How far has the trend gone? In case you haven’t heard, there are growing trends that make the creation of eco-friendly undergarments a major draw among today’s enlightened consumers.

Just a few clicks online and one can find a plethora of undergarments that promise to keep your carbon footprint in check.

One of the more amusing sites comes from none other than the Land Down Under! Go crazy about men’s underwear made of, if you pardon the Freudian symbolism, bananas! In 2010, Aussiebum introduced a video online that shows men’s briefs made of banana fiber. It’s every marketer’s and sloganeer’s dream to come up with the best ways to describe these skivvies.

Maybe it's time to give your bananas in the fridge a second look. "This range is so natural you could almost eat it - almost!" -Aussiebum

Bananas aside, there are also other eco-friendly materials that are now giving cotton a run for its money. Bamboo, Soya, and hemp are trends that may soon be hard to overlook.

If your market is composed of those who take their understanding of eco-friendly products to heart, maybe it’s time to look at these alternatives. As Seth Godin, famous entrepreneur, speaker, and author has emphasized, it’s important for today’s marketers to know that mass marketing doesn’t work as well as it had a generation ago. Great hits are created by the devoted tribes that will tell other people about your product.

If you’re looking for a sustainable business that’s fit for the future, ChinaDirect Sourcing can help you find the supplier of your liking. You don’t have to go too far to find your expert adviser for importing. ChinaDirect’s headquarters are located in Brisbane, with offices all around China that can help you find anything you wish for. I, Lindy Chen, look forward to meeting you personally in one of our major events of the year. Doing Business in China has never been easier!

Whether it’s undies, shoes, bags, tractors, electronics, or whatever your imagination comes up with, ChinaDirect has a database of over 30,000 suppliers that can match your needs. ChinaDirect is perhaps the only import assistance company in Australia that can give you service that is truly complete and trustworthy.

Here is a video of Seth Godin:

Bob Pritchard has received numerous awards including the “International Marketer Award.” He uses his radio program aired over VoiceAmerica Business to help SME’s and entrepreneurs receive valuable advice for free! In his website, Bob is described as someone who, “sits on the boards of companies in Europe, the United States and Australia.” He gives advice “on everything from corporate structure, corporate culture, cost management, driving sales, expansion through franchising, joint ventures and strategic relationships, through to IP protection and implementing stock exchange public listings.”

Bob Pritchard on Lindy Chen: She's an absolute authority on doing business with China! She's the winner of multiple business awards, and she's on her way to growing ChinaDirect into one of the world's leading sourcing firms.

In the interview, Lindy talked about how importing can be done correctly with less risks and mistakes. You need to have an importing consultant that is systematic in its approach, transparent, and independent. In the conversation, Lindy showed how ChinaDirect has all the bases covered.

Bob asked Lindy all the right questions for someone looking for the best way to import from China. The questions ranged from why one should choose ChinaDirect as their import expert consultant, to those relating to protecting intellectual property.

Lindy basically answered all of these questions with little doubt that ChinaDirect is the natural choice when it comes to importing from China. Listen to this edition of the Bob Pritchard Show:

Maybe it’s time you consider turning your ideas into reality. ChinaDirect’s Doing Business in China Seminar has been the event many importers from Australia go to for them to discover how, with some help, importing can be done by anyone. As Lindy mentions in her interview with Bob, businesses of all sizes can come and see how they can begin their importing operations. Many small and medium sized companies have come to this event to eventually try their hand at becoming importing experts through our 2 Day Import Blueprint workshop.

From Australia to America, Lindy’s message is, there is little time to waste! Come join Lindy and her staff of importing experts now and see how easy it could be!

In Kellie Caust’s case, it came almost naturally. With her knack for marketing and sales, it was not long before she decided that her ultimate fulfillment came from developing a product out of her own creativity and resourcefulness, running her own business, and pursuing her desire to spend more time with her family. Getting the best of “all” worlds, so to speak.

What makes Outcased products unique? Kellie says, "Definitely the color range and also the usability. They are lightweight, well-padded and have a shoulder strap. The laptop bags are not a brief case but more of a carry bag that looks great. The iPad case is also practical as it has handles and external pockets, for your phone etc. I have incorporated a reverse zip, which makes them water resistant, if in the rain. They are a rubbery material that can be wiped clean of dirty marks, unlike neoprene. They have a funky look."

In hindsight, it all started when Kellie was shopping for a laptop bag for her 14 year old daughter. The choices she found were not colorful and iPad cases were similarly unexciting and did not even have handles. Now, imagine a bag to hold and protect your kid’s precious gadget that not only looks young and cool, but is also easy to clean, able to carry other stuff, like an iPhone, and have handles! Precisely what Kellie had in mind!

