International Business Networking

Like most bloggers I often get link exchange requests. I usually just delete the ones that look like standard form emails. After all anyone who reads my blog knows how to easily get a link from me.  But yesterday I had a request come in through Twitter and the person said something that surprised me.  This person said “I always reciprocate”.  And this struck me as somehow being negative and I had to think about this for a while before I discovered why.

Free Links To Share Value

You see, I don’t do link exchanges. I give my links freely to people I find have something valuable to add to my blog. Now, although I give links freely,  I do have my quirks:

• I decide where the link goes and what it looks like. When people ask me to change their links once too often I usually simply delete the link. The drawback of giving lots of links freely is there is not much time for maintenance.
• I notice others who network “freely” too.  People who give simply because they like what you do. This is natural isn’t it? And it’s natural that I like networking more with these people too.

This lead me to dig deeper to find out what bothered me so much about this statement: “I always reciprocate”. Well, I noticed there was no giving freely, and no giving first. It is surprising the number of people who wait for you to give first before they give anything to you… and these are almost always the people who  give less than you do.  But this does not bother me. I’ll still put a link through to content I find of value for my own blog readers. So that wasn’t what bothered me with “I always reciprocate”. Then I realized something else.

Networking For International Business Development

I’m totally focused on networking for international business development. And this is where this “you give first before I give you anything” attitude just does not work. Now, I network heavily for my business. I have to. I’m based in France and I like working with English speaking clients. I network to develop my international business. Luckily the time difference works in my favor. The only time I can work with North Americans is from mid-afternoons my time onwards. So before my day comes to I end, I usually spend a good hour or two networking on the phone and by Skype. Of course, I also network through email too. That’s for the direct networking. But I also network extensively on social media, by providing useful information to my followers. This is how I identify the people I want to connect with.  I share non-stop because at the same time I actively work on developing my international business networks. Does this work? You bet it does. I’ve met some great professionals all over the world.

• Some of them are great sources of referrals for my business
• Some will become joint venture partners
• Some are just becoming good business peers right now

Give First And Give Freely

These are people I would never have been able to meet without giving first. These are also people I would never have thought of seeking out.  My sharing information first an giving links first created the beginning of some very useful dialogues for my business. And you know what, it all starts with the attitude of giving and sharing first. This is what bothered me with the remark “I always reciprocate”.  I was interested in connecting with this person much more than a link exchange, but she does not have the right attitude for international business development. You simply need to be someone who shares first, without any expectations of anything in return.

Nurturing Trust In International Networking

This is one of the secrets to successful international networking.  You have to be comfortable making the first step.  In fact, you have to be very comfortable going down half of the path separating you from your international contacts. Occasionally it feels like I go three quarters of the distance alone.  This does not happen often, but it is this willingness to turn and go as far as necessary to greet people in their own comfort zones that creates international business opportunities. The biggest mistake you can make is not giving first.  This is a sign you are not really open to doing business with people outside of your own comfort zone. You do not have what it takes to develop an international business. If you have issues about giving your time and effort first then you need to do some personal work and carefully examine the personal baggage you have with regards to this.  This is the only path to successful international networking. It is linked to several important factors in building strong international relationships, the most important one being trust. Trust across cultures is difficult to establish. Cross-cultural differences create a minefield of potential trust breakers. And when you do not give first, but sit back and wait, or expect others to give first, this does not create a good environment for reciprocal trust in cross-cultural relationships. Besides, you don’t build a business by sitting back and waiting for someone to give you something to which you can reciprocate. Do you?  Start sharing and building your international business networks now. What about you?

• How do you go about international business networking?
• What do you like most about international business networking?
• What are you biggest challenges in international business networking?

Please leave your comments below.

