Over the years, many domestic compatriots have come to know this strange country in the southern hemisphere through my "Australian Dream", and have seen a different world in the book - a dream home in the eyes of Chinese people who come to Australian land with dreams... Here, I will serialize my "Australian Dream" and share with you my entrepreneurial story of more than 30 years in Australia!
In December 1989, I decided to abandon my studies and pursue a career in business.
I decisively left the Center for Chinese Economics and Trade Studies at Deakin University's School of Economics to work at a business school.
There are two types of higher education in Australia, one is a state-run comprehensive university, and the other is a private college. In terms of size or quality, junior colleges cannot be compared with regular comprehensive universities. Upon completion of university, bachelor's, master's or doctoral degrees are awarded according to the years of study and achievements, but only certificates of completion are awarded.
So why did I leave the prestigious Deakin University and work for a private business school?
There are four reasons:
First, this business school is run by a spaniard descendant, just getting started, and there will be many opportunities;
Second, I came to this business school to be an international manager, and I think I am very suitable for this job;
Third, I want to enter the field of adult education through this position and open up a new world;
Fourth, the salary is high, with an annual salary of 60,000 yuan, which is five times that of the original China Economic and Trade Research Center.
At that time, the annual salary of 60,000 was also a very high salary in Australia, and as far as I know, even university professors were only a little more than 70,000. Sixty thousand, according to the exchange rate at that time, almost equivalent to 400,000 yuan! At that time, the salary of ordinary Chinese was more than 100 per month, less than 2,000 a year, and 400,000 was the sum of the wages of 200 years of work!
When I applied for the position of international manager at this business school, I felt very confident because I provided a very convincing proof of job qualifications. In addition to my work experience as director of the Centre for Chinese Economics and Trade Studies at deakin University's School of Economics, I also provide articles published in major Australian newspapers over the years, notably my book China Trade Guide, and finally my extensive network in Chinese mainland, especially in coastal provinces, and my grasp of the Chinese market.
At this time, I was already very confident and had a wealth of experience in dealing with Australians.
As a result, my interview was successful. What they like about me is that I have a wealth of australian university experience, as well as a wide range of Chinese mainland connections.
The job I am working as the manager of the international department is mainly for southeast Asian and Chinese mainland admissions, in fact, it is mainly Chinese, because most of the international students from Southeast Asia are also Chinese.
When I took office, I learned that the college had not yet started enrolling students, and that a rented building was completely empty.
I immediately felt inappropriate, can I make money running a school like this?
Later, after a period of observation, I learned that they had not yet obtained admissions permission from the Ministry of Education. However, the boss did not want to wait any longer, so he began to enroll. I feel more and more inappropriate, is it legal to do this? I believe that sooner or later something will go wrong. Moreover, the boss has been spending money, but there is no income for a single dollar.
I began to waver, and the passion that I had wanted to do a good job gradually cooled.
I'm keeping watching.
Later, I learned that the owner of the school, the Spaniard, had a strong funding because of his inheritance, that is, the school could still operate even without students.
However, I still think this is inappropriate. I'm not here just to make those sixty thousand, I'm ambitious, I want to use this platform to do a career, I don't want to mess around.
I worked at the academy for two months, and in February 1990 I left.
At that time, some of my friends did not understand: Jin Kaiping, Jin Kaiping, you are really stupid, that is a good job with an annual salary of 60,000 yuan! How can you just quit? It doesn't matter if he manages chaos or not, whether he has a license or not, in short, as long as you can get a salary. What the hell is going on?!
But I think, if you go to the mainland to enroll students like this, isn't that a stingy person? People spend hard-earned money to study, in case the Ministry of Education finally does not issue admissions permission, then this school can become an illegal school, how can I be worthy of my father and fellow countrymen?
A year later, the business school went out of business. I don't know if they recruited students in the end.
While working at this business school, I also started writing my second book, Business Negotiations with the People's Republic of China. Due to the ease of work and the anxiety of not having identity, it was very easy to write, and the first draft was quickly completed and handed over to Professor Breth for revision.
Fast forward to 1990. I've published a book, got Permanent Resident Status in Australia, and bought a house. As for my job, I quit my job as the director of the China Economic and Trade Research Center at the School of Economics of the University of Melbourne, which is mainly academic, and resigned from the job of the manager of the international department of the business school that mainly makes money from business.
I think I've got that ability because I've found the confidence to survive and thrive in Australia.
This year is the year with the most changes.
I was like a bellwether among new immigrants, running at a high speed, chasing one development opportunity and goal after another.
Although I had been in Australia for more than two years at that time, at this time, most of the tens of thousands of mainland students and new immigrants who had come to Australia from the mainland together were still working hard, earning 5-10 Australian dollars per hour in restaurants large and small, in workshops where machines roared, and at construction sites lined with crane towers.
I decided to earn money with my own brain and survive with my own intellect.
I'm waiting for my chance. Opportunities are always given to those who are already prepared.
Sure enough, the opportunity came. In January of that year, I had the opportunity to start a joint venture. A company in Fuzhou, China, plans to pay $200,000 to open a joint venture restaurant in Australia. They found me. I found Wang, who had worked in Melbourne for many years and owned a well-run restaurant. The three parties sat down and began to agree on the joint venture. They hoped that I would also invest in a stake and form a tripartite catering company to jointly run a restaurant.