Outcased Proprietor, Kellie Caust on how she came up with the name, "Outcased," "We had a brain storming session as a family. The word Out - refers to being out there and mobile; Cased - refers to a laptop or iPad case and is...a spin on words. My slogan is Bags of Colour!"

So are you afraid to go into importing because you have no experience, no idea where to start, and speak no Chinese? No problem! You can start by getting a glimpse of what importing is all about this May. Just like Kellie, ChinaDirect’s Doing Business in China Seminar could be the inspiration that you need. Let ChinaDirect help you find the right supplier, facilitate your shipment, and speak to your Chinese suppliers, and you’re on your way to getting that business that you had always thought you could.

Maybe it’s time that you, like Kellie, get Outcased!

“In a sense, we were on this magical carpet ride – everything we touched, everything we did, turned to gold. Everything worked. Growth became a strategy, as opposed to an outcome.” Howard Schultz

Its CEO and Chairman Howard Schultz has been seen in countless interviews talking about the company that has become a fixture in many countries around the world. Schultz has been credited for turning the company around after an overexpansion that threatened its viability. Faced with a recession and growing competition that offered cheaper alternatives, Starbucks’ profit and stock price plunged, and painful decisions had to be made.

There is another man though, also named Howard, who joined Starbucks when it was just a small regional company in the US. His last name is Behar. He joined the company in 1989 and was largely credited for growing Starbucks from 28 to 400 stores by 1995. He was also able to help the company open its first store in Tokyo.

In his book, “It’s Not About The Coffee: Leadership Principles from a Life at Starbucks,” Behar talks about the importance of people over product. His oft-repeated quote is, “We’re in the people business serving coffee, not the coffee business serving people.”

Ironically, Starbucks had to close many of its branches and layoff a significant portion of its labor force in the aftermath of the recession. However, these guiding principles of putting people first continue to be the secret recipe of a company that now has ambitions of turning 1 billion tea drinking Chinese into coffee lovers.

Here’s a quote from Behar’s website:

“It is my humble but firm belief that it is people—in the best of times, and especially in the hardest times—who will inspire you, sustain and grow your organization, and get you through. As I’ve learned throughout my career, and my own trials and tribulations in leading myself and others, the easy high-flying times are guaranteed not to last. Ups and downs, even severe ones, are part of both the economic and human cycles.

But our values do last, and the impact of our actions last, too. I’ve seen that the values and actions of showing you care, building trust, holding yourself accountable, knowing who you are and what you stand for—of putting people first—can provide stability and a lifeline on a personal level and for a whole organization or community.”
(Italics added)

Chongqing today.

Now imagine, everything you had built in your lifetime being swallowed up by the tide of progress. In the words of Carrie Gracie, “Like many other nameless villages before it, White Horse Village must make the necessary sacrifice. All of its emerald rice fields are disappearing under concrete. The houses the farmers built themselves, houses they were married in, houses their children were born in, are being demolished…Even the ancestors have to go. Their very graves are being moved.”

In the end, White Horse Village remains another bitter sweet story of a country in flux, a country that looks to the sacrifices of its people to collectively achieve their goal of progress.

In the aftermath of the recession, everyone counted out Chrysler. No one in his right mind would even touch it. Investing in Ford and GM had more upside. Ford was doing well enough that it didn’t really need a bailout. GM had a sound product line that could have very good prospects after an infusion from the US government. But Chrysler with its confusing and over extended product line full of gas-guzzlers, many pundits thought it would take nothing short of a miracle worker to turn it around.

That miracle worker came in the form of Sergio Marchionne, an Italian born and Canadian raised auto executive. After taking over the Fiat Group of Italy in 2006, Marchionne made Fiat one of the fastest growing companies in the auto industry. In 2009, he helped to create an alliance between Fiat and Chrysler which was at the brink of collapse. In two years under his leadership, he managed to turn a profit for the once ailing US auto giant and pay off the $6 billion government bailout loan six years ahead of schedule.

In a recent interview on 60 minutes, Marchionne talked about some of the work behind turning a $183 million profit in 2011, Chrysler’s first profit report since 2005. Chryslers’ Belvidere plant in Illinois, now has 1,800 workers from a low of 200 during the onset of the recession. With the introduction of the Dodge Dart, Marchionne predicts a labor force at the Belvidere plant of about 4,500 by the summer.

All these were accomplished through Marchionne’s hands on type of management. He stays on the shop floor together with his engineers and put great emphasis on quality. He also cut the bureaucracy. In fact everyone in the company knew what was wrong with the cars that they produced, it was just a matter of getting them to surface underneath the large bureaucratic structure. He was able to find 26 young people in the company whose talents were buried under the hierarchy. Here’s what he said when asked how he found these people who now report to him directly, “Some of these people were buried inside an incredibly hierarchical organization that, you know, all pointed to the top. This place was run by a chairman’s office.”

