To do foreign trade, one must finish reading this article and avoid detours for three years

First of all, foreign trade can only be carried out persistently, and it usually takes 2-3 years to precipitate.

Whether to give up or not, and whether to stick to it, also depends on the specific situation. For example, how does the boss of the enterprise treat you? Is there a reliable manager who is taking you to know your business bit by bit? Is the enterprise’s own product competitive? If not, change to another company, do not want to do foreign trade, just change the industry. The advantage of being young is that you can make mistakes and keep trying.

At the same time, what is persistence? Persistence is not to sit in an office chair for eight hours, but to find one’s own shortcomings through failures and setbacks, and to do everything possible to improve and upgrade oneself. For example, if you find that your English level and expression ability are insufficient, then you must make some changes, practice English every day, practice thinking if your expression ability is insufficient, and find some routines in some industries to learn. If you have any problems in your foreign trade work, go to the old bird online to ask and take part in some training. If you don’t have the financial ability, the company is not willing to pay the bill, so go find some dry goods, learn and try.

Many people’s understanding of dry goods is: I read it and I will understand it, but in fact it is not. Dry goods are the articles that the Great God has summed up his countless failures and successes and condensed them into thousands of words to convey to everyone. It is not to say that after reading it, I will have mastered what the Great God has accumulated for decades, but to apply it in your own work and see if it can bring help to yourself.

Having said that, I still want to share more about how a new foreign trade person can enter the business correctly.

If you graduated from an international trade course, then you must have learned the international trade process in great detail from various textbooks, such as inquiry, factory production, shipment, customs declaration, tax refund and verification … but in actual work, as long as you receive the order, your work has been basically completed, and other subsequent work will have corresponding freight forwarders, merchandisers and inspection agencies to help you operate.

“Foreign trade salesman” and “foreign trade related work” are not actually concepts. Even though the current trading environment is very complicated, many graduates still invest in foreign trade every year, but the knowledge of the university can only teach you to be a qualified “freight forwarder” and cannot turn you into an excellent “foreign trade salesman”.

The daily work of foreign trade business only needs to focus on the development and maintenance of customers, and it is enough to learn how to communicate and transfer with them. In the end, the foreign trade business is also the sales work that is exchanged in foreign languages, and the essential purpose of the sales work is always to “issue orders”.

B2B or B2C Two Common Foreign Trade Business Classifications B2C is well understood. In recent years, cross-border e-commerce platforms such as Amazon, AliExpress, wish and ebay, which are quite popular, are B2C. They are usually used to promote the company’s products through these platforms or through self-established websites. It is somewhat similar to domestic e-commerce models such as Taobao, Tmall and Jingdong.

On the other hand, B2B is more traditional in its business type of foreign trade. It uses B2B platforms such as made-in-china, globalsources and alibaba to participate in various offline exhibitions and actively develop customers to talk about business with foreign enterprises.

The following is a general introduction to these two different foreign trade modes for your reference. Of course, many of them are personal views and you can disagree with them.

B2B is about dealing with people. B2C pays more attention to the use of network technology B2B business uses more language, you need to contact customers, go to business negotiations, etc.

However, B2C is likely to be unable to speak a foreign language for half a year.

B2B is characterized by slow fever. Customers or performance needs time to accumulate, which will be difficult at the beginning. However, as certain orders are negotiated and the number of old customers keeps increasing, you will feel more and more comfortable and suitable for long-term development.

However, B2C is faster to get started than B2B. It is easy to make orders and feel a sense of accomplishment, but the disadvantage is that customers cannot settle down. B2C is mostly a hot product chasing the current trend. With the change of market heat, you also need to constantly search for new products and hot spots, and repeat them like this.

As a new person, one needs to understand the core difference between the two in order to think about what kind of environment one wants to work in. Only in this way can we really understand what is meant by “job responsibilities” in the column of enterprise recruitment. Although it is all about doing foreign trade, the career path you have to experience is completely different when going to B2B enterprises and B2C enterprises. The working experience of B2B and B2C can hardly interact. One requires you to be good at dealing with customers, and the other requires you to have no idea who the customers are. The skills and experience required are quite different. This point should be carefully considered when entering the business.

Academic qualifications Is there any relation between the success of foreign trade and academic qualifications? Yes, but not much. Because the daily nature of foreign trade requires a foreign language, the majority of foreign trade practitioners are college or undergraduate graduates. Of course, I have also met many small post-90s high school bosses in Guangdong, Shenzhen and other places. This is a very good phenomenon, which shows that the foreign trade industry is still hot and not cold. Undergraduate students will have a natural sense of superiority psychologically, not to mention the graduation of prestigious universities such as 985 and 211. In life, especially after work, we can have our own precipitation and complete the process of “quantitative change to qualitative change” through constant experience and persistence.