More on International Business Networking:

• Networking With The Wrong Questions
• 2 Habits To Grow Your International Network
• Follow Up With Your First International Clients
• Online Business Networking When Cultural Communication Styles Clash

Copyright Cindy King 2006-2010 - International Business Blog

The Biggest Mistake In International Networking

International Sales Professions

Before I started my own consulting business I worked for a variety of industries, mainly related to communication and new technologies. I had daily contact with clients in a sales capacity, sometimes with more marketing responsibilities than others. But I always dealt with international clients. Clients from different cultures to the company I represented. I negotiated sales, facilitated sales and over the years I worked in all of the functions within the international sales process.

International Selling Was The Only World I Knew

International selling was easy for me because I developed cross-cultural skills very early on. And I always try to find the right way to connect with people, even across cultures. Besides, living in a foreign country and being fully integrated inside this foreign country, adapting to different cultures comes naturally to me.

Dealing with international clients was the only thing I knew.

The Differences In International Selling

I’ve had my business for almost 2 years now, and I now see how big the differences are between selling to international clients and selling to people from your own country.

Here are 12 reasons why international selling is harder:

1. When you’re selling to international clients you have to focus on trust all the time. Losing trust is one of the biggest reasons why you lose international sales. Cross-cultural differences create a minefield of possible trust breakers. All salespeople know they need to build trust and actively do this. But in an international environment the cultural differences increase the difficulty in nurturing, building and maintaining trust on many different levels.
2. When you’re selling to international clients you might not notice when you lose trust. This is the hardest one to deal with. Just as cultural differences create trust breaking situations, they also make it difficult to see when you lose trust. And when you lose an element of trust without realizing it and continue selling, this creates complex situations which are not good for sales.
3. When you’re selling to international clients you also have to deal with your own personal reactions to different cultural situations. Learning how to deal with our own personal cultural baggage and not let it interfere with international business takes work. And it can also raise difficult questions to answer concerning personal integrity and personal ethics. Learning how to separate reactions to these and how to act appropriately is hard work.
4. When you’re selling to international clients you have to identify any differences in doing business, often beyond the scope of sales. Different countries do things differently, we all know that. And yet it is surprising how many of these differences can pop up and effect your business and your selling.
5. When you’re selling to international clients you have to look for wrong assumptions which can pop up in unusual places. Many cross-cultural blunders happen because of wrong assumptions. In sales wrong assumptions can be disastrous.
6. When you’re selling to international clients you have to monitor what is said and the different understandings of what is said. People can take away different understandings for a variety of reasons: wrong assumptions, cultural differences in communication, and different levels in language skills. You simply cannot do business when both parties have different understanding of what is said. So you have to keep your ears open continually and summarize understandings at regular intervals.
7. When you’re selling to international clients you need to become skilled at multitask monitoring. There are many different things to monitor in international sales. Trust, mutual understanding, wrong assumptions are just a few related to the communication. You also need to monitor how cultural differences impact certain aspects of the business deal itself. There are also risk elements to monitor. International selling requires excellent multitasking skills just to monitor the different levels of what’s going on.
8. When you’re selling to international clients you have to be flexible and maintain your business focus at the same time. Different cultures have different styles of doing business. So you need to be flexible and adapt to these differences. When you are not used to certain situations it is easy to lose your business focus. Being both flexible and business focused can be challenging at times. It takes practice and skill to master this.
9. When you’re selling to international clients you must always be ready to adapt to unexpected situations. Both the ability to adapt and the readiness to adapt are important. Unexpected situations are common in international business. Dealing with this change demands personal energy.
10. When you’re selling to international clients you have different risk factors to take into consideration. There is always a more elevated risk factor in international business. Successful international salespeople know how to be the lookout post for any relevant risk factors for his business. International selling is a more varied occupation.
11. When you’re selling to international clients you need to adopt a marketing hat as well. The role of lookout post also involves marketing feedback. Most sales professionals understand the valuable role they play to their companies marketing functions. In an international environment this marketing role is critical. The international salesperson is usually the only person with constant direct insights into his company’s market.
12. When you’re selling to international clients you must have a very clear vision of your business goals and the framework you work in. Without an accurate and clear vision and understanding of your company’s goals you will not be able to find the best way to do all of the above. In international sales negotiations this alone is a very powerful tool.

