So many students study business English mainly to get a good job in a western company. I live in Shanghai and I see what works and what does not for getting an international job. Here are a few important things I’ve noticed.

1. English level is far more important than English test scores.

It’s true that a good TOEIC score might be required by some companies, but often employers really want to know your true English level and don’t care about your test scores. They will speak with you in English. After the interview, they will know your true level.

2. Getting jobs through the people you know is much easier than passing in your CV everywhere.

Most young job searchers care too much about their CV and send them to big companies. Most of these companies get thousands of CV’s per week and don’t even have time to read them all. Get out of your house and meet people. If you can show them that you are worth something, they will recommend you for some good position. This recommendation is huge. So many people I know got great jobs just because they were good at meeting people.

3. Be prepared to explain exactly how you will add value to the company

This is important for both getting a job and also salary negotiation.  Bosses really want people to help them earn money.  That’s really all companies are doing.  If you seem like a smart and capable person, they will invest time, money, and energy into training you into a valuable employee.  It’s important to be able to sell yourself.  Tell them how you can help the company.  Don’t use fake answers and talk about what degrees you have.   It’s not that important.  The biggest question is “WHY YOU?”

4.  Learn western culture!

Learning western culture will help your chances of getting a good job.  You don’t have to agree with the culture, but it’s important you understand it.  You need to understand the jokes, the way of thinking, and the way of doing business in the west.  This is a huge advantage that many ESL students miss big time.

These tips should really help your chances of getting a sweet job.  Remember, most English learners look for jobs in a different way, and that is a good thing.  Be different and be better.

If you want to learn more about business, western culture, and a lot of other stuff that will really help you improve your English, or improve the English of your students (Great for the ESL classroom too as well as individual students), I highly recommend this step by step Mp3 Learning Program

The ability to predict International trends early can lead to huge successes in business.  Business is so much easier if you are one of the first players in a market.  There is some luck involved for sure, but it’s possible to take an educated guess.

Here’s an example of what I’m talking about.  Right now is September 2010.  Apple has launched the Ipad this year and sold over 3 million of them in the first 80 days.  Some of the forecasts are saying they expect to sell 28 million in 2011.  Apple sells a lot of stuff internationally and there is no reason I can think of that the Ipad won’t do well in Asia and the rest of the world.  There is a lot more disposable income in China and the growing middle class will be buying Ipads.  It is a status symbol as much as a practical tool.

Now, what can you do with an Ipad?  ESL English language learning is one possibility.  If someone has enough money to buy an Ipad, they should also have enough money to pay for English lessons.  It just makes common sense.  They probably have a credit card and know how to use the internet.  Just the fact that someone in China owns an Ipad, should tell you some other things about this person.  The same thing is true with other countries.

The point is even though it’s not popular now, it very well could be in the future.  Not many companies are even trying to do anything so if you believe in this, now is a good time to start.   So many people make the mistake of waiting until an idea is already proven to be successful before they try it.  By that time there is so much competition and it’s too late.

It’s important to have a trusting relationship when doing sales of any kind.  It’s even more important if you want to do international sales.

Think about it.  Trust is a hard thing to find in the business world.  Everyone is trying to sell you something and no one knows who to believe.  You would certainly take a recommendation from a friend far more seriously than you would take a television commercial on TV.  We know our friends care about us and that company on TV just wants to sell us something.

In international business relations, trust becomes even more important because one thing true about human nature is that we trust people from other countries even less than we trust people from our own.  We have language and cultural differences.  Our way of thinking is different.

It is important that we build what is called “rapport” with our clients.  “Rapport” is kind of a fancy word for trust and mutual understanding.  We need to show them that we are different than the competition and we can be trusted.  Trust takes time to build.  You need to always be honest with your clients and really respect them as people.  You want to make sure you only recommend products to them that you truly believe they would want.
Even if you can trick someone and get a few sales, this is a terrible strategy in the long run.  You will get a bad reputation and people won’t want to buy from you again.  Be honest and upfront.  Tell your customer about your product’s weaknesses.  They will find out anyway.  Help them in anyway you can and they will keep coming back.  It’s pretty simple, if they believe you, they will consider buying from you.  If they don’t, they won’t.

Being able to negotiate a good salary is one of the most important things you can do in your career.

Money is often a sensitive topic and it’s not easy to look your potential boss in the eye and tell him or her you need a lot more money than they initially offered. Western companies go around the world looking for cheap labor. It’s up to you to demand what you are worth. You need to stand strong and here are some useful tips.

