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Global Procurement Consulting

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This is NOT a Free Ebook. You may NOT Distribute

This Guidebook To Anyone – It is For Your OWN Use ONLY.
This Manual will show you the inside secrets, tips, and techniques
you need to know to succeed at starting, running and expanding your
own home-based global procurement consulting (GPC) business.
It contains strategies, secrets and expert advice that

would normally cost you several thousand dollars in consulting fees –
or months of ―trial and error‖ on your own. If you received this guide as
a ―bonus‖, or if you downloaded it for free, please contact me
immediately at max@axisnetonline.com so that I can
pursue the matter legally.
You may NOT edit, modify, re-sell, license, assign,

offer as a bonus or free gift, give away as an opt-in incentive or auction
this guide without the prior written consent of AGV Capital Media.
You also may NOT share, release or otherwise distribute
ANY of the information, tactics and
strategies in this document.
LEGAL NOTICE:
Every effort has been made to accurately represent this package
and its potential. Please note that each individuals success depends on his or her
background, experience, commitment, desire and motivation. As with any business
endeavor, there is no guarantee that you will earn any money.
The author, publisher and distributors of this product

assume no responsibility for the use and/or misuse of this product and
contents herein, or for any injury, damage and/or financial loss sustained to
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any methods, strategies, instructions or ideas contained in the material herein is
the sole responsibility of the reader. The reader is strongly suggested and
encouraged to seek competent legal and accounting advice
before engaging in any business, partnership
and/or marketing activities.
Short Version:
You and you alone are responsible for
any and all results that may or may not be incurred
from anything you do as a result of
reading this guide.
© 2008 Copyright AGV Capital Media
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Table of Contents
Notices Page 2
TOC Page 3 - 5
Welcome to Global Procurement Consulting Page 6 - 7
Introduction Page 8
A short message Page 8

So you wanna make money from the Net? Page 8
How to use this guide Page 9
Open your mind to new ways of making money Page 9
You must read this whole guide Page 9
Take action now Page 9
Chapter 1 – The international trade market Page 10
Tap into the biggest markets direct from the Net Page 10
A bit of history on agents, finders, brokers, reps Page 11
Why most of them didn’t make any money Page 12 - 14
Chapter 2 - Global procurement consulting – Page 15

Unravelling the Mystery
Why choose this business? 16 points to ponder Page 15- 18

What is a Global Procurement Consultant? Page 19
Why Would A Seller Engage The Services Of A Global Page 20
Procurement Consultant?
The Basis Of The Business Page 20
Can it be done through the Net? Page 21
Can you do consulting without actually meeting your clients? Page 22
Your job specs Page 22
The chicken and egg question Page 23
So, when and how do I get paid? Page 24
INCOTERMS Page 25
What are INCOTERMS? Page 25
The Obligations of the Seller and Buyer Page 25
Incorporating Incoterms Page 25
The Incoterms Page 26 - 28
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Chapter 3 - What do you need to start this business? Page 29
The Basic Setup Page 29

A computer with a printer Page 29
Internet access Page 29
One phone line – but preferably two lines Page 30
Required softwares Page 30 - 33
A website – with a professionally designed look Page 33
A document scanner Page 34
The Advanced Setup Page 35

A good company name Page 35
A fax machine Page 36
A broadband Internet connection Page 36
Two phone lines instead of just one phone line Page 37
Business letterheads and business cards Page 38
A home office Page 39
A business center account Page 40
A courier account Page 40
Optional softwares Page 41
Legal documents Page 41 - 42
Chapter 4 - Start this business part-time Page 43
I just want you to start Page 43

Most of us still have a job to hold on to Page 43
You still think that you don’t have enough experience Page 43
You don’t have the time. You have many other commitments Page 44
You don’t adjust well to changes Page 44 - 45
Chapter 5 - Where to look for potential clients? Page 46
Option 1 - Local and overseas trade directories Page 46

Option 2 - Tradeshows Page 46
Option 3 - Government bodies or foreign trade missions Page 46
Option 4 - B2B portals or tradeboards Page 46
Chapter 6 - B2B portals – Page 47

your international money making playground
What are B2B portals? Page 47

What are ―tradeboards‖? Page 48
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How do tradeboards work? Page 48

Where do I come in? Page 49
A finder’s heaven Page 50
The REALLY BIG secret Page 50
Qualify your contacts Page 51
Why is this important? Page 52
How do you find out? - Simple. - ASK ! Page 52
How to advertise your company at B2B portals effectively Page 53 - 54
Tradeboards list Page 55
Chapter 7 - How to register yourself at a B2B portal Page 56 - 59
Chapter 8 - How to do this - step by step Page 60
A bit about ―Sample Letters‖ Page 61

Step 1 Page 62
Sample Letter 1 Page 63
Step 2 Page 64
Step 3 Page 66
Step 4 Page 68
Step 5 Page 70
Step 6 Page 72
Step 7 Page 74
Step 8 Page 76
Step 9 Page 78
Chapter 9 - The Consulting Agreement Page 79
The Consulting Agreement - when to ask for one? Page 79

The Draft Page 79 - 81
Format 1 Page 81 - 82
Format 2 Page 83 - 84
Notes Page 85
5
Welcome to Global Procurement Consulting
The world of international trade is often misunderstood by many people. It is

often associated with big contracts, big companies, big money, etc. To the lay-
man, international trade is often an unreachable world where only the high
and mighty dare to go in. You need big bucks to go in.
Fast forward to now. Today it is almost unthink-

able to do business internationally without using
the Internet in some way. Such is the power and
the reach of the Internet. And with it, normal peo-
ple like us can easily reach out and make use of
the information available on the Net . International
trade is no longer restricted to a select few.
This Manual will show you the inside secrets, tips, and techniques you need to
know to succeed at starting, running and expanding your own home-based
global procurement consulting (GPC) business.
It contains strategies, secrets and expert advice that would normally cost you
several thousand dollars in consulting fees – or months of ―trial and error‖ on
your own
This Manual also deals with the finer points of doing this business. I will show
you the methods and strategies used to fine-tune this business (especially if
you are dealing with overseas clients) so that you will get the best results in
your dealings. You can expect huge doses of real business experience added
in.
It is very important to always keep in mind that professionalism and integrity

are of the utmost importance in this field. Always think long-term and keep
your clients' interests at heart.
This is the type of business where you can hand it down later to your children
and their children's children. So you must understand its long-term potential.
We believe international trade will be around for quite a long time (we don't
think people will totally stop buying food, cars, machines, etc any day soon)
and as such it is vital that you lay down a proper and do-able plan for your fu-
ture.
This is what global procurement consulting (GPC) is all about. It is a

simple business actually. We are using the information available to
create business opportunities for ourselves and for others, specifi-
cally international buyers and sellers.
Not just any information though. It must be specific enough to make

it valuable. And you must know where to find it, how to find it and
how to use it.
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Global procurement consulting (GPC) is a lucrative business and it has, over

the years, provided me with the means to start and build up my other busi-
nesses. I have always believed in having multiple sources of income. It's a bit
like insurance. If or when one source slows downs or even stops totally, you
will have other sources to rely on or develop. But at all times do keep an open
mind for opportunities can come knocking on your door at any time. That
doesn't mean you have to take on everything though. Be thoughtful, know
your limits and spread it a bit, if possible. "Enrich thy neighbour" and you'll
also prosper.
The information contained in this Manual

is taken from my own personal, practical
experience as a practicing global procure-
ment consultant. This is not textbook
stuff. This is as real as it gets.
You can always refer to my GPC (global procurement consulting) website at

http://www.axisnetonline.com for more ideas on how to run or expand your
own consulting business. Please remember that this is a real and working web-
site from which I do my GPC business DAILY. It is NOT a demo site. Kindly re-
frain from entering any fictitious data in any of the forms there just for the
sake of trying it out . My staff monitors the data inflow for entry into our
global database. For inquiries, you can contact me directly at
max@axisnetonline.com .
I will show you, step by step, how to make money in global procurement con-
sulting from the comfort of your home. Integrity is important if you want to
succeed in this business. As long as you're honest, work professionally and
you deliver what you promise to your clients, then you’ll be OK.
Now let’s get down to some really serious business.
All the best,
Shahrul Nizam Supian
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Introduction
A short message
The Internet is a wonderful place to make money. But you need to learn
how. There is no shortcut to that. There are numerous books, guides and
materials on how to make money on the Net but at the end of the day eve-
rything will come back to you.
You will have to take action because if you don’t, then nothing will happen.
All the reading, learning, dreaming will amount to nothing if you do not take
action. Your life will go on as usual and nothing will change. Take action to-
day while you still have the chance.
So you wanna make money from the Net?
If you really sit down and study the Internet, you will find that
there are numerous ways to generate money using the Internet.
Depending on your interests, you can make money by joining af-

filiate programs, selling digital information products or tangible
products, doing auctions on eBay, joining Google Adsense, stock
trading, doing online MLM, Internet consultancy, etc.
In this Manual we will be concentrating on using the Net to make

money through global procurement consulting. Many people have
not heard about this type of opportunity yet.
Some people might have some idea but I have not

actually seen it written down and offered as a busi-
ness opportunity anywhere on the Net. There is a
good reason for that actually. There are very few of
us who have actually cracked the code in this type of
business and most of us prefer to keep this knowl-
edge to ourselves.
I have kept this knowledge for 12 years now, refining and improv-
ing my techniques over the years. Only on a few odd occasions
have I taught a few of my friends on how to do this business. Most
of them were in dire financial straits at the time and I wanted to
help them out. Most of them are doing well now.
There is a Chinese proverb that goes something like this - ―Give a

man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and he
will feed himself for a lifetime‖. Be prepared to work if you want to
succeed in any Internet business venture(s).
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How to use this guide
This Manual contains instructions on how to start and run a global procure-
ment consulting business from home. You are expected to have some basic
understanding on how the Net works.
I will not be teaching you step by step on how to open a browser to surf
the Net or how to write an email or how to do a webpage. There are many
places on the Net where you can learn about those things or you can use
Google to look up those topics.
Open your mind to new ways of making money
Keep an open mind on this subject. DO NOT expect to get results within a
week as this business will take a bit of time to set up and run properly. One
thing I am sure of when it comes to consulting - if you are really
good then people will come running to you with money in hand (or
in briefcases), make no mistake about that.
A really good consultant is always in demand. Just

name your price. But to get to that level, you will
need to build up your credibility. A consultant is often
a problem solver. Age is never an issue. You can find
consultants in their 20’s up until their 80’s.
Indeed, it is not by mistake that consultants are usually among the highest
paid members of society. Consulting is indeed an art form and a science.
Consulting is not a modern invention, nor is it confined to the offline world.
Please read this whole Manual
Do read this Manual until the end. The various chapters of this Manual are
interconnected. Skip some and you might miss out on some really, really
important business points. Take your time to read through and take notes
where necessary.
Take action now
Take action now. We have already shown you the way. I believe most of
you will already have the items mentioned in the Basic Setup package. That
is all you need to start. Just start it, don’t wait anymore. Start small but
start now.
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Chapter 1
The International Trade Market
Tap into the biggest markets direct from the Net.
The international trade market is huge and is worth trillions of dollars with
products ranging from textiles to food products to plastic components, etc.
It is a very exciting market as it never stops or sleeps. Previously the inter-
national trade market was only accessible to people who dealt with physical
products. It was tough to go into that circle. It was tougher to stay in that
circle. You must be as tough as nails if you wanted to make it in interna-
tional trade at that time.
For many people back then it was almost unthinkable

for international trade to go online. There were just
too many problems, too many parties to work with,
too many vested interests, too many people to deal
with. But many people underestimated the power of
the Internet. The Internet is here to stay. It came
and it slowly conquered international trade down to
its roots.
Today it is almost unthinkable to do business internationally without using

the Internet in some way. Such is the power and the reach of the Internet.
And with it, normal people like us can easily reach out and make use of the
information available on the Net . It is no longer restricted to a select few.
This is what global procurement consulting (GPC) is all about. We

are using the information available to create business opportuni-
ties for ourselves and for others, specifically international buyers
and sellers.
Not just any information though. It must be specific enough to

make it valuable. And you must know where to find it, how to find
it and how to use it.
This is what we are going to teach you in this Manual.
This is a truly global business which you can run from al-
most anywhere as long as there is an Internet connection
available. It doesn’t matter whether you are a college stu-
dent, home maker, plumber, gardener, engineer, manager,
layer, a single parent, a retiree or whatever.
It is flexible enough for you to either do it full time or part

time. With low start-up and operational costs you can easily
do it from home. This guide is here to help you do that.
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This Manual is based on my own real-life, ―deep-in-the-trenches‖ experi-

ences wheeling and dealing in international trade for the last decade. The
―tricks of the trade‖ are well documented in this Manual and it is hoped that
readers will benefit tremendously from them.
Learn from the mistakes I had made before (and please do not repeat them
again) and gain inside knowledge based on my experiences doing business
with people from all over the world.
A bit of history on agents, finders, brokers, reps
So, a global procurement consultant leverages his time, contacts and

knowledge to help buyers find suppliers and vice versa, internationally. Easy
job, anybody can do it, some people might say. Well, it is not THAT simple.
Many people have tried to go into this lucrative business, thinking that
matching buyers and sellers is an easy job. It is , if you know how to do it
properly and systematically. Just like any other business, you need to know
more about the business if you want to really make it. Just because you can
flip a burger does not mean that you can immediately start a business sell-
ing burgers.
Fact - this is a very lucrative field. It is not unusual at all

for a global procurement consultant to make USD
300,000 (or more) each and every year . And many of
us do make more than that.
I have watched with interest the proliferation of agents and sourcing

companies over the last decade. It seems that everyone can claim that
they are able to source for just about anything from anywhere. I beg
to differ. You can match buyers and suppliers but whether you will get
paid is another matter.
The fact is, many people who think of themselves as ―finders‖ or