The Multiplying Effect

Skilled sales professionals will probably nod their head and say they do all of the above already. But there is a multiplying effect which makes these tasks harder in international sales.

What’s your experience?

• Have you sold to both international clients and clients from your own country?
• What differences do you see between selling to international client and clients in your own country?
• What do you think, how is international selling harder?

Please leave your comments below.

More on International Sales Professions:

• The Job Of An International Sales Specialist
• What Is An International Business Development Executive?
• What Is An International Sales Specialist?
• What Makes A Good International Sales Specialist

Get International Clients – Business Guides On Sales

• Cross-Culture Sales
• Cross-Cultural Negotiation

Copyright Cindy King 2006-2010 - International Business Blog

12 Reasons Why International Selling Is Harder

Monthly Series – International Sales Best Practices

Some of the younger generations around me appear to have different desires in how they want to identify themselves with the company they work for. When I think about this, I have also noticed cultural differences in how people like to identify themselves with the company they work for.

Last month I wrote about how you need to show confidence in your company when you present yourself to international clients. Now, I know there will be some employees who will not share this opinion… especially if they are not in international business. But let’s have a closer look at this…

I have already written about how there is a natural mistrust when doing business with a “foreigner” for the first time. When you encounter someone from a different culture you notice everything about him. They notice everything about you too… they will even notice things about you that you could not imagine.

And they will notice the whole picture you represent. As a cross-cultural sales person you can be so focused on establishing the personal connection amidst a variety of cultural differences, that you forget to take in the whole picture of what your international client sees. He will notice how confident you are in your company, he will pick up how you feel about your company. And he will also take in more information within the whole picture you represent to him.

Building Trust In International Sales – Tip 9

Better to trust the man who is frequently in error than the one who is never in doubt. -Eric Sevareid

International Sales Best Practice
- Monitor The Whole Picture

Today’s international sales best practice brings us to the environment of multitasking to monitor a very large number of diverse factors that can influence the success of your international sale.. This multitasking is primarily a way to monitor all aspects of the cross-cultural environment within your business objectives. There are several levels you need to monitor in international business.

Immediate Cross-Cultural Communication

There are different facets to your communication:

• Verbal
• Non-verbal or body language
• What is not said
• What is said individually
• What is said by the group, or the whole conversation
• How things are said with regards to vocabulary, timing and context

This is covered in detail in the previous Cross-Cultural Communication Challenges, so have a look there for more details.

You will keep these different types of communication in mind and then look at the answers you get with these 3 things in mind.

1 – How You Are Perceived

This is an  important one.  You must monitor how others perceive you, your team, your company and your product.

2 – How What You Represent Is Perceived

Beware… this is not an easy one to uncover. It’s not only about how you are perceived.  Your international client might have other things in their picture of you.  And you will need to find out what they are.

Your international client’s perception of you can go beyond you and your company and include:

• Your country
• Your industry
• Your local environment
• Your sponsors
• Your clients

You cannot really know for sure what is in this picture. Only your international client knows how he perceives you and what else matters to him.  This can even be abstract things. It could even be an event… imagine how the event of September 11th effected international business.

Your international client may not know himself what is in that picture… and you will not be able to tell until he starts reacting to it.

3 – Reactions And Responses

This can be easy and it can also take up a lot of energy.  It really depends on your cultural skills, experience and the culture mix.  There is one thing to remember in all circumstances though…

Closely monitor all feedback you get from your international clients. If you do take a laid back approach and get lazy with your communication you do open yourself to cultural hiccups.

Monitoring Means Multitasking

As you can see, there is a variety of information to pay attention to in international business.  And there are different levels of information.  There are so many details to monitor in fact, that as an international sales professional you learn to pick up a specific set of multitasking skills to monitor communication with your clients.

You need to become skilled at this form of multitasking because you need to put your business objectives in there too.  And this enables you to do the final step of adjusting your communication to find the path towards the outcome you want.

