Matt Beyer, Founder at Altius Culture

In our second interview on sports in Asia, we speak to Matt Beyer, Founder at Altius Culture, a consultancy based in Beijing that includes athlete representation, strategic counsel, and sports marketing as main lines of business. Beyer, China’s first foreign government-licensed sports agent, moved to China as a teenager, and his fluency in Mandarin as well as his entrepreneurial drive has enabled him to move forward in what is arguably still a tough business environment. “Everything is sort of a journey. I would say — come with goals,” he advises. He also offers some prognosis for theChinese national basketball team in the upcoming London Olympics.

AsianTalks: Tell us briefly about your background.

My journey with China began when I was 10 years old, and my parents decided to adopt two Chinese kids from Xian, the first city I lived in. That began my relationship with China.

I eventually moved to China when I was eighteen after high school. I really wanted to learn Chinese. We had previously taken a family trip to show my brother and sister their roots. Now, I’m based in Beijing, and I’ve been living in China on and off since 2003. I’ve been in Beijing for the last 4 years.

AsianTalks: How did you find yourself in the sports business?
My time in college at the University of Wisconsin is what led me eventually into the sports business. During my senior year I had the coincidental opportunity of having my hometown basketball team, the Milwaukee Bucks, draft a 7-foot Chinese guy by the name of Yi Jianlian. He was a first-round pick, sixth in the draft.

I had just won a Chinese speaking contest in the Midwest region, so I started harassing the team, basically, saying, hey, this guy is coming, he’s going to need someone to help him. There was talk his English was good enough, he didn’t need a translator, but the second day they realized they needed someone. So they gave me a call, and the rest is history: I was his personal interpreter for the whole NBA season, which meant traveling on the road and going to practices, games, serving as a PR liaison. It was very fun to be part of it, because it was kind of like this Chinese sports spaceship had just landed in Wisconsin. It was a very interesting dynamic, and it was fun to be a part of it.

AsianTalks: What’s your opinion of the Chinese national basketball team?

They’re experienced in international play and they’re very good at it. They were very strong at the 2008 Olympics. I was talking to one of the top players on the Chinese national team a couple weekends ago when we had dinner, and he was telling me he thought the 2008 team was the strongest it will ever be.

So they’re an older team, they’re experienced at international play, but they don’t really have a powerful, fast point guard. They don’t have a very powerful, strong center like Yao Ming. And if you compare them to the other teams they will play, like Spain, which will be pretty tough, they don’t really seem like a very dynamic or athletic team.

AsianTalks: You are obviously fluent in Chinese, but for other foreigners, how important is it to have a good translator or a capable interpreter by your side in China?

It’s extremely important you either have your language down completely or have your translator. One of the core things about doing business in China is having your own translator. You can never go working on your client’s translator dime. A good translator and good sense of the language will help you pick upon the nuances and avoid potential pitfalls. Just seeing the context of a Chinese phrase, and how it is presented, is just as important as the words themselves if not more important. You can’t take a lot of the words literally a lot of the time.

AsianTalks: Could you please explain to us the concept of face in China? We hear a lot about the terms face-saving, or face-losing in business situations.

A face saving solution in China would be to, if you want to save the deal, to give a bit on your end, and make it known to the other people in the deal that you are giving. Just appearing gracious, even if you really feel like you are getting screwed, just to keep long-term perspective.

The one thing about China is that being such a relationship-focused society, chances are if you burn someone, or they burn you, they’re going to end up in your circle of work relationships or personal relationships at one point. I think people learn this the hard way — including myself — that if someone’s doing something that you would consider unsavory, sometimes it’s best not to confront and make a big deal about it, but instead smile and remember what happened and just let it go! Because you’re going to run into this person again, and you don’t know who they will have on their side in the future. So just being the bigger person, and not blowing your top when something bad happens, is part of giving face to the other person.

By: Elizabeth Shim