―brokers‖ do not get paid a single cent and after while simply give up,
saying this field is just too hard and not worth the time and effort.
These are the exact people who give this profession a bad name. They take
short cuts, thinking that they can make a quick buck and exit from the
scene, taking with them the money. Unfortunately, for them, the money
never came.
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Why most of them didn’t make any money
These are actually a part of my ―trade secrets‖. Over the years I have seen
quite a number of people trying to break into this field. Many cited ―It’s the
easiest job in the world, matching buyers and sellers‖ as the main reason
why they chose to do this.
However, after some time, they left. Many found out the hard way that you
need more than just ―matching skills‖ to make this work. I managed to talk
to a few of them and after a while I saw a clear pattern. They kept repeat-
ing the same mistake over and over again but they never realized that they
were making a mistake, even when it was as clear as day that they were
not getting any results from what they were doing.
All that was needed was a slight modification and the results improved tre-
mendously. Below are a few reasons why they didn’t make any money :
Available
They in our
didn’t present Members
themselves Area
to their at
prospective clients
as a ―professional.‖
www.300kconsulting.com
Many of them tried to save costs by not bothering to pre-
pare a professional-looking letterhead. This may sound triv-
ial but it is a BIG mistake. Your letterhead should have that
proper ―professional‖ appearance. Avoid flowery motifs or
colorful graphics or animation. Try to look at a lawyer firm's
letterhead. Yes, a lot of lawyer firms have colorless, blandly
designed letterheads but nevertheless, they do work. Just
one look and people immediately know that this lawyer firm
means business. It's that "serious" tone which you want to
impress on or convey to other people so that they will take
you seriously.
Many of them did not know how to write a proper business

letter.
Business letters are different from normal letters since they

follow a certain "structure" or "format". There is a reason
for that. The "structure" or "format" actually makes it easier
for the person receiving the letter to understand what you
want from him. Keep your letters simple and to the point.
Make your point as clearly as possible and as soon as possi-

ble without being rude or arrogant. If no one can under-
stand what you are writing about or if the receiver has to
"decipher" your letter then chances are your letter will
quickly find its way to the bottom of the waste basket.
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Many of them insisted on having a contract first before pro-

ceeding.
This is by far the number one reason why most of these

―finders‖ or ―brokers‖ never get paid a single cent. No
supplier in his right mind will ever agree to an agreement
with an unknown party. If you insist on doing an agree-
ment first then you will be in for a very, very long wait.
It is a Available
lot better to start with Members
in our formal letters.Area
Company
at let-
ters are the official documents of a company and are
binding on www.300kconsulting.com
the company. The letters themselves serve as
proof that terms are agreed upon and are binding on the
company. They are as good as having a proper agreement.
For the first few deals, it is better to go on a ―per-deal‖

basis as both parties are still new to each other. Letters are
normally used for ―per-deal‖ cases while agreements are
usually used for longer-term cases.
After completing a few deals and if you are comfortable

with them (and vice versa) then you can start to ask them
about doing a time-based consulting agreement with you.
At this stage it will be easier to tackle this touchy subject

as both parties are already familiar with each other. You
know that you can trust them and they know that you are
able to bring them new customers on a regular basis. The
scales are already tipped in your favor at this stage.
Many of them relied too much on email
Email is great as a communication tool. It is by far the

cheapest way to communicate with other people anywhere
in the world. But in this business relying too much on email
alone can sometimes backfire on you. Yes, you can send an
email to a potential client but let it be brief.
Whatever else you want to convey to the potential client,

put it down in writing in a business letter , save it in PDF
format and attach it to that email. Doing this will give you
several advantages :
1) You will separate yourself from other people who will be

trying to get the potential client’s attention.
I can bet that 99% of the inquiries received by the poten-

tial client will come through email. The inquiries will be
typed in just like a normal email message. You, on the
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other hand, will write down your inquiry in a proper busi-

ness letter using your company’s letterhead (make a letter-
head template using Microsoft Word) and save it in PDF for-
mat.
You will then write a simple and brief email, asking the
potential client to refer to the attached PDF file for more in-
formation. By differentiating yourself through this ap-
proach, you will stand out among the many inquiries
received by the potential client.
2) You will look more professional by writing down your

inquiry in a proper business letter
The fact that you put in the effort and the time to write a
proper business letter will tell the potential client that you
are serious about the inquiry. Nobody will spend time writ-
ing a business letter just for fun. It will also tell the poten-
tial client that you prefer to do things properly and profes-
sionally.
3) A formal approach often gets a formal reply
If you send the potential client a proper business letter,

then most probably he will give you a formal reply too. It is
just common courtesy. It also shows great business sense
on the part of the potential client.
This is a really great way to start a business relationship. I

will do business with a sharp, organized businessman any
day. I will, however, think twice about doing business with a
sloppy, disorganized businessman who likes to take short-
cuts in his correspondence with me.
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Chapter 2
Global Procurement Consulting - Unravelling the Mystery
Why choose this business? 16 points to ponder
Listed below are the common features of this global procurement consult-
ing business. Just go through the list below and compare it to what YOU
would like to have in your own business, taking into account your current
situation.
1. It’s flexible.
You can do this full time or part time.
2. Home-based.
You can start this from home and later, if you want to, you can
open up a proper office outside. I still have my home office even
after all these years.
3. Very easy (and cheap! ) lead generation.

There is an almost endless supply of leads at B2B portals dealing
with international trade.
4. Very low start-up costs.

You probably have all the equipment needed already. You will
only need :
- A computer with printer (nearly every household has
one nowadays)
- Internet access
- A telephone line
- Softwares -
Microsoft Office range of programs and a PDF maker
software . If you want to save money, you can use a
free, open-source software called OpenOffice.org from
www.OpenOffice.org . OpenOffice.org’s features are
comparable to Microsoft Office plus it has the ability to
save documents in the PDF format with no additional
software . It can also function as a WYSIWYG editor
for creating and editing webpages.
- A webhosting account – a basic one will cost you

between USD5 to USD10 a month
- A document scanner - a used, second-hand one is OK.
More details on the above items in Chapter 3 under ―The Ba-

sic Setup‖ and ―The Advanced Setup‖ sections.
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5. You can start from scratch .

It's entirely possible to start this business from scratch, zero,
nada, zilch. You simply offset your deficit in international trade
with your other assets (knowledge, contacts, etc) from a business
you already know.
If you're a computer whiz, start out with buyers and sellers deal-
ing with computers. If your turf is chemicals then start out with
buyers and sellers dealing with chemicals. Go with what you al-
ready understand.
6. Your market is global.

When you deal with international trade through the Internet, your
market is global. You can choose to concentrate on just one part
of the world or you can go global with the Internet. The choice is
yours. I chose going global from day one. Do not be afraid about
going global. The world is not such a big place after all.
The Internet has shrunk the world considerably. It has enabled us

to go global right from our own homes through extensive use of
B2B portals from all over the world. They are a treasure trove of
information, ready and available to those who know how to make
use of the information contained in them.
7. You can use this material for years and years.

As long as there is international trade and B2B portals supporting
it then this material will always be relevant and can be used over
and over again. This is definitely NOT a passing trend or fad.
8. You don’t need to know about SEO (search engine optimi-

zation).
This is perhaps the ONLY internet-related business that is truly
independent from SEO, if you wish to take that path. It makes no
difference if you want to leave out SEO entirely from your mar-
keting efforts. Your position in the search engines has very little
effect in this type of business.
9. You are free from the "feast and famine" cycle.

Some info products on the Net such as ebooks suffer from the
"feast and famine" cycle. Initially when launched, sales go up and
up for about a month or so then tapers off. This is especially true
for ebooks which deal with a specific "hot trend". When the "hot
trend" slows down and eventually dies, so do the sales of ebooks
dealing exclusively with that topic. This GPC business is different
as it deals with a market that is continuously moving. Interna-
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tional trade is an evergreen subject. People everywhere still need

to eat food, wear clothes, buy shoes, buy machines, etc. These
are among the things that drive international trade everywhere.
The only thing that affects this GPC business is not the market
but your own efforts - do you want it bad enough?.
10.You are not limited to your own country or region.

Since this GPC business makes use of the Internet and B2B por-
tals extensively then your market is global. This guide will take
you to the next level where now, instead of doing business lo-
cally , you will be going on the BIG hunt – you are going INTER-
NATIONAL by leveraging on the vast resources available on the
Internet .
11.This type of business does not require that you have an in-
timate knowledge of other people in other countries.
A general understanding is often more than enough. As long as
you are respectful of other people and their cultures then you
should be OK.
12.Some people worry that international trade might be af-

fected by recessions, economic slowdowns, etc.
Recessions are just minor glitches in international trading. One
part of the world might be going through a recession but other
parts of the world might be booming at that same, particular
time. Even when deep in a recession, trade never actually stops.
People still need to eat and buy other things. Life will still go on
although at a much slower pace. Do you recollect a time where
the whole world was in recession? As far as I know it has never
happened before, yet.
This business is not affected by all that. We are using the Internet
right?. So, our market is global. If, let's say, right now South East
Asia is going through a recession, America might be booming at
that same time. This was what happened the last time in 1997.
Since you are using the Internet to look for buyers and suppliers,
just go the American market through the Net and look for your
buyers and suppliers there. As simple as that. You can do this
from anywhere in the world as long as there is an Internet con-
nection available. And through the Net you can go to any market
you wish anywhere in the world. If that is not good enough for
you then I have nothing more to say other than ―Good Luck‖.
13.Sample letters are included for your reference.

They are as near as possible to the real thing. I have noticed that
people understand better when they are shown the real thing or
nearly the real thing.
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14.My own secrets revealed.

Many have tried and failed. It's not because the business is com-
plicated. It's quite easy actually but you have to follow certain
steps. Just like driving a car - you have to follow certain steps.
You simply cannot drive the car if you still haven't started the en-
gine. This is one of the main reasons why many people failed in
this venture - they simply cannot follow instructions.
15.There is no need to attract traffic.

The only traffic to your site will be from your potential clients
when they need more information about your company...and that
is more than enough! So you don’t need to buy traffic through
PPC, etc.
16.There is no need to process payments.

Your payments will go straight to your bank account, wherever
that may be in the civilized world. Payments to you will mostly be
done by TT or Wire Transfer so you don’t have to crack your head
dealing with payment gateways, late charges, refunds, etc.
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What is a Global Procurement Consultant?
A Global Procurement Consultant is someone who finds something for a

person or business. He is also known as a professional finder .
What is the difference between a professional finder

and a broker or commissioned salesperson?
A broker or commissioned salesperson gets paid a percentage of the sale

made. Usually, such person acts as an agent for the owner of the goods or
services sold. He becomes actively engaged with the sales process, supply-
ing information to facilitate the sale, negotiates the contract, arranges fi-
nancing, and completes paper work.
On the other hand, a professional finder simply introduces a buyer to a

seller for a fee. He does not become involved in the sales process and is
not an agent acting on behalf of the seller.
Connections are the inventory of a professional

finder. He is being paid to find something of value
by someone who doesn't know where (or doesn't
have the time) to find it. His knowledge of where
and who to get something from is invaluable in-
formation that people are willing to pay for.
As a global procurement consultant he would take it upon himself to iden-

tify wherever the opportunities are and make the necessary approaches to
enable the sellers to sell their products in a specific foreign market or a
number of foreign markets.
He must, at all times, project a business-like, professional image. He would

make sure that all his communications and dealings (telephone, correspon-
dence, letterheads, contracts, et cetera) reflect the professional nature of
his business.
The advantage to the global procurement consultant is that he is able to

earn money from finding a buyer for goods in which he has no capital tied
up. His position is financially risk free - he risks only his time plus the cost
of correspondence and communication. For arranging the sale he will re-
ceive his consulting fee anywhere between 2.5% and 15%. Bearing in mind
that most transactions he organizes will be well into five, six or even seven
figures, in value terms the earnings potential is considerable. And it can all
be achieved without capital, without premises and without risk.
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A global procurement consultant’s sole function is to

introduce and put the manufacturer or seller of the
goods in a position where the seller can close the con-
tract of sale with the buyer. He does not sell the goods
himself - he only introduces both parties and let them
negotiate the terms of the deal. He would not charge
the sellers beforehand for his services. He’ll simply re-
ceive his consulting fee - a percentage of the value of
the order - after the deal is completed and after the
seller has received payment himself.
Why Would A Seller Engage The Services Of A Global Procurement

Consultant?
From the manufacturer's point of view, engaging a

global procurement consultant is often seen as a wise
business move as he is able to win sales in a foreign
market without having to take on any new staff or un-
dertake to commit any more of his own time and re-
sources to the sales campaign. Indeed he is enjoying
the best possible basis for this arrangement - he pays
strictly by results and only after he has received pay-
ment himself.
Just as the business that sells something pays its sales staff, likewise the
seller generally pays the consulting fee. The seller is the one that makes a
profit from the sale and so usually is the one that pays the consulting fees.
The Basis Of The Business
The basis of this business is an understanding between the parties. When

parties agree on something, it is often a meeting of the minds. This under-
standing is later translated into other specific formats such as an appoint-
ment letter or even a formal consulting contract between the "principal"
and the "consultant".
A global procurement consultant needs to understand what these docu-

ments are and how they work. We will cover this further in the manual, to-
20
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gether with a number of actual examples that you will be able to modify to
suit your own requirements.
You need to protect yourself with written documentation

