Its tea time with --- the Regional Director of International Enterprise Singapore, better known as IE Singapore, Mr Nee. Previously, IE SG was known as TDB (if I didn’t remember it wrongly), and hence, many people are unfamiliar with IE SG.

Just what is IE SG all about? Why are we having tea with their regional director for?

Well, IE SG helps companies realize their dreams; to help Singaporean firms find a market for their business overseas and also to help strengthen their base.

Mmm… just a brief introduction of IE SG, they have 37 offices around the world, with a total strength of 500 staff. Of which, 7 offices are located within China.

During the tea session, Mr Nee revealed to us that China is the BIGGEST investor for Singapore, and also the BIGGEST trading partner for us too! And to China, we are their 4^th trading partner.

We also learnt that Guangdong is a very important gateway for China as it holds the BIGGEST consumer market in China.

“Why do SG firms want to venture out of Singapore into overseas market?” someone asks.

- Well simply because the size of Singapore is too small! Thus, there is a limited market if the firm stays in Singapore. By going overseas, firm would be able to find a bigger, and maybe better, market for their products!

- A firm cannot stay in the same market forever. Thus, they always have to be on a lookout for opportunities to venture out of Singapore.

Hmmm… Mr. Nee told us a story that day. A man walks in and tells IE SG, “Here, this is all my money I have. I have also withdrawn all my money out from my CPF account. I want to do business in China. What can I do?” To this, he told us, IE SG cannot help you! What he was trying to tell us is that money is not everything. When doing a business, having the right set of attitude is more important. It doesn’t matter if you are loaded with cash, if you don’t have a business idea, there is no use! IE SG cannot help you! Also, Mr. Nee wanted to show us that if you don’t work with the right attitude, you will not be able to succeed doing business.

--- Leather bags, leather belts, leather wallets & more leather! ---

Bad experience there, I think we shouldn’t talk too much about it. But I guess the lessons learnt are most mention-worthy. Apparently, Lao Yao knew that we not going to have a good time at this wholesale market, but he intentionally did not give us any warning. His lesson to us; he wanted us to “碰钉子”, something like, let us learn some lessons through the hard way, make us experience pain and learn through that. Think about it - it’s like throwing a kid into a swimming pool, letting him struggle for survival. And when he’s at the gates of hell, he’ll struggle back to earth. As for us, we were thrown into the wholesale market, not knowing what we were going to expect. Most of us were there with a shopping attitude – simply, we thought that this place was a shopping center that sold leather goods cheaply to customers like us (individual shoppers). Ironically, the vendors were NOT interested to do business with us at all! Reason being they we WHOLESALERS! They sold in bulks to retailers! I guess that’s the whole point that we missed! We adopted the wrong mindset, and hence, executed the wrong strategy when asking to buy!

Us (normal shopping): “How much is this?”

@ wholesale market, appropriate: “How much would 100 of these cost?”

Or “I’m from Singapore, doing a market survey. I’d like to buy some sample pieces back. Do you think I could bring some back to show my business partners?” etc…

Even though it was not quite the experience we enjoyed, here’s something fun that we did! :

At one point, some of us (I’m guess 10-15) were gathered in a corner around Lao Yao, with some people telling the story of their bad experience with some vendor or another. Whilst at it, Glenda and I were just standing around the group, listening to the stories, when one of the securities I presume? (wearing some sort of army uniform), approached us,

“What are you all doing here?” (in Chinese of course!)

Glenda, Me “we are fighting”

Security: *stunned/puzzled face*

Thinking he couldn’t really hear us, we added in,

“We are going to rob that shop over there”

Security: *extremely puzzled face!*

Hahahaha! I don’t know what really happened after that, but I remember at one point, when we were around one of the shops, some other security came over to check on u again! Haha!