难忘的时刻和经历
The story of what we have done as a company in China has intrigued and amazed many people. I certainly can write a book about this whole experience and I have no doubt it could be something highly worth reading because you anyone could learn so many different things good and bad to help you in some way understand China better and have a better chance to become successful in this great Country.
我们在中国成立公司后所做的事情让许多人感到好奇和惊叹。我无疑可以写一本关于整个过程的书,而且我很确定这将会非常值得一读,因为任何人都可以从中知道到许多不同的事情,好与坏的,帮助你从某个角度更好地了解中国,并在这个伟大的国家有更多的机会取得成功。
Everyone wants to do business in China, with China or from China, anyway you want to see it, but is not easy. There is no secret formula, there are no procedures to follow and become successful. If there was a formula many foreign companies and businesses would have been here already but as most of you know these businesses are limited and in most cases small. There are exceptions of course when we talk about multi-national monster businesses like Apple, Samsung, Boeing, P&G, Toyota, Honda, BMW and so on.
每个人都想在中国做生意,或是与中国合作,或是从中国贸易,不管从哪个方面来看,都不是一件简单的事情。没有秘诀,也没有可参考的步骤告诉你如何取得成功。如果有的话,许多外企或外商早就进驻在这个市场。但就像你们大多数人都知道的情况一样,这些生意的发展有限,或者做得并不是那么大。这当然也有例外,比如我们谈论到的巨型跨国集团,像苹果、三星、波音、宝洁、丰田、本田、宝马等等。
Not the case with normal mid or smaller businesses or companies like Italian wines, Mexican Tequila companies, Spanish or Italian Ceramic Brands and many other businesses that I can mention, that dream of making something big in China. Most of the time fails, or when it is done usually has limited success.
普通的中小商业贸易或企业的情况并非如此,例如意大利葡萄酒、墨西哥龙舌兰酒公司、西班牙或意大利的陶瓷品牌等等我可以提及的其他许多行业,都希望在中国有大的发展。多数情况下它们都失败了,或者取得的成功非常有限。
I have been asked many times by many different people how we did it? What was the secret? What worked well? What things to care about and do? What to avoid? Should you do it alone? With a partner? And many questions more…
曾经有很多次、很多人都问过我是如何做到的?秘诀是什么?哪里做得好?有什么需要注意或者要做的事情?需要避免什么?他们应该独立去做,还是寻找一个合作伙伴?以及其他许多许多问题........
Honestly it is very difficult to give you a short and straight answer because there are so many different factors, experiences and things that it is a very complex answer and a single book may not even be enough to explain our experience as a company in China.
坦白说,我很难给你一个简短直接的回答,因为涉及到许多方面的因素、经验与事物。这个答案是非常复杂的,甚至一本书也许都无法完全阐述我们作为一个公司在中国发展的经历。
But I am going to share with you a few memorable things that usually come to my mind every single time I am approached to discuss this topic of how to do business with China. Some may not sound important to you but they shaped me, changed me, helped me, challenge me and eventually in some way or another helped me transform our company through these last 8-10 years in China and from a zero start, from nothing we made a company that has more than 150 employees in this country, have more than 130 stores, we sell in more than 20 countries from our office in China and outsource hundreds of containers of tile, sanitary ware, and many other smaller things making it now a multi-million dollar business.
但我想要与大家分享一些每当要谈论如何在中国做生意这个话题时,时常会浮现在我脑海里的难忘经历。也许有些事听起来不是很重要,但它们影响我、改变我、帮助我、挑战我,甚至以某种方式帮助我在过去的8-10年里在中国进行公司转型。从零开始,从一无所有到在这个国家建立一个拥有超过150名员工、130余家专卖店、从中国办事处销往20多个国家、外购数百个瓷砖集装箱、卫浴洁具及其他许多小一些的产品,发展到现在超过数百万美元的生意。
Here is the list in no order or timing or importance, things that were said to me by different people, weird things that happened that I learned a lot from:
以下是一个清单,没有特定顺序、时间或者重要性的排列,有不同的人对我说的一些话,或者我从一些奇特的事情上学习到的经验:
1. We want to tell you that 80% of the time these projects fail (Our China Project). Basically I was told that more than likely I was going to fail. Not a great way to motivate me before I moved to China. Little did they know this was quite possibly one of my greatest motivations and prove all of them wrong.
“我们告诉你,80%这些项目(我们的中国项目)都是失败的。”基本上我经常被告知我很有可能要失败。在我移居中国前,这不是一种鼓励我的有效方式。而很少人知道这其实是我最大的动力之一,我要证明他们是错的。
2. This will be very easy, we just do what made us successful as a brand in Mexico and USA. Make the company very western in China and it will be a hit. It simply didn’t work, we failed and almost closed as soon as we started. Past success does not guarantee future success. Markets and countries are different, the taste is different, the sizes, styles, ways to show are different.
“这非常简单。我们只要按照在美国和墨西哥成功运营品牌的方式去做就行了。” 在中国做一个非常西化的公司,那一定会取得成功。但事实证明它根本不起任何作用,我们失败了,甚至差点倒闭回到最初开始的状态。过去的成功经验并不能指引未来的成功之路。市场环境和国家不同,喜好不同,产品的尺寸、风格、展示的方式也不一样。
3. You call this fashionable? I don’t think is good enough! One of our distributors was absolutely right and made me work harder on making better products and applications for this market.