( which may be a simple one page letter agreement ) .
Before you introduce a buyer to a seller, have the seller
acknowledge in writing that they have agreed to pay
you a fee of so much upon successful completion of a
sale.
After obtaining a properly executed written document , inform the person

by written correspondence about the buyer. Document all efforts you have
made to earn your consulting fee. Keep all copies of correspondence and
other written documentation in case it becomes necessary to enforce your
rights later. Proper documentation should help you to avoid any misunder-
standings later on.
Can it be done through the Net?
This is the type of business that most people can only dream of a
couple of years ago. Previously, international trade was notorious for be-
ing a very tough, no-nonsense field where change was often seen as an
enemy. The players were comfortable with existing arrangements and
change was the last thing on their minds.
When the Internet finally conquered international

trade, it also changed the way how some busi-
nesses were done. With the use of softwares and
some slight modifications to the usual business
practices, international trade can be brought to
the small office and later to the home office. Over
the years I have refined some of my techniques
in order to get better results. Yes, it is workable
and I’m living proof of that.
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Can you do consulting without actually meeting your clients?
Yes, it can be done and I have been doing that for the last 12 years. My cli-
ents come from all over the world. It will be next to impossible to actually
go out and see every single buyer or supplier that I want to do business
with. Yes, I do meet some of them from time to time but not everyone in
my global database. With the Internet it is now possible to do business with
people you have never met or talked with.
Consulting is a unique business. We are providing solutions

to specific problems. Our clients want their problems
solved, that is the main issue and we can solve those prob-
lems for them.
Whether we will actually meet the clients in person or not

is not the main issue. Yes, it’s good to build up rapport but
to fly half the world just to see somebody for 15 minutes
just to build up rapport is stretching it a bit. Always keep
the main issue in mind.
This guide is quite different from other courses available in print or through
the Internet where, in most of them, the subject is approached from a very
broad perspective including matching buyers and sellers from newspapers
& magazines, classifieds, manufacturer's directories, etc.
In most cases you will be working with local or regional people. This guide
takes you to the next level where now instead of doing business locally ,
you will be going on the BIG hunt – you are going INTERNATIONAL.
Your job specs
Keep these in mind when you go about doing your work as a

global procurement consultant.
Your job is ONLY to introduce two qualified parties (a buyer

& a seller), step back and let the buyer and seller negotiate
the deal. Let the seller do the selling and let the buyer do
the buying.
You do not try to sell anything, negotiate a sale, mark up

prices, take stock, negotiate the purchase or sale of specific
products or services, etc.
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The chicken and egg question
If this is such a lucrative field, why teach others how to do it? Wouldn’t
they later become your competitors? I have been asked these questions
many times before and this is my answer.
The international trade market is huge and is worth trillions of

dollars. Even if I wanted to, I simply could not corner the mar-
ket because it is so huge. It is like trying to contain the sea
water in all of the oceans. You simply cannot do it due to the
sheer size of the oceans. The same with international trade.
There is more than enough to go around. I simply cannot go
into every market on every continent. Even if I can teach
100,000 people on how to do this business , there is still more
than enough to go around. The market is THAT big.
I wouldn’t mind a bit of competition, in fact all this

while I thrive on beating the competition. It motivates
me to go further and serve my clients better. Yes, I do
make money teaching others, just like other lecturers
make money teaching students in universities all over
the world. I have something of value that they want
and they are willing to pay me for it. This is just plain
economics, nothing fancy about it.
The difference is just that I have done this for quite some time, got my feet
wet in it, made some mistakes and learned from those mistakes (so that
you don’t have to repeat my mistakes), learned some tricks of the trade
( which I will teach you), made some nice money and are now qualified
enough to teach others about it. You tell me, given a choice, would you
learn about making money from somebody with experience or just read it
from a book?
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So, when and how do I get paid?
When a supplier agrees to work together with you then you can start to ne-
gotiate your consulting fees. Do not even mention about your consulting
fees before that.
Your consulting fee shall be by way of commission and shall

be at the agreed rate of X per cent of the invoice price of all
goods sold to the buyer(s) introduced by your company. The
invoice price will serve as the basis for calculating your con-
sulting fee . Whenever the supplier gives out a price quota-
tion to the buyer (which you bring in) your consulting fee is
already figured into that price quotation.
Give some time for the seller to issue your payment once the full payment
for the product is paid by the bank to him. Give him between 7 to 14 days
to send your payment. Many people are OK if payment is made within 10
days. Be exact and put it down in black and white.
Most suppliers will pay you by TT or Wire Transfer

direct to your bank of choice. Start by opening an
account at your local bank and ask your suppliers
to send all payments to your bank account there.
Later on when your income is large enough you might be interested in

opening a bank account offshore( Bahamas, British Virgin Islands, etc)
where you do not need to pay tax on your income. You’ll be playing with the
big boys by then. You can join me there :-)
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INCOTERMS
What are INCOTERMS?
Incoterms are a set of rules for the interpretation of the most commonly
used trade terms in international trade - International Commercial Terms.
They were first published by the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC)
in 1936 and since then have been updated in 1953, 1967, 1976, 1980, 1990
and the current revision 2000.
Parties to a contract are often unaware that there are different trading prac-
tices in their respective countries, for example FOB for an American company
may have a different meaning to FOB for a UK trader. This can lead to mis-
understanding and, in the worst scenario, costly litigation. Incoterms set out
to avoid this problem by giving a set of standard rules that are recognised
throughout the world.
The basic purpose of each Incoterm is to clarify how functions, costs and
risks are split between the buyer and seller in connection with the delivery of
the goods as required by the sales contract. Delivery, risks and costs are
known as the critical points. Each term clearly specifies the responsibilities of
the seller and the buyer. The terms range from a situation in which every-
thing is fundamentally the responsibility of the buyer to the other extreme
where everything is fundamentally the responsibility of the seller.
The Obligations of the Seller and Buyer
The main purpose of Incoterms is to clearly set out the obligations of the
seller and the buyer in relation to the delivery of the goods and the division
of functions, costs and risks related to the delivery. The way this is pre-
sented in each Incoterm is under ten clauses each for the seller and the
buyer, where each clause on the seller's side "mirrors" the position of the
buyer with respect to the same subject matter. For example, clause A3 deals
with the seller's obligations to contract for carriage and insurance and clause
B3 deals with the buyer's obligations to contract for carriage and insurance.
Incorporating Incoterms
It is important to ensure that where the protection of Incoterms is intended

to be incorporated into a contract of sale that an express reference to the
current edition of Incoterms is always made. For example it is not enough to
quote just "FOB Southampton" but instead "FOB Southampton Incoterms
2000" should be used.
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Alternatively, suitable wording can be included in the contract stating that

the contract is subject to Incoterms 2000. However, if this is the case, you
should be careful to ensure that standard contracts, and any other standard
paperwork mentioning Incoterms, are updated to quote "Incoterms 2000"
rather than Incoterms 1990.
Failure to incorporate the correct version of Incoterms could result in dispute

as to which version is intended or indeed if Incoterms were intended to be
incorporated at all.
The Incoterms
The thirteen Incoterms are split into four distinct groups:
Group E - where the goods are made available to the buyer at the seller's
premises;
Group F - where the seller must deliver the goods to a carrier appointed by
the buyer;
Group C - where the seller must contract for the carriage of the goods with-
out assuming risk of loss of, or damage to the goods or additional costs due
to events occurring after shipment;
Group D - where the seller has to bear all costs and risks required to bring
the goods to the place of destination.
The following is a list of all of the Incoterms, the group to which they belong
and a brief outline of responsibilities under that Incoterm. However, it should
be remembered that this is just a brief outline and is not a substitute for
reading and understanding Incoterms 2000 itself. Additionally it has been
noted whether the term is suitable for any mode of transport or just conven-
tional maritime and inland waterway transport.
Group E Departure
EXW - Ex Works
Named place - Any mode of transport
The seller must place the goods at the disposal of the buyer at the seller's
premises or another named place not cleared for export and not loaded on
any collecting vehicle.
Group F Main Carriage Unpaid
FCA - Free Carrier

The seller must deliver the goods, cleared for export, to the carrier nomi-
nated by the buyer at the named place.
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FAS - Free Alongside Ship

Named port of shipment - Maritime and inland waterway transport only
The seller must place the goods, cleared for export, alongside the vessel at
the named port of shipment.
FOB - Free on Board

Named port of shipment - Maritime and inland waterway transport only
The seller delivers the goods, cleared for export, when they pass the ship's
rail at the named port of shipment.
Group C Main Carriage Paid
CFR - Cost and Freight

Named port of destination - Maritime and inland waterway transport only
The seller delivers the goods when they pass the ship's rail in the port of
shipment and must pay the costs and freight necessary to bring the goods to
the named port of destination. The buyer bears all additional costs and risks
after the goods have been delivered (over the ship's rail at the port of ship-
ment).
CIF - Cost Insurance and Freight

The obligations are the same as under CFR with the addition that the seller
must procure insurance against the buyer's risk of loss of, or damage to the
goods during carriage.
CPT - Carriage Paid To

Named place of destination - Any mode of transport
The seller delivers the goods to the nominated carrier and must also pay the
cost of carriage necessary to bring the goods to the named destination. The
buyer bears all additional costs and risks after the goods have been delivered
to the nominated carrier.
CIP - Carriage and Insurance Paid To

The obligations are the same as under CPT with the addition that the seller
must procure insurance against the buyer's risk of loss of, or damage to the
goods during carriage.
Group D Arrival
DAF - Delivered at Frontier

The seller must place the goods at the disposal of the buyer on the arriving
means of transport not unloaded, cleared for export but not cleared for im-
port, at the named point and place at the frontier.
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DES - Delivered Ex Ship

The seller delivers when the goods are placed at the disposal of the buyer
on board the ship, not cleared for import, at the named port of destination.
DEQ - Delivered Ex Quay

The seller delivers when the goods are placed at the disposal of the buyer,
not cleared for import, on the quay at the named port of destination.
DDU - Delivered Duty Unpaid

The seller must deliver the goods to the buyer, not cleared for import, and
not unloaded at the named place of destination.
DDP - Delivered Duty Paid

The seller must deliver the goods to the buyer, cleared for import, and not
unloaded at the named place of destination.
As can be seen this list runs from the term where the buyer has most of the
responsibility (EXW) through to that where the seller has the majority of the
responsibility (DDP). It is worth noting that in Incoterms 2000 the only term
that requires the buyer to clear the goods for export (including obtaining
any export licence necessary) is EXW and the only term that requires the
seller to clear the goods for import (including obtaining any import licence
necessary) is DDP.
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Chapter 3
What do you need to start this business?
The Basic Setup
With the Basic Setup below, you can already start your business.
1.0 - A computer with a printer
The computer is the workhorse in this business. But you don’t actually
need the latest, fastest computer. A decent Pentium 3 or even Pentium
2 computer should be good enough. If you can get a faster one then
you can definitely do more. But for this business you don’t need so
much computing power as you will mostly use it for word-processing
(typing letters, emails, etc) and surfing the Internet for information.
Hook up the computer to a good printer. A

typical inkjet printer would be just fine (and
cheap !) as it can print out letters quite nicely
with sharp, crisp printouts. Try to avoid dot
matrix printers as their printouts are quite
rough on the edges.
Many computers nowadays come bundled with office productivity soft-

wares, normally the Microsoft Office range. They will greatly help you
with normal office work such as writing letters, doing accounts with the
spreadsheet and database, surfing the Internet, sending and receiving
emails, etc. Or if you want to use FREE , open-source softwares, you
can always use OpenOffice.org , available from www.OpenOffice.org . It
can basically do whatever Microsoft Office can do.
2.0 - Internet access
You can do this business the old way by manning the phones , using
telex, etc. But the Internet has opened up new and faster ways to do
business . Most of the communications in this business nowadays are
done through emails and attachments. An Internet connection is needed
but not necessarily at a corporate blazing 1Mbps .
A dial-up connection should do but that is the bare minimum. You can
start with a dial-up account from your local Internet provider. You will
first need a phone line for that. It is cheap but a bit slow running at 56
kbps. It will be enough if you are just starting out but later on when
business picks up it is advised that you move up to a broadband Inter-
net line which is a lot FASTER than dial-up (still using the same phone
line).
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3.0 - One phone line – but preferably two lines.
Why two lines and not just one line? Just look under ―The Advanced
Setup‖ section for more information.
4.0 - Required softwares
Over the years I have integrated more and more of this business to the
Internet. By all means you can still do this the old way (phones/ fax/
telex, etc.) but if there is an alternative which is faster , more conven-
ient and also more effective then why not use that alternative? Soft-
wares can really drive this business to warp speed. It seems that many
computers nowadays come bundled with Microsoft Office. It is for this
reason that I will try to use as many Microsoft Office components as
possible to lower costs. Below is a list of required softwares. I have
also listed the free software alternatives, just in case. Just go through
the list below :
4.1 - An email client for sending and receiving emails.
Paid software –
MS Outlook - a component of Microsoft Office
Free softwares –
Outlook Express
Available in (it
our comes with the Windows
Members Area at operating
system), or
Mozilla Thunderbird –
available at http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/thunderbird/ ,
or
Eudora – available at http://www.eudora.com/ , or
Pegasus Mail – available at http://www.pmail.com/
4.2 - A word-processing software for writing all your letters and

correspondence.
Paid software –
MS Word - a component of Microsoft Office .
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Free software –
Available
Writer in our
- a component of Members Area
OpenOffice.org at at
, available
http://www.OpenOffice.org .
OpenOffice.org is a free, open-source software with fea-
tures that are comparable to Microsoft Office plus it has the
ability to save documents in the PDF format with no addi-
tional software . It can also function as a WYSIWYG editor
for creating and editing webpages.
4.3 - A spreadsheet software for reading product lists, specs, etc

in spreadsheet format.
Paid software –
MS Excel - a component of Microsoft Office
Free software –
Available
Calc in our
- a component Members Area
of OpenOffice.org . at
4.4 - A presentation software for doing your own company

presentations or for reviewing other company’s presentations.
Paid software –
MS PowerPoint - a component of Microsoft Office
Free software –
Available
Impress in ourofMembers
- a component Area
OpenOffice.org . at
4.5 - A contact management software for organizing all your
contacts, schedules and appointments.
Paid softwares –
MS Outlook - a component of Microsoft Office , or
Goldmine Standard Edition –

available at http://www.goldmine.com/. Currently I’m us-
ing Goldmine although it is an older version. It is very reli-
able though. Just like MS Outlook, it integrates contact
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management functions with a built-in email client. So what-

