Seasoned Sales Leader, Bill Tung, Joins us with Decades of Experience in Footwear and Asia!

Welcome to the Global Sales Mentor Podcast for conversations that drive growth. When you are ready to grow your international sales, join the conversation with your host, Zach Selch.

Welcome back to Conversations That Grow International Sales, and I have here William Tung, uh, Bill, who's an old— not, well, not so much an old friend of mine, but a new friend of mine. who's been doing this for a long time in very different, uh, markets and areas from me. And I brought him on because I thought this would be a great addition to our, uh, our group of guests. So, uh, Bill, can you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about what you've done?

Yeah, hey Zach, greetings from Boston, and a great pleasure to be on board and share some time with you today. Uh, yeah, I, I, my career is, uh, focused entirely on developing international sales and international brands around the world. Uh, boy, I started off in fitness equipment, went into tennis rackets and footwear and apparel, dabbled in personal care for a bit, but the bulk of my career has been in sports and lifestyle brands, um, and doing the international sales and markets around the world.

That's great. Um, what, what have been the markets you've mostly focused on? I know you should— you basically have covered global, but you spent the beginning of your, your time was Yeah, I would say certainly China, Japan, Korea, and Northeast Asia.

I'd spent the bulk of my time, and certainly in Western Europe.

Great, great. Okay, so welcome, Bill. And this is sort of cool because, you know, the last few people I've had have been more on the business-to-business or business-to-government side, and now we're talking to somebody who really deals with the consumer side for the most part, right? And also something like, I've never dealt with apparel, and I've never dealt with anything that that people buy to actually use. Typically, they buy my stuff to make something else or to achieve a goal of some kind. So this is interesting. So why don't we go back and tell me a little bit about how you got started into this?

You know, I always wanted to be an international business person. I think I was— the idea was to be an international investment banker. Wasn't really quite sure what that meant, but sounded really cool and had a lot of money. So I went off to Thunderbird, and my only job offer on graduation day was for a company called Cybex in Long Island, selling fitness equipment and rehabilitation equipment. But it was to open up the markets and sell the products in Asia. So that was my start of my international career.

Cool, cool, great. And your family, you have a family history in Asia?

Yeah, yeah, my parents originally from Shanghai. I was born in Hong Kong, and our family immigrated to the States when I was a young boy.

And, and you, but you're, and your family were business people too. So you grew up with, uh, seeing people do business around the house.

Yeah, my, my, my grandfather started a plastics factory in Shanghai. My father continued that business. So yeah, his clients were from all over the world. So, uh, very—

And that's sort of a cool feeling, isn't it, when you, uh, when you see people come, you know, talking to your parents who are from all over the world and you get that feeling, right?

Yeah, that's just the environment that you grow up in and, uh, it becomes your world. You don't know anything else. And that's, uh, and you realize that's what puts, what's, uh, puts food on the table for you.

That, that's exactly it. That's exactly it. Yeah, I've done that with my kids. I've taken them out with people from all over the world for dinner and say, you know, basically you're talking to a distributor and you say, this is the guy who, you know, puts shoes on your feet, right? You got to keep in mind, you're right, you know.

So It's—

they're good lessons for kids when you're growing up.

Yeah, I think certainly here in the United States, we've got an issue where, you know, just because of the isolation, the size of our economy, I think a lot of American kids just grow up with a very Americentric upbringing and don't realize that, you know, we're only 4% of the global population. So—

Right, right. And right now, I think only 1% of US businesses are exporting. So really, we're leaving a lot of money on the table.

Yeah, it's, it's, it is a huge opportunity, and it is a real question as to why a lot of companies are not taking advantage of that, either exporting or just selling, uh, regardless of where they're manufacturing, and, uh, opening up new markets.

Right, that's true, that's true. So I know a lot about how to sell to businesses. But, you know, the whole chain, the whole value chain of selling something that eventually some guy in Hong Kong is going to put on his feet, I'm not quite sure how that works. So maybe walk through what— how you do that.

