Cross-Cultural Communication 30-Day Challenge – Build Trust

This is the last tip on cultivating quiet self-confidence to build trust in cross-cultural communication. Here are the previous tips:

• Tip 6 – Do not feel threatened by other ways of thinking for doing things
• Tip 7 – Know yourself and feel confident with who you are
• Tip 8 – Trust yourself first
• Tip 9 – Show confidence in your company and those you work with

The first 5 tips on building trust were about smoothing the differences. The next 5 tips will be specifically about doing what you promise. By the end of the month we will have covered 6 different aspects on how to build trust.

Cultivate Quiet Self Confidence

Self-confidence is important in cross-cultural communication:

On a personal level – to stop you from feeling awkward when confronted with cultural differences you do not feel comfortable with

On a business level – to convey the right message

Trust In Cross-Cultural Communication Challenge – Tip 10

Groom natural self-confidence

As you begin to understand the role self-confidence plays in how you approach people from different cultures and the quality of your cross-cultural communication, you will find ways to groom your natural self-confidence.

Identify Lacks Of Self-Confidence

There is one big problem.  It is not always easy to identify the lack of self-confidence you may have. Many people laugh at the thought of having a lack of self-confidence… especially if they are seasoned business professionals.

But the self-confidence here is not about how well you perform a specific task.  It is the self-confidence you would need if you were:

• Alone
• In a large crowd of people from a very foreign culture
• In an enclosed environment
• Where everyone else is doing something you could not possibly imagine doing

• And not feel awkward, threatened or any form of personal aggression

Have you ever been in a similar circumstance?  Even if you think you have the self-confidence it takes, you might be surprised if you put yourself to the test.

This is a level of self-confidence we do not usually need to rely on because we live in a familiar environment. This touches on areas of primal instincts and our very nature of being human.  And most people need practice to develop the self-confidence involved here.

Notice Cross-Cultural Issues Created By One Person’s Lack Of Self-Confidence

Even if it is difficult to identify where this self-confidence lies within yourself, it is usually easy to spot in others. When a cross-cultural “incident” happens between two people, and you have a certain level of cross-cultural experience, it is usually easy to see when someone’s lack of self-confidence was the cause of conflict or at least the cause of an escalation of difficulties.

This type of cross-cultural difficulty happens often enough when people with different levels of cultural skills work together.  This is why it is important to build a quiet self-confidence to build trust in cross-cultural communication.

A word of caution: When you do notice a lack of self-confidence in someone else in a business environment, don’t even attempt to explain this to them.  They probably feel even more aggression and the problem will get worse.

If this happens in a business environment, the best thing to do is to look for other avenues of communication.  International professionals need to excel at processing multiple sources of information at the same time… and this is when this skill comes in very handy.  The only immediate solution is to quickly find an alternate path of communication which does not hit that person’s self-confidence issues.

When you have noticed this type of incident a few times it then becomes easier to turn inwards and examine yourself for a similar lack of self-confidence.

Groom Your Naturual Self-Confidence

Once you can identify the area of self-confidence involved in cross-cultural communication, it is easy to work backwards and find the little things you can do to groom this natural self-confidence.

In my experience this is something you need to work at to maintain.

I’m curious…

• How do you groom your self-confidence for cross-cultural communication?
• Do you find it easy to identify a lack of self-confidence as the cause of cross-cultural difficulties?
• How do you manage doing business with different skill levels of cross-cultural competence?

Get All Cross-Cultural Communication Tips:

• Read more about all of the 2009 Cross-Cultural Communication Challenges
• Cross Cultural Communication Challenge 1 – Expand Your Mindset
• Cross Cultural Communication Challenge 2 – Get Extreme With Clarity
• Cross Cultural Communication Challenge 3 – Build Trust

Free Mini-Posters With Monthly Calenders

Mindset	Clarity	Trust
Expand Your Mindset	Get Extreme With Clarity	Build Trust

Copyright Cindy King 2006-2010 - International Business Blog

Trust In Cross-Cultural Communication – Tip 10

Cross-Cultural Communication Challenge
- Get Extreme With Clarity

When people with international profiles meet up socially, they almost always get around to sharing their cross-cultural stories. There are similarities and differences. But when you include the different cultural backgrounds together with the different cultural mixes, there are countless different cross-cultural situations.

