By Andrew Hupert

International companies in Shanghai and the rest of China are growing so fast that sometimes you can’t wait for management to notice you and make plans for your future. In fact, you are best off taking charge of your own career.

One way for young people on China sales and marketing teams to take charge of their jobs is to develop a specialty or valuable expertise.

Specialization #1: Client Orientation. Boost your career by building a client specialty. You will make yourself an expert in handling a specific type of deal, transaction or market – anything that brings you in contact with a specific, identifiable segment of your company’s overall market base. If you sell IT equipment, you could specialize in the “education and training market”, or the travel industry. Insurance and finance people could specialize in products for small and growing companies, or health insurance for families from other parts of China. The best choices are the ones other people don’t necessarily want – at least not now. It’s best if you are already doing business with these people.

Specialization #2: Product or Industry Solutions. Sometimes you’ll want to take a different approach, and become an expert at something that a broad range of your clients can make use of. Stockbrokers who can potentially sell to any investor will differentiate themselves by doing more research on a specific type of company or industry. They guy who can say “I am an expert in the semiconductor design industry in Eastern China” is going to get his call returned from people who are interested in hi-tech investment around Shanghai and Suzhou. Salesmen from almost any industry can also build up an unusual knowledge in some facet of their business.

When I worked for an investment bank in Taipei, I made myself an expert in the regulations for transferring funds between the US and the Taiex stock exchange. Every client of mine knew every single thing there was to know about technology and political risk – but no one knew about the boring details of a complicated regulation. So they would call me.

Create your own promotion:
Once you have a viable specialty in place and a few clients recognize you as a guy who knows something about anything, you’ll want to stake your claim. Young salespeople can suggest to their bosses that they be known as a “sales specialist” or “key accounts manager” – preferably on a new set of business cards. Your manager might object to you engineering your own mini-promotion, or he may be impressed that you are thinking about your future. He won’t be too excited about paying you more – but he might not object so much to a different COMMISSION RATE or PERFORMANCE-LINKED BONUS.

In other words, if you frame the discussion in terms of what HE gets out of it, you can easily negotiate more money for more performance. Remember – managers ALWAYS want performance first – which is ok, as long as you are clear on a % or amount and a TIME period. Keep it light and friendly at first – but end up with a clear agreement that if you can raise sales among a certain type of customer or product by XX%, you will be paid Y% or Z rmb by the end of the quarter. Or something close to that.

The point is, you have to take the initiative and have a plan to get that promotion. If you wait for someone to notice you and plot out your career for you while your company is doubling in size every year, you may be in for a very long wait.

Andrew Hupert, Chinese Negotiation