International Sales Best Practice #26

Successful international business professionals learn to become good at multitasking. Most of the multitasking involved is in listening in different ways to their international clients.

During this month’s series we have looked at different ways of how clarity in communication improves your cross-cultural selling. We have looked at why you need to:

1. Listen
2. Avoid Wrong Assumptions
3. Be Aware
4. Simplify
5. Explain

All of these need to come together before you begin to understand the cross-cultural sales process for your business. So the next five posts are to:

1. Maintain Global Vision

Look for different perspectives to see how you can simplify and clarify your communication.

This is one of the fundamental techniques in cross-cultural communication. Trying to understand and communicate with different cultures by finding different perspectives or view points.

You see, it is natural to notice the cultural differences. But we can get so focused on these differences that they take up all the space. Sometimes these differences can stop us from wanting to connect with people.  It can be hard to imagine that there is a different perspective.

Cultural differences block our vision and stop us from seeing ways around them to connect with the person from another culture. In an international business environment we need to maintain control of our personal reactions to cultural differences.

Part of this process is to maintain a global vision of what is happening within the cross-cultural encounter.  By maintaining a global vision, it is then easier to bypass our own personal being and identify a way to connect with cultures that are very different from our own.

Cross-Cultural Communication Skills & Sales Best Practices

This brings to mind a quote from Jeffrey Gitomer’s Little Red Book Of Sales Answers.

“Your job is to meet the right people and read the right books.” – Jeffrey Gitomer

Maintaining a global vision is vital to successful international business.  It helps us to identify:

• The right approach for this international sales encounter
• The best path to make this international sale
• The appropriate offer to make
• How to adapt our sales strategy for this particular international market

What happens when you do not maintain a global vision? This is where cultural blunders often happen. And it happens when people get distracted for some reason and do not take the time review the whole situation as a whole.  After all, it is very easy to think that everyone perceives things like we do.

Are there any other advantages to maintaining a global vision? Not only do you improve your international and cultural skills, but you also:

• Create a better connection with your international clients

And this also improves your international sales results.

What Is Your Experience Of This In International Sales?

• How do you see different perspectives during your cross-cultural encounters?
• How do cross-cultural differences stop you from connecting with international clients?
• What do you do to find the best way to connect with your international clients?

Please share your comments below. I’d love to hear your stories!

Check out the other International Sales Best Practices in this series.

Photos from Shutterstock.

  Filed under: International Sales

Cindy King

Comments

• bizsugar.com · 27 July, 2009 · 

  Why You Need To Maintain Global Vision In Cross-Cultural Selling…

  Successful international business professionals learn to become good at multitasking. Most of the multitasking involved is in listening in different ways to their international clients. And the reason for multitasking is to get a global vision….

• Cross-Culture Tweets – Week 31 of 2009 · 2 August, 2009 · 

  [...] How do you become aware of the different perspectives in cross-cultural sales? [...]