ever information you received by email can be quickly trans-
ferred to the contact management side or linked together to
show the history. Very convenient.
Free software –
ForteAvailable
CRM Solo - in our Members
available Area at
from http://www.fortecrm.net .A
New Zealand- based company. Their CRM package features a
neat and simple user interface. They have also integrated
their contact management functions with a built-in email cli-
ent. They also have the Professional and Enterprise versions
(paid versions) . The free version has some limitations
though.
4.6 - A PDF maker software
Why use the PDF format?
The PDF format is the standard used by businesses now. In-

vented by Adobe Systems and perfected over 15 years, Adobe’s
Portable Document Format (PDF) lets you capture and view ro-
bust information — from any application, on any computer sys-
tem — and share it with anyone around the world. More than
200 million PDF documents on the web today serve as evidence
of the number of organizations that rely on Adobe PDF to cap-
ture information.
PDF files look exactly like original documents and preserve

source file information — text, drawings, 3D, full-color graphics,
photos, and even business logic — regardless of the application
used to create them. . It cannot be changed by another party
therefore it maintains the integrity and validity of documents
such as quotations, agreements, confirmation of orders, etc. It
saves on delivery/courier costs as it can be easily sent as an
email attachment.
Paid softwares –
Adobe Acrobat - for reading/ creating PDF format docu-

ments. There are other cheaper softwares for creating
PDF documents out there which you can use . Personally
I prefer using Adobe Acrobat due to its tight integration
with MS Office range of products. It is a bit expensive
but over the long run it saves me a lot of time and hassle
as it is straight forward and fast to convert Office docu-
ments to PDF files using Adobe Acrobat.
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Free softwares –
Available
PDF995 in at
– available our Members Area at
http://www.pdf995.com/ , or
Writer, Calc and Impress - components of OpenOf-
fice.org - these softwares have the ability to create PDF
files on their own without any additional softwares.
5.0 - A website – with a professionally designed look
Having an Internet presence is no longer an option . It is a must if you

are serious about doing this business. One good thing about the Internet
is that it offers everybody a level playing field. Information is just a click
away.
Please do not use free websites. They usually come with

advertisements. They might be OK for personal websites but
as a business website, it’s a definite NO, NO. It will make your
business look cheap.
Register an Internet domain name as close as possible to the name of

your business. You can do that through many registrar websites. After
that get a webhosting company to host your site and you are already on
your way. Or to make things simpler there are many webhosting com-
panies offering webhosting AND domain name registration as a package.
Register today and you can be up and running in 2 or 3 days.
The companies below can help you with webhosting AND domain name
registration as a package –
http://www.exabytes.com
http://www.hostgator.com
http://www.thirdsphere.com
It is a fact that most people you contact will never know or even heard of
you or your business. How do you convince them that you and your
business are for real? Having a valid, professionally designed website on
the Internet is one of the quickest ways of bringing credibility to you and
your company.
The keyword here is ―a website with a professionally designed

look‖. Keep in mind that most times the only image your
potential clients have of your company is through your
company’s website. You might be running a one-man show but
if your website has a professionally designed look, you can
easily project a ―big company‖ image over the Internet.
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If you are competent you can do it yourself. Even from day one I decided
to do my own website designing. I started from scratch but I managed to
do a decent website in under one week. The trick is how to make it look
as if a professional website designer has done it. You will catch up fast
when you begin to look at other professionally done websites. Get a pro-
fessional web designer friend (there must be at least one among your
friends!) to comment on your design and change accordingly. Believe
me, it will make a BIG difference.
Of course if you have some money to spend then you can ask
a professional web designer to design your website. Budget
around $500 for a 10-page website. Again, compare the work
done with other professionally done websites.
Finally, please do not forget to have a contact info page listing

down your company name, address, phone and fax numbers,
company email address and if possible a contact person with
his own email address. It is surprising how many people do not
have this vital info at their websites. It is like trying to sell a
car without any showroom or contact address. Would you buy
a car from somebody who you do not even know how to
contact?. Highly unlikely.
6.0 - A document scanner

Preferably a flat-bed scanner. A used, second hand one is ac-
ceptable (just don’t forget the installation CD that comes with
it - otherwise you cannot connect it to your computer! ). You
might need to scan some documents from time to time. I
have one that is actually a ―4-in-1‖ printer. It can print,
scan, copy and fax. I save a lot of desktop space with it.
Technology is great !
In the USA, on average a brand new ―3-in-1‖ printer that can print, scan
and copy costs around $80 while a brand new ―4-in-1‖ printer that can
print, scan, copy and fax costs around $120 . You can get a second hand
one at around 50% of what you pay for a new one.
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The Advanced Setup
The Advanced Setup is actually an addition to the Basic Setup. While you
can already start your business with the Basic Setup, it will help your busi-
ness tremendously if you have these ―extras‖ below. Some of them are op-
tional items initially but in time you will find that having them around will
really help your business grow. My advice is this – when you get your first
payment, try to get these ―extras‖ first.
1.0 - A good company name
It is not really necessary to have a company but it is better to have one

as it will project a more business-like image of yourself and how you do
business. Projecting the right image is important as there are very few
upfront, face-to-face meetings due to the different geographical loca-
tions of all parties involved.
It is more expensive to set up a corporation but it has

its advantages over time especially in terms of tax and
liabilities. As for me, I have been using a sole-proprietor
company from day one and until today I have no
problems with that. You can start small by first using a
sole-proprietor company (which is a lot cheaper) and
later on changing it to a corporation to better protect
your interests.
A good company name is important. As much as possible, try to avoid

using the words "Trading", "Enterprise", etc . Remember that with the
Internet, your market is global. Do not confine yourself to the borders
of your own country. Choose an "international" sounding company name
such as ―Quest Consulting‖ or ―Quest International‖ or ―Quest Re-
sources‖.
I have found from experience that company names

which sound like the names of lawyer firms ( Solomon
West Partners, IDG Associates, PreeceCardewRider
International Partners, etc ) carry a better image and
decorum when you approach potential clients . Building
a good business image is vital if you want to stay for
long in any business and it usually starts with a good
company name.
I discovered that even my own company’s name – AXISnet Global Ven-

tures, sounds quite a mouthful after a while. So we started calling it
AGV and the name sticks until today. We have branched out to include
other subsidiaries such as AGV Media, AGV Direct, etc. Right now they
are all under the AGV Group of Companies. The brand name is already
there for us. We have incorporated a few while some are still under
―sole-proprietor‖ status.
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2.0 - A fax machine
A fax machine is optional initially but as business picks up there might be

a need for it .
Fax machines are usually left "ON" all the time as you never know when a
fax will come in. You might be sleeping now but your supplier at the other
side of the world has just finished his lunch and is ready to send you that
very important fax document. Fax machines are designed to work con-
tinuously all the time (OK, they may burn their fuse once in a while but
that’s very rare) . They draw very little power in their "Standby" state,
therefore producing very little heat in that state. This is why they can last
so long.
You can also install a fax program (such as WinFax) in

your computer to handle the faxes. But there is a slight
disadvantage in using your computer for long periods of
time to send or receive your faxes. Your PC is not
designed for continuous operation unlike a server. Try
leaving it "ON" for four continuous weeks and it will
definitely go 'kaput' very fast, not to mention the amount
of heat generated and power consumed during that time.
You can turn your computer "ON" during your working

hours but when you switch it "OFF" then no fax will come
in during that time. That is the risk you have to take if
you rely solely on your PC to send or receive your faxes.
If you think the risk of you not getting an important fax

is too great then I would suggest that you get yourself
a fax machine as soon as you can afford one. It is well
worth the investment. A used, second-hand one would
be just fine. Just test it first before you buy it to make
sure everything is working.
3.0 - A broadband Internet connection
Why go broadband? Simple - as business picks up you will receive more

documents through your email and that will require faster Internet con-
nections. It would be better to have more "juice" especially if you are go-
ing to have suppliers sending you pictures of their product catalogs in JPG
format as email attachments.
How long would it take to download a 5 MB email

attachment using a dial-up connection? Sometimes
hours. Not to mention if your server suddenly timed you
out - then you will have to start all over again. You
don’t want to spend an hour waiting for a client’s letter
to download through your email, do you?.
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A basic broadband account running at 256kbps is quite

enough for most businesses running with 5 staff or less.
You can get faster broadband later on when the need
arises.
Another thing about dial-up connections - when you are using a dial-up
connection, you cannot use the same phone line for anything else. In
other words when you are surfing the Internet using a dial-up connec-
tion , you cannot make calls or receive calls. If somebody calls you at
that time, all they will get is a ―phone engaged‖ tone.
With broadband it’s different. You can still make or

receive calls while surfing the Internet. A broadband
―modem‖ separates data and voice into two different
―channels‖ so that you can use both data and voice at
the same time. This is the main difference between
dial-up and broadband.
Keep in mind also that with a dial-up connection, you are normally
charged per minute. That means the longer you use it, the more you
have to pay. With broadband you are normally charged a flat fee with
unlimited access. It doesn’t matter if you want to use it non-stop 24
hours for a whole month, you will still pay the same flat rate.
If you are a heavy user I would suggest you go broadband as it will

save you a lot of money in the long run. Broadband connection prices
have gone down a lot lately, in some places comparable to dial-up con-
nection prices. So it would do you a lot of good if you shop around first
and compare the various packages offered by the different Internet ser-
vice providers in your area.
4.0 - Two phone lines instead of just one phone line
You will need to include your contact numbers on your company’s offi-
cial stationery ( letterheads, invoices, faxes, business cards, payment
vouchers, etc). By all means you can just use one line for your phone
AND fax but have you noticed how some companies try to avoid doing
business with companies with just one phone AND fax line?
It usually comes down to the image you want your

company to project to its potential clients. Companies
with one phone AND fax line are often perceived as
one-man shows with very limited business capabilities.
In other words if these companies cannot even afford a
separate fax line for their business then how strong are
they financially to do business with other companies? It
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may look trivial but it is no laughing matter as many

companies have learnt it the hard way through lost
business, etc.
Having two separate lines, one for phone, the other for fax is the stan-
dard for any business. You might want to save some money by having
just one line for BOTH phone AND fax but in the long run you will defi-
nitely lose more.
If you are doing business from home, get an extra line

for your company’s main business line and use your
existing home line as the company’s fax line. Hook up
your home line to the fax machine and set the fax
machine to automatically differentiate between fax calls
and phone calls. Most modern fax machines have this
feature built into them. So if a fax call comes in, the fax
machine will go into ―RECEIVE‖ mode and print out the
fax. If a normal phone call comes in then the fax
machine will continue ringing until someone picks up
the call just like a normal phone.
If you have children, train them to answer the calls polite or if it really is
a fax call, then train them to recognize the fax tone and press the "Fax
Start" button to enable the fax to go through. I highly encourage a
separate business line on top of your existing home line, minimum.
Why not use the home line for business calls? Having
children around the house is usually the main factor
why I do not encourage this practice. It would definitely
not sound professional if Baby Andrew answers a
business call.
Technology is wonderful, isn’t it? Use it to your advantage.
5.0 - Business letterheads and business cards
Why are these items not included in the ―Basic Setup‖ list?, you might
ask. After all you will be sending out letters to potential clients.
Yes, you will be sending out letters to potential clients.

But you are sending them out as email attachments,
not physical letters that require physical company
letterheads.
Just do a standard template of your company letterhead

using a word-processing software like Microsoft Word
and save it as a template. Every time you want to write
a letter to a potential client, just use that template, put
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in the contents of the letter and save it using the PDF

format. With this format the letter can only be read but
not amended or changed. And it can be sent as an
email attachment – saving you time and delivery costs.
―What about the business cards? Every business man must have them‖
This is perhaps the only business in the world where making business
cards for yourself is an option. Most of the time you will be dealing with
people who are thousands of miles away from you. Very rarely will you
actually meet them in person. It took me nearly 2 years to finish a box
of business cards(100 pieces of cards). I actually used most of those
business cards doing business with local business people.
Use good quality paper with a professional looking logo

for your company stationery. You only need two types
of stationery to be printed at your local printing
company - your company letterheads (you still need to
write official letters once in a while) and business cards.
The others( invoices, receipts, etc) can be set up in
your computer and only printed out when needed.
6.0 - A home office
I would advise you to start small. Start from home part-time while still
holding on to that day job . Build up the business systematically (that’s
what I am teaching you here ! ) so that you will get paid for your time
and effort. For some people a home office can be any available space at
home. They tend to spread things around - the computer here, the tele-
phone there, the reference file near the window, the printer under the
table, etc. It’s a big mess. If possible try your best to avoid that situa-
tion. This is a real business so treat it accordingly. Try to set up a spe-
cific work place, whether it is an extra table in your kitchen or just a
small corner in your living room .
Let everyone in the house know that it is your work

space and a "No Go" area. Keep your things together
and if possible put a small partition around your work
area to separate it from the other areas.
This is done to keep you from becoming distracted with

the going-ons when you are doing your work. Get
yourself a filing cabinet and use it. Show the wife that
you can get organized and chances are she will support
you this time, unlike the last time …....
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7.0 - A business center account
Make arrangements with a nearby business center to have

your calls transferred to their center when nobody answers
your business line at home . Unanswered calls is high up
on that list of why people don't want to do business with
you. Yes, you can transfer unanswered calls to your mobile
phone but it can be very expensive over time. It is defi-
nitely a lot cheaper to have somebody at the business cen-
ter take your calls. They will do it professionally and you do
not have to worry about missing calls while you are out.
What the business center will do basically is answer your calls, tell the
caller that you are in a meeting or not available at the moment, etc, and
take down a message from the caller. You can either collect the mes-
sage by calling up the business center yourself once or twice a day, OR
make arrangements with the business center to email your messages
to you , maybe once a day, which is cheaper. I was paying about RM 50
or USD 15 a month for the service which was dirt cheap compared to
hiring a full-time receptionist.
8.0 - A courier account
Contrary to popular belief, opening an account with a courier company

