What Are The Important Core Skills In Foreign Trade

First of all, we must adhere to the principle of doing foreign trade, and it usually takes 2-3 years to get settled. "Foreign trade salesman" and "foreign trade related work" are not the same concept. Although all of them are engaged in foreign trade, the career path you want to experience in B2B enterprises is completely different from that in B2C enterprises. Can you go to interview the bosses of enterprises who require 985 degrees? After three years, each employee's performance is excellent?

Two days ago, I answered a question from a newcomer to foreign trade: "I've been working for half a year, and I'm confused. I don't know whether to persist." I think this may be a common problem for most newcomers to foreign trade.

First of all, we must adhere to the principle of doing foreign trade, and it usually takes 2-3 years to get settled.

Whether to give up or insist depends on the specific situation. For example, how does the boss of the enterprise treat you? Is there a reliable manager who can help you get familiar with the business bit by bit? Are the products of the enterprise competitive? If you don't have one, just change your company. If you don't want to do foreign trade, just change your 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 about sitting in the office chair for eight hours at a time. It is about finding your own shortcomings in repeated failures and setbacks, and doing everything possible to improve and enhance yourself. For example, if you find that your English level and expression ability are insufficient, you should make some changes, practice English every day, practice thinking if your expression ability is insufficient, and find some industry routines to learn. If you encounter problems in foreign trade work, go to the Internet to ask Laoniao and participate in some training. If you don't have the financial ability, the company is not willing to pay the bill, so you can find some dry goods, learn and try.

Many people's understanding of dry goods is: I read it, I will, but in fact, dry goods are the gods who summarized their countless failures and successes, condensed into thousands of words of articles to convey to everyone, not that after reading it, I will master what the gods have accumulated for decades, but to apply it in your own work, See if you can help yourself.

After saying that, I would like to share more about how a new foreign trade person should enter the profession correctly.

If you graduated from an international trade course, you must have learned the international trade process in detail from various textbooks, such as inquiry, factory production, shipment, customs inspection, tax refund, write off... 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 forwarding, documentary The inspection agency will help you operate.

"Foreign trade salesman" and "foreign trade related work" are not the same concept. Even though the current trade environment is very complex, many graduates are still engaged in the foreign trade industry every year, but college knowledge can only teach you to be a qualified "freight forwarder", not an excellent "foreign trade salesman".

The daily work of foreign trade business only needs to focus on the development and maintenance of customers and learn how to communicate with them. In the final analysis, foreign trade business is the sales work of communicating in foreign languages, and the essential purpose of sales work is always to "issue orders".

　　 Two common foreign trade business classifications B2B or B2C

B2C is well understood. In recent years, the popular cross-border e-commerce platforms such as Amazon, AliExpress, wish and ebay belong to B2C, and they usually promote the company's products through these platforms or self built stations. It is a bit similar to the domestic e-commerce models such as Taobao, Tmall, and JD.

On the other hand, B2B is more traditional business type foreign trade. It uses B2B platforms such as make in China, global sources, alibaba, etc., to participate in various offline exhibitions, and actively develop customers to talk about business with foreign enterprises.

The following is a popularization of these two different foreign trade models for your reference. Of course, many of them are personal views, and you can disagree with them:

B2B is important to deal 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; B2C may not speak a foreign language for half a year

B2B is characterized by slow growth. Customers or performance needs time to accumulate, which will be difficult at the beginning. However, with certain orders being negotiated, the number of regular customers will continue to increase. You will feel more comfortable and suitable for long-term development

As for B2C, compared with B2B, it is faster to get started, easy to make orders, and easy to have a sense of achievement, but the disadvantage is that customers cannot settle down. B2C is mostly a hot product in the current trend. With the change of market popularity, you also need to constantly look for new products and new hot spots, just repeat

As a newcomer, you need to understand the core difference between the two before you can think about what kind of environment you want to work in. Only in this way can we really understand what is meant by the column "job responsibilities" in enterprise recruitment. Although all of them are engaged in foreign trade, the career path you want to experience in B2B enterprises is completely different from that in B2C enterprises. B2B and B2C work experience can hardly interact. One is that you should be good at dealing with customers, and the other is that you do not know who the customer is. The skills and experience required are very different. This should be carefully considered when entering the profession.

　　 Academic qualifications

Does it have anything to do with your education to do well in foreign trade? Yes, but not very big. Because the daily nature of foreign trade requires a foreign language, most of the foreign trade practitioners are college or undergraduate graduates. Of course, I have seen many post-90s high school educated small bosses in Guangdong, Shenzhen and other places, which is a very good phenomenon, indicating that the foreign trade industry is still hot, not cold. Undergraduate students will have a natural sense of superiority in psychology, not to mention graduating from famous schools like 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 continuous training and persistence.

