It is not always easy to find the right international partner to work with for your supply chain needs. Some have said it is as tricky as finding the right marriage partner. Anita, The Global Trade Gal, gives three things you can look for to find the right international business partner.
You can find out more by reading: 3 Tips to Finding The Right International Business Partner (https://mondoro.com/3-tips-to-finding-the-right-international-business-partner/)
Support the show (https://www.paypal.com/globaltradegal)
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hi this is Anita hmel the global trade
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gal I have spent over 30 years living
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and working in Asia as part of the
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global supply chain I've learned a lot
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of things through some very hard lessons
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so if you're looking for Insider tips
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experiences and other information then
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you're in the right
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place this is Anita the global trade gal
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with episode 6 today I want to talk a
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little bit about finding the right
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international business partner and this
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of course is an extreme extremely
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difficult thing to do I remember years
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ago I was talking to a friend of mine
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about this who did a lot of financing
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for businesses and I asked him about
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bringing in a partner and he said to me
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he said Anita getting rid of the wrong
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partner is more messy and more
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complicated than a divorce and it really
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made me think a bit I sort of thought
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really are you sure and he says oh
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absolutely he said you know if you have
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the wrong business partner you're you're
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going to be so miserable and at the same
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time getting rid of them and buying them
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out or getting them out of the company
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can be a lot more messy than if you were
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going to have a
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divorce and this is especially true if
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you're going to bring somebody into your
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company or you're going to do a joint
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venture with them or you're going to
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give them money for a factory overseas
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and then you're going to sort of trust
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them and walk away and this is where
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things can get very complicated and
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extremely messy especially in Asia where
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your partner may not look at things the
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same way as you do so here's a couple
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things to remember is first of all
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nothing beats knowledge you know if
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you're going to partner with somebody
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and you're going to give them money and
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you trust them you maybe worked with
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them before and you know that they
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really have the knowledge that you need
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that you don't have and that they can
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make something happen that you could not
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make happen then that's probably a
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really good sign of it you know but then
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a lot of times there's a lot of people
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here who will lie or just tell you
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things I always I always love it like
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when you go into a factory and and the
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you ask I'll always ask the factory this
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question how many containers do you ship
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a month and they'll say like oh we ship
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a thousand and I don't see one container
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at the factory I think there's
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absolutely
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positively no way they're shipping a
2:33
th000 containers that means if you're
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shipping a th000 containers a month just
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just do the math here for a minute that
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means you have to load 250 containers
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per week which means on average each day
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your factory should be loading 35
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containers so if you're loading 35
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containers a day there should at least
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be a couple containers waiting to be
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loaded that day you know so that would
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be 35 containers if you're working
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working seven days a week but if you're
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working um 6 days a week that would be
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42 containers a day so that means that
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you know your your packing room your
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Warehouse everything needs to be able to
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have enough Goods going through it where
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you could see like there's about 42
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containers a day going to be loaded and
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shipped out here even if they pack them
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up at night but you should be able to
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see that you know because there's no
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Factory that can realistically load
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manufacture and ship a thousand
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containers in one week and then they sit
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for the other 3 weeks that's just not
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the way an efficient factories run so
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you know that's why it's important that
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you find somebody who kind of you know
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has the knowledge that you can trust
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somebody who's not going to you know
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give you a bunch of stories or or you
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know that is not going to really quite
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tell you the truth you want someone
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who's going to really have the knowledge
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and tell you the truth the next thing
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and this is a problem where a lot of
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people have problems is they just don't
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do their due diligence I get really
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surprised here at a lot of times and and
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maybe this is just me where I've been in
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Asia maybe a bit too long and I've been
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doing this like really way too long
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because it becomes where maybe I don't
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really quite trust anybody but I've
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sometimes have worked with companies and
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they'll say Okay work with my China
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office or work with my Vietnam office or
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work with whatever and sometimes I just
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smell a rat and I can't quite put my
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finger on it but my staff and I are just
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kind of like there's just something
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going on here we don't know what and
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usually it's it's because the office has
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been sort of left alone they don't have
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much oversight and you just sort of have
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the feeling that there really could be
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some kind of corruption or something
