Net Dragon Meeting

Back from Fuzhou City and feeling rather content about things.

2 of us from NiHao took the journey to Fuzhou late Wednesday night. Plan was to stay in a hotel, then breakfast the next morning, and be picked up by the Net Dragon people at 10am Thursday.

All went well and smoothly as planned....

Arrived at the hotel; simply named "Enjoy Hotel" which was located on a main shopping arterial in Fuzhou.

Room was nice. Had a frosted glass wall between the main room and bathroom area. Not revealing in any way but was an interesting and very nice design element.

Happy for the free internet in the hotel, meant I wasn't completely removed from the real world. So got some work done that night and slept in a very luxurious king size bed with the AC on warm :)

Next morn down to the hotel's dining area and had a lovely buffet breakfast. Sadly no coffee to speak of but China is still not big on coffee yet so am used to that now. 

Then waited for the Net Dragon people to pick us up.  And they did.

The Net Dragon compound was impressive to say the least. Many 3 floored buildings arranged in a High School complex manner, all decked out with very large computer areas.

And computers? Well there were many :)

The best part of the building tour that opened my eyes in amazement was seeing...ok there's the gym, there's the inside heated swimming pool, but then.....there's the outside swimming pool thats the size of a small lake!

Ok I know where I am going for my next BBQ :)

The meeting.....

The Net Dragon people run us through their run-of-the-mill standard company profile powerpoint introducing this and that and talking about their company culture.

We asked questions regarding the this's and that's but our minds were on the main point....lets talk turkey. Finally we got our chance and talk we did.

Rather than saying NiHao is this, and NiHao is that, I decided to make the approach somewhat more like...."Well this is what we are going to do, and we are inviting you to be a part of our system of things."

This approach was very risky....to say the least as they are easily a thousand times bigger than us, what do they care. But it occurred to me while they were talking that they have had this talk before and were not unaccostomed to the probable requests that we could make, "so lets change our approach" was the impromptu decision made when we started talking.

So we talked about the future of it all, and the future of NiHao, and how if the two companies worked together the success could be great for both.

And it worked.

So the meeting ended with them giving us a walkthrough regarding the next steps to take then we shook hands and departed.

Something I had learned from this meeting.....

You have made your proposal, thats ok. They have read the thing...good. Then they ask to meet...great!

Dont be nervous and become the beggar to the master, and dont feel that you need to tell them everything in one sitting. You have been invited to talks because they're interested and because they are interested they will guide you through it all according to their company's "way of doing things." That is their company agenda. Trying to do it any other way would be a certain failure.

Let them talk and learn from their approach, after all they are the pro's and it was you that asked for their help. If you are to be part of their agenda, they'll walk you in as is happening with me and NiHao now.

Ok so what next?

Well I sent off the presentation and humbly asked them to give me advice regarding it; e.g. could more be added, have I said too much?

Then if all is good and according to their agenda, step by step the two companies will become one.

Now I patiently wait for their replies and take each step as prompted carefully and casually and quietly hope that we make it all the way through that big ole door.

There are BBQ's on the other side! BBQ's! Many, many, many, fantastic poolside BBQ's! And my mouth is watering hahaha :)