Stop Blaming the Culture – Eleven Simple Rules to Remember when Conducting International Business
I have had the opportunity of spending most of the last 15 years of my career working on the international front across North and South America, Europe, South East Asia, China, and the Middle East and have had many people ask me what I thought made people successful on the international front. The answer is quite simple, I think. My success, and that of most people I have seen succeed internationally, has come down to one concept: being genuine.
Everyone likes to blame the culture when things do not go their way. Don’t be fooled by this often-used excuse to explain the fact that an individual is not being successful on foreign soil. The reality is that whether I was working in China, Malaysia, Brazil, Chile, France, England, the Netherlands, the United Arab Emirates, the US, or Canada, or in various other countries I have had the opportunity to do business in, I believe that it came down to being genuine.
Here are 11 simple rules to remember when preparing to engage your potential international clients.
Everybody has a boss they want to look good in front of. Make sure you give your future international business partner the opportunity to shine in front of their superiors and understand how that is best demonstrated for their hierarchical or influence level in their country.
Everybody must go to somebody else to seek an approval or for a review. Give your point of contact the tools they need to justify why the business opportunity is good for them.
If they don’t trust the messenger, they won’t trust your company. Get someone in front of your customer that is genuinely interested in making them successful.
Read up on the country you are visiting so as to understand their basic customs and some history. It shows that you care.
You can’t fake tolerance and acceptance. If you think your employee has the slightest bias or prejudice about a country of interest, replace him/her.
If you make an error or if your company does not respect your commitments or promises, you need to own up to it, apologize, and rectify the situation. Saying sorry has never been a sign of weakness in any country I have worked in.
Competence is universally recognizable, and so is incompetence. Make sure the person you are sending understands the subject matter and can speak about it intelligently.
Celebrate each other’s successes. It creates bonds and relationships that will help you through the tough times.
Don’t send a Christmas card if they your clients do not celebrate it. Understand the difference between Christmas, Chinese New Year, Rosh Hashanah, Ramadan, and any other major holidays that are important to your international clients’ tradition.
Once your potential business partners trust you, they will speak about your deal. Trust is universal so take the time to establish it.
Once your client speaks about your deal to his/her boss, they are getting committed. Before that point, it is all just a conversation with varying degrees of success.
If the people you are sending to build your business internationally are not being perceived as being competent, knowledgeable, and genuinely interested in your future client’s success, they will likely fail. If they do, don’t let them off the hook by allowing them to blame the culture as the reason for their inability to succeed. Instead, review these eleven points to find out where they might have gone wrong.
