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We are meeting partners in Beijing this week, so here’s some insight into Chinese sales culture.
One of the main reasons that China’s distribution networks have been so fragmented is that they have been based on guanxi or relationships which are simultaneously personal and professional. In a traditional distribution model, this guanxi holds you back because you are limited in they amount of personal relationships that you can maintain at any one time. In other words, if my hometown is in Wuhan, all of my guanxi will likely be from that place because I grew up with many of these people, our families know each other, we went to school together, etc. However, if I try to expand that guanxi network out to, say, a city like Chengdu (probably over 1,000 km away from Wuhan) it will not be possible to develop the same depth of relationships in that region.
Historically, sales in China have been based on this guanxi … I get the sale, not necessarily because I have the best price or the best quality product, but because I have good guanxi with you. However, this is rapidly changing in China: while good guanxi is a necessary condition to successful sales, it is by no means a sufficient one — I now have to bring good products to the market at good prices. And for most industrial and consumer products companies, this is a good thing because it means that they can develop more “professional” distribution channels and get a broader sales footprint in China.