Now it is over to you…

• How do you monitor your cross-cultural communication with international clients?
• What do you find difficult to monitor in your cross-cultural communication?
• What tactics do you use to monitor your cross-cultural communication?

Please share your stories in the comment section below.

More Cultural Skills For Today’s Tip

Last month’s Cross-Cultural Communication Tip - Show confidence in your company and those you work with

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.

Want To Get All Cross-Cultural Communication Tips?

Three Cross-Cultural Communication Challenges are currently available:

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

Get all of the tips from these 30 & 31 day challenges, and learn more about the other planned later this year:

• 2009 Cross-Cultural Communication Challenges

All International Sales Best Practices

You can find the complete list of International Sales Best Practices published to date here:

• International Sales Best Practices

Copyright Cindy King 2006-2010 - International Business Blog

International Sales Best Practice – Monitor The Whole Picture

Monthly Series – International Sales Best Practices

A funny thing happens in some cross-cultural encounters. Here’s the scenario:

• Two people who do not speak the same language meet
• One speaks his native language. Let’s call him the “native speaker”
• The other person speaks this same language, but it isn’t his native tongue. He can communicate well enough, but his language skills in this language could be improved. Let’s call him the “non-native speaker

There is a tendency for the “native speaker” to treat the “non-native speaker” like a child… or an elderly person with hearing difficulties, but I’ll stick to the child in this example.

When you speak to a “non-native speaker” like a child, this is in response to the language level you hear. As a “native speaker” you are speaking your own language, you hear the language you are used to… and if you are not careful, you listen with your usual filters.  This sounds like a child speaking. So you assume the “non-native speaker” is not able to fully understand what you say and respond accordingly.

You need to be careful of this. Just because your international business partner may sound like a child, this is only due to insufficient language skills in your language.  Who knows, his communication skills might even be better than yours when he speaks his own language.  Don’t let your primal response jump in and start treating him like a child. You will quickly learn that most people understand foreign languages much better than they speak these languages.

The problem is when you treat someone who is your equal like a child this does not lead to effective communication. Now, imagine what this does when trying to build trust. And now let’s go even further… imagine what this does to the “non-native speaker”. What if you are the “non-native speaker”? How would you feel if you were having a normal conversation and someone started speaking to you as if you were a child?

Hint: a “non-native speaker” will hear you treating him like a child… and, if he is there doing business with you, he probably understands you well enough when you speak normally. If he has trouble following your accent or the speed at which you speak, the best thing is to speak a little slower and tidy up your own communication.

This is a long story to show that there are many tiny incidences during a cross-cultural communication that can undermine your trust in yourself if you are not careful.

Building Trust In International Sales – Tip 8

A man who doesn’t trust himself can never really trust anyone else. – Cardinal de Retz

International Sales Best Practice

- Trust Yourself First

This series is about reviewing the cross-cultural communication tips to build trust and how they fit into international sales.  So trust is a core topic in this month’s series.  Today we look at the very first step we need to take to build trust.

Trust Yourself To Be Credible

Even though people from different cultures may do things differently and they may not speak your language well, they will be able to sense your trustworthiness. In international business, others will always ask themselves whether they can trust you.

Trust and credibility are linked. And so is your professional reputation in international business.

Trust Yourself To Be Trustworthy

Credibility is linked to trust through the different ways of proving your trustworthiness.

• You need to be competent and worthy of trust
• You need to do what promise to be worthy of trust

Trust Yourself To Be Trusted

Trust is personal. The good news is that there is something you can do to get more trust. You see, trust does not start with the other person, it starts within yourself. Before others can trust you, you need to trust yourself.

Do what it takes to get yourself to trust:

• What you say
• Your actions
• Your beliefs, opinions and decisions

How? This is easy:

• Be honest with yourself
• Do what it takes to complete the actions you say you will take
• Build the trust you have in yourself by discovering who you are and accepting this.

