Maneuvering Cross Border Business in China, Hong Kong with Steve Marsh

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Thanks everyone for tuning in to another Global From Asia podcast! It is really humid here in Southern China – in my building literally tiles are falling off the walls due to the dampness! Always something interesting happening around here.

So this week’s episode we have Steve Marsh – a seasoned veteran doing business importing and exporting products from China via a Hong Kong company. His straight up advice keeps us on the edge of our seat – Dan Sont was sitting in with me on the interview and he was amazed at the value bombs being dropped on the show! So take out your pens and papers for this one!

Topics Covered in this Episode

• Introduction of Steve Marsh and how he came to doing business in Asia
• Plan for the worst, be prepared, Being able to get knocked down, and get back up
• Hong Kong company in China? How his business is setup in Asia
• Examples of how to do business here, in the “wild west”
• Managing vendors in and out of China. Importance of centralizing operations
• Finding the right people in China, who you can trust.
• Setting up “tests” for your team.
• 3 tips – Building the right team, Never giving up, Working hard
• Experiences in some mistakes / “failures” when getting started
• Scariest stories doing business in China
• Dealing with legal issues in China
• Simple ways to protect yourself until you’re big enough to pay the proper legal fees
• Golden Standard / Master Standard for dealing with product quality in manufacturing
• Sometimes the only way to do it, is doing / watching it yourself
• Thought process of choosing a 3rd party factory inspection company
• Qualifying a B2B buyer before starting the sourcing
• Biggest value a westerner can offer in a China business
• What you suggest other Americans / Westerners can do as a business in china / Asia

People / Companies / Resources Mentioned in this Episode

• flatlineacoustics .com

Episode Length: 27:27

Thank you Steve that no holds bar interview! I’m sure our listeners got some amazing perspective for their own businesses from that one! We plan to have Steve back on the show in a few months to discuss the outcome of a big legal case he is in – he mentioned briefly in this episode about some of his staff taking customer lists…. and that is currently pending legal action. I’m very interested to learn the outcome, and am happy to hear there are some legal steps you can take – as all so often in China business people say there is “no law” – Steve definitely says otherwise!

Til next week guys, cheers!

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