If you stick to it, your high school diploma may not be better than that of the top students in 985. Those graduates from famous schools who can't stand it also have examples of those who have worked for five years and still find themselves stuck at the original level.

A high-quality education is a great affirmation of our learning path. The idea of "I used to be very good" will generate subconscious self-identity. When encountering any difficulties and challenges, I instinctively want to solve and overcome them. This confidence is part of my ability. But at the same time, we should also understand one truth: workplace and learning are two environments, which are similar but different. The workplace is more like a race. The advantages of graduates from famous schools over ordinary people are not worth mentioning in the long race. Because there are too many factors more important than your education background. Your personality and personality, your foreign language level accumulated after graduation, your attitude towards work, your innate family conditions, and even a little bit of luck are all more important than your education background. For the company, the essence of business is to pursue profits. Employees who can create high benefits are good employees. Can you go to interview the bosses of enterprises who require 985 degrees? After three years, each employee's performance is excellent? No one can guarantee a person's ability to work.

Whether graduates from famous universities or college graduates, it is most important to correct their mentality. The moment you sit at your desk, your life has reached a new starting point, and the past highlights and dark 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 work. On the contrary, the level of foreign language is more important, which is also the reason why many enterprises prefer to recruit foreign language majors.

So, what skills are important core skills in foreign trade? What is the difference between foreign trade giants and Xiaobai? Why do some of the employees in the same company who joined at the same time become gods after two or three years, and some of them will always receive a basic salary of three or five thousand, and some will even change careers after less than two years

1. Foreign language skill level

At the initial stage of foreign trade, the requirement for language proficiency was not high, and the CET-4 level of the university was enough to handle 80% of the work. However, after a long time, the gap between good and bad language proficiency is gradually opened. More authentic expression, more appropriate reception, and more professional negotiation can often win larger orders, projects, and even orders from "non professionals".

　　 2. Negotiation skill level

As long as you are doing business, you can't do without this skill. If you improve the level of negotiation, you will be fooled by customers and competitors. Here I recommend you to learn some related books. The reputation at the top of the list is good, but I won't talk about the details. Of course, you can also learn their successful skills from some experienced seniors in professional training institutions such as Focus Business School. The negotiation level of joining you is relatively poor. The customer only needs to say, "Your product price is too high! XXX company only needs your average price!", Maybe you are in a panic and don't know how to speak.

　 3. Skill level of playing with new things such as technology and network

From the popularization of the Internet to the present era when the mobile Internet has more coverage than the PC end, a lot of foreign trade work actually depends on the network. Proficiency in the network or new things and new play methods has become one of the key factors affecting the work efficiency and performance of business staff. It is also the first time for beginners to use the linked in, Facebook and other platforms. Some people start in five minutes, and some learn for three days, but they still can't play after being taught by others. This situation exists in the foreign trade industry. So like to toss about new things, new technologies, new products is also a very useful, or skills.

　　 4. Speed of learning knowledge

Foreign trade business requires a high level of people's comprehensive ability. In addition to computer operation and network technology, they also need to learn other aspects of knowledge. For example, the professional knowledge of the company's products, the more professional the presentation to customers, the greater the chance of success; For example, the etiquette of business negotiation is different for guests from different countries without their habits. The more you know about the culture of different countries, the closer you can get to each other in communication; How to communicate with customers by phone, how to write an email with high response rate, how to receive customers in the exhibition, etc. The ability to accept new things and new models directly affects your progress in the foreign trade industry. No matter where he is, a learning bully is always popular. The faster he learns, the faster his ability grows.

As long as we do foreign trade seriously for two or three years, our comprehensive ability will be greatly improved, which is why the general evaluation of foreign trade work is "very hard", "thankless", "pain and happiness", etc., but there are still a large number of practitioners who are obsessed with their work and enjoy it every day. Professionals all know that "self appreciation" is the charm of this industry.

　　 5. Customer development 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. You can't learn this ability in school. If you learn it, it is nothing more than simulation. It is regarded as learning the essence. In fact, only by constantly trying and accumulating in the actual work, constantly learning from and asking for advice from the seniors, constantly reading various dry goods experience posts, and watching video teaching, little by little accumulation and learning, there is absolutely no way to support fat people, so it's better not to believe in the "30 years' experience of learning God in XXX class" under the current knowledge anxiety environment This kind of title party curriculum has been promoted, and 30 years of experience has been learned in one breath? I'm afraid I want to think of me as Einstein's brain.

