International Sales Best Practice – Make Mistakes

International Sales Best Practices

Here is yet another difference between failure and success for salespeople.

International Sales Success

This is often a hard one to swallow. How many of us:

• Are prepared to make mistakes?
• Allow ourselves to be confident enough to make mistakes?
• Know we will get beyond their mistakes?
• Will make the effort to learn from our mistakes?

International business and cross-cultural communication are not easy. It is almost impossible to get into international business without making mistakes… and proving ourselves capable of learning from these mistakes.

Quote From Jeffrey Gitomer’s Little Red Book Of Selling

What’s the difference between successful salespeople and salespeople that fail? Successful salespeople “make mistakes”.

Last Month’s Cross-Cultural Communication Tip 12

Do not stop at the first hurdles in cross-cultural communication: take a step back and try again

When You Do Not See Your Mistakes

In the first year living abroad, I was in a situation where I was not able to see my own mistake.  I knew I was making a mistake because others told me so, but I just could not understand that I was making one. It was only after six months of constantly trying to see things differently that I was able to finally understand my mistake.  And the funny thing is, the light bulb moment came when I was able to make a comparison with something outside of the environment I was concentrating so hard to understand.

Many people new to developing their international skills simply do not realize they are making a mistake.  These mistakes can be put aside and grouped together with other cultural hurdles over which we have little control.  The problem is that you must address your mistakes in order to develop your cultural skills. This is simply how you learn to develop your cross-cultural skills. You need to recognize your mistakes, take responsibility and learn what to do next and how to do it.

The Key To Learning From Our Mistakes

One of the first things cross-cultural encounters teach us it to become more flexible.  This is one of the keys to learning from our mistakes. Flexibility gives us a tool to recognize our mistakes and to learn from them.

Dare To Make Mistakes

The problem many people have when they begin in international business is that they are over anxious.  People hear about cross-cultural blunders and are afraid of making the same mistakes. They may also become overly self-conscious.  And this means that many people do not do anything… or they stop at the very first hurdle. The path towards developing cross-cultural skills is scattered with possible misunderstandings and difficulties.  In the beginning of this path mistakes are almost inevitable.  But with a little practice it becomes easy to see most of the possible misunderstandings and difficulties from a distance.  When you can see them at a distance, there is less probability of making mistakes. The mistakes you make help you craft cross-cultural skills. So…

How willing are you to make mistakes? – Jeffrey Gitomer

Want To Get The Cross-Cultural Communication Tips?

Get all of the Cross-Cultural Communication Challenge Tips here: 2009 Cross-Cultural Communication Challenges

Tagged as: best practice, ccc, Cross-Cultural Communication, cross-cultural sales, cross-cultural selling, global sales, international competence, international negotiation, International Sales, international sales best practices, international sales skills, international selling, international skills, jeffrey gitomer, march challenge