How to get shipyard client

[neilclover]

Dear all,

I am the chief representative of a private shipyard in China.
On behalf of our company manager,I am entrusted to find shipyard clients.
While according to the best knowledges of our manager,the clients mainly come from Netherlands,Greece,Indonesia,Vietnam,Turkey,Italy and
Hongkong.
Because It's the first time I am in charge of this work,
I do not know how to start with.

Could anyone here help me?

[richard8000milesaway]

Here in the West (especially New York City where I live) we have a long long tradition of giving people gifts before asking for any information. Please send a gift of 2 x 56 inch plasma flat screen HDTVs (120 volt for USA) to my address below and I will give you all the information you require upon receipt!

谢谢

richard m lawrence
c/o Fresco Painting
324 Lafayette Street, # 5
New York, NY 10012

[stevefoster]

Here in the West (especially New York City where I live) we have a long long tradition of giving people gifts before asking for any information. Please send a gift of 2 x 56 inch plasma flat screen HDTVs (120 volt for USA) to my address below and I will give you all the information you require upon receipt!

谢谢

richard m lawrence
c/o Fresco Painting
324 Lafayette Street, # 5
New York, NY 10012

I am impressed Richard, let me know when you get your tv as I represent Alabama in the Department of Shipyard Information.

[richard8000milesaway]

hey, you never know.

[10talents]

I am impressed Richard, let me know when you get your tv as I represent Alabama in the Department of Shipyard Information.

Yea and I represent shipping interest in Florida but I would like a new lincoln towncar.

[anchorman]

Dear all,

I am the chief representative of a private shipyard in China.
On behalf of our company manager,I am entrusted to find shipyard clients.
While according to the best knowledges of our manager,the clients mainly come from Netherlands,Greece,Indonesia,Vietnam,Turkey,Italy and
Hongkong.
Because It's the first time I am in charge of this work,
I do not know how to start with.

Could anyone here help me?

First, fire the Human Resource Manager there - for making you "Chief" of the representatives. Then, learn the name of the company so you can represent the brand. A nameless company is not a good approach for the guy in charge. That would be a great start. After that get a Russian secretary with long legs and blond hair.

That's about all I got.

[Ordinaryseaman]

Neil-

who are your current clients?

What's your target demographic?

What's your company's niche/competitive advantage?

How did your predecessor drum up business?

And how did you get hired with no experience (not being rude- just curious)

Have a blessed day-Anthony

[richard8000milesaway]

thanks for the telephone call, neil, again please PM me and we can arrange details.

[neilclover]

Hi,Do not make fun of me.
I am seriously about my business.
In the last five years,the shipping market in the world is quite boom.
Usually there is no neccessary to find clients.However,clients will get our shipyard information from other chinese who persuade foreigners to place an order.This year is totally different.

However,I would like to do some advertising.How can I start or
Is there a big ship market for me to choose !

Actually I have no money and can not offer a screen and car.

[Ordinaryseaman]

Neil-
please look at my first post on this thread. I offered to help you with marketing- and have a background/ experience in this. In order to help you- I need some info- again read the first post I made. If you respond quickly I might be able to help you set up a marketing plan before I ship out to work on a tug.

Also- I HIGHLY recommend a book on marketing called "Getting Everything You Can Out Of All You've Got" By Jay Abramson.

Anthony

[rjbpilot]

What type of vessels does your shipyard build? Private yachts, commercial, government military contracts? Do you have a website to draw clients? Depending on your market you should make contacts with the appropriate type clients your yard has previously built for. Advertise in marine magazines and periodicals. You should seek out the "other Chinese" who have persuaded the clients in your previous contracts to drum up some more business for you.

[rjbpilot]

thanks for the telephone call, neil, again please PM me and we can arrange details.

yeah, right............

[richard8000milesaway]

Busted!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[neilclover]

Hi,everyone.
Thanks for your replies.

As for Anthony,
I answer the questions one by one:

1.Current clients: From Indonesia,vietnam,Greece and Other southeast part of Asia.(We do not know the customer company as we only sign the contact with chinese middleman)

2.target demographic: same above

3.Advantages:The shipbuilding prices are relatively cheaper!!
It's cheaper than most chinese national shipyards.

4.Usually the clients are introduced by chinese middleman.
(They never disclose any information to our company,so the porfit is very low.)