If you stick to it, your high school diploma may not be as good as that of 985 graduates, and those graduates who can’t stand it also have examples of finding themselves at the same level after working for five years.

A high-quality academic record is a great affirmation of our learning path. The idea of “I used to be very good” will generate subconscious self-identification. When encountering any difficulties and challenges, I instinctively want to solve and overcome them. This confidence is part of my personal ability. But at the same time, we should also understand one truth: workplace and study are two environments, which have similarities but are not the same. The workplace is more like a race. The slight advantage of graduates from famous universities over ordinary people is not worth mentioning in the long race. Because there are too many factors that are more important than academic qualifications, your character and personality, the level of foreign language you have accumulated again after graduation, your attitude towards work, congenital family conditions and even a little bit of luck are all more important than academic qualifications. For the company, the essence of business is profit-seeking, as long as the employees who can create high benefits are good employees. You can interview the boss of the enterprise who requires 985 degree. After three years, will the performance of each employee be excellent? No one can guarantee a person’s ability to work.

Whether it is a graduate of a prestigious school or a junior college, it is most important to have a correct attitude. The moment you sit at your desk, your life has reached a new starting point. The past highlights and black history are not so important.

Foreign trade skills At the beginning, we said that what we learned in college may be completely different from what we used in our work. On the contrary, the level of foreign languages is more important, which is why many enterprises prefer to recruit foreign language majors.

So, what skills are important core skills in foreign trade? What is the difference between a big foreign trade player and a small white? Why do some employees of the same company who joined the company at the same time become great gods after two or three years, some of them will always receive a basic salary of 3,500 yuan, and some even change careers within two years?

1. Foreign language skills In the initial stage of foreign trade, the requirement for language level is not high, and the CET-4 level of the university is enough to handle 80% of the jobs. However, after a long period of time, the gap between the good and bad language level has gradually been widened. More authentic expression, more suitable reception and more professional negotiation can often win more orders and projects, and even snatch orders from “unprofessional” people.

2. negotiation skill level Three hundred and sixty lines, as long as it is business, it cannot be separated from this skill. If you go to improve the level of negotiation, you will be fooled around by customers and rivals, and you will not be aware of it. Here, I recommend you to learn some related books. The top word-of-mouth in the list is good, so I won’t talk much about it in detail. Of course, you can also learn their successful skills from some experienced predecessors in professional training institutions such as Focus Business School. The level of negotiation to join you is relatively poor. The customer only needs to say, “Your product price is too high! XXX company only needs your normal price! ” , maybe you immediately panic in my heart don’t know how to speak.

3. Skill level of playing with new things such as science and technology and Internet Since the popularity of the Internet, to the present era when mobile Internet covers a wider range than PC, foreign trade work actually relies on the Internet. The proficiency in the Internet or in new things and games has become one of the key factors affecting the work efficiency and performance of salesmen. It is also the first time for a novice to use platforms such as linked-in and facebook. Some people can get started in 5 minutes, others learn for 3 days, and they still can’t play when they find someone else to teach them. This kind of situation exists in the foreign trade industry. Therefore, like tossing about new things, new technologies and new products is also a very useful thing, or skill.

4. Speed of learning knowledge Foreign trade business requires a high level of comprehensive ability. Besides computer operation and network technology, we also need to learn other aspects of knowledge. For example, the professional knowledge of the company’s products, the more professional the introduction to customers, the greater the chance of success; For example, the etiquette of business negotiation varies from country to country. The more you know about the cultures of different countries, the closer you can get to each other in communication. And how to communicate with customers by telephone, how to write an email with high response rate, how to receive customers in exhibitions, etc. The ability to accept new things and new models directly affects the speed of your progress in foreign trade. No matter where you are, a student bully is always popular. The faster you learn, the faster your ability grows.

As long as one does foreign trade seriously for two or three years, one’s own comprehensive ability will certainly be greatly improved. This is why the general evaluation of foreign trade work is “very bitter” and “thankless”, “painful and happy” and so on, but there are still a large number of practitioners who indulge in work and enjoy it every day. Insiders all know that “self-appreciation” is the charm of this industry.

5. Develop customer skills This is a very specific task. It can be said that 90% of enterprises attach great importance to this ability. It is the ability to directly bring economic benefits to enterprises. But this ability you can’t basically learn in school, even if you do, it is nothing more than simulation, as if you have learned the essence. In fact, there is absolutely no way to support a fat man with one bite only through continuous attempts and accumulation in practical work, continuous learning and advice from predecessors, continuous reading of various dry goods experience posts, and watching video teaching, etc. Therefore, it is best not to believe in the theme party course of “XXX lessons learn 30 years of experience from a great god” under the current knowledge anxiety environment. There is a way to improve, and 30 years of experience can be learned at one go. Even want to think of me as Einstein’s brain.