Well, for most apparel and footwear brands, American companies, yeah, you're manufacturing mostly offshore, whether it's Asia, Latin America, parts of You know, some people are manufacturing in Eastern Europe, uh, so that's where your manufacturing base is. And then you've got your warehouses, uh, you know, predominantly here in the United States. So you're shipping in the product, hopefully not air freighting it, that's going to cost you an arm and a leg. And then, you know, you bring it into your warehouses. And then, you know, here in the States, if you have an online business, you're selling directly to consumers, fulfilling from those warehouses or to your brick-and-mortar wholesale accounts or to you into your own retail, uh, stores that you may have. Right. And certainly if you have subsidiaries in Western Europe, a lot of companies would have that, then you've got usually a warehouse or a third party, a 3PL, usually based in Rotterdam. That makes a lot of sense, or Hamburg. And then Asia is a bit tricky because, you know, there's really no centralization of a warehouse. So if you have a subsidiary in Japan, Korea, China, you sort of keep those 3 separated.

So most of these companies— actually, I didn't even think of this— most of these companies you worked for, They had their own retail outlets. You weren't selling to stores that then sold to the end users. The end user was buying from a retail outlet that had the name of your company on it?

Uh, well, a combination, Zach. So here in the United States, some of the brands I sold with would sell to like Dick's Sporting Goods or REI. So those would be considered wholesale accounts, or, you know, Macy's or Kohl's. And then the brands will also have their own retail. brick-and-mortar retail, and then certainly, obviously, you know, the online presence, online business through its own dot-com sites or via Amazon or some other—

I get what I'm trying to understand. When you say you— let's say you're dealing with a sneaker brand, or—

Yeah, sure.

And you're opening up the market into South Korea. What does that typically look like? Are you then opening up Nike stores in South Korea, or are you dealing with the big super, uh, the big department stores there, or how does that work? Or do you work with a distributor who then sells to the department stores? I'm just not really clear on how it works.

Yeah, I think the evolution, Zach, if you're an American company and you're just going into a market like Japan, Korea, or China for the very first time, you know, if you're looking at that opportunity, you've done your due diligence, And you're projecting out 3, 5, 7 years what that opportunity is. You know, are you ready to set up a subsidiary from day one? Are you ready to open up an office, register a business, have boots on the ground, invest in that infrastructure? If not, you know, the other route to go, you can find a joint venture partner, a local company where you're going 50/50, 60/40 on equity to set up that business. Or you can set up a third-party independent distributor. And who you're selling the product to, and then that company has the responsibility to market and sell the products in that country online, offline, wholesale, department store wholesale, retail. Or you can have a licensee where you're giving the brand the rights to basically source the products themselves with your design approval. So that's a little bit further away on how much control you want to have over the business. So it really, you know, there are different models that you can look into when you're trying to get into a new market. Right.

So for most of the companies you dealt with, not maybe the really, really biggest, what was typically the best way? You know, how did you go about— you get hired, what do you do?

Yeah, I think, you know, the path of least resistance, Zach, you know, and certainly from a cost and resource standpoint, is to find a distributor. And so if you're in the footwear apparel business, you do your homework, you find out those companies in the marketplace that are in your sector, in your industry, uh, if they're representing some competitors of yours or they used to. Um, so yeah, so if you're selling apparel, you're not looking for frozen vegetable vendors or wholesalers, you're looking for somebody who's been there.

With, say, a sneaker vendor, a sneaker distributor in South Korea, for instance. And I don't know if that makes sense.

Yeah, sure it does.

Would this kind— because like I think about it and I'm thinking, um, I don't, I don't know necessarily. I wouldn't work with a distributor that carries my competition, right? Period. But with shoes, I'm thinking, okay, so some guy goes into a department store with sneakers, that store is going to buy 20 different types of sneakers anyway, right? So do your distributors, are they typically, do they only carry Your pro— like, maybe they carry a dress shoe and a sneaker and a sandal, but do they only carry your sneakers? How does it work with your area? Because I really, like, honestly, I'm completely blind on this. This is interesting to me.