In 2005, ChinaDirect Sourcing’s managing director, Lindy Chen found herself in pretty much the same predicament. Working against the odds, she saw a niche that she could take advantage of. Now she runs ChinaDirect in pretty much the same egalitarian system Marchionne introduced in Chrysler. You may want to learn her formula for success as an entrepreneur who faced daunting odds. Come listen to her experience at the Entrepreneur Success Night. See and hear for yourself what it takes to go from nothing to something. With Lindy and her ChinaDirect experience, you can be one step closer to turning things around in your company.

Here’s the full interview from 60 Minutes:

In this interview, Rose’s guests showed satisfaction in the way China has controlled inflation and kept the country from a recession or the much talked about hard landing. Mack and Novak echoed the smartness of the Chinese government in handling potential slides in the economy. Zhang Xin and Bremmer expressed some concerns about the growing state capitalism. There was also some discussion about the way China’s decision making going from a one man rule to a consensus building approach. The consensus building approach drew different comments from this group mainly because there are fears that China would not be able to balance continued rapid economic growth with stability.

Overall however, there appears to be a common thread that what China needs at the moment is strong jobs growth and continued political stability in the face of a changing demographic. With an increasingly educated population, social media, and the extinction of a strong man rule, China needs to find a way to manage its economy and at the same time its people. Here’s a clip:

Maybe you won't just have smart phones, but smart shoes too, soon!

According to the Hong Kong Trader, these shoes can help track your kids when they get lost, treat sleep apnea, monitor respiration in case of emergencies, and even monitor conditions of people who suffer from diabetes.  In the case of diabetics, these shoes can, with the help of technology used in the production of space suits, help them avoid developing what is called the “diabetic foot.”  This is caused by “peaks” on the feet of diabetics that receive uneven pressure.  These “peaks” can then turn into foot ulcers and infections that diabetics find difficulty recovering from.  These “magical” shoes are then able to detect this occurrence with the help of its built in fabric sensors. The data collected from the shoes can then be wirelessly transmitted to an external mobile device which can be used for further evaluation by health care practitioners.  

It’s amazing how technology can do so many things for us these days!  These shoes developed in Hong Kong tell us that product innovation can come from this side of the Pacific too.  If your are looking for the possibility of becoming the first to get a hold of products like these, then maybe the Canton Fair is the place to be.  This April, you can take the Canton Fair ChinaDirect Tour.  Get a first hand look at the latest products that are coming out of China.  Use a more targeted approach to your buying trip and use your time efficiently while you visit perhaps the largest trade fair in the world.  In this fair, you have the widest selection of goods that are currently being produced in the world’s number 1 exporting nation.  With over 55,000 stands and 1.1 million square meters of exhibition space, it’s hard not to imagine getting lost in what can be described as the modern Mecca for international traders.  So go with us now to the 111th Canton Fair ChinaDirect Tour and be the first to trade the latest innovations from China!    

Google has its "20-Percent Time" policy.

At Google, this policy has created incredible results.  According to Roque, 50% of the products that Google had developed have come out of this strategy.  Google Adsense is one of the more popular innovations that have come out of this practice.  The benefits include innovation, chances for exploration and opportunity, and of course, motivation for employees to continue exceeding expectations.

This only shows how the managers of today have come to realize that great ideas need not only come from the top down, but also from the bottom up.

In an article written by Bruno S. Frey and Margit Osterloh, both professors at the UK Warwick Business School, it was determined that tying pay with performance can now be a thing of the past. Their studies have given an explanation to what happened during the Wall Street crash of 2008. Bank executives were the prime examples of what this policy can do to a worker’s motives.

Here is a list of what Frey and Osterloh described as the “four inescapable flaws” of tying pay with performance:

1. The fast changing economies of today can mean constant changes in what customers are looking for. Tasks that need to be done and modes of accomplishing them are in a constant flux, making it unwise for companies to come up with a fixed set of criteria to measure performance across time.

2. To use the Great Recession as an example, since the pay of Wall Street executives was tied to a set of rigid norms, their focus was turned towards gaming the system. A lot of time and energy is spent on this rather than on efforts that have greater impact on the company’s overall growth and stability.

3. Workers will tend to focus on whatever criteria they are given to fulfill, to the detriment of other important tasks that need to be addressed.

4. As you could have well imagined, the intrinsic value of the job disappears. Wall Street became a place where people came to work each day trying to make the most of every minute they spend, in effect creating a virtual den of modern mercenaries.

So what then should companies do instead? Watch out for next week’s ChinaDirect Sourcing newsletter!

Erratum (February 28, 2012 Edition): The second sentence of paragraph 2 in last week’s article should have read, “Lindy, as most people call her, will share what it took for her to get from a young immigrant woman from China, with nothing more than about $40.00 in her possession, to becoming the managing director of one of Australia’s most successful import assistance companies.