Selling and servicing across cultures is more common now than it has ever been. And as more and more of us come across international sales opportunities I thought it would be worth while looking at some of the challenges we may come across when trying to communicate effectively cross culturally in sales or other business areas.

In many of the articles I have written I advocate for open, honest, trust based relationships. And I still do, however being a direct, no-nonsense, tell-it-like-it-is person that is what I value most. Therefore, by contrast, I can often find indirect, seemingly non-committal, indecisive communication a real chore. ‘Just get to the point’ I hear myself say. Or ‘are you just saying “yes” to just be nice or do you really want to go ahead?” Aaggh.

I don’t think I am alone, however, in recent times I have really had to take a look at Direct vs. Indirect communication styles as we are quoting for some sales and service training in Asia. I have trained in Asia before, but I really need to be much more aware about the potential communication divide and the value different cultures place on Direct versus Indirect communication. Especially when I am putting relevant sales and service programs which are all based around effective communication.

For instance a well known company have located a main part of their internal services off shore. The people in this offshore team need to answer queries, solve problems and pro-actively deal with their Australian counterparts. While the technical aspects of the job are easy to train, the issue lies in how to equip these people with Direct Communication styles that suit their Australian audience. Some of us have seen Asian call centre staff being trained in the Australian vernacular i.e. G’day mate, etc. However it is so much more than that.

Tackling this issue is not easy especially given the cultural / communication divide. Understanding the core competencies and specific behaviours needed in the offshore team at each level is critical to gaining clarity and providing evidence as to the standards of work performance expected in each role would make a good start. Understanding the business and personal values shared by the people, in each country team, is also critical. These shared values can provide a link and bridge to connect with each other. Building a further bridge between different communications styles and cultural morays is the challenge.

This issue is one of the communication dichotomies which can cause problems between Asian and Western co-workers. Each of these styles has its own intrinsic, often unspoken, rules. When a person used to communicating under one set of rules is thrust into a situation where another set of rules is being used, it ultimately leads to frustration.

Frustration is what the company I referred to before is experiencing. You can try cultural training but unless it is backuped by direct behavioural interventions, shared values, links between direct and indirect communication and ongoing support then nothing will change.

I am no expert in this area, but if I am going in to train a team that uses Indirect Communication in their daily life and culture in Direct Communication approaches and techniques that are part of another country I had better sort it out fast. Here is some information I found as part of my ongoing study in this area. A great article I found really expressed some of the issues and options very well:

SOM@Work » Blog Archive » How to Communicate with Your …

Some cultures, such as in the Australia, U.S., Germany and the U.K. generally value a direct style of communication. They like to “get down to business,” “cut to the chase,” and “get to the point.” They do not feel offended or shamed by the kind of direct statements that might be considered offensive in indirect cultures such as in Asia. In fact, when things are not stated directly, people from direct cultures (such as Australian co-workers) can become confused and frustrated, and might not understand the message at all. They are used to communicating with people whose mantras are “say what you mean, and mean what you say” and “let your ‘yes’ be ‘yes’ and your ‘no’ be ‘no.’” In these cultures, being direct is how people show respect.

In cultures that use an indirect communication style, such as India, China, Japan, and other Asian cultures, it is very common to encounter situations where people communicate in a way that would not cause someone to lose face. Thus, communication happens indirectly. Messages are subtly implied rather than explicitly stated, and people are accustomed to reading between the lines for the message. Words such as “perhaps” and “maybe” are often code for “no,” since saying “no” could risk shaming someone. In these cultures, being indirect is how people show respect.

Those from indirect cultures think of their own style as polite and face-saving, and sometimes see direct communication as rude, blunt and overly aggressive. Those from direct cultures think of their style as open and honest, and sometimes think of indirect communication as “beating around the bush” and a sign that the communicator is trying to be difficult, shifty, or maddeningly vague.

Akio Morita (co-founder of SONY) once said that when Westerners “ask questions or express an opinion, they want to know right away whether the other party agrees or opposes them. So in English, ‘yes’ or ‘no’ comes first. We Japanese prefer to save the ‘yes’ or ‘no’ for last. Particularly when the answer is ‘no,’ we put off saying that as long as possible, and they find that exasperating.”

Each of us intrinsically feels that our style is the “right” style, and the other is the “wrong” style – but in the end, it’s not a matter of right or wrong, but of getting on the same wavelength.

The author of the article suggests the keys to effective cross-cultural communication are to:

• try to understand the rules by which people are playing
• play by their cultural rules as much as possible when we communicate with them,
• give them grace when they have trouble understanding and playing by the rules of our culture.

I’d be interested to hear from other people as to how they are approaching this area. Contact me via this form.  I’ll keep you posted. It’s an ongoing journey.

What is your position on SUSTAINABILITY?