That's a good question, Zach. Yeah, absolutely. Most of the brands would have non-competes with their distributors. So if you're the distributor for Brand A, they're going to have in the contract that you can't— you're not allowed to represent other brands. And, you know, if you're coming in the marketplace, you know, eventually you're don't want your partner to be taking on other brands as well, right? So they're working in brands that are adjacencies that, like you said, they're in the dress footwear, maybe casual footwear, they're into apparel, um, as, as well. So, um, yeah, so you, you want a company that's very much focused on your brand.

So, so again, this is— this might sound funny to you, but, uh, but I'm trying to figure this out. So do you have a distributor who— or would you have a distributor who, say, carries say, dress shoes and sneakers, or 5 different types of sneakers? Or how does that typically work? Because I'll tell you what, when you deal with, say, a healthcare or medical device distributor, he might have one brand of ventilators and one brand of beds and one brand of monitors, right? So he's selling a bunch of different stuff to the hospital. I'm just wondering about the guy who sells sneakers, what type of package he might have. I find this sort of interesting. Yeah.

So I think you hit the nail on the head there, Zach. So maybe he would have just one athletic brand and then a dress shoe brand, and then maybe a ladies' high heel brand. Maybe he'll have a lifestyle apparel brand. He'll have some more casual, uh, or maybe some, you know, more formal wear brand.

That's interesting. I might very well have scared away all of our listeners because they might find this boring, but I'm finding this fascinating because I'm trying to— I, I think this is really interesting because When you're looking for a distributor, you never know. And, you know, I guess maybe the tendency would be to say, well, I want somebody who's selling, you know, who's selling a tennis shoe right now. I sell a good tennis shoe. I want somebody who's selling a good tennis shoe. But maybe you don't want somebody who's selling a good tennis shoe. Maybe you want somebody who's selling a dress shoe, but he knows the same guy who's going to buy the tennis shoe for the department store, right? So, you know.

Or you want to find a distributor that's been selling tennis rackets.

That's exactly it, right?

So there you go. So this is a model that, you know, if you look at Nike, I mean, when they started 30-odd years ago going outside the United States, they didn't on day one have subsidiaries around the world. They had local partners that they signed up.

But I guess you have to have a lot of capital for that. So, you know, if you—

For subsidiaries, exactly.

Right. For most, for most mid-sized manufacturers, if you're a $300, $400, $500 million American company, You're not going to open up 50 subsidiaries around the world with your own store, right?

Correct. Precisely, precisely. So it's like that evolution. You start to go international with licensees or distributors as the market builds up, and as you mature, then you think about— then, you know, you run the numbers, uh, and then you decide, does it behoove you to take on that investment? And then you capture the revenue and the bottom line.

So And I'm guessing, have you ever gone into a market where, you know, you go in to sell tennis rackets and some— and somebody says to you, you know, Bill, we, we just don't play tennis here, right?

Yeah, well, I, I, I was the head of Asia Pacific for Prince Racquet Sports back in the '90s. Um, yeah, and so the big markets was Japan and Southeast Asia and Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. Nobody played tennis in China. They didn't have tennis courts back then. So it's, you know, you don't want to waste your time running around China. Did you develop badminton rackets? Absolutely. We actually got— Prince actually developed a collection of badminton just for Asia. I mean, the States—

Yeah, that's big in Asia. Yeah.

Oh yeah, absolutely. It's an Olympic sport. They take it very seriously, you know, whereas in the States it's usually, you know, the racket in one hand in your backyard and a beer in the other hand. So that's usually the case. But, you know, when I launched Yeah. When I, you know, when I, when I brought Columbia Sportswear into China in 2004, nobody was skiing. Nobody was snowboarding or camping or trail running or, you know, doing any of those real outdoor activities that, you know, people enjoy in other parts of the world. So it was, you know, it was really early on. And here, you know, so many years later, they're hosting the Winter Olympics next year in Beijing. So it's been incredible.

Well, that's— there's that whole joke where 2 salesmen go to, uh, to Africa and, uh, one writes home and says, nobody's wearing shoes, there's no opportunity, I'm coming home. And the other one says, nobody's wearing shoes, fantastic, I can sell to everybody. Right? So it depends.