There are some bosses who don’t know much about foreign trade. They are anxious to get you into the company, and within one month you will be able to make a big deal for the company. And a good leader who understands foreign trade will definitely step by step, step by step, let you know and master the basic methods of developing customers, so that you can have the opportunity to use your fists and feet. Imagine, even if you are an English major 8, you are a top student of overseas returnees, and your daily negotiations are first-class, but if you don’t even know where to find your customers, how can you make even a little achievement? The champion of the debate is not necessarily top sales.

I have also listed some common methods of foreign trade marketing and promotion, so you can sort out your thoughts:
ColdCall telemarketing EDM mail marketing SNS platform marketing such as Facebook,Linkedin, Google, etc PPC pay-per-click advertising (google, alibabaP4P, Facebook, etc.) Basic SEO knowledge, covering industry long tail keywords Customs Data, Use of Foreign Yellow Pages Youtube video marketing Use google and other search engines to find customers in target markets Operation of Free B2B and Charged B2B Platforms Key words investigation and research This is not to say that you need to master it all by yourself. Better and larger companies will carry out a reasonable division of labor for the whole network marketing, and only by putting in appropriate financial support can you cover it as fully as possible. Smaller companies can also hire a group of people to dry goods every day by opening an account directly on the platform. Under the condition of limited resources, people value “refinement” rather than “completeness”, and doing more refinement is actually more efficient. Let’s take an example. There is a mold company. Its employees have 40 or 50 employees. They constantly “harass” customers in various countries by making phone calls and sending emails every day, covering the whole world. They have also achieved considerable results and even listed the company.

Choose whether the company should be large or small.

Some people like to go to big companies very much, because working in big companies has the advantages of face, stability and better welfare benefits. However, the management system of large companies is also very strict, and the handling of interpersonal relationships is relatively complicated. If you offend anyone accidentally, you may cause unnecessary trouble. Moreover, the characteristics of large companies are that their posts are more subdivided and their functions and powers are clearly divided. Everyone only needs to finish his or her job. It is often found that the working years have gone up, but the improvement of working ability is not a lot of phenomena. After leaving the company, I found that my skills were too single and it was difficult to be unique in other companies.

However, small companies are characterized by less restraint, more concentration in work, and faster learning of skills and knowledge. It happens that for young people, the speed of ability growth is far faster than everything else.

No matter whether you go to a big company or a small company, you must choose a “good company”. Some companies’ information is in a mess, their consciousness is weak, and they do not have competent leaders to take the lead, and the quality of their salesmen is generally low. If the management is chaotic and the boss doesn’t understand the salesman, it is very difficult for the newcomer to come up with a list. Once the confidence is hit, it is easy to lose interest in foreign trade work and even doubt their own ability.

I don’t need to say that you will also know that the first job is very important. A good leader will take you to the right path like an elder, avoid minefields, tap your potential, and let you realize your self-worth and sense of accomplishment. The bad working environment will make you lose your morale, lose yourself and even want to escape from work. The criteria for judging good work and bad work are actually very simple and applicable to all companies: are you full of enthusiasm and expectation, hesitation and timidity when you open your eyes in the morning?

On Career Development First, let’s think about a question: can foreign trade work be done for a lifetime?

Since China joined the WTO, I think many people have not expected the development in these years. After all, foreign trade is still business. Can business last forever? Of course. So, what is the development prospect of foreign trade salesmen? Let me give you a rough description:

The first is to grow up together with the company, become the backbone of the company, slowly control many high-quality and old customers’ resources, and get high commission and bonus.
The second is to be chosen as a management position by the boss and lead the team to make progress together. If the overall performance of the team is good, are you still afraid of lack of money as a leader?

The third kind: the performance is very excellent, the company can’t do without you. Then in order to keep you, the boss will give you shares and dividends. You are half a small boss.

You can even go it alone after improving your ability, start soho and gradually develop into your own foreign trade company. Others have become big players and lecturers in the foreign trade industry, or have taken a fancy to business opportunities and started their own businesses and set up foreign trade-related service enterprises.

No matter how it develops, it needs our continuous growth and strength. If your own conditions are not strong enough, you can only complain about “foreign trade is difficult to do”, “the worse the economic situation is” and “too much competition” in the changing international situation such as “Sino-US trade war”. Although Messi is cool, but “I am not born strong, I am just born strong.” Finally, many old foreign trade birds, even big coffee lecturers, will say so, foreign trade is really hard, but I also like this industry “painful and happy!” .