Vance Miller shares his insights and experience of building a multi-million dollar kitchen business worldwide through mastering the tough learning curve of doing business in China.
Please make sure to watch the documentary that Vance is featured in to have a better understanding of the following interview.
Christine's Note: After coming across the Brits Get Rich In China documentary on Youtube during the summer '07, I said to myself, "Now here's a guy who gets China. I have to interview him". I recently had a great conversation with Vance off-air and look forward to doing a formal video or audio interview with him on my show in the near future. In the meantime, he was kind enough to answer the following initial questions I had in follow up to the Brits Get Rich In China documentary I saw. Wanted to make sure I shared it with all of you as it contains a lot of great insight from someone on the ground in China who has found success by going after it.
CHRISTINE: Everyone on this show has their own unique story to how they ended up working in China or investing in China. In the documentary Brits Get Rich In China, you mentioned hopping on a plane one day with a friend who was going to China as being the catalyst for your current business. How long ago was that?
VANCE: 8 years ago and China was such a different place only 8 years ago. But I knew what was coming. It was so obvious what this place was capable of and it all changed in 2002. I think it was when China joined the W.T.O. why it changed then I really don’t understand, it was always open for business before this but joining the WTO was like putting the half price sale signs up. Except this wasn’t 50% off, it was 90% off. I remember the first time I enquired about the price of a tap. I looked at the tap and thought “Well it would cost perhaps $12 to buy in Europe”. I asked how much and he said $10.80 which I thought “Well a 10% saving is worth going to China for”.
Then when I enquired further I learnt that $10.80 was not for one tap, but for a dozen. That’s when I knew that china was really for me. So if this guy can make a crap tap for less than a dollar, what kind of tap could he make for $10? I think we settled on $7 for the most beautiful tap in the world. I then went to work on making all my products the best quality possible at less than the price for crap in Europe.
CHRISTINE: At what point did Vance Miller evolve from the guy who followed his friend to China to the guy who decided to build a business based on sourcing from China? What was the inspiration that led to your decision to do business in China?
VANCE: I originally went out there for wooden doors and cabinets. But after my tap experience, I soon got onto replacing every possible product included in a fitted kitchen. The inspiration was that I had a lot of products to get on with and I wanted to do it before everyone else. From nuts and screws to dishwashers it all comes from china today.
CHRISTINE: The Factory Of The World, we all hear that term as everything in the world these days seems to be made in China. Of all the industries and product categories to choose from, why kitchens in your case?
VANCE: Kitchens are my business, that’s why I chose kitchens. I didn’t go looking for an opportunity, I went with a clear goal in mind and that was for my wooden doors and cabinets. All the other endless opportunities only became apparent once I got there.
CHRISTINE: You make reference to losing money and paying your dues in China...yet it's quite obvious you got passed that initial steep curve that many of us have faced when doing business in China. What in your opinion sets you apart from those entrepreneurs and big international companies alike who were lured in by the China opportunity and subsequently failed, to what do you attribute to your success?
VANCE: My success in China is, undoubtedly my refusal to fail and give up on a project just because it went wrong the first time. When I ordered my first batches of cabinets, doors and accessories like wine racks, plate racks etc. from the different factories te wine racks came pink, the doors came yellow and the cabinets came warped. But although this was a huge financial blow it was also an expensive lesson. I knew that next time I ordered these items I had the advantage of knowing what all the problems were. So I went to work on solving all the problems, not giving up or throwing in the towel.
So all these factories now would use the same paint from the same paint supplier and the storage conditions for panels at the cabinet factory had to be improved to prevent warping. I employed an inspector and he made sure that all the factories were working together. Its almost inevitable that when you first develop a product in china no matter how many preventative measures you take to make sure the product is perfect you have to accept that something will just not quite be right.
You just have to make sure you don’t make the same mistake twice. The first time is an expensive lesson but the second is down to you being a fool. “If at first you don’t succeed then coce it.”we now have inspectors at the end of every production line and it is them, our employees that decides if the product goes into the box, not the factory employee. We pay our man double what he could earn elsewhere and if we get a dodgy product back in the UK when we open the box then he’s fired.
If it all went perfect then it wouldn’t be an adventure and I’m not in it for the money, I’m in it for the adventure. So I suppose to answer your question that’s the bit that sets me apart from most of those that have failed. But to be perfecty fair many have succeeded much greater than I have.
CHRISTINE: From the documentary, you succeed in areas that most Westerners often fail at...one of the things that stands out about you is an almost sixth sense for knowing how to do business with the Chinese. In your own words...what is it that you feel you "get" about doing business in China that most other Westerners fail to understand?
VANCE: The Chinese look at business in exactly the same way as warfare in that each move they make is calculated move in which to gain an advantage over you, the opponent. Having only one supplier to manufacture a certain product - lets say a certain design of whirlpool – is leaving yourself open to attack from your supplier.