“你说这是时尚?我认为它并不够好!”我们其中一个经销商这么认为,当然他说得很对,这也是我为中国市场研发、制造出更好的产品及应用展示的工作动力。
4. I said to the few distributors we had at the beginning when we were not doing well: Give me six months to change and improve the products and store proposal. The answer of one of them was: it is too long of a time; I give you three months or we quit. And they did quit because we couldn’t provide the transformation needed in such a short period of time. I learned my lesson the hard way. This is a business of speed and it is more in China. Incomprehensible by most foreigners, still is! Not by me anymore…
我曾经对在最初刚开始我们还做得不够好的时期的一些经销商说:给我六个月的时间去改变和提升这些产品和店面。其中一个经销商的答案是:时间太长了,我给你三个月,否则我退出。后来他们的确退出了,因为我们无法在短期内实现他们需要的改变。我通过这种痛苦的方式吸取了教训。这是一个比拼速度的商业时代,在中国尤甚。许多外国人至今仍无法理解,但对我而言已经切身体验......
5. On my first tour of the existing stores (the first ones we built): Why in the world you didn’t make 80x80 size? It is what sells well in China! A big surprise to most of us (foreigners) and a big mistake made by our rocky sales team. We made people changes and hired experienced people that told us what products and sizes to do.
在我第一次考察专卖店(最初建成的那一批)的旅途中有人问到:为什么你们不生产800x800规格?这是中国卖得最好的产品!这令我们大部分人(外国人)非常意外,这也是我们固执的销售团队造成的一个错误。之后我们更换团队,并且聘请了更有经验的人告诉我们应该研发怎样的产品和尺寸。
6. These things were said to me when I moved to China; You must be crazy by going there, it is too far, impossible to be successful there and so on. About 3 years later when we were making millions in purchasing and sales, suddenly things drastically changed by being called crazy before now I was called a genius.
当我移居中国时有人跟我说:你是个疯子,那里太远了,不可能在那里取得成功……等等。大约三年后,当我们在采购和销售上实现了数百万美元的业绩目标,事情就彻底变了,之前被称作疯子的我现在被称为天才
7. I approached the desk of one of our architects that traveled to China to help us. I saw him playing with a software and making new renders for our store. I was impressed by this software and asked him for the name of it and I immediately found a teacher to train all our design department on it. It was a turning point and an upgrade of how we did business that helped transform and improve drastically our company.
、当我走近一位来中国支持我们的设计师的办公桌,我看到他正在使用一个软件帮我们专卖店做新的样板间效果。这个软件让我让我非常惊叹,因此我问他这个软件的名称,并立刻寻找了一位老师教会我们整个设计部门的团队如何操作。这是一个转折点,一次帮助公司变革与发展的升级。
8. One of the designers from Mexico said at the beginning: I don’t believe or care about those Chinese weird “Feng Shui” things, they don’t make sense. We completely dismissed them. When I found out about this I was worried and immediately took action and changed things by learning, listening and respecting the Chinese Culture and beliefs of their people. We allowed and considered all recommendations by the assigned “Feng Shui” master.
一位来自墨西哥的设计师在最初曾经说过:我并不相信也不在意中国那些奇怪的“风水”,它们根本不会造成什么影响,我们完全无需考虑。当我知道后,我感到非常担心并立刻采取行动,通过让他们学习、聆听以及尊重中国的文化和信仰,去改变他们。我们考虑并采纳了指定的风水大师提出的相关建议。
9. The following list of words were extremely important to me and our company. Most of them are very familiar to you but for some reason most companies and people simply ignore, minimize or don’t pay attention to: Patience, Open Mind, Empathy, Empowerment, Passion, Humbleness, Trust, Loyalty, Persistence, Resilience, Tenacity, Optimism, Recognition, Freedom of Expression, Open Door Policy, Real Teamwork and Hunger of knowledge. There are many more to mention to be honest with you but I think these are enough to make my point.
接下来提到的这些关键词对于我和我们公司而言非常重要。大部分的词汇你们其实非常熟悉,但由于某些原因,很多公司和人们简单忽略、轻视或者并没有注意到:耐心、开放性思维、同情心、授权、热情、谦逊、信任、忠诚、坚持、适应力、坚韧、乐观、赞赏、表达自由、门户开放政策、真正的团队协作以及庞大的知识量。坦白说,还有其他许多词汇可以提及,但我认为这些足以表达我的观点。
After all, our story still continues and it is good every now and then to acknowledge everything we have done. It wasn’t easy, as a matter of fact it was pretty hard and when I talk about this it brings good memories and experiences on how a group of people for the most different backgrounds and many of which nobody believed in made this possible. A waitress, an IT student, a rocky QC guy, an art designer, among some of them helped start it all and what they have accomplished and what they have become is simply amazing.
总而言之,我们的故事还在继续,并且现在发展得很好,我们做的事情得到了许多认可。这并不容易,事实是这的确非常艰难。每当我谈论到这个话题,一群不同背景的人实现了没有人相信能够成功的事情,这是一段非常美妙的记忆和经历。一个服务员、一个IT专业学生、一个执着的质检员、一个艺术设计师,他们其中的一些人参与了这份事业的启程,他们成就了,而且是不可思议的成就。
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