After in-depth communication with several colleagues, I found that the biggest problem that plagues foreign trade novices at present is the problem of finding and retaining customers. Now I share my better posts with you, hoping to help you. 1. First of all, we should analyze and understand the industry situation of similar products in the world, understand the position of our products in this industry, and never assume that our products are competitive; Even if you are competitive, you should be very clear about the advantages and competitiveness of your products. First of all, you need to know your industry, who are the top three at home and abroad, or specifically to a certain market, who are the top three and where they are at present. If you are not 1, then the best way is to learn 1. Know yourself and yourself. 2. If your product really has advantages and competitiveness, try to show these advantages and competitiveness to the guests. For some key development customers, you can take the initiative to send them samples and invite them to visit the factory to let them know about you and build trust. Divide customers into three categories: a, b and C. A' key customer', take the initiative to send samples and invite them to visit the factory ... take care of your 20% customers 80% of the time. When to use product segmentation: when you find that your product does not actually have absolute advantages. As the saying goes: a gentleman does something, but a villain does something. There are only a few ways to promote it: Internet, magazines and exhibitions. The most direct and effective way to participate. But there should also be an overall plan, that is, the pace distribution should obey the strategy. Because the products are different, it is not easy to talk about the details. But it must be looking for a professional authority in the industry. Business also talks about the input-output ratio, and cost is also an important factor to consider. Factors needed to do foreign trade: first, English (for communication), second, finding customers (for taking orders), and third, foreign trade knowledge. First, English. Without English, we can't communicate, so for friends with poor English, the next Kingsoft can cope with reading and writing emails, and then practice English every day. There are many ways. In addition to the routine rote memorization, you can also practice listening and speaking with SKPYE. Instant messaging chat tools practice writing. This should be understood by most people. There is no shortcut to learning English. Among the vast number of foreign trade workers, there are many people whose English level is not high, who have never attended classes, or who have certificates but are not good at listening and speaking. They can read and reply to emails, but they are afraid of receiving calls from foreigners. There may be many people who have some experience. When a foreigner calls, he can't understand what he is saying, and of course there is no suitable word to deal with it. I don't know who it is after the phone call. First, foreigners think that you are not professional enough or don't speak English well enough, which will have a certain negative impact on the size and specifications of your company. Second, it is likely to miss an opportunity. Therefore, many netizens may be holding the attitude of seeking Buddha, hoping that foreigners can contact through regular mail. However, after doing foreign trade for a long time, foreigners will still call me. If the other person's English is good, at least you can know what he said. If the other person is also an English-speaking country, add your own opinion. 1. When you see the+19 ... phone, you should prepare a pen and paper as soon as possible for recording. This is to avoid being in a hurry. ) 2. After answering the phone, say "hello" politely, and then usually he will say who to look for first. When you hear your name, you should say "I am xxx" (polite greetings. And make sure he is not looking for the wrong person. Next, he will continue to say what he wants to say. At this time, it is very likely that you are not ready or not in the state. Then you'd better guide him to answer according to your question, not to describe it. You can say, "Excuse me, who are you?" He will answer your name, you write it down, and then ask him, "Where are you from?" Know his nationality. Then ask him, "What's wrong with you?" Then he will say something about it. Generally, callers contact you by email recently, and rarely are new guests. If you can remember the name and country immediately or find that you contacted you in the email, you will know what he wants to talk about immediately. If you can't remember, just listen to him and tell him what it's about. If you hear him, but don't quite understand what he said, you can repeat what he said to him. Then he will say "yes" or "no" to what you said, and then you can continue to ask questions. Find the relevant emails that this person has contacted, understand what he might say, and guide him to speak according to your ideas. Before you judge whether you can understand what he said, if you can continue, if you can't, you can say, "I understand what you said." But please send another email to confirm "I understand what you said, but can you send me an email to confirm?" "Then ask him if he knows the email address. If you don't know, tell him to send it over. In fact, you don't pretend to know. If you don't understand, don't keep saying no, I don't know or negative words, just listen and ask him to send an email. The purpose is, of course, to see clearly what he wants to express in the email and avoid the loss of guests. 5. If you can't find the relevant e-mail through the country name, just ask. " Then pay attention to "yes" or "no" (this is easy to find, even if it was not found at that time, it is not too late to find his email address now, and don't forget to add "thank you for calling" when replying). 6. Finally, I want to say the last sentence, "Nice talking to you, goodbye." (Finally, it is a courtesy. ) Problems needing attention in the speech: 1. Don't have a burden in your heart. If you think that your English is not good, you can't listen carefully to what the other party is saying. Anyway, if you don't understand English well, just listen to a sentence. Even if you don't understand it at all, no one knows this name, right? Your speaking speed is very important. You'd better spit it out word by word. One is to facilitate the other party to listen. The other is that he will have it. But your brain should be organized. What you usually do is: 1. It is very useful to use OUTLOOK to classify emails by country or person name. You still need to know a few simple English words. Read these common words more often and try to pronounce them accurately. 