What to Know About Doing Business in China

My friend and colleague, Professor Lonnie B. Hodge, has written the first in a series on doing business in China (Update 2011: the link I had here does not seem to work anymore).

He is less than complimentary about the books and other guides out there already:

We have bookshelves stacked full of expensive kindling labeled “how to do business in China” that we will later use to heat our house.

What he recommends as an essential pre-requisite for anyone planning to business in China is to learn some language and culture.

He provides a great list of resources, both for learning Chinese and for gaining some cultural understanding – mostly free resources, a post well worth bookmarking.

I think I’d better get cracking and learn to say something a bit more advanced than ni hao .

Des Walsh

Business coach and digital entrepreneur. With coach training from Coachville.com and its Graduate School of Coaching, and a founding member of the International Association of Coaching, Des has been coaching business owners and entrepreneurs for the past 20 years. Over the same period he has also been actively engaged in promoting the business opportunities of the digital economy. He is a certified Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP) coach, and a certified specialist in social media strategy and affiliate marketing.