We all have different cultural backgrounds and cross-cultural communication skills. The different mixes in cultural backgrounds leads to different situations. We all have our different stories. But there are almost always different perspectives or slight nuances that can enrich our understanding of other cultures.

Share Nuggets Of Our Cultural Experience

The story-telling conversations also often lead to people sharing what they learned from their cross-cultural encounters. The tips and nuggets of deep insights they took away from their cross-cultural encounter. This is why these exchanges are interesting.

We all come away with different tips on how to deal with cross-cultural differences and improve the cross-cultural connection. Of course there are many similarities. But the enriching part is hearing people use different words to express similar points of view.

Improve Our Cultural Understanding

Sometimes we get lucky. Another person’s story can give us a different perspective and deepen our own understanding of a different culture. This is a great way to improve our international skills.

This process of learning from another person’s story reminds me of the ancestral art of story telling in certain cultures, where stories were told to teach future generations.

What Are Your Tips?

What did you come away with after you encountered cross-cultural communication:

• Differences?
• Difficulties?
• Hurdles?
• Barriers?

Please share your tips below in the comments or reach out to me on Twitter @CindyKing

Even if you think your tip is an obvious one:

• The words you use might stimulate a stronger understanding for others
• The perspective you have might be slightly different and resonate more with others

Cross-Cultural Communication Challenge – Get Extreme With Clarity

Each day in June, I will be posting a new tip to help improve clarity in your cross-cultural communication. I would love to include some of your tips too.

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:

• All 4 Cross-Cultural Communication Challenges this year
• The 1st Cross-Cultural Communication Challenge – Expand Your Mindset

Copyright Cindy King 2006-2010 - International Business Blog

Do You Have Any Culture Tips To Share?

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:

Copyright Cindy King 2006-2010 - International Business Blog

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

International Sales Best Practices

How can you use last month’s cross-cultural communication tips to get more international clients?

Remember to download the free calender for an easy reference to all of the 31 Cross-Cultural Communication Challenge Tips on mindset.

First, we are going to use Jeffrey Gitomer’s Little Red Book Of Selling to look at some standard sales best practices. These best practices work well in most international sales environments. Sometimes they need a little tweaking to fit into most international environments. Next, we are going to look at a cross-cultural communication tip from last month’s challenge.  We will choose one that “matches” Jeffrey Gitomer’s sales tip. Finally, we are going to link the sales best practices with the cross-cultural communication tips together… again one each day this month.

International Sales Success

Let us start with the first questions people ask about international sales.  Most of us are usually concerned about our international sales success. Over the next few days we are going to look at the differences between failure and success and what this means to salespeople.

Quote From Jeffrey Gitomer’s Little Red Book Of Selling

What’s the difference between successful salespeople and salespeople that fail? Successful salespeople believe they can.

Last Month’s Cross-Cultural Communication Tip 28

Be confident! Your own confidence, or lack of confidence, can influence effective cross-cultural communication.

Believe In Yourself  – It Counts!

Most salespeople recognize the need for confidence even if they do not always make the effort to cultivate this confidence.  The problem is that in international sales our confidence is easily undermined:

• We often get so focused on our own difficulties that this chips away at our confidence in ourselves.
• International sales usually have different sales cycles compared to what we are used to.  This can be destabilizing.

In addition to this, cultural differences can also impact how our confidence is perceived.  Here are some key areas to look at.

Confidence In Your Product

In international sales you must know how your products can help your clients. Cultural differences can make this a bit more complicated to find out.

• What will your foreign client get out of your product or service?
• Why will your international client buy from you and not from someone else?

Different cultures have different emotional responses and different needs.  It is important to think about these questions before the sales process. The answers to these questions will give you confidence. Unfortunately, if this is your first sales encounter with a different cultures, you will probably not be able to answer these questions accurately.  And that is OK.  You will need confidence during the sales process to get these answers.  If you do not have the exact answers, it is easier to fill in the gaps when if you have thought about this beforehand.

Confidence In Your Company

You also need to feel confidence in representing your company.  This is more important in some cultures than in others.  Any perceived lack of confidence in your company can be critical in some cultures. In other words, your confidence in your company gives you credibility to be part of this sales process.

Confidence In Yourself

In all sales it is important to believe in yourself and to feel confident.  In international sales, you have to pay attention to how this confidence is perceived.  It is important to find the right expression of confidence. If others perceive you as having too much confidence this can appear boastful. In some cultural environments it can be difficult to maintain the professional aspect of this confidence.  Some cultures like to do business on a more personal level and if you are not used to this, you might not know how to keep this balance.