Once you trust yourself, the next step is to trust someone else.  Giving trust is a way to get others to notice the trust you have in yourself, in your decisions.  Giving trust is powerful too in cross-cultural encounters… but don’t forget this first step of trusting yourself.  And remember to find the resources within if ever your trust in yourself is undermined by situations created through cross-cultural differences.

Now it is over to you…

• How does your trust in yourself effect your international sales?
• How do your international clients perceive your trust in yourself?
• Why do you need to trust yourself to make more international sales?

Please share your stories in the comment section below.

More Cultural Skills For Today’s Tip

Last month’s Cross-Cultural Communication Tip - Trust yourself first

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.

Want To Get All Cross-Cultural Communication Tips?

Three Cross-Cultural Communication Challenges are currently available:

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

Get all of the tips from these 30 & 31 day challenges, and learn more about the other planned later this year:

• 2009 Cross-Cultural Communication Challenges

All International Sales Best Practices

You can find the complete list of International Sales Best Practices published to date here:

• International Sales Best Practices

Copyright Cindy King 2006-2010 - International Business Blog

International Sales Best Practice – Trust Yourself First

Monthly Series – International Sales Best Practices

In last month’s Cross-Cultural Communication Challenge we looked at how you need to “know yourself and feel confident with who you are”. This was in the series of 5 tips on cultivating quiet self-confidence. There are 2 aspects to this…

First, when people first begin business meetings with people from other cultures they often do not realize the extent to which their own cultural baggage is the source of any communication troubles. It is true, that when it comes to international sales, you also need to pay more attention to yourself. When questions come up you need to remember to look at how you came across first. How did others perceive you.

Second, while this is easy to follow, you can begin to question yourself too much. You also have to maintain trust in yourself. You need to know yourself well enough to draw on a quiet self-confidence.

This is our starting point for today’s international sales best practice.

Building Trust In International Sales – Tip 7

Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do. – Dr. Benjamin Spock

International Sales Best Practice
- Know Yourself

Why is it important to know yourself? There are several reasons, but today I want to talk about one in particular: self-knowledge.

In my experience self-knowledge often makes the difference in whether you get or lose the international sale.

The Power Of Self-Knowledge

All business criteria being equal, what is the one thing that will put you above everyone else? The depth of your own self-knowledge.  Have a look at last month’s Cross-Cultural Communication Challenge for details on how this goes back to:

• The limitations of our own cultural baggage
• Being aware of the cultural baggage we have
• Our ability to enter international business meetings without our own cultural baggage
• Knowing our personal boundaries and creating buffer zones around them so they never

The Risks Of A Lack Of Self-Knowledge

When you do not know yourself well this can create some very unpleasant cross-cultural communication experiences. Not all the time.  It depends.  But when you add culture shock issues things can get seriously out of control rather quickly.

Why Lack Of Self-Knowledge Gets You Into Trouble

There are many reasons why your own lack of self-knowledge can ruin cross-cultural communications. To go into them here would take more than the space of this article. But here is the general idea…

First there are two main points:

• Your cultural baggage effects how you interpret what people from other cultures communicate to you.
• You are probably reacting as if the person was from your own culture and not a different one, so there is no real conversation.

Trouble starts when you do not know what your own cultural baggage is:

• You get upset. You react negatively or wrongly or inappropriately.

There is simply no connection in the communication.

Understanding Your Boundaries

The thing to remember is that it is not about changing yourself in any way.  It’s more like finding a different viewpoint when looking at yourself.  What you want to do is to know where your personal boundaries are when dealing with different cultures. But before you can do this, you need to know what your boundaries are.

This may sound easy, but hang on.  You will soon find that there are also context issues with these boundaries.

For example, as a North American I feel uncomfortable when a strange man comes up too close to speak to me in an empty room. Well it’s not that I am conscious of feeling uncomfortable… but I will take a step backgrounds without thinking, as soon as he enters my personal zone.

