- So, you have to master the concept of "face"
What is it? - [Audience] Face.
- In Chinese it's "mianzi", what is it?
- [Audience] Mianzi.
- Can make or break your dealing with affluent Chinese.
Face drives almost all Chinese behavior.
Including that of individuals or corporations-face.
(triumphant music)
- [Voiceover] The King of High-Ticket Sales.
World's Highest-Paid Consultant.
Media Celebrity.
Multi-Millionaire Entrepreneur.
Acclaimed TEDx Speaker.
International Best-Selling Author.
Dan Lok.
- Gain face, or lose face; now what exactly is face?
Face is really about how others view you.
It's about what? How others..
- [Audience] View you. - View you.
In China, the concept of face influences
all levels of society and business.
It's similar to the Western concept
of pride, but yet different...different.
As a Westerner, I feel pride once I accomplish something
often whether others know of accomplishments or not.
Face is a public opinion...what is it?
- [Audience] Public opinion - A public opinion.
Oriental concept, one that depends upon the respect
and acknowledge of another or others.
So it's not so much what I know about me,
as much as what others believe about me.
You would be shocked how much
affluent Chinese would do for face.
Let me give you a perfect example.
Again, my father-in-law has a friend,
recently, he has a house in Richmond.
The house is 1.6 million, was it 1.6?
Something like? 2 mil? okay, so 2 mil.
Beautiful house in Richmond, beautiful house.
Been living there for a few years.
Was having a conversation with his circle of friends.
"Oh where do you live?" "I live in Richmond."
"Oh, he lives in Richmond?"
Cause all his friends live in where?
Yeah, Shaughnessy...all those places.
Just because of face, within a month
sold the Richmond house, bought a $5 million home.
All because of face: how others view him
Just because his friends said, "Oh, you live in Richmond?"
Not because of the bedroom, the bathroom, and all this shit
"You live in Richmond?" That's it.
"What car you drive?" "Oh, you drive that car?"
"Where you kids go to school?" "Oh, go to that school?"
That's it. That's what drives them.
Just knowing that's what drives them.
That's why they drive a certain car,
That's why they live in a certain place.
Now, here's what's fascinating:
I've been to the house, the $5 million home?
Sucks ass. (audience laughter)
Compared to the $2 million home in Richmond.
Cause the $2 million home, it's brand new.
It's got high, tall ceiling, beautiful house.
The $5 million home, it's old, it's smelly,
it's smaller, it's just horrible, it's horrible.
But why? Because of face.
Not rational...and it's not rational.
Face literally drives the behavior
of almost all affluent Chinese.
I would say all Chinese, almost.
If a Chinese person is held in esteem by the group,
they will gain face...they what?
- [Audience] Gain face. - Gain face.
Publicly showing dissatisfaction or lack of respect
towards a person will cause that person to lose face.
That's why, when dealing with affluent Chinese,
don't try to correct them in front of their friends.
That's one of the worst things...even though they're wrong.
Yes.
Now, affluent Chinese might respond with an
"Oh, it's not really that good"
or "It could have been better"
When you respond like that...you know,
because they love the face they're receiving.
They like compliments.
Even though they say "Oh yeah, it's not that good"
But they love the compliments...yes.
- Dan, if in your opinion, if one has built a successful
brand here in Canada with the Chinese marketplace
is there hope to maintain that brand in going to China?
- [Dan] So, a successful brand in here?
- In here, with Chinese.
- [Dan] With Chinese
- And that brand is brought to China.
- [Dan] Does that help? You mean,
does that help to establish credibility?
Like, what's the question?
- No, um, can the IP be maintained
(Dan laughing)
- [Dan] Okay, Andre IP, question, you answer that.
Good question, though, answer that,
go to mic, go to mic, IP in China.
My answer is too short, but you can give a long answer.
- Well, we're actually publishing a monthly thing
that will report some monthly fuck-ups about IP,
and every single time there's something happening in China
like big companies losing their brands.
Interestingly, some of them don't lose them
and I couldn't find the pattern yet.
But, it's unpredictable, but was your question
really about IP or is it...
- [Dan] IP, like, that help, that credibility
Does it get transferred? - Strength of brand
- [Dan] When you go to China, right?
- Yeah, I guess there's two parts.
How valuable is...if you're successful
with the Chinese marketplace here,
- [Dan] Yeah
- Mainland Chinese that are located
- [Dan] Yeah, yeah
- In Vancouver, how does that translate into
- [Dan] Okay, let me answer that first
let me answer that first.