is painless and quick and can even be done by fax ( this is true in Ma-
laysia but might not be true in other countries, please check first ). Just
be sure to open an account with a well known company like FedEx, TNT
or UPS.
Apart from getting better service, it will also give a better image of your
company. How is that? In certain parts of the world it is next to impossi-
ble to open an account with the big courier companies mentioned
above, unless you have a certain volume of business. In those places
having an account with any of the above companies means that your
company is no longer a ―small business‖. Yes, their rates are normally
higher but trust me, it is well worth it.
Anyway you will rarely use their service, maybe two or

three times a year for sending those very, very urgent
documents. Most of the time, normal mail is more than
enough as the bulk of your communication will be
through emails and attachments.
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9.0 - Optional softwares
Copernic Agent Basic - for searching multiple search engines at the same
time. This software is free.
Address Grabber - for easier data collection and integration from emails.
Eudora - it is safer to have all your incoming emails in two email clients.
This serves as your backup email client. Keep a copy of all your incoming
emails in it. I have been saved a couple of times before by this simple
act of having a backup copy of my emails in a different email client.
NetObjects Fusion - a very powerful but simple software for making pro-
fessional-looking webpages.
Adobe Photoshop - for editing images.
MailWasher Pro - for checking your emails at the server. It will show de-
tails on the mail sender, subject, file size, etc so that you can decide
whether you want to download the whole message or just delete it while
it is still at the email server. Great for discovering spam and unwanted
emails. Why waste valuable bandwidth by downloading unwanted mes-
sages?
Measurement Converter software - handy for calculating measurements,

e.g. from cubic meter to cubic feet, liters to gallons, etc.
Winzip - for opening and creating Zip files.
10.0 - Legal documents
We will only do an agreement with a supplier when both parties are com-
fortable with each other. In other words, we have seen how they work
and they have seen how we work. There is no point asking for an agree-
ment upfront. To us, an agreement is a meeting of the minds. Both par-
ties must be comfortable with each other.
We normally use our standard agreement with our

suppliers with slight changes done to accommodate
certain terms and conditions. We are happy to say that
until today, we have been taken advantage of by a
supplier only once. Not a bad record at all considering
that we have been doing this since 1996. Our
solution to that was also simple – instead of going to
the courts, which will take years to complete, we simply
took our business to another supplier in our database.
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We informed the buyer accordingly who, upon

confirmation, immediately stopped all future transactions
with that particular supplier and took his business to a
new supplier which we later recommended. We are not
short on suppliers in our database so we can almost
immediately recommend another one in cases like this.
We believe in keeping our part of the bargain and make ourselves a

valuable partner to our suppliers. We believe, in business, all parties
must be treated fairly. Prove yourself valuable to your business partners
and they will treat you fairly. There will always be some bad hats who
will try to be unfair to others. Whatever it is, you always have a choice.
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Chapter 4
Start this business part-time
First of all, just because I want you to start this business part-time DOES
NOT mean that this is a ―small time‖ business. Later on you will learn the
true potential of this business. Over the years I have slowly integrated
more and more of this business to the Internet. You can still do it the old
way but it will be long and tedious, something which the Internet has man-
aged to simplify and accelerate dramatically due to its sheer size and reach
across the world. I have tested many softwares over the years and found a
few which are so useful that I’d be like a duck out of water without them.
There are a few reasons why I want you to start this business part-time –
I just want you to start
There’s no need for you to get everything in one place first before you
start . THAT is the beauty of this business. You can even start today! I
did just that with a second hand PC back then with a very moody moni-
tor that turned ON and OFF by itself. It was THAT bad! When I got my
first payment, I bought a second-hand fax machine and I got rid of
that monitor for good. Just start somewhere. Take action today! The
journey of a thousand miles starts with but a single step.
Most of us still have a job to hold on to
Do this business after dinner or after all the kids are asleep, etc. Build it
up slowly until you make enough to let go of your day job. Or keep the
job and let this business generate a side income for you. I know a few
guys whose side income is many times their fixed salary but they still
keep their day jobs. It’s up to you if you wish to do that.
You still think that you don’t have enough experience
This is the most common excuse given. I have a cure for that. For a
rough idea on how big this international trade thing is, just go to http://
www.fita.org . FITA stands for The Federation of International Trade
Associations. They claim to be the source for international import export
trade leads, events, and links to 8,000 international trade (export im-
port) related websites. They are huge.
So far they are the most comprehensive content

reference site on the Net dealing with international
trade. Just go through with an open mind and you will
realize that this international trade thing, when
combined with the Internet and done properly can give
you handsome returns over the years.
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Just imagine - a 3% consulting fee from a USD 1 million contract will

net you USD 30,000. And that is just for ONE deal. Don’t tell me you’re
going to do only one deal a year ( well, you might, if it’s big enough).
But you must work on it. This is definitely not a get-rich-quick scheme.
Read this guide, digest its contents and you will definitely learn from my
experience. I will tell you what mistakes not to make and how to answer
some very tough questions from potential clients. I believe if you read
this guide from cover to cover, you will have more than enough experi-
ence to start this business. But work on it, you must, my young
Padawan.
You don’t have the time. You have many other commitments
So do a zillion other people. Truth is, everybody has exactly 24 hours in

a day, not one minute more, not one minute less. How you fill those 24
hours is a different story. It depends on how much you want it. Just like
a boy who wants his first bike. If he really wants it, he will work on it –
he’ll deliver newspapers, wash cars, etc. The human spirit can do won-
ders once it has set its mind on something.
Start with just one hour a day after dinner. Instead of

watching the television, fire up your computer at home
and do this. How do you finish a jumbo-sized pizza?
Right – one bite at a time. Nobody is really THAT busy.
Most times it’s just a matter of shifting around some
activities and priorities to make time for this. Just try it
for a couple of days.
You don’t adjust well to changes
Just imagine this scenario. Many people who have comfortable jobs
think they are doing OK. But exactly how many months away are you
from financial ruin if let’s say, suddenly you have an accident and could
not work anymore? There are bank loans to pay on your car and your
house and maybe a few other financial commitments including credit
cards. Just how long can you last without a paycheck coming in?
Research has indicated that for many people they are

just three(3) months away from financial ruin if they
stopped receiving their paychecks. Pretty scary, isn’t it?
If you are faced with something like that head on, are
you willing to make changes?
See how easy this ―I don’t adjust well to changes‖

question can be turned around?
Don’t wait for that to happen. Make changes now while
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you still can. Start with small changes first. Yes, there
will be sacrifices in life. That’s life, so what? Deal with it.
Other people make bigger sacrifices in life.
People do change over time. So why not change for the better? Since this
business can be started part-time, why not give it a go? You’ll be surprised
how far you can go.
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Chapter 5
Where to look for potential clients?
There are a few sources where you can look for potential clients. Listed be-
low are the sources and their respective pros and cons. By all means you
can always turn to other sources but in this guide I will only concentrate on
one readily available and low-cost source, i.e. , B2B portals.
There is a reason for that. B2B portals have an almost endless supply of
trade leads for lead generation. Go to one of the big ones like Alibaba.com
and you will understand just how huge the information source is. More on
the sources below :
Option 1 - Local and overseas trade directories
Trade directories are expensive to buy especially foreign ones. These are
usually heavy books which cost a bomb if you want them to be delivered to
you from any country. The info inside might be a bit dated.
Option 2 - Tradeshows
Tradeshows are held all over the world. Going to tradeshows is expensive
with traveling expenses covering accommodation, transportation, food, etc.
You will also spend a lot of time going places. Definitely not a good way to
start a business.
Option 3 - Government bodies or foreign trade missions
You will need tons of patience dealing with red tape. Government bodies
sometimes like to pass the buck to another department. Expect some pa-
per shoving and given the run around from time to time.
Foreign trade missions are usually located in really big cities. Expect some
traveling and yes, please, please reconfirm your appointment again with
the trade mission officer one hour before the meeting. Many of them are
notorious for not showing up on time. Count yourself as very lucky if you
manage to see him or her on your first try.
Option 4 - B2B portals or tradeboards
So far, using B2B portals is the cheapest, simplest,

most effective way of starting a business relationship
with somebody who is half the world away. You can
start this business on your kitchen table in your jam-
mies if you want to. Just load up your PC , start your
browser and you are on your way . There are thousands
and thousands of tradeleads at the tradeboards.
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Chapter 6
B2B portals – your international money making playground
What are B2B portals?
B2B portals are places or sites on the Internet where information, products
or services are exchanged between business to business(B2B) rather than
between business to consumers(B2C).
B2B portals can be sorted into several groups :
Company web portals

Since the target audience for many company web portals is other com-
panies and their employees, company portals can be thought of as
round-the-clock mini-trade exhibits. Sometimes a company web site
serves as the entrance to an exclusive ―extranet‖ available only to cus-
tomers or registered site users. Some company web portals sell directly
from the site, effectively e-tailing to other businesses.
Product supply and procurement exchanges, where a company

purchasing agent can shop for supplies from vendors, request propos-
als, and, in some cases, bid to make a purchase at a desired price.
Sometimes referred to as e-procurement portals, some serve a range of
industries and others focus on a niche market.
Specialized or vertical industry portals which provide a "sub-web"

of information, product listings, discussion groups, and other features.
These vertical portals have a broader purpose than the procurement
portals (although they may also support buying and selling).
Brokering portals that act as an intermediary between someone want-

ing a product or service and potential providers. Equipment leasing is an
example.
Information portals which provide information about a particular in-

dustry for its companies and their employees. These include specialized
search portals and trade and industry standards organization portals.
Many B2B portals may seem to fall into more than one of these groups.
Models for B2B portals are still evolving.
What we are interested here are B2B portals dealing with international
trade. There are quite a number of them.
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What are ―tradeboards‖?
The common feature among all these B2B portals is – they all have ― Buy‖
and ―Sell‖ boards in them. These are also known as ―tradeboards‖.
It is a bit like the noticeboard at 7-Eleven or a community hall noticeboard

where people will write something on a piece of paper and stick it on those
noticeboards. The same here at these tradeboards. The boards are often
categorized under different product groupings so it is easier for you to look
for things in there.
A ― Buy‖ board is a place where you put up your ―buy‖ offers. A ― Sell‖
board is a place where you put up your ―sell‖ offers.. These tradeboards are
where all the action is. Buyers and sellers flock to these tradeboards to ei-
ther look at who is selling what or who is buying what. These tradeboards
are the main focus point of these B2B portals. Without them, the B2B por-
tals will just be giant product catalogues with very little traffic. Definitely
not a good way to make money.
How do tradeboards work?
Let’s say Mr.A wants to buy 100 MT(metric tonne) of sugar with certain
specifications. He will go to this B2B portal or ―tradeboard‖, register first as
a free member, and post his‖buy‖ offer at the ―Buy‖ board. Instead of writ-
ing it down on a piece of paper, Mr.A will fill up an online ―buy‖ form at that
site and after filling in all the details/specifications, he will just click on the
―Submit‖ or ―Post‖ button at the bottom of the form and voila! his ―buy‖
offer will be posted on the ―Buy‖ board for all to see.
Then somebody (let’s call him Mr.B) who sells sugar looks up at the ―Buy‖
board and happens to see Mr.A’s ―buy‖ offer . He will just click on the offer
and he will see Mr.A’s specifications. ―Aha! I can supply Mr.A according to
his specs‖ , said Mr.B.
So he clicks on the ―Contact Buyer‖ button and a contact form will appear.
Mr.B fills in the form giving his company’s contact details and a short mes-
sage to Mr.A . Then he clicks on the ―Send‖ button at the bottom of the
form and that’s it.
Mr.A will receive Mr. B’s message in an email and if he wants to pursue the
matter further he will reply that email. This will start the communication
between both men, buyer and seller. If everything goes well , a transaction
will follow later. That’s it. As simple as that.
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Where do I come in?
You might be wondering where you can come in.
The fact is, buyers and sellers are often very busy people. They might have
an hour or two daily to spend at the tradeboards but they simply do not
have the time to go around and scour through the tradeboards looking at
offers or making offers all day long. There are hundreds of tradeboards all
over the Internet with thousands of offers being made everyday by people
from all over the world. To go to each one of the tradeboards and reply to
the offers will take them days or even weeks.
Remember, tomorrow the same cycle will happen again. More offers will
come in again from all over the world. And they’re not even finished yet re-
plying to today’s offers! Yes, that’s what I mean by the endless leads you
will be receiving day in, day out. It is very easy to be overwhelmed by all
this. The trick is to know exactly what to do with such an avalanche of of-
fers without burying yourself under it.
Here is where YOU, as a global procurement consultant, can

come in. Many buyers and sellers know that they have a gold-
mine on the Internet. But there is one BIG problem. The Inter-
net is just so huge, the tradeboards have so many offers to
look at, the offers to follow up are just as many - how and
where should they start?. Many of them just sit there, not
knowing what to do next. They are just overwhelmed by the
mountain of follow-up work to be done. It is a monumental
task. After a while they simply give up and just wait there for
somebody to contact or approach them first about doing busi-
ness together. Here is where you go in and make life easier
for them.
This has happened countless times to so many buyers and sellers. This is
what you get when you go in without a plan. The information overload is
real. Just trying to keep up with the tradeboards is sheer madness.
I went through this situation before but luckily I managed to make sense of
it and made my exit. I sat down again, did a study on the workings of the
tradeboards, analyzed the various problems from different angles and came
up with a plan . That took me nearly three months to complete but I finally
cracked the code. It’s all here in this guide.
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A finder’s heaven
If you look at the tradeboards for the first time, you will believe that you
are in finder’s heaven. So many postings with so many buyers and sellers
from all over the world. They are worth millions, you might say. Quite a
number of finders have sat down infront of their computers for hours and
hours replying to every new posting that comes online at the tradeboards.
That is crazy and I, for one, do not think that is a very clever way of doing
business.
Keep in mind, though, that not all tradeboards are busy with people. From
the hundreds of tradeboards on the Internet, only about 30 to 40 of them
are busy ones. From that small list only about 10 of them are considered as
―really busy‖.
Some tradeboards, especially the active ones, can have up to 500 or more
new postings per day in each of them. The biggest tradeboard currently is
Alibaba.com . No, this has nothing to do with genies or magic lamps. This is
a real, alive and kicking tradeboard, making millions of dollars with nearly
3,500 staff. If you want to cover the active tradeboards alone, you will not
have enough hours of the day. You will be physically exhausted within 3
days if you do that . I know that, I have done it before. Let me give you
some advice……
The REALLY BIG secret
Remember,
Available in our at B2B portals the
Members money
Area atis
not actually in the latest or newest buyer
postings .
From my experience when a new posting comes out everybody will be try-
ing to get their hands on it. It is not uncommon to find a new posting at-
tracting 30, 40 or even more responses within the first 3 days of posting.
Some buyers are just overwhelmed by the response rate . It will definitely
take time to sort out the offers. Some will be real offers, others just time-
wasters. The buyers will have to sort them out one by one.
The real money is in the archives.
Look for postings that are up to nearly a year old. Anything between a
month old to a year is fair game. Why ?
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Available
With in our
postings that Members
are between 1 to 2Area
monthsatold, the buyer usu-
ally has sorted out the real
www.300kconsulting.comoffers from the time-waster offers. He
will usually by now get a rough idea of what a fair offer should
be after going through the mountain of offers earlier. If you ap-
proach him now you will stand a better chance of having your of-
fer noticed and considered especially if your offer is better than
whatever he has in hand.
With postings that are between 2 to 12 months old , chances are

