Tina Anisten's Line of Life

At school, you were an excellent student, received a number of awards. What motivated you to study so well?

When my grandmother took me and my sister to her, her pension was not enough for us to survive, and we had to earn extra money. I helped my grandmother repair apartments: paint windows, glue wallpaper. I washed the floors in beauty salons, handed over bottles. Once I agreed to dig a garden for an elderly woman I knew. It was very hard: shovel, 0.15 acres of hard land after the snow had just melted, I had huge blisters and pain all over my body. But I kept the promise. However, it was the moment I decided that I would only work with my head. And to work only with your head, you need deep knowledge. It was a great motivation!

I had only 'A's for all subjects, but my behavior was not great, I fought a lot with the boys. (Smiles.) I had no one to count on, already from the first grade it was clear that no “deus ex machina” was going to help me and I had to go to my dream on my own. So, I tried to express myself wherever I could.

What determined your choice of profession? To what extent do you think it was influenced by your stay in the US as part of the program for gifted children?

The choice was determined by the love of the English language. I had always wanted to do something on the international scale. In my dreams, I was very business-like, solving important problems. (Smiles.) Of course, the trip to the USA changed me a lot. I saw how one could live. I was surprised by people of completely different cultures living together in one country. At that time, I did not clearly understand what was happening, but now I can say for sure that my choice of profession, the desire to connect continents, erase borders and unite people from all over the world is the result of what I saw in 2003 in the USA.

What was the main thing that your studies gave you for your further career and the development of your own business?

I was happy to enter the Kemerovo State University, department of World Economics. It was considered to be the elite part of the Faculty of Economics, but I just liked it. I went to my dream - every subject that was taught, I literally gnawed, "digging" into knowledge. Everything I learned then I am still using today. even such a subject as "Blast Furnace Construction". Our company searches for goods all over the world, and in order to find something, you need to be well versed in this. I can easily understand complex equipment, chemical mixtures and their composition and so on. So, nothing was in vain, not to mention such subjects as accounting, economics of organizations, management, international contracts, customs, international arbitrage. The university has become a "concrete" base for building my business.

Please tell us how your business started.

Having my own business, doing what I love doing was my #2 idea (#1 was starting a family). I considered different options, but despite of what they say about success being a number of attempts, I did not want to try for a long time, lose and try again.

When I was working at WayGroup, I was coordinating import and export forwarding. Clients often contacted me asking for my help with solving problems with a supplier, customs clearance and other things that were not part of my duties. I realized that there is a great demand for a full cycle of services in the organization of deliveries - from purchase to delivery to the client's warehouse. There were few companies offering a full cycle service at that time, and even now there are not many professionals, because it is a great risk and responsibility - not even in relation of the client, but more in relation to the regulatory authorities. Since I was familiar with all those processes, it was not difficult for me to take responsibility. As Warren Buffett says, "Risk comes from not knowing what you're doing." I had that knowledge. This is how SinoImport was founded - a company that provides a full range of services for international procurement and delivery of goods from different countries under its own responsibility.

You had to move to the USA. Was it easy to settle down in a new country?

Oh, this story is sad and joyful at the same time. The sad thing is that we were forced to take this step. Emigration, especially forced one, is not just a "fall to zero" in terms of one's achievements, but a big failure. For a while I could not keep up with the same pace as before, and this is sad. The joyful side of the move was that now everything is in the past, and I have gained inner strength, returned to myself and am again going to my dream.

Please tell us about your original online training course for specialists of different levels of import-export activity.

The problem of personnel in this field has always existed, both in the American market and in the world. Finding a truly qualified specialist is very difficult. If, however, an unqualified employee is put in charge of conducting a foreign trade deal and he makes a number of mistakes that could have been avoided, then the importing company may face serious fines at the very least. And that only due to the incompetence of one person. My profound expertise and experience in international deliveries allowed me to create my own course that would help companies avoid this risk. If specialists and company owners apply the knowledge the way I teach them to, then I can give a 100% guarantee of foreign trade success with zero risk.

Since 2013, you have been running SinoImport®. What are you most proud of now, looking back at the way you have traveled?

The company's mission was to search for goods around the world, purchase them and deliver them to the client with all the formalities.

At the very beginning, my partner Daria Martyanova and I invested 20,000 rubles each, rented a small office with handmade furniture. Daria brought her printer and computer, I brought a laptop and a kettle, and sales and communication with customers began. True, we had to part a year later, but we still maintain a warm relationship.

SinoImport®, as it is today, I built from scratch. And since 2016, I have been managing it remotely. It wasn't easy, but I was saving the company that the people who had chosen me as their employer were working in, and the well-being of their families depended on me. Clients also trusted their funds legally to the company, but in fact - to me. And I learned how to manage remotely, which helped me a lot during the pandemic, when many companies left the market, but we, having that remote experience already, doubled our turnover.

Based on the results of 2021, SinoImport® received the "Best Enterprise of the Industry" award with a reliability rating of AAA. And our turnover for 2022 was more than 62 million US dollars. This is the money that our clients have entrusted to us.