The Right Balance

Your international clients will notice your confidence despite any language or cultural barriers. The problem is that this confidence may be perceived differently in different cultures.  This is why it is important to keep your antennas up during the sales process to make sure your confidence comes through… and also that it comes through with the right perception. So…

How much do you believe in you? – 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

Copyright Cindy King 2006-2010 - International Business Blog

International Sales Best Practice – Believe You Can

Cross-Cultural Communication Challenge – Expand Your Mindset

Today is the end of March and the end of the first of four Cross-Cultural Communication Challenges in 2009.  I hope you enjoyed the daily tips to improve mindset for better cultural skills as much as I enjoyed writing them.

Remember…

• Stronger cultural skills can help get more international clients.

The 31 day Cross-Cultural Challenge does not end quietly.  There is a surprise for you…

A Free Cross-Cultural Communication Mini-Poster

Be sure to download the free mini-poster with all of the tips covered in the March Challenge.

• 31 Cross-Cultural Communication Tips On Mindset

This way you have all of the 31 tips at a glance.

• Some people may want to follow one tip a day over the month of their choice.
• Others may use this as a quick reference. Sometimes reading the same tip at the right moment can be the key you need to open your own mindset to improve your cross-cultural skills.

And this is not the last time we will see these 31 culture tips…

Cross-Cultural Tips To Get International Sales

Of course, the subject of cross-cultural communication is interesting, but the real question is:

• How can these cultural skills help you get more international sales?

So, this during the month of April, I will go over each of these cross-cultural tips again and this time link them to international sales best practices.

Use the free mini-poster to follow along this month too.

Get All The Cross-Cultural Communication Challenge Articles:

Click here for a complete list with links to all of the articles in the March Challenge 2009 Cross-Cultural Communication Challenges

Copyright Cindy King 2006-2010 - International Business Blog

Free Mini-Poster With 31 Cross-Cultural Communication Tips

Book & Product Reviews

When the ProBlogger book came out I had been blogging daily on two blogs for about 5 months.  It immediately went on my wish list, but life got busy and I have only just read it.

• ProBlogger – Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income by Darren Rowse and Chris Garrett

Be sure to see my takeaways after reading this book and what this inspired me to give you next month.  It’s at the end of this article.

Two expert authors

Darren started ProBlogger in 2004 and is known as one of best people in the blogosphere today.

Chris has been working on the internet since the early 1990′s – before most people had even heard of the internet. Chris is known as an Authority Blogger and he is also my favorite social media expert.

Who is this book for?

All beginners.

…and anyone wondering how to improve their blogging.

People use different entry points to start bogging. This book is for all beginner bloggers. And it is also for bloggers that have already started blogging but realize they could improve their blogging and their blog.

Blogging basics

Darren and Chris cover all of the first steps any new blogger needs to know:

• Choosing a blog platform
• Domain name selection
• Deciding on a niche to target
• Basic understanding blog analytics.

ProBlogger Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income is a stand alone guide to blogging. Unlike many blogging books, it doesn’t stop with the basics.

Get more out of your blogging

Darren and Chris share their expertise to show you how to become a real pro-blogger.

ProBlogger Secrets for Blogging is also useful for bloggers that are moving on to something slightly new with their blog, like:

• Advertising on a blog
• Blog marketing
• Writing for blog networks

For me, a good example was the section on buying and selling blogs. This is something that I have no experience with and it was a good primer for me in case this comes up some time in the future. I knew that it was a common practice to place blogs on sale, but I didn’t know was that it was common for potential buyers to approach a blog owner and ask to buy an existing blog.

Put it immediately into practice

One of the things I liked the most in this book was the ProBlogger blog tips that appear throughout the book. Each tip is related to the chapter and gives the reader ideas on how to implement what is covered in each chapter. This makes it very easy to know what to do and to take action.

At the end of each chapter there is an exercise for the reader to complete.  For example, creating the listing to sell your blog. These exercises are similar to the Tips but they help the reader assimilate the content even more.

For my international readers

This book is very easy for people who speak  English as a second language.  It is far from a technical manual, and more like  an easy-to-read useful how-to guide.