My mind was in Aladdin. Absolutely.

Right.

Yeah, absolutely.

Exactly. And sometimes that being at the beginning and turning a market around is fantastic.

Yeah, there's certainly first mover advantage. You know, as we see around the world, there are many brands that may not be so strong and vibrant in their home market, but are powerhouses in other countries. And why is that? You know, their brand resonated with the consumers, less competition, they were the first one in the market, they had a—

I like to say there was a good salesperson in the chain someplace, right?

Oh, absolutely. I don't think there's ever one thing.

Right. And that, and that's the thing. I think when you can get in and show people, you know, maybe that, you know, maybe people weren't skiing because they didn't have skis, right? So you get in there and they've seen movies with people skiing, they were wondering how to go about doing it, and suddenly skis are available. And, you know, one thing leads to another, and then suddenly you're selling millions and millions of dollars worth of skis, right?

Precisely, precisely. Cool, cool.

So, um, you must have some pretty funny stories about, you know, talking to people about a sport that they're not really interested in, and they're, you know, I, I imagine that happened to you quite a bit at one point or another.

Yes, you know, certainly in my, you know, I spent 13 years at Columbia Sportswear, and, you know, we, we, we started a partnership with a company in Dubai And so you're wondering what on earth are you selling outdoor cold winter weather apparel in Dubai?

They have that indoor ski place, right?

They do. You're absolutely right. And, you know, they have fabulous retail there. I mean, some of the most beautiful shopping malls in the world. And, you know, and the world shops in Dubai, of course. So it's really, it's become a real crossroads there. But, uh, yeah, no, it's interesting. When our partner opened the first Columbia Sportswear store in Dubai, it was in Dubai Mall. You know, they were expecting to sell a lot of sportswear, you know, fishing shirts, you know, not winter ski jackets. But it was interesting. They had decorated the store. They had set up the store with the mannequins to, you know, to show the heritage of the brand as extreme cold weather outdoor. And, you know, those particular products were actually sold off the mannequins because they really didn't have many in stock because they were the only ones in town that were selling cold winter weather apparel.

Right.

And, you know, if you're living in Dubai and you need to go to London in October, it's really cold for those folks. So they tend to overcompensate. So yeah, that was, that was a bit funny because they rang up for more.

It's no fun to land and have to run to a store. So being able to get on the plane with a coat ready is a good idea sometimes.

Yeah, absolutely. But certainly the early days in China with Columbia Sportswear, it was really much, you know, spending a lot of time on the grassroots marketing about, you know, what is outdoor. And that was about skiing because we weren't building ski, you know, ski lifts and ski resorts, but it was about how to enjoy the outdoors and being out in the mountains, out in the parks, and, you know, how to stay warm, how to stay protected, how to stay dry. So it was like, you know, why did you need our products to go enjoy and spend more time in the outdoors more, whether it was you're walking the dog or going up into the hills and in the mountains. But it was really early days then in 2003, 2004.

Yeah, I find that early market development where you're turning the tides in a market for your product is always the most interesting because there's work involved, but, you know, it pays off in the end, or it can pay off in the end. But sometimes it just seems like you're working, you know, going uphill, pushing a big stone uphill. But, you know, it can, it can really pay off in the end if you can turn the tide of the market.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And I know it's certainly very much key is, you know, in the consumer sector, you know, it's a lot of brands just sort of cookie cut the product, cookie cut the marketing. And, you know, this is the formula that was successful here in the United States. And so, right, we're going to do the same thing in France, we're going to do the same thing in Mexico, right, do the same thing in China, Japan. And, you know, I think that those, those companies that try that approach— I mean, put it this way, Zach, I think there are very few companies you know, in the consumer products field that I can actually do that exact cookie-cutter approach without making some tweaks to the product, to the marketing, uh, to the go-to-market process, whether it's online, offline, or how they're generating revenue.