they have already picked a supplier and have a fair idea of the
supplier’s performance. Surprisingly quite a number of buyers will
be disappointed with the performance of their suppliers. A few of
them may even encounter some ―suppliers from hell‖. Of course
they will not admit it but when your offer comes through at that
time they will quietly thank their lucky stars. Hey, buyers are hu-
man beings too. If a supplier screwed up in a grand way, guess
whose head will be on the chopping block next ?. Ouch ! You can
be that white knight.
Any postings more than a year old – let them go. Yes there is still
Available in our Members Area at
a chance that their suppliers might become complacent. After all
the orders are coming every month. A few of the suppliers might
take the business relationship for granted. This is rare however as
the business relationship matures. You can try but from my ex-
perience so far, the response rate is not that encouraging. You
get better results from postings below a year old.
Qualify your contacts
Sooner or later when you go through the offers at the tradeboards, a ques-
tion will come to mind. ―There are so many offers but which one is genu-
ine?‖. You will learn fast that some of them are not really genuine offers
but are made by other brokers or agents or reps. How to differentiate the
genuine offers? . Simple - QUALIFY your contacts.
―QUALIFY your contacts‖ DOES NOT mean running credit checks and back-
ground investigations on them. If you do that with every single contact you
find at the tradeboards then you will find that it is going to be a very ex-
pensive exercise.
Available in our Members

―QUALIFY Area
your contacts‖ at means that you must
simply
satisfy yourself that the ―buyer‖ is a buyer, and the
―seller‖ is a seller.
And, that the ―seller ‖ is offering the specific product or service that the
buyer wants.
In other words, you must know that both the buyer and the seller are
―principals‖ and are not third parties (brokers, agents or reps).
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Why is this important?
I have learned from experience that generally, working together with other
third parties (brokers, agents, reps) is just a waste of time. I might be
wrong there but after working with a few of them in the past, I’ve come to
the conclusion that the best way to go is to work with the ―principal‖ buyers
and sellers directly. Don’t worry, there are plenty of them out there. The
principals easily outnumbered the third parties by 1,000 to 1.
Many third parties will try to tempt you by offering you big contracts.
Sadly very few of them work out. I should know because I do get
their offers from time to time.
They know that I already have a global database of international

buyers and reliable suppliers. That is my goldmine. They know that
and they want to tap into it simply because many of them do not
have a database like that. I still work with some third parties though
but there are just 3 or 4 of them. It took a long time before I can
trust them. Generally speaking, I don‟t usually work with third par-
ties.
How do you find out? Simple - ASK !
Some people have this phobia when told to ask questions. They seem to
think that the answer will always be negative. I’ve come across a few of
them. When I tell them to just ASK , they tell me that it’s not proper and
that they might offend the other party. What’s wrong asking somebody "Will
the payment be made by your company or a third party?‖. If they cannot
even answer a basic question like that, then you are better off working with
somebody else.
Do not introduce them to your client(s) until you are satisfied that they are
who they claim to be .
In most cases, QUALIFYING your contacts is a straight forward affair.
Actually you can look at their correspondence with you and from there dis-
cover some things which are just ―not right‖ . Things like a product brochure
with the name & address covered and the contact’s name & address rubber
stamped over it, a one-month wait for a simple product sample, a two-
week waiting period for a technical question to be answered, a sudden price
jump that cannot be negotiated down, etc
When in doubt, ASK!
52 TOC
Area here
How to advertise your company at B2B portals effectively
Looking for suppliers through B2B portals is not actually rocket science. It
takes a bit of common sense and an understanding of how tradeboards
work. Generally there are two ways to do this ;
1. If your buyer already has his own specifications then just search through
the product archives at those B2B portals. A list of potential suppliers will
be generated and you can inquire those suppliers directly through the
site on whether they can supply according to your buyer’s specifications.
Remember – do not release any of your buyer’s details to the suppliers
yet at this point, just give them the specs and nothing else.
2. A general notification to potential suppliers informing them that you are

on the lookout for more suppliers. From time to time we do look for more
suppliers as backup to our existing suppliers.
Below is our own listing in EC21.com and Alibaba.com looking for suppliers.
It is a general notification to potential suppliers. Most B2B portals ( see
EC21.com sample below) allow this type of posting .
53 TOC
Area here
Some B2B portals ( example - Alibaba.com) however do not allow this type
of posting as they want you to put your offer under a specific product head-
ing. If that is the case then just add some specific product specs to the ex-
isting offer and amend the topic to reflect that ( see our listing sample at
Alibaba.com below)
54 TOC
Area here
Tradeboards list
Top 15 Tradeboards Worldwide :
Alibaba Chinalocator
www.alibaba.com www.chinalocator.com
Allproducts Trade Easy

www.allproducts.com www.tradeeasy.com
Asian Sources
www.asiansources.com
Allactiontrade
www.allactiontrade.com
EC21
www.ec21.com
EC Trade
www.ectrade.com
ECEurope
www.eceurope.com
EC Plaza
www.ecplaza.net
AsianNet
www.asiannet.com
Offer21
www.offer21.com
Rusbiz
www.rusbiz.com
SW365
www.sw365.com
TTNET
www.ttnet.net
TradeIndia
www.tradeindia.com
Taiwan Manufacturers
www.manufacturers.com.tw
55 TOC
Area here
Chapter 7
How to register yourself at a B2B portal
Choose a B2B portal which you are interested in joining. Most of them offer
a free membership for beginners. You don’t need to pay but you do have to
register with them first before they let you use their portals. In this example
let us use EC21.com .
a) Open the website at http://www.ec21.com/
b) Click on ―Join Free‖ as in the picture below
c) You will see the page below
56 TOC
Area here
d) Just fill in the blanks. Click the ―Go‖ button.
e) You will be taken to the page below. Choose‖Basic Membership‖ (which is

free) . Click the ―Go‖ button at the bottom.
57 TOC
Area here
f) Next you will be taken to the Basic Service Agreement page. Click on the
―I agree‖ box near the bottom. Then click ―Next Step‖.
g) Fill up the company information form accordingly.
58 TOC
Area here
h) Once everything is OK, you will receive an email from EC21.com confirm-
ing your username and password. Keep that in a safe place.
i) You are now a registered member of EC21.com . With that you are given
access to certain parts of that site. Since Basic Membership is free, there
are certain limitations imposed by EC21.com . If you want to use more fea-
tures at EC21.com you can upgrade to the other paid memberships (Trade
OK and Trade PRO) available at that site. Personally I have been using their
Basic Membership for years. Whatever is offered at that level is good
enough for me.
59 TOC
Area here
Chapter 8
How to do this - step by step
This is the part where I will show you how this is done, step by step. Sam-
ple letters are included to make it easier for you to understand. I will try to
make the letters as similar as possible to the real ones.
For this example,
Preece Cardew Rider International Partners is the Global Procurement

Consultant
SouthWest Aluminium Industry (China) Co., Ltd. is the Supplier
Bluedot Metals (Singapore) Pte., Ltd. is the Buyer
All parties mentioned are just fictitious names. This is just an example.
NOTE :
Remember that all letters sent out must
be in PDF format. You can easily include
pictures or graphics (JPG,GIF files) in PDF files.
Preparing your letterhead template
Just do a standard template of your company let-

terhead using a word-processing software like Mi-
crosoft Word and save it as a template. Every time
you want to write a letter to a potential client, just
use that template, put in the contents of the letter
and save it using the PDF format. With this format
the letter can only be read but not amended or
changed. And it can be sent as an email attach-
ment – saving you time and delivery costs.
60 TOC
Area here
A bit about ―Sample Letters‖
First of all, let me just clear the air on this " Sample Letters" issue…
I’m actually a bit reluctant to share the following ―samples‖ with you, be-
cause I don’t want you to simply ―copy and paste‖ the whole thing ( some
people do that). Well, maybe you can do that with Sample Letter 1 because
it's just an opening letter but for the others, please be a bit more creative.
You can definitely buy some ready-made proposal tem-

plates out there and ―copy and paste‖ them into your let-
ters. But please remember every potential client is differ-
ent. You can use those ready-made templates as a guide
but don't simply "copy and paste" the contents 100%. Try
to personalize a bit. It will make a big difference.
61 TOC
Area here
Step
―Always find it first‖
1. You read a posting from a supplier in a B2B portal that says, ―FOR
SALE — 10,000 MT Aluminium Sheets.
2. www.300kconsulting.com
You prepare and send a letter to the supplier (see Sample Letter 1 on
next page) requesting information( prices, terms, etc).
Only request relevant information. DO NOT re-

veal anything else. At this stage DO NOT reveal
that you are a consultant, etc. As far as the
supplier knows, you are a possible buyer. This
is very important . If you missed this one,
then rest assured you will get very few re-
sponses.
Some people like to include their company’s background and

history during the first contact. Big mistake. The first contact
Available
should be brief andin our Make
simple. Members Area
THE OTHER atfeel im-
SIDE
portant bywww.300kconsulting.com
asking for more information on THEIR company.
Do not start by telling them how BIG your company is, how
popular your services are, etc. Nobody likes to be told that
his company is a ―small company‖ even if it’s true. Start a
business relationship by being respectful of the other party.
62 TOC
Sample Letter 1
Preece Cardew Rider International Ltd

3, The Hangar, Perseverance Works,
Waterson Street, London E2 8HE
United Kingdom
Tel : 020 7613 1537
Fax : 020 7613 1629
Email : info@pcrinternational.com
SouthWest Aluminium Industry (China) Co., Ltd.

135, Shixiang Road, Hangzhou City,
Zhejiang Province, 310004 China
Att : Mr.Chen Jianping - Sales Director 22nd January 2007
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---
Dear Mr. Chen,
Available
RE : Your advertisement in our -Members
in Alibaba.com Area
Aluminium sheets at
for sale
With reference to the above we would like to get more information on the above( specifications,
payment terms, delivery schedule, etc).
Thank you for your prompt attention.
Yours truly,
Andrew Rider
Managing Director
Email : rider@pcrinternational.com
63 TOC
Area here
Step
There are two possibilities at this stage.
1. If the supplier does not respond then move on. Face the facts - some
people just hate replying letters (yes, there are business people who
are like that !). Get over it and just move on.
2. If the supplier responds then most probably you will get a reply with
the information details as you requested (see Sample Letter 2 on next
page) .
3. In a way, by sending out a formal business letter you are literally

―qualifying‖ the supplier. The fact that you put in the effort and the
time to write a proper business letter will tell the supplier that you are
serious about the inquiry.
A formal approach often gets a formal

reply. It is just common courtesy. It
also shows great business sense on
the part of the supplier. And often it
is always easier to do business with
people who observe common cour-
tesy in their dealings.
64 TOC
Sample Letter 2

SouthWest Aluminium Zhejiang Province, 310004 China
Industry (China) Co., Tel : 86-571-85378768
Ltd Fax : 86-571-85372351
Email : sales@swaluminium.com.cn

Waterson Street, London E2 8HE,
United Kingdom
Att : Mr.Andrew Rider

Managing Director 24th January 2007
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---
Dear Mr. Rider,
RE : Your inquiry on Aluminium Sheets
We would like to thank you for your inquiry on our Aluminium Sheets. We produce the Aluminium
Available
Sheets ourselves atin
oneour
of ourMembers Areain at
manufacturing facilities Hangzhou. We have included the details
below as per your request. Kindly go through and should you have any questions, kindly contact
me directly at 86-571-85378788 or at jianping@swaluminium.com.cn .
Product Name: Aluminum Sheets

Place of Origin: China
Specifications:
1) Material : 1050, 1060, 1100, 3003, 5186, 8011

2) Temper : H111
3) Thickness : 0.12~0.25
4) Width : 790 - 1,300mm
5) Dimensions can be as per clients' specifications
Available in our Members Area
6) Good plasticity and conductivity at
7) Generally used in industrial www.300kconsulting.com
and construction applications
Price : To be advised based on volume

Quantity : Our production capacity is 10,000 MT per month .
Inspection : To be arranged by the buyer
Payment : By Irrevocable Sight L/C
We also accept orders for smaller quantities.

