Road To China: Making Use of Your Social Capital

As a ‘big picture’ thinker and entrepreneur I often find myself agreeing to things before I work out how to deliver them. Having identified my big picture tendencies through leadership development training I now have a team of incredible ‘detail’ people who allow me the freedom to be creative and push the business forward, while not sacrificing any of the standards of excellence we hold as our core ethos.

So in my application to secure a place on the Technology is GREAT trade mission to China, I told UKTI I had videos to demonstrate our services (I’d wanted to do them for months), case studies of clients in our main logistics and construction sectors (again, in my head but not on paper and certainly not in Chinese!), and brochures that my poor graphic designer had wanted me to sign off for weeks.

Securing the place on the mission lit a rocket under me as I then had less than three weeks to get everything sorted! And this is where I realised what an incredible power team I had built around me and truly made the best use of it!

Video – I knew about Martin Head at Cloudscape TV after meeting his partner at a Women in Business event. He amazingly cleared his diary for me and made two 3 minute videos: one telling the Emerald Story and one interviewing clients to fit with the written case studies. Two days of filming, three days of editing, and using Chinese translated graphics resulted in a hugely professional and polished finished product!

Translation – I had met Sophie Howe from Comtec Translations at a speed networking event and also knew her husband through local volunteering. They did an incredible job translating my business cards, case studies, and graphics to show our impressive statistics. The companies we work with, on average, both increase productivity by 12% and make 25% savings on their ongoing communication costs.

Graphic Design – Chris Hammond from Ha Creative is my long suffering graphic designer, who I met through Laura Morris, a contact I made at a networking group for mums! You just never know where these gems appear! I am terrible for taking an age to sign anything off and then when I finally do I want everything finished yesterday! But as always Chris did not disappoint as he had the brochures he’d been sitting on for weeks printed and delivered within days! He also liaised with Comtec so all the translations could be imported straight into the correct file format leaving me time to panic about everything else!

Printing – With less than a week to go I supplied Tony Herbert at Print 2 Please Ltd with my Chinese business card proof and the requirement for the highest quality at the best price in the quickest time! I have known Tony for a number of years now, actually through my husband’s business, and there was never any doubt in my faith in him to perform printing miracles. I had the best mingpian in all of China!

Promotional Products – An amazing idea from Martin during filming had me calling in favours from Nic at HB Creative (based in the same office building as us) and Jeremy from PowerPack XL who I first connected with on social media. Branded USBs for my video files and branded promotional credit card sized power packs made for some great give away items for the International Tech Expo that was part of the trade mission. And the short time frame meant a personal delivery from both companies!

So there were a large number of people and businesses that all played a crucial part in sending me on the road to China! When I look over the list it’s clear that I really made use of my social capital by pulling in people I knew from volunteering in my personal life to companies I had conversed with on Twitter to those I met at business networking events. My advice to make the best use of your own social capital is to always be building a power team around you. You never know when you may need to call in those favours!

This was first published in 2016