We met, uh, we met through Wendy, right? And, uh, and Wendy Pease talks a lot, you know, she does a lot of the more, uh, consumer-oriented marketing stuff. And there, yeah, you have to be really careful with the language. You have to be really careful with, with all that type of imaging and stuff like that towards people from the consumer side. That can be very complicated. That's really not something that I've been involved with most of my career. I do find it interesting because there are differences when you're dealing with governments and when you're dealing with businesses. There are differences in the decision-making process and all of that. But you don't have to worry about if somebody is going to find a specific color unattractive or that kind of thing. you know, which, which you do have in the whole apparel side when you're dealing internationally, when that can be very complicated, right?

Indeed. And, and, you know, speaking specifically in China, a number of brands have run afoul of consumer sentiment, nationalism, government, uh, getting involved. So, you know, some brands are really suffering right now as to what, you know, their, their stance has been politically. about China. And they're shut down right now. Their sites are shut down. They had a thriving business and they've just been stopped.

I'll tell you what, when I— I spent a lot of time in Thailand and India over the years. Yeah, we talked about this. I lived outside of the US for 25 years. And at one point, I had a really nice collection of beautiful silk ties with elephants on them. All of my ties had elephants on them. And then when I moved to the States, I realized I was making a political statement with a tie with elephants on it. So I was like, okay. So I wrapped them up for— and put them away for my kids. I said, you know, who knows what my kids are going to want to wear when they're younger, but, you know, maybe, maybe they'll use them. But I just— I was sort of tired of people making a political assumption based on my ties. And it was literally all of my ties had elephants at one point.

So I don't think that was Jim Thompson's intention, if they were Jim Thompson silk ties.

They were, like I said. Exactly, exactly. But, you know, anyway, so it— and it's funny, and then you have that whole thing in Thailand a while back with the color of your shirt was really important because there was the Yellow Party and the, and the Red Party, I think, right? And you could get in trouble. I used to tell people coming out, you know, uh, when I had people coming from headquarters, I was just like Don't, you know, just wear— just, just bring blue and white with you. And, you know, because you don't want to get in trouble on the streets, because there was a period where it was a little rough, you know. So yeah, there are things you got to keep in mind, right? It's funny.

Yeah, I, I, you know, it's, uh, running an international department over the years, I always had, uh, the junior staff read The Economist, you know, and just so they knew what the hell was going on around the world. And if they were going on a business trip somewhere Didn't matter if it was Turkey, India, Russia, China, Brazil.

Very good source. Yeah.

You know, I didn't ask them to do a book report, but, you know, they needed to know what the hell was going on in that country. Uh, you know, the current affairs, the name of the president, just, you know, just to be aware. Because as you know, Zach, you know, most people outside the United States, they just assume we Americans know nothing about their particular country, right? And so when you can demonstrate a little bit Absolutely. If you can demonstrate that you know something that's going on in their country, you score a lot of big points that way. A lot of breaking down the wall.

You really do appreciate it. You know, if you understand their religion, if you understand their history, they love it, right? They, they really feel that you've— because they, they have no expectations from Americans.

Absolutely right. So you gain a lot of points, you gain a lot of respect that way. So I, to me, that's such common sense, but It's not always so common, is it?

Yeah. On the flip side, you know what I always found interesting? When I had a team of people who were international and I'd bring them into headquarters in the States, getting them to understand the dress code in an American company was always really funny because, you know, 20 years ago it was easy. It was a suit, right? And then it went to business casual and nobody understands what Americans think is business casual. So then suddenly Suddenly you get people coming in with big graphic t-shirts and jeans, and I'm like, okay, that isn't business casual. And I remember once I had to actually write up a document, and I had to think about very carefully what business casual was. And I said, okay, you have to have a shirt with a collar on it.

That's number one.

And your pockets should be vertical. Right? Because people would say, like, jeans have horizontal pockets and, and chinos have vertical pockets, right?

Okay.

And then I would say, and your, your shoes can't be sneakers, right? They, they have to be black or brown leather. And now I— those were the 3 rules I put in place. And basically it worked. But, you know, I had a lot of trouble. It was funny. I had a lot of trouble getting there because people wanted to wear different types of jeans. And people would say, well, there's this guy wearing a polo shirt or a golf shirt. How come I can't wear a t-shirt? And I'd say, I get that, but— and nowadays— this was a few years ago. Nowadays, everybody's wearing jeans anywhere and sneakers. So it's a lot more casual. But it used to drive me crazy trying to explain to people the whole concept of American business casual, because it really was a very American thing, you know?