But if the room is packed, the same stranger could approach me within the same space and I would not step back involuntarily. This is because my personal comfort zone has reduced drastically in this context simply because I’ve lived in big cities and am used to crowds.

Now imagine this was in a business context… In this case, I would need to control myself to not offend the other person by an inappropriate involuntary action… and also, I would be prepared to steer the situation away from possible areas of discomfort for myself.

Personal cultural baggage can get pretty complex when you begin to try to understand yourself.  For cross-cultural communication purposes within an international business environment you only need to go so far.  The simple fact of being aware of your own cultural baggage usually helps you through most cross-cultural difficulties.  Still, there is a good amount of personal development work to really get to know yourself.

On a side note, there is another interesting benefit with improving your self-knowledge and you becoming more aware of cultural baggage in general:

• You can sometimes get a glimpse of the cultural baggage other people have and this helps to improve your cultural skills

Pay Attention To Yourself

In cross-cultural communication it is important to know yourself and to understand your boundaries.  In international sales this self-knowledge helps you to find the right approach when dealing with international clients.  You are more able to adapt to different cultures when you know where you are.

Now it is over to you…

• How does your self-knowledge impact your international sales?
• Why do you think it is important to know yourself in international sales?
• How does the success of your international sales depend on how well you know yourself?

Please share your stories in the comment section below.

More Cultural Skills For Today’s Tip

Last month’s Cross-Cultural Communication Tip - Know yourself and feel confident with who you are

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.

Want To Get All Cross-Cultural Communication Tips?

Three Cross-Cultural Communication Challenges are currently available:

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

Get all of the tips from these 30 & 31 day challenges, and learn more about the other planned later this year:

• 2009 Cross-Cultural Communication Challenges

All International Sales Best Practices

You can find the complete list of International Sales Best Practices published to date here:

• International Sales Best Practices

Copyright Cindy King 2006-2010 - International Business Blog

International Sales Best Practice – Know Yourself

Monthly Series – International Sales Best Practices

How people trust you depends a lot on you and how trustworthy others perceive you. In the Cross-Cultural Communication Challenge we saw how

Building Trust In International Sales – Tip 6

As soon as you trust yourself you will know how to live. – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

International Sales Best Practice
- Cultivate Your Character

There is no way to go around this. Character is important in international sales. It is not that you need an outspoken or a strong character. Instead it’s about having the right character to portray trust and credibility for successful international business. What is the right character you ask. Well, this is a bit difficult to describe, but I will give it a try. Here are some insights…

Different opinions and beliefs are OK. But it depends how you express them. In last month’s Cross-Cultural Communication Challenge we looked at how some people became threatened when faced with cultural differences, and how you need a quiet self-confidence.

How you express your different opinions has an effect on your character. It shows how you feel about your own opinions and beliefs, how well you know them and how threatened you are by different opinions and beliefs.

Confident to give trust first. This is a trait of most great salespeople. In a cross-cultural environment giving trust first also shows a few other things.

• When you give trust first, it shows that you accept the other person and his cultural differences.
• Others can also sense a degree of self-knowledge in you and this usually comes across well.
• It is easy for others to recognize this step towards them and they are likely to reciprocate in some way.

An attitude of credibility. Many successful international sales people convey their character with subtlety and yet credibility is still omnipresent. Of course, there are also elements of competency and straight forward truth that make this crediblity possible.  But this particular attitude of credibility communicates well across a variety of cultures.

Don’t Be Afraid To Cultivate Your Character

Although it can be difficult describing the ideal character traits for international sales, there is one thing that is certain: your character is important for your international business success.

This is because your character and how your international clients perceive your character is vital for building trust.  Your character will also influence your international sales success.  This is why you need to be aware of the different areas of your character that your cross-cultural clients will notice first.

Now it is over to you…

• What image do your international clients have of your character?
• How do you think your character influences your international sales success?
• What character is the best for international sales professionals?

Please share your stories in the comment section below.

More Cultural Skills For Today’s Tip

Last month’s Cross-Cultural Communication Tip – Do not feel threatened by other ways of thinking for doing things

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.

