在中国做生意 如何取得成功?

By far, the most common is not doing your homework, which, of course, is the whole reason why I wrote Where East Eats West. Because, you know, it's not, because it's not China books out there. But it's not so much that people, everyone can start with millions of dollars or huge corporation behind them. And so what I wanted to do is sort of lay out all the China rookie mistakes that people make. I mean, that's, you know, that was the whole purpose of it all within chapters, you know, under three pages long. You know, really, Where East Eats West is for the person who is on the ground and in the trenches, not so much in the boardroom. I mean, specifically, I guess you would say that a lot of the foreigners come here, and they over-mystify concepts like face or guanxi. Guanxi is really nothing more than your network or you connections. But on the other side of the things, it's really underestimating exactly how important both face and guanxi are to doing business in China.

A lot of people look at China as a huge market with 1.3 billion people there. But in your book, you actually say don't look at China as one market. What do you mean by that?

Well, again, like you said, China is a huge market. Geographically speaking, it's bigger than Europe. So most people would not think of going this is my Europe strategy in order to come in and we're going to just succeed in this way. You got to understand that China, again, as a vast country has its own nuances. So if you are going to be targeting your market in Shanghai, it's going to be very different than if you are going to be in a second or even in a third tier city. And of course, there's gonna to be differences in terms of whether it is in the north or in the south, or in the west, or in the east, or again, in the first tier, second tier cities, which, if you don't know the differences between the first and second tier cities, you need to do some more homework to understand that.

Tell us a little bit more about first tier cities and second tier cities, what are they and what is corporate life like in those different tiers.

Okay, that's a big question. Let's see. First tier cities would be, I guess, what you used to call the most cosmopolitan, the most advanced if you will, the most international. Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou are considered first tier cities. Those are the ones where you'll see the most number of western brands. And of course, in that sense, if you are a small entrepreneur, that's where you are gonna find the most amount of competition. So if you are doing business from a corporate setting, a lot of the people tend to be in these first tier cities. And of course, now they are expanding into the second tier cities, and some of them are even venturing into the third tier cities. I personally think that the most challenging aspect and therefore the most opportunities are going to be in your second and third tier cities. And you need to understand as a westerner coming to China, that the way of doing business from a corporate setting in the first tier city is going to be very similar to what you are gonna see on the international stage. But as soon as you step out of the corporate setting and go into a second or third tier city, that's where it becomes much more the wild wild west in the East.

And if you are in that wild wild west of the East, how severely disadvantaged are you if you do not speak Mandarin Chinese?  You yourself are fluent, so I imagine that's very helpful. But if you are a westerner wanting to go into that second or third tier city, do you really need to learn Mandarin Chinese?

Well, I guess the best way I can explain this is when you're thinking of a language, it's really a tool to communicate. And the more tools that you have that you can use in your utility belt, the more chance you have of actually succeeding. Is it critical? That's difficult to say. If you are going to be a CEO coming into a second or third tier city, then I would have to say it's not necessary to have the language. But if you are a small entrepreneur, you are gonna be building everything from the ground up, not having a language is certainly gonna make it a lot more challenging. 

Glossary:

corporate setting: 企业环境

wild wild west: 这里指的是通过美国西进运动开发的西部土地，大家看美国西部片就可以感觉到什么是wild wild west了.