I finalllygot connected to internet at home at 11:00 at night ,cheerful ,I can work on foreign trade  at night,they say you must keep doing so until you get oreders.Then I met with a young guy named Ronny,a peer guy in the same lighting  business,alibaba girl once introduced him as a success in e-commerce business,ok ,I chat to him.

"I usually keep online until 4 AM in the morning,"he told me.

it is too much hard working,I was surprised.

"This is my habit to stay up ,for any customers to find me at any time.I started my old lighting business last year ,after working in a lighting factory for 4 years,it is hard and pressing work,I have to do everything myself ,great pressure,I have to keep forward."

Interesting.

I have ever heard of this, becuase the time zones are usually different, so many china trader are usually work very late.

Come on, we are not afriad of no inquiry or order, we are make orders.

yes e-business often need good real-time communication, keep up with the clients time zone is a good way to explore business

Yes, and no.


You have to determine what are the time killers, waste of time and what are the effective ways to solve a problem. You have to have time-management.


To stay up late in night doing chats on the Trade Managers is counter-productive, you can achieve your objectives and goals in more effective way, and end up being the leader and not the follower, the head and not the tail.

Let us look into the burning midnight oils activities, and make our own hypothesis:


You began chat on the Trade Manager over some subject. The discussion on this subject only takes 10 to 20 minutes. Before opening up to the chat, you have to prepare your 'bullets' and other 'weapons'. I see some Chinese Sales person doing it, like preparing some brochures for downloading, some pictures or drawings. So during the discussions, you may have to show the other person a picture of what you were trying to tell him/her about. These pictures must be in common platforms, and can be viewed by other side without difficult. Most common public domain reader program is PDF format by Adobe ACROBAT READER. If you have picture in GIF, or TIF file, you have to make sure the receiver can open this file and look at the contents.


If the size of the file is too large for uploading, you may have to direct them to your file in the Internet, just give them the LINK to this file. But you have to first find the location of the file, organise them in your system, and test them to see if they turn out to be good, without any garbled text or limitations of the other types of browsers or bandwidth of the modem / network interface. The other important matter you have to look out for is the size of the graphics, the colour should be web-friendly, and the layout to be flexible to fit into different resolution of the monitor screen. On of the tricks is to allocate your graphics and size your tables in percentage or relative units rather than in pixels or measurements of mm or inches.


After all these preparations, make them available, backup the files and store them somewhere else, or make your local area network with backup files, computers, printers, systems and drives. Then organise them in a way that you will know where to find them when you need. Important technical matters, such as specifications, drawings, pictures, dimensions, weights and pressure / temperature should be stored and easily available.

If you come across scammers, quickly leave them, or people with abusive language, you should cut off communication straight away.

Follow ups
After the chat, if this is business chat, take down the points of discussions, in your log book, with the email address, date, name and contacts of the other party, and do a follow-up. You can send him an email, an SMS, or a fax to remind or ask him/her if s/he received your quotation, and ask him/her if they want to buy the product. If they tell you about your price being too high, then you have to discuss with your boss as how to lower it and get the order. If the question is on some technical matters, then ask your Production or Technical Department, R&D or Engineering for the answers.


Close Deals

Many sales people do not know how and when to ask for the order/s and close the deal. Always strike while the iron is hot, take the opportunity, time and if at that place and time, the prospects are already hot for your item, then give them a price and directly send them a quote and ask for the order.


Non-verbal communications

During your meeting with the prospects, it is also important to note body language of your audience.

Thanks, Street Smart,

What i learned is preparing eveything before your start your chatting or communicate with your clients and do it in more efficient way.

some of my friends who work on foreign trade also stay up late for work.....luckily,they can get orders!

HI,sir ,you really make evry detail about late-night business,these look like  tips from a veteran salesmen,I benefit from it ,I think I should put these tricks on my sales work too.thanks .

Ni hao wo de zhong guo peng you. Hello my Chinese friends.

I am a trader from Costa Rica, Central America. I also stay connected at night, usually 6 to 9 pm to (China 8 to 11 am morning)

It is a good way to talk to your customers and potential customers in real time, but you should be careful not to exhaust yourself by staying too late...you will be tired if you do it every day

So usually it is better to arrange a chat or video meeting with potential customers, for 1 or 2 hours and try to be as effective as possible in that time as Street Smart suggests

doing business in a different time zone is very tiring work. many people do not realize that while it may be 15oo in there time it also may be 0300 in my time. i wdork alot of hours to get in contact with my suppliers across the sea and then must work a fairly noormal day here in my own time zone, this can be overwhelming, i try to make it clear to anyone i speak to that i am either asking a question only or that i am defiantely interested in purchasing, this way we both know what the other is thinking of, there is nothing worse thenj ust asking a few simple general questions about a product then haing some over zelous saleperson asume your buying , just beacaue you asked a question, i often start off by saying just becaue i ask a question it doesnt mean i am buying , i just need more information, we all work many hours it is how we use those hours that count,. it is not how hard we work but how smart we do it, thanks
bc

I'm the new comer here,and I usually stay up late until 10p.m. at night and i have already uploaded 40 pictures on our website, but still don't get any inquiry, That really pressing,And now all what I should do is to upload pictures until inquiry comes. It's a long long way to go! But as I have choosed myself, I will stick to it and keep going on staying up late in the night. I hope friends who are doing foreign trade in China , if you have met some problems, i'd like to be your sincere listener. Maybe I will not give you some advice but I'm sure I would be a good listener!

Thank you for sharing, you have a specific product meant for a certain group of people.


Your target audience and market will be women between the age of 12 to 50, mothers and infants, young children, and the very old and physically handicapped.


I see the way to promote your product is not to make many pictures, but to find niches in the market and to identify those needs and make your product meet those needs. Men may not be aware of these needs, and I have to give you several case studies to explain what I mean.


1. For the ballerina, she may have difficulties during her period to perform a dance. If your product can hide the signs of her using it, then she may consider the benefits it can bring to her.

2. There are women who must wear white uniforms, such as nurses, or doctors with white coveralls, and these stains on the white clothes are very outstanding. A leak-proof padding will be the best choice for these women.

3. Mothers with babies going out with the family use disposable diaper for the infants. You have to engage these people group. Check out the maternity wards in the hospitals, and you may have to give them samples of your product.


Your kind of product has to be sold off-line, because women are not so open to discuss these matters, and they will buy them discreetly.


These are the suggestions, you may find them useful, if not just ignore it.


Street