What I took away from the ProBlogger book

The one thing that I have learned blogging is to regularly evaluate my blog.  You cannot sit back and think that you have mastered everything.  Blogs are social media.  You need to regularly take a look at your blog from different viewpoints.   Up to now, I usually do this every 2 or 3 months.  Over time, this process of re-evaluation is what greatly improves both your blogging and your blog.

After a quick glance through this book, I found it interesting enough to decide to use it for just that: to review my blogging on this blog.  And I’m glad I did.  I actually enjoyed reviewing my blogging practices, strategy and writing habits with this book in hand.

It has now been well over a year since I started blogging,  and yet I also still picked up quite a few valuable tips.

Yes, this was a review of the basics for me, but these are the backbone of a great blog.  What I liked most was that the experience of reviewing my blogs while reading this book was very motivational.  The Tips make you want to take action immediately.

I now have a couple of improvement projects for both this blog and Get International Clients.  The main takeaway for this blog:  more post series.

A 31 Day Challenge To Improve Your Cross-Cultural Communication

Each day during the month of March, you will have one tip to help you improve your cross-cultural communication.

Now, I usually write about cross-cultural communication for international business, but these tips will also include many cross-cultural communication basics.  So this challenge will also interest people who are not in international business.

Cross-cultural communication is a vast subject.  This challenge in March will cover one aspect and there will be three other monthly challenges later in the year.

Read more Book Reviews:

Communication For International Sales

Here are reviews of the books I have read recently to help me with communication for international sales:

• A Writer’s Guide To Powerful Paragraphs By Victor C. Pellegrino
• Content Rich By Jon Wuebben
• Get Content Get Customers by Joe Pulizzi & Newt Barrett
• Letting Go Of The Words – Writing Web Content That Works By Janice Redish
• Stories That Sell By Casey Hibbard
• The Culturally Customized Web Site By Nitish Singh And Arun Pereira
• The Magic Of Pre-Writing By Steven Osborne
• The Secret To Writing A Successful And Outstanding Blog By Liz Strauss

International Sales

Here are reviews of the books I have read recently to help me with international sales:

• All of the Little Sales Books by Jeffrey Gitomer
• Asinine Advertising By Herschell Gordon Lewis
• Influencer: The Power To Change Anything by Kerry Patterson – Joseph Grenny – David Maxfield – Ron McMillian & Al Switzler
• Sales Strategy From The Inside Out By Duane Sparks

International Web Marketing

Here are reviews of the books I have read recently to help me with international web marketing:

• Bit Literacy Productivity in the Age of Information and E-mail Overload By Mark Hurst
• Dotcomology The Science Of Making Money Online By Stone Evans
• How The Internet Works By Preston Gralla
• How to Win Sales & Influence Spiders By Catherine Seda
• Landing Page Optimization By Tim Ash
• Mastering Online Marketing By Mitch Meyerson
• Multichannel Marketing By Akin Arikan
• Online Competitive Intelligence By Helen P. Burwell
• ProBlogger by Darren Rowse and Chris Garrett
• Stats Faceslap By Ed Rivis
• The Ultimate Web Marketing Strategy By Ed Rivis
• Website Optimization by Andrew B. King

Here are some Product Reviews:

• Ed Rivis’ Stats Faceslap
• Success Chef’s Marketing E.S.P.
• The Management Tools I Use For Content Created To Be Re-Packaged
• The Ultimate Desktop Copy Coach By Tony Flores
  
• Web Video University And International Marketing
  

All of the book and product reviews here are totally unsolicited… spontaneous …and without affiliate links. These are books I have read recently and only the ones that I share with friends. So all of the reviews you find here are on books and products that I highly recommend.

Also, as these are books and products that I have recently read since, this is not a list of my all-time favorite books. Hopefully I will get around to reviewing my favorite culture and international business books sometime soon.

Use these skills in your international tactics on the…
Get International Clients International Sales Road Map:

Guide To Multichannel Marketing • Do you know how to communicate with different countries? This guide shows you how

Guide To International Web Marketing • Do you know how to pull all of your different international marketing pieces together? This guide shows you how

Step 5 – Connect With Your International Markets Connect… • With culture customized content • With trust and empathy • With strong cross-cultural communication

International Business Success Basics • Do you feel at a loss with regards to dealing with international business? This guide gives you the background information you need right from the start.

Copyright Cindy King 2006-2010 - International Business Blog

ProBlogger by Darren Rowse and Chris Garrett