: www.productgss.com Email: Audall@productgss.com
Global Sourcing Specialists is a product development and sourcing company dedicated to helping businesses, start-ups, and inventors succeed in the Global Economy by tapping overseas resources. We provide services in product development, sourcing, quality control, packaging, and shipping. Our operating experience in China extends back to 1971, and we have worked in multiple countries across Asia and throughout the world. We have helped businesses develop and take a wide variety of products to market, including consumer electronics, toys, apparel and textiles, after-market car products, and many more. Our clients have found our product development and sourcing expertise to be highly effective and valuable in building their businesses.

Effective communication.
Effective communication is perhaps one of the most simple, yet challenging barriers to doing business in China. When working with Chinese manufacturers, getting your product made to spec is a significant challenge. It requires persistence, patience, and politeness. You must be persistent in nailing down details and making sure they are followed. You must be patient, because this process will take time. Barriers in distance, culture, language, and operating style will inevitably slow down this process. Politeness is key. Being disrespectful and burning bridges when things don’t easily and quickly go your way will cost you more time in the long run.

---

Finding the right people to work with.
Find and work with the right people and businesses. It is extremely important to put in the time and do your due diligence when finding an overseas partner to produce your product. You cannot take things at face value, but you must verify the information you have about who you’re dealing with and inspect the ins-and-outs of their operation to make sure you are a match. For this reason, we never work with a manufacturer we haven’t visited. Not doing so is a recipe for disaster.

---

Staying on top of details
To be successful, you have to stay on top of the details. Inferior materials can make their way into the production line. Quality control inspectors can be bribed. Attitudes about the importance of quality are different. Working with a Chinese manufacturer requires continual monitoring.

Connected with the right people early.
Working with the right people has helped me tremendously. Finding people who are knowledgeable and who you can trust is essential to making entry into the Chinese business environment easier and more successful. I’ve worked with two different sourcing companies, each with their own vendor networks and operating styles, and the difference can be vast. After leaving the first and joining the second, I realized that getting connected into the right groups and with the right people can make all the difference. You will be able to leverage off the talents of others and focus more on offering your own to create synergy, rather than trying to pick up where others are lacking.

---

Don't assume anything.
Leave your expectations and assumptions at home when trying to understand why things work the way they do. You’ll have a lot to learn. But, be yourself and hold to your fundamental values and practices. These two things may seem somewhat paradoxical, but they are not. In order to minimize the tension between what you know and have done in the past, and how things work in China, it’s best to approach the Chinese business environment with a very open mind regarding how they carry themselves and interact, and your involvement within that. This does not mean that your values and fundamental business practices are obsolete in this new environment—stick to them at the most basic of levels. But, realize that they will be approaching the same issues, questions, circumstances, ideas, and goals, from a different construction of how things work, exist, and are valued. The more you are open to trying to understand their point of view (we can only try, but foreigners can’t fully understand) without compromising yourself, the better you’ll be at conducting business successfully in China.

Put in the time.
Finding the right people, learning before you make crucial decisions, verifying the details--all of these things take time. Make sure you allow yourself enough time to accomplish these things well rather than trying to make snap decisions that you think will save the day.