1. Be able to explain clearly why you are worth the money you want.

Remember that this is a game where the boss is trying to save money. If you will accept a low paying job, why would he offer you more? If you can really add value to the company, you can make a lot of money. You need to be able to explain how exactly you will do this. CEO’s make a lot of money because they bring in even more money than that for the company. You need to show how you can justify your high salary.

2. Don’t accept weird excuses for low pay.

I used to work for a start up company in China and the boss always tried to pay the local workers a low wage. He said that the company wasn’t making any money yet and bigger salaries would come in the future. Everything was promised in the future. What he was saying was true, but this doesn’t mean that the employees should accept really low pay. Start up companies should plan to lose money for the first few years. There are millions of clever excuses bosses can use to offer a low salary. Demand a reasonable salary and be prepared to work hard to add value to the company. If the boss really believes you can help them earn big money, he will pay you well. It’s hard to find good talent.

3. Never sign anything the first day.

Always ask to take home the contract and look it over. Don’t be scared to make some changes and ask for more money. You won’t always get exactly what you want, but bargain hard and think about what you are really worth to the company. If you are just starting, maybe you don’t deserve a large salary yet. Always make sure you have room to grow in the company if you perform well.

Different people make hugely different salaries for similar jobs. It all comes down to being good at negotiation.

Being able to negotiate well is key to doing business. Different people get different prices for the same things. In a competitive market, this can make or break a business. There is a lot of psychology going on here and it’s important to understand some good tactics.

One common strategy is called “Lowballing”.
Lowballing is when you give a really low offer for something you want to buy. You probably don’t expect to actually get the item for this price, but it gives a starting point for negotiation. Even if the other person knows you are lowballing, psychologically it is difficult to totally disregard this initial number. The end price will probably be closer to this initial low offer than it would have been otherwise.

Suppose you want to buy some small company and the price of the company is really hard to determine. Both you and the owner really don’t know what the company is worth. Now imagine you are willing to pay $ 2 million. for the company. The owner doesn’t know that. It might be a good idea to offer something like $ 1 million.

This gives the owner some idea of what you will buy the company for. He will probably try to negotiate the price higher, but you’ll probably be able to get the company for much lower than you would have if you didn’t do this.

If you have employees, lowballing is also a good strategy to pay them a relatively low amount of money. Suppose that you are willing to hire someone for $4000 USD per month. Start with an offer of $2000 and let the employee negotiate up. They might say $3000. Some of them might even take the $2000 or something very close to that. This is a very powerful tool if used properly.

If you are looking for a job, you need to realize that your future boss is probably lowballing you and you should come back with a high counteroffer. It’s not necessary to accept anywhere near this price.

I’ve seen a lot of people I know get underpaid because they didn’t know how to handle lowballing. I know some bosses who are great at it and have many employees working for them for a very small amount of money compared to what they are worth.

If you are a non-native speaker and you do business with native English speakers, you will need to learn to write effectively.

Writing perfectly isn’t really the main goal. What is important is learning the art of efficient communication. Here are a few tips to keep in mind when writing emails.

1. Keep them as short and simple as possible.

People in business are busy and don’t have the time or the energy to read a long email. This is not joy reading. They want to know the important information and nothing else. If you are scheduling a meeting, make the time, date, and location incredibly clear. Don’t waste time writing about other stuff that isn’t important to your objective.

2. If you aren’t sure how to use a word, don’t use it.

This is not the time to try to show off your new vocabulary. Most native speakers write in a simple manner anyway, and using unnecessary vocabulary looks unprofessional. It really looks bad if you try to use a word and use it in the wrong way. Stick to what you know.

3. Make a list of questions you think the other person would like answered.

Make sure you answer all the questions on that list. It is annoying to read someone’s email and find out you need to send them another email because they forgot to mention some important information. You could lose business deals this way and it makes your company look unprofessional.

4. Make sure you focus on what the other person wants and not what you want.

People would be much more likely to respond to an email that could help them. Imagine writing emails to companies asking them if you could buy something from them or telling them you would like to sell them something. Almost everyone will respond if you want to buy something from them. If you want help from someone else, make sure you can show them how you can genuinely help them. You always need to think win-win. People will usually be glad to do business with you if you can show them how they can benefit too. A lot of businesses make this one major mistake.

If you use these tips your writing could be much more effective in a business sense than even the writing of a native speaker who doesn’t follow them. The quality of the writing isn’t nearly as important as the clarity of ideas and the content. A long as you can get your point across, don’t worry too much. With that said, you still want to try your best and be careful. It looks better if there are less obvious mistakes. That is one extra benefit of keeping your writing short and simple. There will be less chance of making mistakes.