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© St. Petersburg Times, published November 25, 2002
Bill Rowland of Tampa has worked in advertising in New York, been a regional marketing director for McDonald's and owned several fast-food franchises. A year ago, he decided to try his hand at international business consulting and set his sights on the big prize: China.
After months of preparation, which included hosting a Chinese trade delegation in Florida, Rowland and colleague Jennifer Findley-Fox had their baptism by fire in October at the Guangzhou Export Commodities Fair in south China.
The semi-annual event attracts 8,800 exhibitors and 120,000 attendees from 185 countries. On display are Chinese-made products, from heavy machinery to high tech to food products.
Nearly $18-billion worth of contracts were reportedly signed during the fair, mostly with other Asian countries.
Rowland and his partner managed to snag a spot on the speakers' list during the megamarket. For an hour one afternoon they lectured about 100 Chinese businesspeople on branding and franchising. Rowland said the concepts were fairly foreign to entrepreneurs in a nation that's short on capital and long on labor.
"Their focus historically has been on unbranded goods, where there is fast turnover," he said. "And their overall impression was that the U.S. market is too expensive to break into. I told them about choosing your segment and niche marketing, a lot of which was new to them."
In addition to eliciting puzzled looks, Rowland's seminar yielded a customer. A Hong Kong trading company that represents 200 shoe manufacturers in China hired Rowland's company, International Commerce Center, to research potential markets for its products in North and South America.
Rowland's assessment of China: "The operative word is overwhelming. But I think there's just as much opportunity for a small company like mine. We can react faster to changes in the marketplace than a large company can. And China is very fast-moving."