We are also able to supply you Aluminium Sheets with other different materials, tempers and thick-
nesses according to your specs. Our full range extends well beyond the abovementioned range .
Hoping to hear from you soon.
Regards,
Chen Jianping
Sales Director
65 TOC
Area here
Step
1. Go to yourAvailable
favourite B2Bin our Members
portal(s) Area
and find those at who may
buyers
be interested inwww.300kconsulting.com
buying Aluminium Sheets.
Remember, at B2B portals the money is not

actually in the latest or newest buyer postings .
The real money is in the archives.
Look for postings that are up to nearly a year old. Anything be-
tween a month old to a year is fair game. Why ?
With postings that are between 1 to 2 months old, the

buyer usually has sorted out the real offers from the
time-waster offers. He will usually by now get a rough
idea of what a fair offer should be after going through
the mountain of offers earlier. If you approach him now
Available inaour
you will stand Members
better Areayour
chance of having at offer no-
ticed and considered especially if your offer is better
than whatever he has in hand.
With postings that are between 2 to 12 months old ,

chances are they have already picked a supplier and
have a fair idea of the supplier’s performance. Surpris-
ingly quite a number of buyers will be disappointed with
the performance of their suppliers. A few of them may
even encounter some ―suppliers from hell‖. Of course
theyAvailable
will not admitin ourwhen
it but Members
your offerArea
comes at
through
at that time they will quietly thank their lucky stars. Hey,
buyers are human beings too. If a supplier screwed up in
a grand way, guess whose head will be on the chopping
block next ?. Ouch ! You can be that white knight.
Any postings more than a year old – let them go. Yes
there is still a chance that their suppliers might become
complacent. A few of the suppliers might take the busi-
ness relationship for granted. This is rare however as the
business relationship matures. You can try but from my
experience so far, you’ll get better results from postings
below a year old.
2. Contact those buyers and make the offer with details received
from the supplier in step 2 (see Sample Letter 3 on next page) .
66 TOC
Sample Letter 3

United Kingdom
Tel : 020 7613 1537
Fax : 020 7613 1629
Bluedot Metals (Singapore) Pte., Ltd.

287, Pandan Loop #07-26,
Singapore 128384
Att : Mr. Tony Laredo - Commercial Director 27th January 2007
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----
Available
Dear Mr. Laredo, in our Members Area at
RE : www.300kconsulting.com
Offer for sale - Aluminium Sheets
We are pleased to advise that we currently have Aluminium Sheets with the specifications below :
Product Name: Aluminum Sheets

Place of Origin: China
Specifications:
1) Material : 1050, 1060, 1100, 3003, 5186, 8011

2) Temper : H111
3) Thickness : 0.12~0.25
4) Width : 790 - 1,300mm
5) Dimensions can be as per clients' specifications
6) Good plasticity and conductivity
Available
7) Generally used in industrial inapplications
and construction our Members Area at
Price : To be advised based on volume
Quantity : Production capacity is 10,000 MT per month .
Inspection : To be arranged by the buyer
Orders for smaller quantities are also accepted.

The full product range extends well beyond the abovementioned range . Aluminium Sheets with
other different materials, tempers and thicknesses are also available. If you are interested in ac-
quiring these Aluminium Sheets, please advise us promptly.
Thank you for your consideration.
Regards,
Andrew Rider
Managing Director
67 TOC
Area here
Step
1. If one of your buyers (or more) shows an interest, they will send
you a letter stating that they would be interested in buying ―x‖
amount of Aluminium Sheets , or asking for a sample, etc (see
Sample Letter 4 on nextin
Available page)
our. The main ideaArea
Members here isat
to get the
buyer to write down what he wants.
2. When you receive this letter, print it out and make a photocopy of
it . Blank-out the buyer’s name & address on the photocopied ver-
sion using a black marker pen and then scan it into a JPG file.
The scanner will scan the letter into digital format

so that it can be transmitted through the Net. A
JPG file is a graphics or picture file with a .jpg
extension at the end of it ( example - buyerlet-
ter.jpg ) . This JPG file is now your proof to show
to the supplier that you DO have a real buyer.
(Do not forget to blank-out the buyer’s name &
address first! )
If you do not have a scanner, just run to the

nearest photo-processing shop and ask them to
scan the modified letter for you in JPG format.
They will scan it for you and give you a diskette
AvailableorinCD our Members
with the JPG file in it.Area atto pay for
You need
it though (maybe a dollar or two)
Actually if you are using Adobe Acrobat, you can blank-out

certain parts by using a customized black stamp and later
changing the document’s security setting to ―password-
protected‖ to disallow further changing and commenting. But
this depends on the document’s initial security setting,
whether it has been ―password-protected‖ in the first place or
not. If that was the case then you cannot change it anymore.
This can be a bit complicated as there are many variations to
the security settings. To be on the safe side, just use the
method mentioned above although it involves a bit more
work for you.
68 TOC
Sample Letter 4
Bluedot Metals (Singapore)

Singapore 128384
Telephone : 65--67781765
Fax : 65--67781906
Email : metals@bluedotmetals.com.sg
Preece Cardew Rider International Partners

3,The Hangar, Perseverance Works,
Waterson Street, London E2 8HE ,
United Kingdom
Attention :
Mr. Andrew Rider
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----
Dear Mr. Rider,
RE : Your Offer for Sale - Aluminium Sheets
We refer to your letter to us dated 27th January 2007 regarding your offer for the sale of Alumin-
ium Sheets. We are currently looking for Aluminium Sheets with the specifications below
1 - Aluminium Sheets
Material: 5186 H111
Dimensions: 4.5 X 2000 X 6000 mm
Quantity: 1,000 MT + / -10%
2 - Aluminium Sheets
Material: 5186 H111
Dimensions: 5.28 X 2000 X 6300 mm
Quantity: 1,000 MT + / -10%
Price : Please quote us a fair price (CIF Singapore) and the estimated delivery time
Inspection : By SGS
We look forward to your reply.
Regards,
Tony Laredo
Commercial Director
Email : laredo@bluedotmetals.com.sg
69 TOC
Area here
Step
1. Prepare the next letter to the supplier.
2. In this next letter to the supplier (see Sample Letter 5 on next

page), just state that you have a possible buyer for some of their
AluminiumAvailable in our
Sheets . As proof thatMembers
you DO haveArea
a real at
buyer , at-
tach a copy of your www.300kconsulting.com
buyer’s letter (remember the JPG file from
Step 4 with the blanked-out parts? That’s the one . Insert that JPG
file into this letter).
3. Finally, tell the supplier that, if he will authorize a consulting fee

upon closing a sale with your buyer, you will be glad to put him in
touch with the possible buyer.
4. Please use the term ‖consulting fee‖ instead of ―commission‖ —

the term ―commission‖ has been so fouled up by bungling begin-
ners and amateurs that it is no longer a good idea to use the term
in referring to your fees.
70 TOC
Sample Letter 5

United Kingdom
Tel : 020 7613 1537
Fax : 020 7613 1629

Att : Mr.Chen Jianping - Sales Director 29th January 2007
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----
Dear Mr. Chen,
RE : Aluminium sheets
Available
Currently in our
we have a contact whoMembers Area aat
is interested in acquiring sizeable amount of Aluminium
Sheets (please see attached buyer letter with specs). Please confirm that you can supply accord-
ing to these specs.
If you will authorize a consulting fee to us upon closing a sale to our contact, we will be glad to put
you in direct contact with this potential buyer.
Thank you for your consideration. We await your reply.
Yours truly,
Andrew Rider
Managing Director
71 TOC
Area here
Step
1. If the supplier agrees then you will get a letter from the supplier
authorizing your consulting fee (see Sample Letter 6 on next
page) .
Keep this letter in a safe place. This is a valuable document.
2. If the supplier refuses to authorize a consulting fee, then move on

to other suppliers. Don’t lose any sleep on that. Some suppliers
only work with a distribution network and do not deal directly with
other parties. They usually state this policy very clearly in a busi-
ness relationship. There’s nothing you can do about that - it’s their
company policy. Just move on to other suppliers.
Available
3. From time in the
to time vary ourcontent
Members
of your Area at test their
letters and
effectiveness by measuring the response for each variation. This is
what ―testing‖ is all about.
Never assume that your letter is perfect and the supplier is the
one to blame if you do not get a good response. Maybe the con-
tent of your letter is the main cause for the whole problem. You
will just never know until you do the test. Some variations will pull
in more responses than others. Learn from these.
72 TOC
Sample Letter 6

SouthWest Aluminium Zhejiang Province, 310004 China
Industry (China) Co., Tel : 86-571-85378768
Ltd Fax : 86-571-85372351
Email : sales@swaluminium.com.cn

Waterson Street, London E2 8HE,
United Kingdom
Att : Mr.Andrew Rider

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----
Dear Mr. Rider,
RE : Authorization for Consulting Fee
Thank you for your letter dated 29th January 2007 regarding a potential buyer for our Aluminium
Sheets. We thank you for your efforts in finding a buyer for our products.
We confirm that we can supply according to their specs.
We have no problems authorizing a consulting fee to your company upon closing a sale to your
contact. But we will only pay your consulting fee when we have received the full amount of the
contract. Normally we pay out around 2.5% of the contract‟s FOB value. Is this figure agreeable
with you?
Should you have any questions, kindly contact me directly at 86-571-85378788 or email me at
jianping@swaluminium.com.cn .
Hoping to hear from you soon.
Regards,
Chen Jianping
Sales Director
73 TOC
Area here
Step
1. Prepare a letter to the supplier formally accepting the consulting fee of-
fered in the supplier’s letter in Step 6 (see Sample Letter 7 on next
page). Include a copy of the buyer’s original letter (from Step 4) , also
Available
in JPG format. This is the in
full our
buyerMembers Area
letter, NOT the one at
with the blanked
-out parts. www.300kconsulting.com
2. You might have noticed that in the last letter, the supplier only author-
ized your consulting fee but he didn’t say anything about when you will
be paid, etc. For all you know, the supplier might only pay you two
years down the road since nothing was mentioned. When negotiating for
your consulting fee, there are FOUR main components you need to re-
member -
- the payment amount
- when the payment will be made
- the mode of payment ( by check or TT / Wire Transfer)
- who will bear the associated costs of that mode of payment
3. Since nothing is said yet about when you will be getting your consulting
fee, you can casually mention it in this next letter.
4. Half of thewww.300kconsulting.com
battle has already been won when the supplier authorized
your consulting fee. Getting the other half is not that difficult.
5. Just suggest to the supplier a reasonable time frame - within two weeks
after everything is settled is OK. Don’t be pushy. Think long-term. There
are more deals to cut in the future.
6. Personally I prefer payments made by TT / Wire Transfer than by

checks. It will cost more to pay by Wire Transfer but it will be faster and
more secure. Tell the supplier that you will absorb the associated costs
for the Wire Transfer. Suppliers generally do not want to fork out more
than what they have to so don’t make an issue out of it. Just offer to
absorb the Wire Transfer costs and let this issue rest. They are not that
much anyway and they can be deducted directly from your consulting
fee.
Sample Letter 7 on the next page should give you an idea on how to handle
this.
74 TOC
Sample Letter 7

United Kingdom
Tel : 020 7613 1537
Fax : 020 7613 1629

Att : Mr.Chen Jianping - Sales Director 31st January 2007
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----
Dear Mr. Chen,
RE : Consulting Fee Details
Thank you for your letter dated 30th January 2007 authorizing a consulting fee to our company
upon closing the sale to our contact.
We agree with your terms in that letter including the figure for the consulting fee (2.5% of the con-
tract‟s FOB value). Normally we are paid by Wire Transfer (TT) within 14 days after the transaction
is completed. We will absorb the Wire Transfer costs, of course, which will be deducted from our
consulting fee. We hope you are agreeable with this arrangement.
Attached, you will find a true copy of the letter we received from our buyer expressing their interest
in buying Aluminium Sheets.
Buyer details
Contact name : Mr. Tony Laredo - Commercial Director
Company name : Bluedot Metals (Singapore) Pte., Ltd.
Address : 287, Pandan Loop #07-26, Singapore 128384
Telephone : 65--67781765
Fax : 65--67781906
Email : laredo@bluedotmetals.com.sg
You are advised to contact Mr. Tony Laredo as soon as possible as he is expecting a call from you
in this regard.
Again, thank you for your kind consideration. We look forward to a long and profitable relationship
with you and your company.
Thank you for your prompt attention.
Yours truly,
Andrew Rider
Managing Director
75 TOC
Area here
Step
1. Send a letter to the buyer advising that the seller will contact
them directly (see Sample Letter 8 on next page).
2. Include a copy of the supplier’s

Available in our original offer letter
Members to you
Area at(from
step 2). This is the full supplier letter, NOT the one with the
blanked-out parts.www.300kconsulting.com
Just scan this letter into JPG format and attach
it together with the letter above. This time the buyer will be able
to see the full document, not the blanked-out one sent earlier.
3. This may sound trivial but what you are doing here is actually try-
ing to reinforce the buyer’s perception that you ―walk your talk‖.
In a world where anybody can claim anything, you will stand out
as someone who has good work ethics and can be trusted to de-
liver results. This is part of the ―credibility building‖ exercise which
you have to do all the time while in business. Differentiate yourself
from others and chances are people will remember you.
76 TOC
Sample Letter 8

United Kingdom
Tel : 020 7613 1537
Fax : 020 7613 1629
Bluedot Metals (Singapore) Pte., Ltd.

