Monthly Series – International Sales Best Practices
The first 5 tips of last month’s Cross-cultural Communication Challenge to Build Trust were on smoothing out the differences. As you can see, I have associated these cross-cultural communication tips with establishing friendship and creating a genuine connection with your international clients.
You must get beyond the obvious cultural differences before you can establish a fruitful international business. Believe me it is not always easy to do this. This is why we are looking at the little steps it takes to make this an easy process.
Cultural differences can make you come across as different, weird and foreign. As you can imagine, smoothing out the communication with regards to cultural differences is important to building trust. People like to do business with people they like.
Building Trust In International Sales – Tip 5
The glue that holds all relationships together – including the relationship between the leader and the led is trust, and trust is based on integrity. – Brian Tracy
International Sales Best Practice
- Establish A Connection
OK, in the previous posts we looked at making friends, taking the time to make the connection and developing friendship deeper. This is all really about establishing a connection across cultures.
Cultural differences create static on the communication lines between cultures.
- Sometimes all communication lines appear to be clear, and a little static pops up for a second.
- Sometimes lines get crossed: you understand one thing and the others understand something else
- Sometimes the lines are garbled on both ends.
What can you do to make sure you have a good cross-cultural connection?
Tune the frequency. Use all of your cultural communication skills to get yourself on the best communication frequency as possible.
Be aware of when you lose the connection. You can end up looking foolish if you lose the connection and continue your communication.
Fix the communication line as soon as you lose it. When you lose the connection it’s always best to fix it as soon as possible. You could miss important information or you could think you transmitted important information when you haven’t.
Survey communication lines for static on either end. You need to pay attention to the communication lines. You must always be tuned in to listen for any possible static that you may not have heard on your end but that created a difference in communication on the other end.
Connection Across Cultures
When you focus on how your communication connects across cultures you can create relationships. These business relationships lead to trust. And trust leads to more international sales.
Now it is over to you…
- How often do you have difficulty connecting with your international clients
- How does your communication connect with your international clients?
- How important is it to you to connect with your international clients?
Please share your stories in the comment section below.
More Cultural Skills For Today’s Tip
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Last month’s Cross-Cultural Communication Tip - Focus on connecting with the other person |
This month’s series takes reviews last month’s tips to build trust in cross-cultural communication and adds 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 trust. Get the complete International Sales Best Practices series here.
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All International Sales Best Practices
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