Connection
Linda He is the woman at the helm of Wailian Overseas Consulting Group, one of the most well known migration agencies in China. She spoke with us from China about what a migration agency does, how to market an EB-5 project in China, and the agency’ s due diligence process.
EB5 Investors Magazine: What is your professional background and how did you get involved in EB-5?
Linda He: I was helping my family and friends’ children pursue educational opportunities studying abroad and soon realized that there was a large demand to help Chinese citizens pursue immigration opportunities worldwide. Soon after, I started looking at different immigration programs from countries around the world. I studied the Australian program, the New Zealand program, and then the U. S. program. I quickly discovered the U. S. EB-5 program and became very interested in learning all of its requirements. At that time, almost no professional in China was specializing in U. S. EB-5 work and the program was mostly unknown to the general Chinese population.
I believed that the EB-5 program offered great promise, so we started doing advertising in local Chinese newspapers. Wailian was the first company to do big sections of advertising in the newspaper. At the time people were doing very little clips in newspapers, maybe 1 / 16th of a page, but we started with big advertisements, and the response from the public was overwhelming.
EB5 Investors: For people who are not familiar with migration agents, what does a migration agency do and why is it important to EB-5?
He: The goal of a migration agency is to find and match investors to the EB-5 projects. The general step-by-step process is to first find or be approached by a project, conduct initial review of whether the project is a fit for the company( meaning a safe project in the definition of the migration agency), if yes, then the agency conducts its due diligence, and finally markets to the general public and finds EB-5 investors.
In China, in order to promote EB-5, the entity or company must be licensed by the Chinese government and because of that, all of the agents must be licensed. Accordingly, the government has strict requirements for the immigration program, such as the number of employees, their training( employees must have knowledge in areas such as finance, law and different aspects to be an expert on the investment project), and the structure of the company. It is very important for an agent to be licensed in order to promote EB-5 opportunities in China.
EB5 Investors: You mentioned taking out advertisements to gain entry into the market, but what sort of work went into becoming a leader in the industry?
He: At Wailian, we focus on four key points: the first is the professionalism of our employees. We stress the importance of being familiar with the immigration laws and the importance of staying up-to-date regarding any proposed changes. Ever since its founding, Wailian has been committed to acting in a strictly professional and ethical manner. Second, we have assembled a team of leading professionals from around the globe: attorneys, accountants, financial analysts, etc. to assist us in providing service to our clients. We are very proud of the team we have assembled and believe that they are some of the leading experts in the EB-5 industry. Third is our track record. We have been doing this work for a very long time and have experience with immigration programs from around the world, including Canada, Singapore and other countries.
Because we started our business just as the need for immigration services started to develop in China, we have been fortunate to assist our clients in a wide range of immigration services on a global basis. Lastly, it is the trust that we have gained from our clients. Our track record is our best source for new business. One example of that is how we process our documents. We have an in-house document processing team— so that we can always process client documents quickly and efficiently. That makes our clients very happy with the services they receive from us, and as a result they keep referring new clients to our company.
EB5 Investors: Describe your staff. How many employees do you have and what is their professional background?
He: Currently our company has over 300 employees globally and it is still growing. The employees all have very different professional backgrounds, including law, business management, finance, you name it. Also, many of our employees have a background of having either studied, or worked in a foreign country.
Our company also does something very different from most companies in the industry, we not only train our sales consultants, or something we call immigration consultants, who directly deal with the clients, but we also provide training and support to all our staff on current business models on the projects that we sell. So we are constantly providing training and support. So many of our employees have full confidence in the company. As a result, we have a very large percentage of employees who have been with the company since its start.
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