International Sales Best Practices
Today we are going to continue improving our awareness of our cross-cultural communication with the view to improving clarity. Let’s look closer at what you say.
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CCCC Tip #12 -
Think about the words you use and try to make them easy to understand. |
This month’s series takes last month’s tips to get extreme clarity in cross-cultural communication and brings them into an international sales perspective. Remember to download the free calender for an easy reference to all of the 30 Cross-Cultural Communication Challenge Tips on clarity. Get the complete International Sales Best Practices series here.
Your choice of words effects the clarity of your cross-cultural communication. With a little international experience, and a little thought, you can improve the clarity of your communication.
Cross-Cultural Communication Skills & Sales Best Practices
Before going any further, let’s look at a quote from Jeffrey Gitomer’s Little Red Book Of Sales Answers.
In international sales, how you speak can also impact your sales success.
Let me explain.
In my experience, just about every international professional reduces the size of his vocabulary when speaking with non-native English speakers. This is to avoid misunderstandings and unnecessary explanations. Simple words and phrases often work best. So it’s not the actual words you use.
There is one aspect of choosing what to say that can make or break your credibility. It is how you say things, the order in which you present them and how you present them.
And once again, success is not in a pre-defined set of rules. It is based on adapting your communication to fit the other culture. I often see the path between my culture and the other culture. The distance which I am able to go depends on how I say things for this particular cross-cultural encounter.
The wonderful thing is that when the other person realizes that you are on that path to connect with him, this usually gets him to focus on the same path… and you usually end up meeting somewhere along this path despite the cross-cultural differences that separate you.
What Is Your Experience Of This In International Sales?
- How do you adapt your communication for different cultures?
- Do you often feel that you connect with people from other cultures somewhere along the path that separates you?
- How do you notice when your communication is getting across to different cultures?
Please share your comments below. I’d love to hear your stories!
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