Clarity Challenge To Improve Your Cross-Cultural Skills & Make More International Sales

Cross-Cultural Communication Challenge
- Get Extreme With Clarity

Do you want to improve your cross-cultural communication for more international sales?  Here is a two step approach:

• First follow the cross-cultural communication tips
• Then see how these communication tips fit into international sales best practices

Now, let’s go one step further to make it even easier to improve your skills…

Let’s break the cross-cultural communication tips into 4 different layers or steps and concentrate on one angle of cross-cultural communication at a time while you fit this in with your international sales strategies.

The 4 Steps

There are four different Cross-Cultural Communication Challenges scheduled this year.  Each monthly challenge approaches one specific angle of cross-cultural communication.

Good cross-cultural communication is complex.  It takes practice, good people skills and personal commitment. And even experienced and gifted cross-cultural communicators are never immune to a communication blunder.

Even if cross-cultural communication skills are not easy to learn, there are some easy guidelines for businesses to follow that eliminate the bigger risks and improve cultural skills in the process.  These 4 monthly challenges break up the process of learning cross-cultural communication skills into easy steps.

Apply These Skills To Get More International Sales

After each monthly Cross-Cultural Communication Challenge, there is a second monthly challenge.

The following month will expand on each of  the cross-cultural communication tips to show you how this fits into international sales. This is the International Sales Best Practice series you can find here.

It is a good way to bring your cultural skills into a business perspective.  And it is not boring.  Each International Sales Best Practice month we will use corresponding little sales book by Jeffrey Gitomer as an easy reference point.

If you are not familiar with Jeffrey Gitomer’s little sales books, they are easy to read, straight to the point and full of sales wisdom. Although some of the sales practices in these books need some adjustment for international sales, most of them are very useful.

Step 1 – Expand Your Mindset

The first Cross-Cultural Communication Challenge was last March.  There were 31 cross-cultural communication tips to help you expand your mindset for good international communications. There was a new tip available every day, here on this blog and on twitter.  At the end of the month these 31 tips were then:

• Summarized into a mini-poster so you can follow them at your own convenience.
• Expanded on with International Sales Best Practices the following month

Expanding your mindset is the first step a business should be aware of when entering new markets.

Step 2 – Get Extreme With Clarity

The second step in improving your cross-cultural communication is to become aware of how important clarity is in your communication… and to become aware of your own lack of clarity.

The problem is that it is very easy to think that everyone can understand your own communication. After all, you understand it yourself, right? And, usually, so do the people around you.  Well, this assumption leads to trouble.  The truth is that people from other cultures probably do not find your communication as easy to understand as you do.

Improving the clarity of your communication will benefit all of your clients… and your communication with everyone.  It is even more important with your international and cross-cultural communication.  Cross-cultural communication difficulties often pop up and when they do one of the first things to do is to bring even more clarity into your communication.

There is another reason why you must focus on clarity:

• Clarity is a primary trust-building factor

Trust can be an elusive element in cross-cultural exchanges.  If you want international sales you need to develop and maintain trust-building communication.

Get extreme with the clarity of your cross-cultural communication.  You will improve your more international business.

Steps 3 & 4 – Later This Year

There are two other monthly challenges scheduled later in the year:

• September – Trust
• December – Personal Development

Follow each of these monthly challenges and at the end of the year you will have improved your cross-cultural communication on four different levels.

Where To Get Your CCCC Tips Every Day In June:

• Here on this blog
• By following me on Twitter @CindyKing
• By using the Twitter hashtag #cccctips

Use these tips as inspiration to improve clarity of communication with your international clients.

Get All CCCC Tips:

Read 2009 Cross-Cultural Communication Challenges to find out more about:

Tagged as: clarity, cross cultural communication challenge