Want To Get All Cross-Cultural Communication Tips?

Three Cross-Cultural Communication Challenges are currently available:

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

Get all of the tips from these 30 & 31 day challenges, and learn more about the other planned later this year:

• 2009 Cross-Cultural Communication Challenges

All International Sales Best Practices

You can find the complete list of International Sales Best Practices published to date here:

• International Sales Best Practices

Copyright Cindy King 2006-2010 - International Business Blog

International Sales Best Practice – Cultivate Your Character

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

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.

Want To Get All Cross-Cultural Communication Tips?

Three Cross-Cultural Communication Challenges are currently available:

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

Get all of the tips from these 30 & 31 day challenges, and learn more about the other planned later this year:

• 2009 Cross-Cultural Communication Challenges

All International Sales Best Practices

You can find the complete list of International Sales Best Practices published to date here:

• International Sales Best Practices

Copyright Cindy King 2006-2010 - International Business Blog

International Sales Best Practice – Establish A Connection

Monthly Series – International Sales Best Practices

As we have seen in previous tips for international sales best practices you need to constantly pay attention to nurturing trust in cross-cultural sales. Why? Because cultural differences can be the cause of a lose of trust. And this lose of trust can be instant… and may even happen without you even realizing it. Like many similar things in life, it is always much easier to nurture the right environment than try to repair what is broken.

Building Trust In International Sales – Tip 4

Trust no one unless you have eaten much salt with him. – Cicero

We have already talked about making friends… now, let’s talk about developing this friendship. In cross-cultural communication there is trust building and trust nurturing. In our everyday life, when you make a friend you expect that relationship to be fairly stable. You don’t expect to have to put an effort in nurturing that relationship to make sure it exists.

Here are five reasons why you should develop your friendships more:

Friendship requires nurturing. This is the difference with international business. A constant effort to nuture trust is wise. You just do not know which cross-cultural hurdle can pop up and jeopardize your “friendship”.

Friendship leads to trust. There are many other benefits to develop friendships in international business. The stronger the friendship the easier it is for people to really trust you.

Friendship is a strong foundation for trust. No matter what culture you are dealing with it is always easier to trust others where there is a friendship at its base.

Friendship helps you to cross cultural barriers. The path separating two international business partners from two different cultures can be a long one. Do you ever really meet together on this path? In many cases, the answer is no. A good friendship helps you to go further along this path.

Friendship means you are approachable. There is a balance to find in internatinal business. There are business practices to keep and yet when you try to improve your communication with people from different cultures, things can get more personal than usual in business. There is a balance to find in how friendly you come across too and what this means to others. But this friendliness makes you more approachable and it becomes easier to discuss everything… including business.

Developing Friendship

How you go about developing friendship in an international business environment will depend on the different cultures involved. The point I want to share in this post is that you should make the effort to develop your international business friendships beyond the initial phase, and to work at maintaining this friendship.

Your international business will thrive once you learn the skill of creating and developing the appropriate friendships with your international clients.  You need cross-cultural skills to learn how to do this across cultures, but this is a skill well worth developing for your international business success.

Now it is over to you…

• How do you feel about developing friendships with your international clients?
• What difficulties do you encounter when developing friendship with international clients?
• When do you find it easy to become friends with your international clients?

Please share your stories in the comment section below.

More Cultural Skills For Today’s Tip

Last month’s Cross-Cultural Communication Tip - Find the similarities and recognize them

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.

Want To Get All Cross-Cultural Communication Tips?

Three Cross-Cultural Communication Challenges are currently available:

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

Get all of the tips from these 30 & 31 day challenges, and learn more about the other planned later this year:

• 2009 Cross-Cultural Communication Challenges

All International Sales Best Practices

You can find the complete list of International Sales Best Practices published to date here:

• International Sales Best Practices

Copyright Cindy King 2006-2010 - International Business Blog

International Sales Best Practice – Develop Friendship