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else going on here and you just you know
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you can't quite put your finger on it
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but you just know that there's something
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going on by the way they act and what
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they do and how they do it and so this
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is where I think many people get caught
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up and they sort of you know get caught
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up in this they don't really do the due
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diligence it's you know somebody takes
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them out to drink and oh I like you and
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you seem to like me and you've got a
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nice family and let's do business
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together because we all feel happy and
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you know that's not the way to find
5:14
yourself really a business partner you
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need to really do your um due diligence
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you know you need to really understand
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you know the importance of really
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knowing who the person is that you work
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with you know and you can find out a lot
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if you start working with them ahead of
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time before you go into any kind of
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partnership with them and and you know
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again mate the risk like work with them
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first and then see how it goes and you
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know always always always keep your eyes
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open because one of the great things
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here that I've seen at least in Asia is
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there's some people here that are able
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to talk a great talk but they really
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don't walk the walk I guess you would
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say that they are really kind of like
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sweet talk ERS and they will kind of
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tell the foreigners exactly what they
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want to hear and you know unless you
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really have the experience to be able to
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see it most foreigners kind of get
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caught up in all that and I know that
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many times in the past you know I have
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too though the longer I've been here and
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I've been burned so many times that you
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after a while just by being burned and
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your experience you sort of begin to
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learn and begin to understand like I
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don't think this person's quite telling
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me everything you just kind of get a
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sick sense about it
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I remember one two years ago I was with
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one of my um Chinese managers who was
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actually pretty good about reading
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people and we were um went out to dinner
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with this guy that we were working with
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and he you know he was great I mean it
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was one of these dinners where I was
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just like I just LED talking to him so
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much and we had so much to talk about
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and after we got done I asked her I said
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what do you think she goes okay I mean
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she wasn't really impressed because she
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felt like he was kind of sweet talking
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me to get exactly what he wanted where
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he wasn't really able to deliver and
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there again where it becomes with the
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next point is to be able to trust local
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knowledge and you know there's no easy
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or quick way to be able to get the right
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local knowledge you know I mean yeah
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some people do it because they might
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marry into it and that's certainly one
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way to do it but another way is you know
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you have to be able to to find the right
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people to work for you and it's not
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always easy there was one time in
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Vietnam where I have fired all almost my
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entire office for corruption and I was
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absolutely shocked I I never thought
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that they would do it to me and everyone
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was so sweet talking and great and the
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manager at the time was just I thought
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he was just a wonderful guy and I
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discovered that he was probably stealing
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to me on the tune about $4 or $5,000 a
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month and almost everyone else there
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knew about it and were kind of um
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complacent in the whole thing and this
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was a really hard lesson for me to for
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me to learn and it's one another ones
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where I really got my fingers burned
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with all of this and you know it's just
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because sometimes you know again people
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will tell you what they want to hear
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when they're covering up this really
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other Sinister side so really finding
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the good local knowledge of somebody you
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can really trust takes time it takes a
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lot of work it takes a lot of effort you
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know that's why a lot of times when you
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have this you know I will that's why
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sometimes just my red flags or my red
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radar goes up like something's just not
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right here and I don't know what and
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then if I start talking to my local
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staff they'll say yes it's because of
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blah blah blah blah you know so you
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really really need to be able to find
8:39
that if you're going to be working
8:40
overseas so I think that's why it's very
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important for you to find somebody you
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can trust when you are working overseas
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and it's important for you to understand
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these things that somebody might be just
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telling you something because they think
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it is exactly what you want to hear so
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finding the right international business
9:00
partner is not easy but finding the
9:02
right partner is not easy finding the
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right spouse is not easy it's just not
9:08
something that's easy it takes time work
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it takes getting to know the person and
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it takes you really reading your gut a
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lot and understanding and then it also
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takes you to be able to find somebody
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that you can work together with someone
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who isn't going to maybe drive you nuts
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or somebody that you find that you can
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actually work together with and to be
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able to get get the products out that
9:31
you
9:32
need this podcast is sponsored by
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