China buying agent, china sourcing agent, guangzhou business interpreter Ella @ China interpreter for Business Trip Diary for Mr.J*l*s from US

China buying agent, china sourcing agent, guangzhou business interpreter Ella @ China interpreter for Business Trip Diary for Mr.J*l*s from US.

Worked with Mr.J*l*s from US for two days as business interpreter, mainly for factories visitings, about metal works.

Very glad to work with them as china interpreter, not because of the tip even it's not small/big, we fixed the daily cost before working while Mr.J would love to pay more then we agreed after two days' interpreter work finished. It's inspiring that my English is good enough for a local US client to be so much satisfied, but as far as I know, there’re something else that made my interpreter work valued more, that encouraged the client to pay more for the work as china businese interpreter.

Preparation: When I received a message from client at around 10:30pm about his business trip in Guangzhou and wanted business interpreter for factories visiting, I replied at the some moment YES, WE COULD TALK. Right after that, my phone rang, and I was ready for a business talk. Asked about the places to go, and purpose for the trip, and time client required, we made a deal for the daily cost of the interpreter service. I started checking about the item name client mentioned on phone about basket, cooking basket, to get some ideas about what details might be related to the translation. Actually we could say that I was trying to get full prepared for the job, even I’m always confident that I would not have any language barriers thanks to my proper education on English. The more preparation you get in advance, the more flexible you could be at work at an business interpreter.

On Work: We met at 9:30am in the morning at Sheraton Hotel Guangzhou, and first thing when we met I showed my thanks for client’s choice. Actually it’s from the bottom of my heart I felt grateful that god had arranged all the best for me.

When we started working, I understood from the brief introduction that they would like to develop a new product which is not existing at the market right now, and they invested a lot at the engineer part, now it’s time to go for the production, and before that, the samples would be the very first step. Our main target was to get the samples done according to the CAD drawings at the shortest time & lowest cost.

On our way to the first factory in DongGuan, I spent some time getting into details of the CAD drawings for the product, and talked with their engineer to get more clear about the functions and installation ways the client wanted from the finished product. As a green hand in that field, I had to catch every single second to make myself qualified for the position as an interpreter in that field.

We could not wait to talk about the details with the factory engineer & owner at the moment when we reached at the workshop. From the surface treatment requirements, raw materials options, handle’s sticking ways,down lid holes sizes, sideways stoppers positions,to the lowest-highest temperatures details,the connection treatments...We did not miss any small point that might reflect the functions.

During the whole process, all I did was try to be as accurate as possible in translation for both the client and the factory part. Once I’m involved in anything, I’d love to be the controller, but in that kind of business meetings, the best way is to forget myself/my mind, just focus on whatever the both parties words, and make sure to keep the translation professional, especially in the way of certain metal part industrial description in English/Chinese. That’s all the client & factory need. For more then that, when they got stuck at the rolling part, and both parties were in silent as they could not find the proper solution for it, I raised my own idea to them, and showed them it could be workable and more user friendly. Ideas got accepted, and we got chance to move on and I acted as a solution provider in that case.

We got the feedback on samples charge, tooling charge, and time required for the samples to be ready after going through all the details for designs+functions+surface treatment.And we moved to another factory to explain the similar ideas to get different quotations and solutions.

On the way to the 2nd factory, the client asked me about my ideas about the first factory, and I did share my point of views about them with client, and exchanged his ideas as well. According to my experience of meeting thousands of factories, at least I could give client some special points from my eyes, and those points were something different from his ideas. At the ideas exchanging, we got to know better about what we need, and how we could go for the 2nd factory.Full communication with clients makes things easier.

So for the 2nd factory I was more like a mouth for client to tell whatever he needed, and made the factory understand what were the main functions required. The more options on raw materials bring more ideas in finished goods. Some new ideas came up when talking on the surface treatment part, and client agreed to move ahead with new ideas to see the different results so as to have some more proposals for product presentation.

For the 2nd day factory visiting in JiangMen, we gave similar presentation about the product in CAD drawings and showed them the samples, but to make them understand more properly, we got them the videos to see how the product should work when it’s done. The more details you show, the better.

All the schedules were nicely done, and the feedback from factories would directly go to the client’s e-mail. As an interpreter, my work was finished.On the way back from JiangMen to Guangzhou, we talked a lot about life about business, actually for both of us, we did update ourselves at some different parts. After reaching home, sent a thankful message to client for the wonderful experience, and we left the best memory and name cards for each other, and keep the business and life moving.

Being a business interpreter, Be talkative, Be brave, and Be a lifelong learner!