Singapore 128384
Att : Mr. Tony Laredo - Commercial Director 31st January 2007
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----
Dear Mr. Laredo,
RE : Supplier Details
Thank you for your letter dated 29th January 2007 regarding your interest in buying Aluminium
Sheets. We have found a supplier who is able to supply according to the specifications you have
given in that letter
Attached, you will find a true copy of the letter from our supplier offering the Aluminium Sheets.
Supplier Details www.300kconsulting.com
Contact name : Mr. Chen Jianping - Sales Director
Company name : SouthWest Aluminium Industry (China) Co., Ltd.
Address : 135, Shixiang Road, Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province, China 310004
Telephone : 86-571-85378768
Fax : 86-571-85372351
Email : jianping@swaluminium.com.cn
Mr. Chen will be contacting you soon in this regard.
Again, thank you for your kind consideration. We look forward to a long and profitable relationship
with you and your company.
Yours truly,
Andrew Rider
Managing Director
77 TOC
Area here
Step
1. WhenAvailable
the deal is concluded, the supplier will
in our Members Area sendat
your consulting
fee payment by Wire Transfer , per his letter to you (from step 6)
2. Follow this procedure for the first few deals. I know it is a bit long-
winded but we want to make sure that you will get paid after the
deals are completed.
3. The exchange of letters to and fro between you and the buyer and
supplier will at least show them that you do your work profession-
ally and you prefer everything to be in black and white.
4. The paper trail left behind will also serve as a reference should
your supplier decides not to pay you. If you decide take him to
court for non-payment of your services then you will have proof to
back your claims. This is, of course, the last resort.
5. Generally suppliers will pay you accordingly. Always keep your

part of the bargain . Prove yourself valuable to your business part-
ners and they will treat you fairly.
6. After Available
completing a infewour
dealsMembers Area
and if you are at
comfortable with them
(and vice versa) then you can start to ask them about doing a
time-based consulting agreement with you. At this stage it will be
easier to tackle this touchy subject as both parties are already fa-
miliar with each other.
78 TOC
Area here
Chapter 9
The Consulting Agreement
The Consulting Agreement - when to ask for one?
After completing a few deals and if you are comfortable with them (and vice
versa) then you can start to ask them about doing a time-based consulting
agreement withAvailable
you. At this in our
stage Members
it will Area
be easier to tackleat
this touchy sub-
ject as both partieswww.300kconsulting.com
are already familiar with each other. You know that you
can trust them and they know that you are able to bring them new custom-
ers on a regular basis. The scales are already tipped in your favor at this
stage.
Company letters are official documents of a company and are

binding on the company. The letters themselves serve as
proof that terms are agreed upon and are binding on the
company. They are as good as having a proper agreement.
For the first few deals, it is better to go on a ―per-deal‖ basis

as both parties are still new to each other. Letters are nor-
mally used for ―per-deal‖ cases while agreements are usually
used for longer-term cases. No supplier in his right mind will
ever agree to a consulting agreement with an unknown party.
If you insist on doing a consulting agreement first then you
will be in for a very, very long wait. It is a lot better to start
with formal letters.
NoticeAvailable in ourwithout
how we first started Members Area
asking for at
a consulting agreement from
the supplier. There were just exchanges of letters with specific details
between you and the supplier. This is how it should be done.
The Draft
The draft comes in two formats. Suppliers can choose either one which suits
them best but the content is basically the same. In this sample I’m using
AGV as the global procurement consultant.
Format 1 :
This format is the typical standard agreement format where both parties,
after agreeing to the terms and conditions, will sign and stamp the agree-
ment . The agreement will be done in duplicate with each party keeping one
copy for reference. Click on the link below to see a copy of the agreement.
http://www.axisnetonline.com/consultingagreementv1.html
79 TOC
Area here
Format 2 :
In this format the formal agreement is integrated into an appointment letter

using the supplier’s company letterhead where the supplier appoints AGV as
its Global Procurement Consultant with similar terms and conditions as
those in the formal agreement above. There is a section where AGV will ac-
cept or decline the appointment. The appointment letter will be done in du-
plicate with each party keeping one copy for reference. Click on the link be-
low to see a copy of the agreement.
http://www.axisnetonline.com/consultingagreementv2.html
Please go to pages 81 and 83 for copies of the draft in both formats.
80 TOC
Format 1 :
This CONSULTING AGREEMENT is entered into by and between the following Parties:
************************************************
Mr. Zhang Ming Way, referred to as the "Supplier", doing business as, Zhejiang Huasheng
Resin Chemical Industry Co., Ltd., with a principal address at :
No.10, Shanquan Road , Huangyan City , Zhejiang Province , 318020 China.
When used hereafter, the term "Supplier" shall refer to: Zhejiang Huasheng Resin Chemical
Industry Co., Ltd.
************************************************
Mr. Shahrul Nizam Supian, referred to as the "Consultant", doing business as, AXISnet
Global Ventures, with a principal address at :
2721-1 , Jalan Sepakat , Taman Berlian , 53100 Gombak , Selangor , Malaysia .
When used hereafter, the term "Consultant" shall refer to: AXISnet Global Ventures..
************************************************
A. THE PARTIES HERETO desire to enter into an agreement for the purpose of arranging
suitable Buyer(s) for the Supplier's product line(s).
B. THE PARTIES AGREE that this document is binding on the Parties hereto, including
their principals, employees, representatives, agents, assignees, heirs and successors, and
is limited to the terms set forth herein. The Parties also agree that this document embodies
the full and complete agreement of the parties, and no amendments, alterations, or modifi-
cations shall be effective or binding upon the Parties hereto.
C. THE PARTIES FURTHER AGREE that this Agreement shall be terminated only by a
written amendment attached to this agreement, signed by all Parties hereto or their heirs,
successors or assignees. On termination of the Agreement, payment will be made only in
respect of orders finalized or closed on or before the termination date and which are subse-
quently completed and paid for. Save for any special payments the aforesaid shall repre-
sent the sole remuneration to be receivable by the Consultant who will bear his own opera-
tional costs and expenses.
D. THE SUPPLIER SHALL UNDERTAKE :

(i) to open a separate sales account for the Consultant (known as the "Consultant‟s
Account" ) whereby all Buyers sourced , developed and secured by the Consultant
shall be put under this account ;and
(ii) to keep the Consultant informed of all matters likely to affect the sales of product(s)
and to inform the Consultant of all changes in availability of product(s) , price
structures and conditions of sale; and
(iii) to keep the Consultant informed of business matters concerning the Buyers under
the “Consultant‟s Account” such as all orders and inquiries received , action taken ,
payments received , etc ;
81 TOC
E. FOR THE PERFORMANCE OF THE CONSULTANT in introducing a Buyer to the Sup-
plier, for the purpose of purchasing the Supplier‟s product line(s), the Supplier agrees to
compensate the Consultant according to the rates listed below -
All orders including repeat orders - Consulting Fee of 5.5% of the invoice price of all goods
sold to the Buyer or Buyers sourced by the Consultant. This is applicable as long as the
Buyer is/ Buyers are still buying the goods from the Supplier.
The Supplier further warrants and promises to make the payment to the Consultant via a
Telegraphic Transfer into the Consultant„s banking account within THREE(3) business days
after receiving the full payment from the Buyer/Buyers.
F. NON CIRCUMVENTION, NON DISCLOSURE CLAUSE. The Supplier agrees not to cir-
cumvent the commercial relationship between the Consultant and the Buyers that the Con-
sultant is actively engaged in negotiations with. Including but not limited to; avoiding, or by-
passing due payments or divisions of commissions or fees, in connection with this Agree-
ment.
Furthermore, the Supplier and Consultant irrevocably agree that they shall not disclose or
otherwise reveal any confidential information provided by one party to the other, particularly
non disclosure of contract terms, confidential product information, propriety or confidential
manufacturing processes, confidential product pricing schedules, commission rates and
fees, contact details or financing arrangements.
BY THEIR SIGNATURES below, the signing Parties avow that they are duly empowered by
their respectively named companies to bind them to the commitments and obligations con-
tained herein.
Supplier to be known as :
Name : Mr. Zhang Ming Way

Company : Zhejiang Huasheng Resin Chemical Industry Co., Ltd.
Address : No.10, Shanquan Road , Huangyan City , Zhejiang Province , 318020 China.
Supplier Signature : _________________________ Date : _____________
Printed Name : ______________________ Company stamp :
Consultant to be known as :
Name : Mr. Shahrul Nizam Supian

Company : AXISnet Global Ventures
Address : 2721-1 , Jalan Sepakat , Taman Berlian , 53100 Gombak , Selangor , Malaysia .
Consultant Signature : ________________________ Date : _____________
Printed Name : ______________________ Company stamp :
82 TOC
Format 2 :
Supplier‟s Company Letterhead
To:
AXISnet Global Ventures
2721-1 , Jalan Sepakat , Taman Berlian ,
53100 Gombak , Selangor , Malaysia
Att : Mr. Shahrul Nizam Supian
Director - Operations
Date: March 10, 2002
Ref : Appointment as Global Procurement Consultant
With reference to the above we hereby appoint AXISnet Global Ventures as our Global Procurement
Consultant effective from March 10, 2006 . The terms and conditions for the appointment are as
listed below :
When used hereafter, the term "Consultant" shall refer to : AXISnet Global Ventures .
A) The appointment of the Consultant is for the purpose of arranging suitable Buyer(s) for our prod-
uct line(s).
B) This document is binding on the Parties hereto, including their principals, employees, representa-
tives, agents, assignees, heirs and successors, and is limited to the terms set forth herein. This docu-
ment embodies the full and complete agreement of the parties, and no amendments, alterations, or
modifications shall be effective or binding upon the Parties hereto.
C) This appointment shall be terminated only by a written amendment attached to this appointment
letter , signed by all Parties hereto or their heirs, successors or assignees. On termination of the ap-
pointment, payment will be made only in respect of orders finalized or closed on or before the termina-
tion date and which are subsequently completed and paid for. Save for any special payments the
aforesaid shall represent the sole remuneration to be receivable by the Consultant who will bear his
own operational costs and expenses.
D) We will undertake :
(i) to open a separate sales account for the Consultant (known as the “Consultant‟s Account” )
whereby all Buyers sourced , developed and secured by the Consultant shall be put under
this account ;and
(ii) to keep the Consultant informed of all matters likely to affect the sales of product(s) and to
inform the Consultant of all changes in availability of product(s) , price structures and
conditions of sale; and
(iii) to keep the Consultant informed of business matters concerning the Buyers under
the “Consultant‟s Account” such as all orders and inquiries received , action taken ,
payments received , etc ;
E) FOR THE PERFORMANCE OF THE CONSULTANT in introducing a Buyer to us, for the purpose
of purchasing our product line(s), we hereby agree to compensate the Consultant according to the
rates listed below -
All orders including repeat orders - Consulting Fee of 5.5% of the invoice price of all goods sold to
the Buyer or Buyers sourced by the Consultant. This is applicable as long as the Buyer is/ Buyers are
still buying the goods from us.
83 TOC
We further warrant and promise to make the payment to the Consultant via a Telegraphic Transfer
into the Consultant„s banking account within THREE(3) business days after receiving the full payment
from the Buyer/Buyers.
F) NON CIRCUMVENTION, NON DISCLOSURE CLAUSE. We agree not to circumvent the commer-
cial relationship between the Consultant and the Buyers that the Consultant is actively engaged in ne-
gotiations with. Including but not limited to; avoiding, or bypassing due payments or divisions of com-
missions or fees, in connection with this appointment.
Furthermore, the Supplier and Consultant irrevocably agree that they shall not disclose or otherwise
reveal any confidential information provided by one party to the other, particularly non disclosure of
contract terms, confidential product information, propriety or confidential manufacturing processes,
confidential product pricing schedules, commission rates and fees, contact details or financing ar-
rangements.
BY THEIR SIGNATURES below, the signing Parties agree that they are duly empowered by their re-
spectively named companies to bind them to the commitments and obligations contained herein.
Authorized Signature , Company stamp :
------------------------------------------
Name : Mr. Zhang Ming Way

Job Title : Managing Director
Date : March 10, 2006
Company name : Zhejiang Huasheng Resin Chemical Industry Co., Ltd.
****************************************************************************************************************
( This part below to be filled in by AXISnet Global Ventures )
We accept the above appointment as Global Procurement Consultant effective from the date men-
tioned above according to the terms and conditions stated above.
Authorized Signature , Company stamp :
-------------------------------------------
Name :
Job Title :
Date :
Company name : AXISnet Global Ventures
84 TOC
Area here
NOTES
85 TOC

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Global Procurement Consulting

This is NOT a Free Ebook. You may NOT Distribute

It contains strategies, secrets and expert advice that

You may NOT edit, modify, re-sell, license, assign,

The author, publisher and distributors of this product

© 2008 Copyright AGV Capital Media

Welcome to Global Procurement Consulting Page 6 - 7

A short message Page 8

Chapter 1 – The international trade market Page 10

Chapter 2 - Global procurement consulting – Page 15

Why choose this business? 16 points to ponder Page 15- 18

Chapter 3 - What do you need to start this business? Page 29

The Basic Setup Page 29

The Advanced Setup Page 35

Chapter 4 - Start this business part-time Page 43

I just want you to start Page 43

Chapter 5 - Where to look for potential clients? Page 46

Option 1 - Local and overseas trade directories Page 46

Chapter 6 - B2B portals – Page 47

What are B2B portals? Page 47

How do tradeboards work? Page 48

Chapter 7 - How to register yourself at a B2B portal Page 56 - 59

Chapter 8 - How to do this - step by step Page 60

A bit about ―Sample Letters‖ Page 61

Chapter 9 - The Consulting Agreement Page 79

The Consulting Agreement - when to ask for one? Page 79

The world of international trade is often misunderstood by many people. It is

Fast forward to now. Today it is almost unthink-

It is very important to always keep in mind that professionalism and integrity

This is what global procurement consulting (GPC) is all about. It is a

Not just any information though. It must be specific enough to make

Global procurement consulting (GPC) is a lucrative business and it has, over

The information contained in this Manual

You can always refer to my GPC (global procurement consulting) website at

Now let’s get down to some really serious business.

All the best,

Shahrul Nizam Supian

So you wanna make money from the Net?

Depending on your interests, you can make money by joining af-

In this Manual we will be concentrating on using the Net to make

Some people might have some idea but I have not

There is a Chinese proverb that goes something like this - ―Give a

How to use this guide

Open your mind to new ways of making money

A really good consultant is always in demand. Just

Please read this whole Manual

Take action now

Tap into the biggest markets direct from the Net.

For many people back then it was almost unthinkable

Today it is almost unthinkable to do business internationally without using

This is what global procurement consulting (GPC) is all about. We

Not just any information though. It must be specific enough to

This is what we are going to teach you in this Manual.

It is flexible enough for you to either do it full time or part

This Manual is based on my own real-life, ―deep-in-the-trenches‖ experi-

A bit of history on agents, finders, brokers, reps

So, a global procurement consultant leverages his time, contacts and

Fact - this is a very lucrative field. It is not unusual at all

I have watched with interest the proliferation of agents and sourcing

The fact is, many people who think of themselves as ―finders‖ or

Why most of them didn’t make any money