You said that the charter and activities of SinoImport® correlate with your personal core values. What are they?

Reliability is the most important value for me, it is the message that I pass on to my clients and team. It is important for me to keep my word. When I make a promise, my clients and employees know that I will do my best to keep it.

Another value and goal is to connect companies from all over the world and, as a result, bring people and cultures together. Isn't that wonderful? What I dreamed of as a child came true.

What is your overall career goal?

I have one more big dream. I want to create my own cargo container transportation shipping line. I see the shortcomings of this industry, because as a client I use shipping lines on a daily basis. The US does not have its own shipping line, American President Line (APL) was taken over by CMA CGM (France) in 2016. Owning commercial navy is a critical structure for a country, and the pandemic has proved it as well. I want to create the largest commercial shipping line in the world under US flags. Do you think it will work out? (Smiles.)

We sincerely believe that it will! Let's talk about your personal life. The story of you meeting your husband is pretty unusual…

Yes, it was almost like a romantic movie. It was the beginning of the summer of 2012, my best friend and I went for a walk. We wanted to get ice cream, and took exactly 17 rubles with us. We went to KFC for ice cream and suddenly we both really wanted to get fried chicken. The money was in the car, which was far away, my friend was pregnant, and we wanted the chicken very badly. So, I decided to act quickly, and we went outside to borrow money from a passer-by. So that's when my future husband drove by, and he asked us if we had had some delicious chicken already. I said that we had no money and brazenly asked if he would like to lend me 500 rubles. He resisted for a long time, but I did not give up. So, he took out a neatly folded 500 ruble banknote from his inner pocket, that was clearly meant to be spent on something else, and gave it to me. I think he in his mind said goodbye to the money, although I asked for his phone number to pay him back. But he didn't know that he was dealing with someone who always kept her word! I returned the money and found that one and only man, for whom I had been asking God for so long. A year later we got married.

What's your personal family life secret?

Will you laugh? Reliability and trust. The most important strength of our family is reliability and complete unconditional trust in each other. The slightest doubt and useless arguments kill relationships. At an early stage of communication, my husband and I often argued with each other over loved whom more, then we analyzed it and agreed that our love was equally strong. We started trusting each other and are not wasting our precious time on jealousy and suspicions. So, all conflicts in the family disappeared, this is what has helped us evolve and grow for more than ten years.

How do you manage to combine the life of an active business woman with a family and being a mother? What is your priority - work or family?

Family is definitely and unconditionally a priority for me. I have been aspiring since the age of five to have a family that I now have. However, personal development is also a priority for me. I didn't have a maternity leave, and I didn't want to. To be honest, I was so afraid of getting bogged down in diapers and nipples that I built the company in a way that I would not have done without being on maternity leave. (Smiles.) Sometimes I only managed to sleep for four hours a night, but I still did not give up. I worked at night, took care of the child during the day, I even found time for creating culinary masterpieces: cakes, pastries and all sorts of gourmet dishes.

I recently began to devote more time to planning not only quality work, but also quality rest. I try to be in the moment, when I am drinking coffee, I taste it fully, when I am walking in the forest, I feel the forest - hugging trees, listening to the birds singing.

Although, of course, it is very difficult not to think about business. Business is also family to me, no matter what anyone says that you need to disconnect from work. Yes, you can switch off if you're an employee, but if you're a business founder, it's like having a child. It's an irreversible connection. And that's great.

What style of clothing do you prefer?

I love things that have style, even if it's just a Beatle. I prefer monochromatic looks. Red, yellow, black, white are my favorite colors in clothes. I love jackets, I feel confident in them. I also like to have a detail in my look that stands out and attracts attention.

What kind of cosmetic products do you use and do you have special beauty rituals?

In decorative cosmetics I use Bobbi Brown, Dior, Estee Lauder, MAC, although in general I wear makeup very rarely. If we talk about skin care products, then for the face and neck I use products of the American brand DRMTLGY — they are light and help to retain moisture in the skin. I special love is their Microdermabrasion scrub, they help to gently and effectively cleanse the face and shoulders. I've never seen such a great texture in any other brand.

I can talk about beauty rituals endlessly. In everything that concerns the body, for me there is something mysterious, deep. Since I was a child, I really liked to go to the bathhouse, so I made a steam sauna in my house and arrange my own spa procedures twice a week. I have many different oils, herbs and herbal whisks. The bath helps not only to remove toxins, but also to cleanse oneself spiritually. After the bath, I usually do different masks, practice daily facial massage. I do lymphatic drainage massages. In general, I love my body very much, and it loves me back. (Smiles.)

What helps you stay in perfect shape?

As I said, I am in a serious love relationship with my body, so I try not to fill it with harmful products. Sometimes I can indulge myself in a burger, but only a homemade one.

I do home workouts, work with my own weight. In my opinion, the plank exercise for five minutes a day is the best way to maintain body strenght. In between work at the computer, I can squat a few dozen times to get my blood flowing.