I couldn't come up with much cash at the time, but I wanted to take a stake. So I came up with a new concept of a joint venture: fuzhou company capital, Boss Wang's restaurant and my experience in developing the Australian market.
In a month's time, the three of us sat down and negotiated a total of five times. The main point of the negotiation has been centered around my intellectual stake. I wanted to own 20 per cent of the company, but not in cash, but with more than two years of market development experience in Australia.
Fuzhou initially thought it was a joke, because not many Chinese companies knew and understood the concept of intellectual shareholding at that time. Finally, after my repeated explanations, the Fujian side agreed, but only gave me a maximum of 10% of the shares.
However, the owner of the restaurant, Wang, still refused to accept my "intellectual shareholding", saying that even if he took 10,000 steps back, he could only give me 5% of the shares. Boss Wang is an old overseas Chinese, who has been mixing in Chinatown all his life, does not know much about outside things, and is unlikely to speak English. I reckon he thinks a new immigrant from Chinese mainland can use his intellect to get a stake. He believes that only money can buy shares.
At this point, it is actually a misunderstanding of the Chinese cultural tradition. In the concept of Western business management, intellectual shareholding is quite important. How can my experience in market development not be worthwhile?
We talked five times, and the tripartite cooperation plan of my intellectual shareholding failed, and I voluntarily withdrew.
Later, fujian and Boss Wang jointly opened a Chinese restaurant.
A year later, the restaurant went out of business due to poor management. Later, I also met the boss Wang, who said to me with some regret, it may have been my mistake, if I had cooperated with you and let you intellectually invest in shares, maybe we would not be the way we are now.
He finally figured it out.
Intelligence - for example, a person with rich experience in market development and very sensitive, his intelligence and management experience, his marketing and planning ideas, can definitely make a lot of money. But because of the difference in ideas, we failed to cooperate, and they failed. I don't know whether to be thankful or sorry for them.
After the cooperation did not succeed, I was the only one who broke into the world.
There are still some problems with doing it alone, the funds are insufficient, and my money is put on the house. That is to say, if you really want to do something, you still have to make some money. Another problem is that although I went through academic research at the University of Melbourne and later managed at that incomplete business school, I have not really found a suitable field for my development.
I decided to find another job, and to find a job where I could use my abilities to the fullest without restraint. At the same time, we are moving towards the goal of starting our own business. I found that in recent years, more and more mainland students have studied in Australia, and have even become the main source of Australian education abroad, so many universities have taken the attraction of Chinese students as a key task. Well, now, as I am familiar with Chinese mainland, the most suitable thing to do now should be the kind of person who relies on my market sensitivity and development experience to manage a department of an educational institution.
I decided to find a job in a different way, another proactive way, to sell myself.
I chose three schools from Melbourne's phone book, the Yellow Pages. I called them and pitched them the Chinese market and my market philosophy.
Sure enough, one of the lv business schools was interested in me and wanted to interview me.
lv Business School is a very formal and well-known business school in Melbourne.
I felt like my opportunity had come.
I was well prepared and by the time of the interview, my marketing plan was ready. It's a very detailed market plan with four sheets of paper. In these four pieces of paper, I introduced in detail the education and students in China, and analyzed how many of them are likely to study in Australia, and how many of them are likely to be students of our college.
At the same time, I also made my request:
1. Establish the Asia Business Department to develop the international student market in China and various Asian countries;
Second, I am the manager of this department;
Third, my remuneration is a share of the basic income.
I did it. They set up an international department and hired me as the international department manager.
I am very satisfied with this job, because I like to engage in market development. Market development for me, like a special realm, all unknown things, you need to personally depict and fight, I feel the vastness of heaven and earth, can let me do whatever I want.
I know this is the best opportunity to hone me. And I will succeed.
Where did I get this good feeling? Because I'm entering a Chinese study abroad market that has a lot of potential and a lot of Australians aren't very optimistic, or they don't even know about. I believe that this study abroad market is in the ascendant and has broad prospects.
My goal is to recruit international students in overseas markets, mainly in Asia, mainly Chinese mainland.
Immediately after the successful application, I started my job.
First of all, I started advertising this international student in the newspaper "New Paper", australia's largest Chinese newspaper, and my advertisement was very big, very grand, and every day. At the same time, I often write soft articles in the Newspaper New to subtly introduce the situation in our school.
In order to find more students, I went north to Canberra and Sydney to do research and research.
Then I flew non-stop to Hong Kong to promote admissions, and also built a huge network of agents in Taiwan, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and other places. The scattered agents are quite employed by me, and the commission is on a sharing system. I gave them my ingredients. This reduced my share, but it increased my helpers, and I became three heads and six arms.
Soon, the network of agents I built up played a huge role, and we recruited a lot of students in a very short period of time. Naturally, my commission and the agent's commission are indispensable.
During my time at lv Business School, I accumulated a lot of management experience and also accumulated some funds.
Of course, my vision has gradually relaxed.
In my subconscious, I may not like things that are stable and lack challenges, so I often throw away the iron rice bowl and go to the mud rice bowl. When he was in China, he gave up his job in the Foreign Trade Bureau and went to the sea to do business; after coming to Australia, he gave up his university job and went to the sea to find new opportunities. While all are risky, I feel challenging.