What community improvement activities is your company involved with?

These are questions, among many others, that my team and I are responding to for a Request For Proposal (RFP) document for a sales training project with a large Australian Corporation. This is the first time we have been asked to respond to these questions in a formal manner and legitimise our position on ‘sustainability’. As sales people and as business owners, not only are we being asked to legitimise our product offering, our service standards, etc. we are now required to articulate our stand on ‘sustainability’.

How many of us could articulate our approach to sustainability into a pithy, meaningful, realistic, workable statement and strategy that incorporates the many areas that affect our ‘sustainability’?

This RFP raised questions for our team:

• ‘What is meant by sustainability?’
• ‘What do we mean by sustainability?’
• ‘What do we say when someone asks us to explain our position on sustainability?’

The ‘Green’ agenda has be successfully linked to the term ‘sustainability’ for over 10 years now, however, ‘sustainability’ can and does mean so much more. We knew we needed to make visible our approach to sustainability even though on reflection we were all, consciously or not, working to be sustainable. Here are some of the areas we raised to include in our ‘sustainability’ strategy and statement:

• Vision & Values
• Culture
• People
• Expertise & Process
• Service & Delivery standards
• Innovation, Research and Development
• Business Viability
• Environment
• Community
• Corporate Governance

In researching this topic to help our business to articulate our approach to sustainability I also came across a great resource from Swinburne University which I thought you might like to review as well: Sustainability Strategy

Here is an excerpt from their document on:

Developing a Sustainability Strategy
A ten-point guide for small to medium sized businesses

Business sustainability is becoming increasingly important for managers in the modern economy. Put simply, business sustainability can be described as a holistic continuous improvement process that includes the sound management of people and the environment. Business sustainability makes good business sense because the benefits feed directly back into the bottom line. But where do we start as small-medium sized businesses?

Rather then being just ‘another thing to do’, business sustainability is an over arching concept that involves doing everything better and more efficiently. True sustainability must be integrated into all operations of business – from policy and management through to on-ground activities such as purchasing, production and distribution. While sustainability needs to be driven from the top, it’s not just the job of a single staff member or department – it involves everyone! Sustainability is often approached in an ad-hoc way. For example, you may have a couple of standalone initiatives in your work place that are not linked to any broad strategic objectives of the business. This is a good start, but a coordinated process requires the development of a sustainability strategy that is strongly aligned to the business plan.

My advice is to make sure everyone in your business knows where you all stand on sustainability. Besides all the benefits it brings for everyone in your business to know and live your sustainability agenda you now need it to be evaluated and considered as a valid business partner so you are in a position to win business in the sales world.

I have noticed that good sales people are often great storytellers.  They have the ability to find the right story to resonate with your situation.

They speak from experience and you know they know their stuff.  They can paint a picture that is your picture and get you visualizing success in partnership with them.

They seem to be able to connect disparate situations, events or feelings and find the common thread that binds them all together – together for you to connect with. And even if the story they are telling is not directly relevant to your business or market, the situation or person they describe feels familiar.

There is something comforting in knowing that other people experience what you experience even if they are not related to you.  This goes along way to building empathy, connection and trust.

However the world is littered with people who are very good at promoting themselves, telling grand stories to amaze.  These people are often the great raconteurs holding court or keeping everyone mesmerised with their daring do.  The story is all about them.

However these are not the people I am referring to.

The sales people I am talking about don’t tell a story until they have first understood your situation, your views, your challenges and your goals.  And they are often quite unassuming, yet when they connect other experiences with yours they help you understand the world a little better.  Their stories educate and illuminate.  Their stories are based on substance and can be verified.  It was worth listening to the story.

Here is a quote I found that illustrates my point:

“No man is great enough or wise enough for any of us to surrender our destiny to. The only way in which anyone can lead us is to restore to us the belief in our own guidance.”
Henry Miller

If you haven’t already it may be worth your while to hold a formal review and business/sales strategy planning session with your team before the new financial year kicks in.  Many markets have and are going through major changes and this requires us to be on our toes and ready for action.

The challenge for any business, especially those of us who run a small business with limited man power and resources, is to take the time out to work on our business and plan for the future rather than stay stuck in the day to day  of our businesses.  This is a vital part of our job and can set us up very well for the future.  If we stop and look to review and reassess our strategies, plans and actions and take into account what the market is doing, we in a better position to note the vital signs and opportunities that can help us secure our business future.  Ideally this type of process should be done on a regular basis at least formally twice to three times per year.

So with that in mind my team and I are putting aside Friday 2 May to come together and work on our business strategy for the next 3 years and our sales strategy for 2008/09 and beyond.  My business has gone though many iterations over the years and my long term goals are now coming to life.  I now what to ensure that we are on the right track and I thought I would share with you the process we are going through to help us put in place the best and right strategy for us to realise our goals and fulfill our market potential and expectations.

