Submitted by Experience Not Logic Blog

The other evening in Shanghai we had a company banquet at a seafood restaurant in Xintiandi. There were mostly sales personnel plus some tech support, marketing and administrative staff. If you hang around any of these China blogs you’ve almost certainly read a story about how the drinking culture has died out, or how you no longer need to drink to make a sale. I decided to just sit back and let my colleagues explain the drinking and sales connection.

The consensus was that in Shanghai and Beijing you could drink as little as you wanted to without offending anybody. But, if you get too far from either of these cities, especially in the North, then you’re in trouble. Which led to much joking and laughing at and with our Sales Manager of North China. The same joke was made about our Northwest guy, our West guy, and our South guy. But, as we were in Shanghai and we weren’t trying to sell anything to each other that night, other than the humor of our jokes, we toasted each other throughout the meal.

At one point, one of our sales guys told me a story about the CEO of a company in the South of China who was trying to secure a large contract. The CEO was meeting with a principal of the company and the principal said that they’d purchase 1 unit of the 12 units required for each cup of baijiu toasted. The CEO announced that he’d take 12 cups of baijiu. He then leaned over to his assistant and told him to have an ambulance waiting outside. The CEO awoke in a hospital bed with the full contract. My colleague told me that the greatest payoff came when the CEO returned to his factories. His employees had heard the story and their loyalty skyrocketed after knowing that their boss was willing to commit suicide for the company [his words not mine].

I might’ve had a slightly different interpretation of the CEO’s actions. I’d be a little disturbed by the company’s risk analysis.