For instance when your supplier knows that the whirlpool is in your new catalogue and your orders are rolling in, he knows he can put his price up, you're not in china you're in America and you're busy selling your whirlpools. You don’t have time to go back to china to re-source the whirlpool and you don’t want to accept the price increase. The problem is if you accept the price increase then they will probably ask for another shortly after and another and so on. So you need two suppliers so you can say get lost the first time they ask.
This is just one example, I have experienced many during my time in china. When it comes to doing business its similar to a game of chess for them. They think about every move. They know all of our tricks and they also know their own. They’ve been watching and learning from us. When we built our empires we didn’t have others to learn much from. These guys will take us to the next level (as if this level wasn’t far enough) but that will be the Chinese empire.
CHRISTINE: Some of the listeners of our show and readers of our site are interested in knowing if the situation improved with the factory that produced wooden doors for you in that remote village where your business was the lifeline of that village. Did quality and delivery time improve since?
VANCE: We’ve not only got production quality bang on and more than double what it was doing when when the film was made, but we’ve also built a games room in the school for the kids with table tennis, snooker, badminton and basketball. So yeah, my bit of putting something back into the community is working well.
CHRISTINE: What are some challenges you continue to face with your business in China?
VANCE: The challenges I continue to face – well China is a never ending challenge and so is Britain. The British kitchen industry has been destroyed by me and China, I’m wanted dead or alive by the British bureaucracy. You don’t have to go to China to find bent officials, they’re right here under our own noses, except they know how to cover their tracks better because they’ve been doing it longer than the Chinese. The Chinese are having a high profile surge on locking up bent officials bet we’re not.
My challenge now comes from the British government bodies that are set out to close my company at any cost because of the damage I am doing to the British kitchen industry. Before I went to China everything in the British kitchen industry was 90% British and 10% European. I am not good for British industry so I can fully understand why not a week doesn’t go by where government bodies have not either served me with a summons preventing me selling a certain product or prevented me from advertising or some other crazy action against me.
The government in Britain has a clear agenda to stop me polluting the British kitchen industry with Chinese made goods. They have sent 130 police officer and trading standards officers around to my home at 4:30am one morning in the biggest bust in British history. It was a huge publicity stunt to deter people from buying from my company. No charges have been ever been brought against me so what on earth was all that about? They took everything from my company, computers, telephones, all orders, all customer records and they had a team of government officials ready to take over my company should I decide to throw in the towel. But I didn’t, and I won’t. This is just one thing the British government has done to try to stop me, there have been lots and they’re still continuing.
I see that Disney have sent a clear message to Hertel or whatever the Chinese toy suppliers are now and I see that that there has been big publicity in the U.S. about this and other products from china not being of satisfactory quality and dangerous. Of course none of us would want our children playing with dangerous toys, so what a great opportunity for the government to make a big thing of China. Unfortunately for both our governments though is the fact that China is unstoppable. So that’s where my main challenges are coming from right now.
CHRISTINE: What advice would you give to the entrepreneur listening right now who is interested in sourcing from China or investing in China?
VANCE: China is the new land of opportunity; it is the place that dreams can come true very easily. You can have an idea whilst trying to get to sleep, and the next morning you can be on with it. Things get done immediately without too much red tape and bureaucratic bullshit. I don’t know about America but in Britain we're bogged down in bureaucratic bullshit that is put in place so all the bureaucrats can sponge off us working people. In china you just get on with it. You can design and manufacture a new toilet in a couple of days but in Europe it takes months.
If you’re going to China then there’s two ways of doing it. You either go to China and look for an opportunity in which case just pack your bag and off you go to see what opportunities you can find to take back to your country and believe me, there are plenty, you cant bend down to tie your shoelaces without seeing an opportunity or you can go to china knowing what you want, in my case I took my wooden doors and cabinets with me. When you find someone to make what you want then quickly find two.
if your building a factory in China then be prepared for every bit of corruption possible, from corrupt builders, corrupt surveyors, corrupt staff, corrupt local government officials that break promises like they break sunflower seeds & they call it culture, I call it blatant theft.
If you can put up with all that then China is the place for you. The infrastructure is perfect; they have everything going for them including a billion people looking for jobs. There is nothing they cannot make. Although their specialty is just to copy at a knock-down price.
If you haven’t been to China yet but are seriously thinking of making it a part of your business then I suggest you choose a trade fair for the products of your choice and you just get out there and start from there. How far further you delve from the trade show is up to you, but believe me the further you look, the more you find. There is definitely, especially when going out with a sole purpose of finding one particular product, the problem of getting very seriously sidetracked into getting in something totally out of your own field.
The opportunities are that inviting. I have strayed off the beaten track many times. I have bought shoes, teddies, motorbikes, fishing rods etc. There was a time when I couldn’t make a wrong turn into some factory gates without finding out what they did and wondering how I could get involved.
For me this has been very educating, but has taken me away from my objective to source every possible kitchen component. So take some blinkers with you and wear them or you will come back from China with a lot more than you went for.
For more information on Vance Miller, here are some links for reference:
Vance Miller shares his insights and experience of building a multi-million dollar kitchen business worldwide through mastering the tough learning curve of doing business in China. 
Vance Miller