Right. It was casual, but it was not Saturday barbecue casual, so—

Exactly. It was very well-defined casual. It was, you know, and you might have somebody wearing a $300 Hawaiian shirt to a, uh, to a conference or something, right?

Right.

So it was a lot different from a t-shirt. And, and, and, you know, making people understand that wasn't easy, you know?

Yeah, it's, uh, yeah, you, you get, you get all sorts of cross-cultural mixes in there, whether it's apparel or food.

So, right, right. And, um, so what's the favorite, your favorite market to do business in?

The favorite business to do market? Oh my God, uh, you're gonna get me in trouble here, Zach. I mean, I've been fortunate really to have been doing business in dozens and dozens of countries around the world. You know, I think Hong Kong is just Easy, you know, from a regulatory standpoint, import duties easy, no retail tax, hyper super competitive because every brand is there, and just very very fast paced to be in Hong Kong. You know, I've always enjoyed doing business in Japan and Korea. Very very different markets, very dynamic, and very very much forward thinking. And you know, just you know my history in China from really my first job 1988 till now is just to see these. It's incredible. I just could not have imagined.

When did they change the airport in Hong Kong? Remind me.

1997, when it changed over from—

Oh, so you had a good decade with the old airport. That was an exciting airport, wasn't it?

It was. Making that right turn over Kowloon. If you were sitting on the right side, a window seat, you were looking into somebody's kitchen and laundry. So absolutely.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, those were some exciting years before Kai Tak Airport. Yeah, and then handover was what, '97, right?

Yeah, July 1st, 1997. Yeah, it's, uh, uh, Prince Chuck and Chris Patten, they sailed away in the, uh, Britannia and brought down the Union Jack and put up the Hong Kong and the China flag. And so yeah, I was there at the time.

Those had to be some exciting years.

The '90s in Hong Kong was incredible. People were coming in from all over the world. You know, really, consumer in China had not even started yet in the early '90s. It was just starting the groundwork at that time. But, you know, Hong Kong was a very special time in the '90s. And I think it's still a very special place despite—

I love Hong Kong. You know what I love to do in Hong Kong, which I don't know how many other people do it, but I like to go up to the peak at dawn. I take, I take the first tram up, right, when the tram starts running, and then I go up there, and then I, I like to jog around the top.

And then yeah, we go around the whole— yeah.

I don't like to walk up. Walking up is deadly.

That's called gravity. Yeah.

Right. You do a loop, you jog a loop around the peak, and then you walk down. It's a, it's great exercise, beautiful view. And it's usually cool enough because you're a little higher up.

Correct. Correct. Yep. Still there waiting for you, Zach.

Well, one of these days, I'll get back on the road. And the other thing that I really like in Hong Kong, have you ever had lunch at the Municipality Maxim's at City Hall?

Oh my God, yeah. It's like a football field and the carts just come by and come by and the same cart doesn't come by twice. And so, Yes, absolutely. It's, uh, a few times. Yeah.

I love that place. So yeah, so I love Hong Kong too, but I don't get there. Um, well, first of all, I haven't been anywhere in a year because of, uh, COVID, but, but I don't get there. I get there maybe twice a year, you know, uh, going through and stuff, uh, typically. But yeah, you know, but I used to— I've been going there for about, well, for about 30 years. I remember also the whole transition time and all that. That, like you said, it was a really exciting period. So another question that just struck me in terms of you, you must deal, or you must have dealt with issues involving counterfeiting and that kind of thing, right? Because when you're dealing in— the assumption is when you're dealing with luxury goods or apparel going into Asia, sometimes that's a risk. Was that a substantial part of your— did that take a bite out of your business or not really?

Yes.

Okay. Okay. Yeah.

Significantly so.