5.However,I am so-called self-employed. Actually I have a relative who is the manager in this company.While he grows up in the old years, the primiary focus of him is how to develop the ship better.He does not know how to find clients,neither do I. yes,I am the representative!

Thank you so much !

[Jon]

So you mean to tell us that you have no idea who your customers are? That some mystical middleman comes in with specifications for your shipyard to use and just hands you a bag of money? That must be awesome! Of course, if you don't know any of your clients or anything about them, and only meet the mystical middleman, why do you need to start finding new clients? Why not focus your energy on finding another mystical magical middleman?

You still haven't told us why type of vessels your unnamed, unspecified relative's shipyard produces.

Good luck in your self-employment.

PS: If you elect to ship me any gifts, please ensure that they are not encrusted with lead paint or filled with kerosene.

Chinese gifts may be sent to:

U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission
4330 East West Highway
Bethesda, MD 20814

Note: All opinions, satire and sarcasm are mine alone and do not represent the views or opinions of my employer or gCaptain.

[richard8000milesaway]

my flat screen TV's never arrived. chemically encrusted or not.

[neilclover]

Sorry for my ommits!

Mainly commercial ships: oil tanker,bulk cargo ship,container ship,chemical ship,multi-purpose ship and trawler ship.
Now We have 32000DWT cargo ship for sell.

7.Company name: China hexing shipyard.
website: www.hexingship.com

8.Well I can not find another 'chinese middleman',because usually they come very suddenly.
You never know where they are.I prefer to find clients outside.

Some brief introduction of our company:

Our yard has the capabilities and expertise to undertake the specialized construction
for a diverse range of marine vessels including chemical/ oil tankers,
container/ cargo vessels, dredgers and multipurpose Project Ship.Now we secure the
Orders from Netherlands,Greece,Indonesia,Turkey,Vietnam and Germany.
Our competitive edge lies in delivering our brand promise of quality services
and timely deliveries at competitive prices. There are nine building berths of
Different sizes,among which there are 6 ones with scales from 30,000T
to 50,000T and 3 ones with scales from 15,000T to 30,000T.
It can bulid ship upto 350,000 DWT,with 98 sets of lifting apparatus
and the maximum capacity of hoisting is 250T each machine.

We are able to offer flexibility and fully optimize
our resources to provide quick turnaround, on time
And on budget. This, in turn, translates into cost and
timesavings for our satisfied customers.
Our Quality Management System is certified to ISO 9001 .
With the great efforts for more than a decade,we have been improving
Ourselves successfully,and are given recognition from Lloyd's Register of
Shipping(LR),Bureau Veritas(BV) and Registro Italiano(RI),and China Classification Society(CCS).


Sorry,your flat screen TV is too expensive for me! You should not abuse chinese poor man like me !

[richard8000milesaway]

I have done a fair amount of business in china before I sold my company in 2006 (Groovy Holidays, Inc). What our Chinese friend is describing sounds very typical to me: the middleman makes the western contacts and turns around and arranges the details with a hapless local yard. Of course the middleman makes the lions share of the profit. To us Westerners this sounds absurd, but remember many asians live in closed societies where the access to information and especially outside information is very limited. News flash: the Chinese Government is blocking Google !! Our friend here, "Neil", is probably telling the truth: he really has no idea who his customers are. The middleman takes care of arranging everything (and limiting all contacts between parties). This is the Chinese way of doing business. it is grossly inefficient, a waste of not only money and human capital but a way to stagnate the economy.
For this and many other reasons many economists predict the rapid and chaotic economic decline of united China in the next 25-50 years.
Western Secular Capitalism will once again prevail as it has been since 1500 or so......
comments from the peanut gallery?

[Jon]

Sure... the complete lack of information provided in Neil's inital post, as well as his subsequent posts, definitely bred skepticism. Combine that with my ignorance of how business is traditionaly done in China, and Neil's dubious claim of being the "Chief representative" of his shipyard yet not having any information on his company (initially) and I for one thought he was full of crap.

I've got a Big East conference game, a bottle of Budweiser, and some popcorn to get back too. Go Mountaineers!

[neilclover]

Skepticism is skepticism only. It can not change the facts in China.Well,I think government only protects the national company.I mean they give them more rights and priviliges to operate.Based on that, national company do not have to struggle for the survival.Government contracts are only given the national company.
So that's the problem,how we contact our clients?
I am still listening to any advise.Thanks so much !