There are some bosses who don't know much about foreign trade, and they would like to invite you into the company one month later, and you will be able to make many big orders for the company; And a good leader who knows foreign trade will definitely step by step, step by step to make you familiar with and master the basic methods of customer development, so that you will have the opportunity to exert your strength. Imagine, even if you are an English major 8, you are an overseas returnee, and your daily negotiation is first-rate, but if you don't know where to find customers, how can you make even a little performance? The champion of the debate contest may not be top sales.

I also list some common foreign trade marketing and promotion methods, so you can manage your thoughts:

ColdCall telemarketing

EDM Email Marketing

Marketing on SNS platforms such as Facebook, Linkedin, Google+

PPC pay per click advertising (Google, alibabaP4P, Facebook, etc.)

Basic SEO knowledge, covering industry long tail keywords

Use of customs data and foreign yellow pages

YouTube video marketing

Use Google and other search engines to find target market customers

Operation of free B2B and charged B2B platforms

Keyword survey and research

This does not mean that you should master it all by yourself. The better and larger companies will carry out reasonable division of labor for the whole network marketing, and invest appropriate financial support to cover as comprehensively as possible. Smaller companies that open an account directly on the platform can also recruit a group of people to work hard every day. In the case of limited resources, people value "excellence" rather than "integrity", and doing better is actually more efficient. Let's take an example. In a mold company, there are 40 or 50 sales staff. They "harass" customers in various countries by making phone calls and sending emails every day, covering the whole world. They have also made considerable achievements, and even listed the company as a whole.

　　 Should the company be large or small?

Some people like to work in large companies because they have face, stability and better welfare benefits. These are the advantages of large companies. However, the management system of large companies is also very strict, and interpersonal relationships are also complex. If you accidentally offend someone, it may cause unnecessary trouble. In addition, the characteristics of large companies are that the posts are more subdivided and the functions and powers are clearly divided. Everyone only needs to complete their own work. It is often found that the number of years of work has increased, but the improvement of work ability is not a lot. After leaving the company, I found that my skills were too single, and it was difficult to be independent in other companies.

The characteristics of small companies are that they are less constrained, work more attentively, and learn skills and knowledge faster. Coincidentally, for young people, the speed of ability growth far exceeds everything.

Whether you go to a large company or a small company, you must choose a "good company". Some companies have muddled materials, weak awareness, and no competent leaders to take the lead, and the quality of salesmen is generally low. If the management is also chaotic and the boss does not understand the salesperson, it is difficult for newcomers to make orders. Once their confidence is hit, they will easily lose interest in foreign trade work and even doubt their own ability.

I don't need you to know that the first job is very important. A good leader will lead you on the right path like an elder, avoid minefields, tap your potential, and let you realize your self-worth and sense of achievement; The bad working environment will make you lose your fighting spirit, lose yourself, and even want to escape from work. The criteria for judging good work and bad work are simple and applicable to all companies: now, when you wake up in the morning, are you full of enthusiasm and expectation for work, or are you hesitating and timid?

　　 On career development

Let's first think about a question: can we do foreign trade for a lifetime?

Since China joined the WTO, I think many people have not expected the development of these years. Foreign trade is business after all. Can business last forever? Certainly. So, what is the development prospect of foreign trade salesman? Let me give you a rough idea:

The first is to grow with the company, become the backbone of the company, slowly grasp many high-quality old customer resources, and hold a lot of commissions and bonuses;

The second type: be selected as a management position by the boss, and lead the team to progress together. If the overall performance of the team is good, are you afraid of being short of money as the leader;

The third kind: excellent performance, the company can not do without you. In order to keep you, the boss will give you shares and dividends. You are half a small boss;

You can even work alone after your ability is improved. Soho starts up and slowly develops into its own foreign trade company; Some have become big names and lecturers in the foreign trade industry, or they are interested in business opportunities, start their own businesses, and set up foreign trade related service enterprises.

No matter how we develop, it is based on our continuous growth and strength. If your own conditions are not strong enough, you can only complain about "difficult foreign trade", "worse economic situation" and "too much competition" in the "Sino US trade war" and other changing international situations every day. Although Messi is cold, "I'm not born strong, I'm just born strong" Finally, many foreign trade veterans, even big lecturers, will say that foreign trade is really hard, but I also like the industry "pain and happiness!".