Yeah. It seems like that certainly is the type of thing people anticipate sometimes dealing in Asia with the consumer markets. Like, I've actually seen people counterfeit medical devices I've made.

Oh, sure. Yeah.

You know, we've, we've I've seen at different times products with my company's name on it being sold on the internet that we didn't make. Yeah.

Right?

So then we had to go looking for it, but it's much more rare in business-to-business or business-to-government.

Right.

You know, I'm guessing with consumer goods, that must be something you're always on the lookout for.

Yeah, absolutely. And your company, you know, you register your IP rights, whether that be the logos and the designs, and that's just the most basic thing to do, obviously. But then, you know, you're going to need to spend time and resources and money enforcing those with local legal representation. And, you know, for a new brand going into these markets, you know, once you get counterfeit, it was almost a badge of honor. You sort of made it, you know, because nobody's going to counterfeit a brand that nobody else is buying, right? You're only going to—

Right.

Counterfeiters are only going to, you know, counterfeit those brands that are hot. So if you get your brand counterfeited, it's, uh, it's, you got your gold star. And, but no, not to make light of it, it has been for some of the brands I've worked with, it's been devastating.

One of the big business issues for some brands, right?

Yeah. And, you know, in China, there are certainly laws against it and they do get enforced from time to time. Uh, and so some of the brands I've worked with in the past actually have shut down retailers and have shut down factories and people were fined. I don't know if they're put in jail, but certainly fine. But it's almost like whack-a-mole though, you know, you close down one factory and another one pops up. So it is a challenge for a lot of Western brands doing business in China. I would say it's getting a lot better though, because I think the consumers, certainly in the first tier, tier 1, tier 2, and into tier 3 cities, listen, those consumers don't want to— they can afford to buy the right thing.

They want to buy, right. Well, that— and that's the thing, I guess we talked about this the other day, as you build up the buying power of consumers, everybody benefits, right?

Sure, absolutely. And if, you know, you're speaking of luxury, I mean, the Chinese consumer, whether they're actually purchasing in China or their travels around the world, is half of the world's luxury market today. You know, whether that's LVMH, Gucci, Prada, you know, Rolexes.

They're buying up a lot of the red wine apparently too.

So yeah, that started up, uh, years ago. Uh, yeah, interesting, at auction. Yeah, by the caseload, vintage cases from Sotheby's and Christie's. Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, it's an interesting world we live in. And we were talking about this the other day, when we were kids, it was Japan was the big up-and-coming dragon. And now, you know, now it went through Korea, came up, and now China, and it'll probably be India or one of the African countries in 20 years. You know, that's the way the world works. Things rotate around, right?

Yeah, absolutely. And I think those, you know, people look at those things as threats, but, you know, if you're a business person, you need to look at that as what is the opportunity.

Opportunities, right.

And I agree with you. My first time in India was in 1988. Imports of foreign-made apparel and footwear was illegal.

Right.

Now, things were smuggled in, but you could not have a legitimate business in the late '80s. And there were no department stores, there were no shopping malls. And today, my God, there are some of the most beautiful malls and department stores. And if I plopped you into one of these malls, and if you took everybody out, you'd think you were in a suburb of America somewhere. Because if you just look around, all the brands are what you would find in the United States.

Yeah, exactly.

Exactly.

Look, and that's the thing. I think India is really interesting to me because you can really track how very specific decisions help drive up the middle class in India, right? Without the communications industry, you wouldn't have the middle class. Without the various private schools teaching English and so on, that type of thing. And they've really driven it up, and that's great. And those people are now buying from us, right? So they might be a threat to some things, but they're also a customer in some ways. And we have to look at it that way, right? Things don't stand still for our convenience.

No, absolutely not. And certainly, a market like India, which is obviously still very challenging to do business in, if you're just looking at government statistics, per capita GDP income, you need to look at that and realize, okay, it's 1.3 billion people, but what is your target consumer? Is it 50 million, 60 million? Okay, well then that's the size of the UK or France. Well, that—

and that's exactly it. If you just say, well, I'm looking at the richest 1% of India, that's a small European country right there, right?