So, you're successful here, it's not so much
the brand, it just, you have a proven concept
that Mainland Chinese, they want to buy this, right?
- [Questioner] The brand has equity
and all of that stuff you're talking about with trust?
- [Dan] Yeah
- Yeah, that's what I mean. So let's say if you have
a successful brand selling to Chinese in here
it just means you have a proven concept.
When you go to China, it doesn't mean dick.
I'll tell you why: doesn't matter how successful you are,
you think...let's say you're the
biggest company in British Columbia.
In China, you're not even one tiny company in whatever city.
Shanghai alone got 30 million people.
The whole fucking Canada doesn't equal one city.
You gotta understand, like the idea of what is big
here to there, it's totally different, right?
A big developer here, like Bosa,
and there, you're like a small developer.
You're doing five buildings, six buildings,
oh, you're a huge developer in Vancouver
they're doing fucking 100 buildings across the country.
You gotta understand, so to them, you're still a little guy.
So that doesn't get transferred.
But let...go ahead.
- So to add to that, which actually is a good thing,
because you wanna protect your brand before
- [Dan] Yeah
- A lot of people know about you, because
by the time a lot of people know about you, you're done.
- [Dan] Oh you're done. You're done.
So let me give you a perfect example
So we...Jenny, do you know the (speaks Chinese)
That story (speaks Chinese) share that story.
Share that story, it's a good story.
Round of applause for Jenny.
(applause)
- [Jenny] It's hard to translate.
- [Dan] But try your best, try your best,
because it's a good story, illustrates a good point.
- Okay, so we're in China, and then they have all this
sort of, different like food stands by the road
- [Dan] Like food truck.
- Yeah, food trucks. Yeah, even smaller than food trucks.
Whatever, yeah, so one guy selling the squid.
- [Dan] Squid, the deep-fried squid.
- The deep-fried squid.
- [Dan] The deep-fried squid. Like the stuff you see
in night market, kinda like that.
- Yeah, and they're selling with certain name like
"Delicious squid", let's say that.
- [Dan] Delicious squid, yeah.
- Okay, and we walked like ten steps away,
there's another guy on the corner
- [Dan] Called "Fabulous squid"
- Yeah, fabulous squid, and then even the logo is same color
- [Dan] You might think it's exactly the same brand.
- Yeah
- [Dan] But you see the different name.
- Just a slightly different, and
- [Dan] It looks exactly identical.
- And another ten step away
- [Dan] It's another fucking one.
- Yeah, and then we...on the way we saw like ten?
- [Dan] Ten of those, all different
- Selling squid.
- [Dan] Selling the same shit.
Looks exactly the same, all different brand.
- All like, blue logo. (laughter)
- [Dan] It's exactly the same
- Yeah, yeah, just change one wording.
- [Dan] It just goes to show you it doesn't mean a lot.
But definitely, if you want to go into China,
gonna protect your brand, trademark,
but knowing they are knocking this shit off so fast.
I'll give you two case studies.
Number one, Trump: do you know Trump
cannot trademark Trump in China?
(audience laughter)
It's some dude, some dude owns
the word trademark Trump in China.
Trump can't...even Trump can't trademark the shit!
Right, yes.
- [Andrei] So really, the reason you'd be doing it primarily,
would not be to stop others from stealing from you,
but to make sure that you can actually
sell there so they don't go after you.
- [Dan] Yeah, yeah.
- So you protect your shit for yourself, not from them.
- [Dan] Yeah.
- So trademark there as well as here.
- [Dan] Yeah, for sure. 100 percent.
- Because trademarks are national.
Your Canadian trademark does nothing in the U.S.
- Before you open there.
- [Dan] That's right, that's right.
And I would talk to Andre about, he's the trademark expert.
One more question, yes.
- That means setting up your own entity
in China regardless of partnership.
- [Dan] If you're gonna do business there, right,
for sure, if you wanna ever sell there.
- [Andrei] You could have a Chinese trademark for...
- [Dan] You could, but you wanna own the trademark.
(triumphant music)
You've been watching my videos for some time now,
and you might be wondering, Dan,
How do I go to the next level?
Or, how could I be mentored by you?
Here's what I want you to do: my very first assignment
to see if you qualify, I want you to go to
fumoney.com to download a copy of my book.
You can't even do that, I cannot be your mentor.
The second step is, after you download my book,
I want you to read it, and you also get an invitation
to register for one of my upcoming webinars.
I want you to register, and show up for that webinar.
During the webinar, I go through all the details
of how you can possibly be mentored by me.
Go there right now, fumoney.com.