3. Of course, practice more with SKYPE and buy a headset. Find some foreigners who are willing to chat online. First, find out whether people can understand what you say. Second, practice makes perfect. Listen more and make sure you want to hear from foreigners. Fourth, catch every call and practice finding ways to answer it. Second, find customers, 1. For friends who didn't have a charging platform at first, a free platform is an important way. There are three related articles. Q 1: I have been doing foreign trade for almost three weeks, and I have sent many B2B quotations provided by my business friends. After I sent out the websites I provided, I found some myself, but so far I haven't even sent an inquiry. I tried to send an email directly to the customer's mailbox, but I couldn't find any customers in our line. Who knows how to help? A: Develop customers. It is necessary to find customers, that is, don't let go of all buyers and traders that can be found in free platforms or yellow pages. But the most important thing is to let customers find you and contact you actively. It can be said that the 10 you contacted is not as good as the 1 you contacted actively. So it is very important to make full use of free resources to advertise. But not all of them have been fully utilized. Need more time and energy, update in time, persist and develop continuously. Q 2 is very important: I have been a salesman for a while and learned a lot, but I regret providing customers with samples and quotations many times. I wonder how much hope there is. I don't know how to do things, but I repeat my disappointment every time. I don't understand why. Is my proposal bad, or? A: In the stage of developing customers, I personally think that it is more than just providing samples and quotations. Besides knowing all aspects of our company's products, it is still necessary. 1. Customer source supplement: constantly look for free platforms and development methods, and update them every day. In the early days when there is no order, only constant inquiry will have a chance to become an order. 2. Understanding in the same industry: make extensive inquiries and understand the prices in the same industry and export prices. Market price, etc. 3. Follow-up of quotation: For those who have not replied to the report, it is recommended to send an email to inquire about the progress or reasons, instead of asking about the price. Don't send it often. It's better to send it every week. Accumulate customer feedback and summarize problems. Improve problems and update development methods. 4. Review the past and learn the new: summarize every day, weekly and monthly. What did I do? What did I not do? What to do next. 5. Improve your own software: make exquisite company stationery, facilitate quotation, provide quotation, product catalogue, email signature, etc. Try different letterheads or signatures for different customers, such as FOB price, CNF price, European and American price, Middle East price, US$ 65,438+million price and US$ 65,438+00,000 price. Choose the simplest and most impressive. 6. Persistence is victory: usually a novice can only get an order in 2 or 3 months, and some may get an order in half a year. The hardest part is actually in the beginning With the first order, I believe victory is just around the corner. A: What should a novice foreign trader do? 1. Fully understand your products, product expertise and related terms. To fully understand the same industry, you can use search and look at their English websites, and you can gain a lot. Do these things for an hour every day. 2. Develop customers, find B2B or portals, register, register and publish. Updated daily. This is a long-term persistence and accumulation process. An hour to an hour and a half every day. Some friends in the forum also provide free websites, don't let go of any one. 3. Find customers. All the portals, B2B websites and English websites you can see are searched by various keywords of your products. As long as you can find the company's email address and contact person, or you can check it online, send it all at once. The title will be the product name. No more than 10 sentence. Mainly introduce which company you are from, what kind of products you make, relevant qualification certificates, and one or two advantages of you. Then let him visit your website and contact you if he is interested. 4. E-mail, you will receive inquiries every day. It may not be much at first, but it is recommended to reply at the first hour of work every day, and the mailbox will be open for updates at any time throughout the day. Then, as long as you receive the email, you can reply immediately. This can be done in an hour or two every day at the beginning. In addition to timely reply, you need to answer all the questions raised by the guests and the information that needs to be provided by the profession. Spend half an hour to an hour visiting the forum every day to learn from experience. 6. There are many professional foreign trade forums. As a newcomer, if you want to make progress, you should sum up, buy some books, and it is best to sum up what you did today after work every day. I didn't do anything. What to do tomorrow, you will find out what you have done well and what you have not done enough in a week. You won't be at a loss if you have a notebook in your hand, and you won't know what you have done after a month. 7. One month can give you a comprehensive understanding of product knowledge and master some skills of finding customers. Basically, there can be some fixed or new customer inquiries in two months. After three months, you will basically be interested in ordering. Opportunity is only for preparation. Work is also being a man, but ask for a clear conscience! ! A: How to get more enquiries from the free platform? Free platforms can also bring orders. Why is the free platform not as good as the charging platform? The following is according to the inquiry. 1. The fees charged by companies in the same industry always come before free. This platform is established and there is no way to change it. Only when the keywords are right can there be business opportunities. ) 2. Generally, the product drawings or materials for charging are complete. There are more product drawings that can be put, so the effect is better (the operators of the charging platform make full use of this platform, and I am afraid that there are not many updates and maintenance for the free ones every day. 3. Let the guests pay more attention to the charges, not the free ones. It is generally believed that charging may have a better reputation and stronger strength. As for the order, it depends on how you handle the inquiry, not that the more inquiries, the more orders. But inquiry is an opportunity, and you can only place an order if you seize the opportunity. It's a long story, depending on your price, product quality, efficiency and many other reasons. 1. Wide coverage (don't waste platforms that can be searched and registered). 2. Update every day (business opportunities will be reissued every day, and product drawings will be replaced once a week to improve the chances of ranking first). 3. Complete and comprehensive registration information (make full use of the available power of each platform and register the information in detail). 4. The establishment of keywords (generally every product release will have a keyword, I personally think. Don't set too wide a keyword, because there are many words in front of this wide keyword, so I think it is better to set a narrow keyword. If someone searches with narrow keywords, you will probably rank first and second. There are examples. 5. The product drawings must be clear and beautiful. The drawings are not good-looking, and it is hard to believe that your products can be much better. Please fill in the product details.