The prospect of rapid growth in the Chinese economy could create huge opportunities for your business, says Anita Tang, managing director of Royal Roots Global. 

She shared this in a recent interview with Marian Cook, founder of consulting firm Business Transition Experts, as part of a series of interviews on “Selling Your Business for More.” 

In this extract from the interview she explains the opportunities in more detail. 

Marian Cook: Can you talk a bit about the Chinese economy?  What’s going on there generally?  Tell us about the three pillars of growth and the five-year plan. 

Anita Tang: China is growing very quickly.  The three pillars are definitely what they’re basing it on.  And they are domestic consumption, domestic investment and net exports. 

So what does this mean to a business owner here in the United States?  What should they keep their eyes on? 

For domestic consumption, we have to look at China as two different economies.  There are about 500 million in the urban area and about 700 million in the rural area in China.  And about 100 million is migrating from rural to urban.  

So if we look at domestic consumption, you have to determine whether you’re selling to the urban area or the rural area.  

In the urban area, 170 million are willing to spend quite a bit of money in buying things, whereas in the rural area it may not be the case, because brand of goods may not be what they’re looking for.  

And if we’re looking at the Chinese stimulus plan, quite a bit of money was being allocated to the rural area, helping them to buy home electronics and buy vehicles.  And a vehicle may not be a passenger car.  It could be trucks or farm equipment for them to do production.  

So domestic consumption definitely is huge.  They’re also talking about putting a lot more emphasis in the servicing industry in China.  They would like to increase it a lot.  And it’s also part of working with domestic consumption.  

So for example, if it’s a U.S. company looking at China, you don’t only sell goods to China.  You can also sell services to China, or you can sell training services to China, because there is such an area in the servicing industry that they need help.  

And if we look at domestic investment in that sense, definitely the stimulus plan is putting a lot of money into infrastructure, but at the same time if somebody is going to build infrastructure in a remote area, there will be a lot of things needed.  

You need housing or temporary housing for these people.  You need water, you need food, and you need all kinds of other things that can be supplied, so even though it is domestic investment, it is also bring up domestic consumption as well. 

So for business owners who can play in these areas, think about services, too.  Keep in mind the importance of education within this culture. You mention training services as one thing that could be in demand.  

Right. And if we look at domestic investment as well, a lot of money is being put into environmental related to clean water, solar energy and all kinds of other areas that we in the U.S. can participate in.  

If we talk about clean water, for example, China needs a lot of clean water and they may not at this point have the technology to do it.  So American firms have been quite familiar in this area.  

Here we can just get water from the tap and drink it.  That is not going to happen in China now.  It will happen in China if we can sell or work with China to use our technology from the U.S.  So there are huge areas that we can look at this similar plan and supply our technology, our services, and our products. 

For this entire interview as well as those of 14 additional world class experts on selling a business, please visit our Business Transition Experts “Education at Your Desktop” site at:  http://www.businesstransitionexperts.com/telesummit  .

“We all make choices about how we live our lives. You can take a paint-by-numbers approach, or you can start with a blank canvas. When you paint by numbers, the end result is guaranteed. You know what it’s going to be, and it might be good, but it will never be a masterpiece. Starting with a blank canvas is the only way to get a masterpiece, but you could also blow up. So, are you going to pick the paint-by-numbers kit or the blank canvas?” – Jim Collins

High altitude climbing provides many lessons that apply to business, says former business owner Werner Berger, the oldest North American to summit Everest and President of Strategic Results International. 

He gave this tip in a recent interview with Marian Cook, founder of consulting firm Business Transition Experts, as part of a series of interviews on “Selling Your Business for More”. 

In this extract from the interview he explains the situation in more detail. 

Marian Cook: What did you learn from climbing Everest?  Can you apply that in corporate consulting? 

Werner Berger: Many, many, many learning experiences come out of high altitude climbing.  

You cannot be on a mountain bound together with your fellow climbers and not be in high communication.  

You have to have alignment to a common purpose; you have to have trust.  You have to know that your life depends on the other person and their life depends on you.  So there’s a real camaraderie that develops.  

The question becomes how to deal with a problem as opposed to getting angry at the mountain. It would be very easy to say, why does this mountain throw these crevices in our face, or why is the weather changing whenever I get to high camp. This drove me off Mount McKinley twice.  It took me a third time to get to the top.  

Generally, when something isn’t working the way it’s supposed to work, we get angry at the person as opposed to just saying, okay, so the wind has moved in and it’s now snowing, so what do we now do?  Let’s look at how do we resolve this issue.  That was probably one of the biggest learning experiences for me.  

Some others are just simply being aware we are human beings. We will go through some emotional roller coasters, and when we know that they’re going to happen, we also don’t have to react to them.  

The whole idea of the climb becoming a win/win joint effort also translates into every single business activity. As a manager I have to know my job is to make sure my employees feel like winners, because only when they feel like winners will they have any pride in their work.  

When they have pride in their work, they will do a good job, performance goes up.  That’s natural.  

In fact, when you really look at what the boss’ job is, the boss’ job is to serve his or her employees so they can do their job.  So those are just some learning experiences that come to mind.  There’s a host of others. 

I was thinking about high communication; there cannot be a hidden agenda on the mountain. 

I thought of two others that I think are really critical.  It is very lonely at the top.  And how I got to that in an experiential sense, I was aware that the guides do a tremendous amount of work not just leading us up the mountain and making sure that everywhere is safe, but making sure that everything is organized.  

When the snow was very, very deep on Denali the first time we went, the head guide was in front plowing through about two and a half feet of snow creating a path for the rest of us.  I quickly became aware that nobody said, my gosh, you did such a phenomenal job today, thank you, thank you, thank you.  

That brings to mind how many times do employees say thank you to the boss for really providing this opportunity and providing the environment to have them actually be able to make a living. 

The other one that came to mind was that, on the mountain, you have to live in the present.  You cannot live in terms of what’s happening in the future or what happened yesterday. You’re thinking of the next step, the next platform that has to be built, the next snow block that has to be cut and melted down for water.  

In day to day lives, we’re not in the present and it’s really in the present where Nirvana lives.  

What I mean by that is, when I find myself on a mountain day after day living in this space, I find a shift occurring in who I am being, relative to appreciation, relative to humility, relative to just being in awe of so much of what is around me.  

Every time I remind myself of that, when I’m back in this world or this other world, my spirits lift and my interactions with others shift.  

For this entire interview as well as those of 14 additional world class experts on selling a business, please visit our Business Transition Experts “Education at Your Desktop” site at: http://www.businesstransitionexperts.com/telesummit  .

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