We walk the walk.

Unlike most other market-entry consultants, we don’t just tell our clients what to do; we actually do the work we suggest, from simple administrative duties to hiring your employees and QC supervisors. We do the research and even hold the meetings so you don’t have to. Consultants are usually paid to think without doing. We think deeply and do widely. There is no shortcut to experience.

We’re an internationalized bunch.

We’re all foreign-educated Chinese or Chinese-educated foreigners. All of us have had experience crossing cultures. So we understand China as the Chinese do, but with a Western mindset, allowing us to answer cultural questions that can’t be answered with common logic. We’ve been thrown into unfamiliar situations our whole lives. We survived. We are organizers of chaos.

We value integrity over pride.

If we don’t know something, we won’t say we do. We’ll refer you to an expert who does. And if we don’t believe you should come to China at all, or not yet, we’ll also make our recommendations clear.

We love our work.

We don’t work for stable salaries and eight-hour days. That was our parents’ generation, the generation of huge corporations. This is the generation of the young, the small, the adaptable. Work based on relationships and talent, not just seniority. We have no bulky organizational overhead. Your money goes directly into our execution of your solutions. Small is the new big. We want to innovate, to find the most efficient ways to do things. Because LITAO is not just a job; it’s a lifestyle.

So why us?

Because over the years, we have carefully cultivated that precise mixture of modern knowledge and deep cultural understanding that allows us to thrive in this country. China yearns for growth—but only if you know what you’re doing. Let us show you what we mean.

SCENARIO: Without LITAO

You’re a dreamer with something to sell. You think China is the perfect market for it: hungry, urban, people with money to burn. You scour your contacts, come up with a few China folks. They tell you, yes, yes, China is where possibilities come to breathe. They say they’ll introduce you to their friends. You fly eight uncomfortable hours to Beijing on hope alone. You are greeted by businessmen, potential clients or partners, dark hair and dark eyes. It is the first time you put faces to names. You are introduced to a translator, provided by the other side. You think it was a nice gesure on their part. You explain your product as succinctly as you can. She explains your product even more succinctly. All around the room the Chinese nod and smile, nod and smile.

But then it’s time for them to speak. You wait but there is hardly any waiting. They all agree: you are very nice, but your product is not for them. They say only one thing: “it’s too expensive.” Your time is up. They leave with bows and smiles, bows and smiles. Politeness, they’ve been told, is something foreigners like. Not necessarily the truth. China is not just an open door; it is a revolving one. There have been thousands like you. What will make you different?

SCENARIO: With LITAO

Of course you’ve always been a dreamer. And China is, true, a land of possibilities. But before you come to this country, we’ll make sure you’re prepared. We help you find the answers to four crucial questions:

• What do you want to achieve?
• Who else can help you achieve that?
• How do you convince them that your vision is of their interest?
• Why should people trust you?

So you know who your people are. What you’re competing against. Why here and now. So you have the tools to truly sell, aka persuade. We do the market research for you in a country with scarce big data options. We connect you with our network. By the time you come to China, we’ve found the right market placement for your product: not on the tier of cheap, but on the level of quality. We’ve already pitched you to relevant distributors, manufacturers, and partners. So you’re not just meeting a bunch of strangers with disparate interests, but the people specifically working for your target market, people interested already. You fly with your laptop on your knees, putting the final touches on the bilingual Powerpoint we’ve prepared for you, and read again the main points of our extensive market analysis report.

When you meet potential partners or investors, you have not only a product and a vision, but the concrete stats to back it up. You know that foreign companies can never compete with the Chinese on pricing, but people want premium products. That’s what you sell to the room. We have come along as your interpreter. The whole meeting, we’re whispering beside your ear on the subtleties of the meeting’s meanings. When we speak for you, it is with your interests at heart—we’re not working for the other side. This time, they nod and smile but “it’s too expensive” does not enter the conversation. You are speaking on a different level now. They’ve long ago decided you were worth working with. They know our track record. The meeting was only a formality after all. You’ve been a dreamer. Now you’re beginning to build. We don’t make promises based on expectations. But we do promise clarity. So you can be sure your next step is the right one. We won’t waste your time.

关系
(gwæn’si) a Chinese social concept based on the
exchange of favours, in which personal relationships are
considered more important than laws and written
agreements

If you don’t know what guanxi
is, you don’t really know China.

Guanxi in Chinese means interpersonal connections but also more than that: it is that ineffable network of people we know who would open doors for us, doors that are otherwise guarded or closed. When you’re looking for a solution in China, “I know someone...” are the three sweetest words you can hear.

Our guanxi include current and former clients, business colleagues, government officials, experts and KOLs in various fields, advisers and advisees: people we have served, learned from, and made friends with. They are people and businesses we admire who are kind enough to share their greatness with us. We are so thankful for them and the amazing work they do.

The ecosystem of Chinese business is built on trustworthy guanxi and nothing in China gets done without it. Cultivating good China connections takes years—but by joining the LITAO network, our people will become your people.