Shrimp and Shampoo: Doing business in Vietnam

As I walked in to the building, I was greeted by a receptionist who spoke enough English to direct me to the meeting room. The room was large, with a huge desk surrounded by sixteen chairs, and in walks the owner with head of sales and head of client management. A few months before this, I decided our company should expand its operations to South East Asia. I developed a strategy, and there I was. In Ho Chi Minh, just looking for distribution.

After exchanging common greetings, they started presenting their company. They happened to be involved in food production as well: a pleasant surprise to me, because distribution service providers sometimes don't understand the difficulties in running a full supply chain. They had several European and Japanese brands in their distribution portfolio, employed 2,000 people, and boasted a sizable distribution services business.  All good signs, I thought. When they were done I started presenting our company and our vision, drawing the similarities between them and us:

• We were both involved in production. 
• We both provided distribution services to international brands. 
• We were both growing fast and expanding our business lines.

We were like minded companies I knew it would be great to do business together. So I gave them a passionate sales pitch... and after the pitch flew, the owner told me “Now it is my turn to sell you something… I want to sell shrimps to Turkey.” 

Yes, shrimps. I did not know what to say, I am not a big fan of shrimps, I like them freshly boiled, I don’t know how to trade them. I didn’t say any of this. I listened to her. And as she told me of her farms, I watched her glow with pride. She was so joyed, having employed so many people from the community she came from. I loved that. I told her that I did not know anything about the shrimp business but still my gut told me we could, and should do business together. That was it. I had walked in a shampoo salesman and walked out a shrimp farmer.  

Exchange of any kind demands trust. In South East Asia, it takes time to build. If you, as a foreigner, are focused on the wrong formulation of the exchange - for example, money instead of the product - then long-term business relationships will be hard to come by. You have to be open to buying as much as you open to selling. 

“Buying” means listening, understanding, appreciating ideas, critiquing proposals, and accepting recommendations from your counterpart. If you buy your counterpart’s background and experience, then eventually success will catch you. If you are as lucky as I am, it'll catch you fast. Maybe not in the form of shrimp farms though...