If India is the “quantity” king of packaging machinery, then the United States is undoubtedly the pinnacle of “quality” and “value.” Here, high unit prices and high standards are demanded—it’s the strategic high ground every brand aspires to conquer.
In 2018, I set foot in the United States for the first time. To be honest, I was somewhat confused about this market at the time, didn’t visit many customers, and data wasn’t very developed. However, it was during this somewhat blind exploration that an unexpected business opportunity quietly emerged.
An Unexpected Discovery: “Do You Have Equipment for Weighing Cannabis?”
During conversations with customers, we were repeatedly asked one question: “Do you have equipment that can be used to weigh and package cannabis?”
This question hit me like lightning. After returning, I immediately researched online and discovered two astonishing facts:
- Market Gap: At that time, in the entire Chinese market, there wasn’t a single supplier selling “cannabis packaging machines.”
- Policy Tailwind: Simultaneously, the United States, Canada, and other places were experiencing a wave of cannabis legalization, and a new, enormous market was forming.
I further investigated and found that at the time, there was a very professional company in the US mainland, but their model was: programs developed in the US, hardware all produced in Shanghai, China. Wasn’t this our opportunity? US domestic product prices would inevitably be high—we could completely become the first factory in China to provide high-precision weighing and packaging solutions specifically for cannabis!
I reported this idea to my direct supervisor. Coincidentally, at the time, a domestic colleague also proposed that the Chinese herbal medicine sector similarly had demand for high-precision weighing and packaging automation. The two needs aligned perfectly, and the company quickly approved the R&D project for “high-precision packaging solutions.”
From Blueprint to Bestseller: A Collaborative Creation Through Mutual Learning
Reportedly, the company invested over one million yuan in R&D for this project. In the months that followed, I would visit the testing area every day to check on that prototype carrying our hopes, treating it like my own child. Because it represented that a “different” version of us was about to be born.
After countless rounds of disassembly, modification, and debugging, the first-generation cannabis packaging machine was finally born. Although it achieved the highest precision in China at the time, the initial market response was surprisingly cold—it seems only one unit was sold domestically.
I didn’t get discouraged and turned my attention to my largest client in the US. I described the enormous potential of the cannabis packaging market to him again and again. Finally, he was convinced and decided to purchase one at a discount price to test the market.
However, after the machine arrived in the US, it still didn’t sell well. What was the problem?
We made a typical mistake: working behind closed doors. When we tested in China, we weren’t using actual cannabis at all, and we knew nothing about the common packaging formats and physical characteristics of cannabis locally.
Fortunately, we met a “legendary” client. This client’s boss had a technical background, possessed extremely rich experience, and extraordinary patience. He didn’t return the goods or complain; instead, he personally tested it and then provided us with feedback on areas needing improvement, point by point. It’s no exaggeration to say that if he hadn’t continuously guided us technically, this project would likely have died midway.
Over the following months of back-and-forth transnational communication and remote debugging, we continuously modified hardware and optimized software based on his feedback. Finally, this packaging machine born for cannabis truly broke into the local market.
Soon after, the client happily told me he was making money from this machine. Almost simultaneously, our company’s finance department told me that this model’s profit margin was the highest among all products. This was the win-win we had always hoped for—we discovered the market together, changed ourselves together, and then shared the market dividends together.
Over the following two years, this model sold nearly a hundred units cumulatively（before i left ). To this day, when I search for related keywords online, most results are still our products. I can even find photos from back then when my colleague and I repeatedly re-shot product images to make them look more “sophisticated.” That sense of achievement from creating a bestseller from 0 to 1 is supreme.
Review and Gratitude: The “Right Time, Right Place, Right People” for Success
Looking back years later, the success of this endeavor perfectly illustrates a Chinese saying: right time, right place, right people.
- Right Time: The policy wave of cannabis legalization created an unprecedented incremental market.
- Right Place: Our company already possessed the technical foundation and production capability to modify and customize packaging systems.
- Right People: We met a client willing to share everything and grow together, as well as a supervisor who dared to trust subordinates and make decisive investments.
This experience made me deeply realize that as salespeople, our value is definitely not just selling existing products. Higher-level value lies in becoming a bridge connecting the market and R&D, discovering potential demands, and driving the company to create new products that can meet these demands.
I hope that in my lifetime, I can once again create some new products that “China doesn’t currently have,” making products that allow customers to make money while we also make money. This is perhaps my most simple career dream as a salesperson.
- Have you had similar “unexpected success” experiences in your career? What do you think is the most critical factor in making a new project successful? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.
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