So, you know, there you go. You're absolutely right. And, you know, we all know in India, let's just say that the data is a bit spotty and not everybody reports their income so precisely.

That's exactly right. That's true. So, give us a couple of tips For doing— like, if you're a young person who would like to really get into the international business side in, say, apparel, what are some tips you could give somebody?

Yeah, if they want to have an international career in the apparel industry, I think they can do it several ways, but I think the most— perhaps the path of least resistance or very common way is being a product manager, merchandising, being involved in the design, not necessarily being a designer, but the product manager.

Right.

That's responsible for bringing the products to life, and then certainly having that global mindset.

And what would make a product manager attractive to become a global product manager? Let's say you got out of school. I mean, you went to Funderburg, but let's say you get out of school and you get into a big apparel company and they make you a product manager. How would you convince your boss you should be the global product manager?

Well, you know, well, if you're 20-odd years old, Zach, you need to earn your stripes, of course.

Right.

But usually, you know, I think still in a lot of companies, small, medium-sized companies, that international piece of the business sometimes becomes the sideshow. And so you might be willing to take the risk for your career and say, hey, I want to go work on that because I see there's upside opportunity. So certainly more evolved companies, you know, 30, 40, 50% of the revenue is outside the United States. So it's part parcel of their business. But if it's a small emerging company that, you know, maybe only 10% or 20% of their business is outside the United States, then how do you want to focus on that part of the business? You know, language is important, but, you know, you need to have that functionality for— foremost if you want to have an international career. And, you know, I've sent people that are involved in operations to international markets to live and work.

Right.

People in finance is a very, it's a very common route as well. Uh, you know, people that get into sourcing, working with the factory base, uh, certainly is obviously, uh, certainly being closer to, to, uh, the market with their suppliers. Uh, so somebody who has wanderlust, those are pretty common ways. And sales, of course, some more management, sales management.

Exactly, exactly. Great. Well, Bill, thank you so much. What did I Did I forget to ask you something important? Is there something that, that you think our listeners should, should hear from, from your, your wisdom?

Well, I, I think that for companies that are looking to develop and expand overseas, Zach, it can't be just one or two people at this desk or in those cubicles that are responsible for it. It really needs to come from the top down, from the C-suite, to support that with resources, uh, and a commitment on, on what you know, you're not going to be selling to 180 countries around the world, but you're going to pick a few to target, the low-hanging fruit, if you will. But it requires a global mindset and a culture set, and that really needs— that tone needs to be set from the top down and permeate throughout the company.

Yeah, I think that's really important, right?

So I see that a lot of companies where it's just, you know, those 2 guys over there responsible for international, and it just doesn't work if they don't have support from Finance, HR, operations, product marketing, the whole C-suite and all those functions.

Oh, I agree with you on that. I said in my book that the biggest fight and the biggest work for the global sales manager in a company is internal. It's pushing inside the company to do what's needed to grow sales, right? The stuff with your customers is easy compared to dealing with the internal problems.

Yeah, you're absolutely right. And I think that those companies that have a global mindset, they, they take out a globe, they take out a map, and to say, right, our consumers and our markets are everywhere. Yes, our home market is here, we're in Chicago, and we're an American company. Great, it may be the majority of our revenue, but you know, there are many American consumer product companies where the, the over 50% of their revenue and profits are generated outside of the United States. So, you know, that's exactly right.

Look, 97, 96, 97% of the population is outside of the, of the United States. 80% of the money, something like that, outside of the United States. We should be addressing those markets, right?

Absolutely. So whether you're selling corn or sneakers or bicycles or, you know, whatever that may be, there, there's a lot of people to tap into around the world. So, great.

Well, thanks a lot, uh, for your time, Bill. I, I appreciate it. And if somebody wanted to get in touch with you, how would they go about doing that?

They can find me via LinkedIn, William Bill Tung, T-U-N-G, and ping me from there. I'm on Instagram, I'm on Twitter, and all those things. So, but LinkedIn is pretty easy for me, so.

Perfect. All right, well, thanks everybody for listening. Join us next week for Conversations That Drive Global Sales, and subscribe. Thanks a lot.