- •Unit 1. Free enterprise entrepreneurship: on the upsurge
- •Is entrepreneurship for you?
- •Is owning a small business for me?
- •Unit 2. Choosing the right business and developing your financial plans how to choose your business
- •Three Basic Kinds of Business
- •How to develop your financial plans
- •The stages of a business
- •Unit 3. Building an import/export business twenty questions on importing and exporting
- •1. Why are you thinking of starting a business? What are your objectives?
- •2. What makes you think you will be successful?
- •3. Do you plan to import, export, or both?
- •4. Do you plan to work as a merchant, agent, broker, or some combination of the three?
- •5. When you start, will you be working full time or part time?
- •6. Who, if anyone, can help you with the work in the beginning?
- •7. Which type(s) of product(s) do you plan to trade?
- •8. What will be your sources of supply – countries and/or companies?
- •9. What is your target market?
- •14. Which national and/or foreign government regulations will concern you?
- •15. What will be your company name and form of organization?
- •16. What will you do for an office, office equipment, and supplies?
- •Are you right for the business?
- •Interest in and Knowledge of International Economics and Politics
- •How to start importing/exporting
- •Setting up your business
- •Imports: selecting products and supplies
- •Exports: what comes first, the product or the market?
- •Choosing target markets and finding customers
- •Importing for Stock
- •Unit 4. A short course in management concepts of management and organization
- •The single greatest mistake a manager can make
- •Six skills for new age executives
- •Mastering decision making What Does It Take to Be a Good Decision Maker?
- •The Japanese Decision-Making Style
- •Negotiating agreement without giving in
- •Hewlett-Packard*
- •McDonald's
- •Nine small-business management pitfalls*
- •Unit 5. The nature of marketing what is marketing?
- •Marketing functions
- •The marketing concept
- •Marketing research
- •The marketing mix
- •Consumer vs. Industrial goods
- •Steps in your marketing plan
- •Industry and market structures
- •U.S. Marketing in the future
- •Unit 6. How to do business with your potential partners china
- •Hong kong
- •Singapore
- •South korea
- •Australia
- •Appendix
How to start importing/exporting
• Make your business a reality. Pick and register a name, open a bank account, get a telephone and a telex address, and have stationery printed*.
• Find products to import. You can identify many in free publications.
• Select the products that seem to be good bets* and write to the advertisers. Just say you are interested in importing their products and would like catalogs and prices.
• When the information comes, choose the products that interest you most and send for samples.
• When the samples arrive, identify prospective buyers and pay calls on them*. Obtain their detailed opinions of the products.
• If the buyers are interested, contact your country Customs. Find out the duty on the product, how it has to be labeled, and whether there are any other government organizations with whom you should speak.
• If the product has to be modified, order new samples with the necessary changes. Show them to buyers and attempt to obtain small trial orders.
• Order your trial shipment by air freight, freight collect, insured.
• Determine transportation and insurance costs, add profit and sales commissions, check on prices of similar items, and set your selling prices. You may want to prepare a catalog and a price list.
• If your trial shipment sells easily, you can move on to larger orders, sea freight, other terms of payment, and more sophisticated marketing techniques. You are in business!
To work out your costs, you will have to assume a quantity of goods you think you can sell and a method of transportation and obtain reasonably accurate figures.
Let us suppose that you want to start exporting and to develop a marketing plan. You are not sure whether you want to work as a merchant or an agent.
• Make your business a reality. Pick and register a name, open a bank account, get a telephone and telex address, and have stationery printed.
• Look at a publication that includes specific export opportunities. A good one is Trade Channel, a newspaper published in Holland. Select advertisements for products you know something about from countries you think you would like to deal with.
• Telex or write potential customers to introduce your firm and ask for more information about their needs. You want them to make at least some commitment before you go to the trouble of contacting suppliers and developing quotations*. Wait for replies.
• Get information on firms that make the products you are interested in. Call or write half a dozen for each product. Ask if their lines are available for export to the country your inquiry is from. If so, request catalogs and price lists, and ask whether they prefer to work with you as an agent or as a merchant.
• Analyze the catalogs and prices and decide which manufacturers' products to quote on if there are no complications. Ask each manufacturer for a letter to protect your commission and markup, and for the weight and dimensions of a box on each item.
• Contact your freight forwarder and/or carriers to get forwarding, freight, insurance and miscellaneous charges so you can develop a quotation for the goods delivered to the buyer's port. Add your commission or markup if it isn't included already.
• Send your potential customer a letter and a price quotation along with catalog pages if you think pictures and related information will be useful to him. Include your shipping and payment terms, order lead time, and the number of days for which you will honour your quoted prices. You want to rush the buyer a little, and you cannot ship an order two years from now at today's prices.
• Follow up until you receive either a positive or a negative decision. If you receive the order, make sure there is no risk that you will have to pay for merchandise and not get paid for it. If the payment terms are not secure, delay the shipment until you check the buyer's integrity and financial standing.
• Complete the transaction by shipping or instructing your supplier to ship, and, of course, by receiving your commission or by collecting and paying your supplier.
• Keep in contact to try to obtain repeat orders, and build your business by looking for other products you can sell to the same customer or for other customers to whom you can sell the same product.