Now I confess that I am not the most detailed person and ‘planning’ is one of my challenges so to keep me focused and on track here are some of the questions we will be preparing to address and answer as part of our planning and strategising. Ultimately our aim in going through this process is to make sure we have a profitable and viable business.
Our vision and mission for being in business

• WHAT do we stand for?
• WHY are we in this market space?
• WHAT do we want to best known for?
• WHAT are the values the guide us in our work?
• WHAT are our goals for the next FY, 2-3 years, 5+ years?

Our Customers

• WHO are we specifically targeting?
• WHY are we targeting them?
• WHAT does a viable ‘ideal’ customer look like?
• HOW do we find them?
• WHAT do they specifically want or need now?
• WHAT problems do we currently solve for our customers?
• WHAT products/services to we use to solve their problems?
• ARE our products/ services/ solutions solving their problems effectively?
• WHAT might they want or need in the future?
• WHAT can we offer them in the future?
• HOW do they want to buy?
• HOW do we need to sell to them?
• HOW do they want our products / service delivered?
• WHAT is our customer acquisition & retention strategy?
• WHAT are their expectations of us?

Our Competitors

• WHO is our competition?
• Current Competition
• Peripheral Competition
• Emerging Competition
• WHAT markets are they operating in?
• WHY are they in this market space?
• WHAT is their primary objective / goal?
• WHAT do they do well?
• WHAT don’t they do well?
• HOW are we positioned against them?
• WHAT is our competitive advantage?

Our Value Proposition & Service Standards

• WHAT is our unique selling proposition (USP)?
• WHAT is our promise?
• WHAT is our sales expectation?
• WHAT is our service level standard?
• HOW effective are we?
• WHAT do we do well?
• WHAT do we need to be better at?

Marketing & Product

• HOW effective have our current marketing activities and tools been? (i.e. PR, SEO, Brochures, Events, etc.)
• WHAT marketing activities and tools do we need to keep on using? & WHY?
• WHAT marketing activities and tools do we need to stop using? & WHY?
• HOW effective is our current product mix? What are the most profitable areas? What are the least profitable areas?
• WHAT is the $ value of our average sale?
• WHAT product mix do we take to market?

Steps to ‘Yes’  (Sales Process)

• WHAT is our current sales cycle? (how long does it take to make a sale?)
• WHAT is our current ‘prospecting : sales’ ratio
• WHAT are our current sales activities and HOW often did we do them to achieve our current revenue? (Prospecting, Sales Meetings, Account Management & Networking)
• HOW effective have they been?
• HOW often do we need to prospect to make enough sales appointments with viable prospects to make enough sales to meet our goals?
• HOW effective is our current sales process?
• WHAT do we need to change to be more effective as sales people? (Structured sales communication process & skills, human relations, motivations; values, behaviours & attitudes; problem solving & decision making; self management, planning, etc.)

Sales Inputs & Outputs

• WHAT are our current Performance Expectations & Rewards
• HOW do we need to allocate customers? (by territory, industry, size, etc.)
• HOW do we set targets? (revenue allocation, profits, phasing, etc.)
• WHAT levels of responsibility and authority do each of us need to have?
• HOW do we currently manage revenue & profit?
• HOW do we forecast?
• HOW effective is our current CRM system in terms of capturing the right customer, marketing and other sales data?
• HOW effectively are our people at putting in the right data into our CRM?
• HOW effectively do we use the data we capture?

I hope this helps.

As many of you may be aware, putting together a business strategy and associated sales / marketing/ operation plans is all well and good, however they will remain intellectual abstractions until  we put them into action.  Good luck with your business and sales planning process.

If you want a Sales Planning template for your business call us on (+61) 03 9532 7677

Know the feeling when you make contact with someone and you both promise that you will keep in touch but never do? Or someone you met briefly at a function, where you exchanged business cards, calls you up asking for one favour after another never seeming to return the favour? Or others still who seem to make friends with you only to use you to get to someone else and drop you and soon as they do? Well you are not alone. These are some of the pitfalls when it comes to networking and selling.

I wrote earlier this year about networking and referred to ‘Farming’ as an effective approach to building your network. Farming is slow and steady which runs contrary to this fast paced world we live in, but done correctly and with care Farming can yield far more benefit for you and the people you network with as opposed to casting the net wide and shallow.

Therefore, I thought it would be useful to look at the difference between what we call ‘Contacts’ and ‘Connections’ in networking and see what defines each of them. And which one serves you better in building a solid and reliable network.

Contacts: By definition a contact is like having lots of little plants that don’t have deep roots. If you put pressure on the plant when it doesn’t have deep roots, it will topple over or pull away from the soil and die.

In networking terms:

• A contact is someone you know but haven’t formed a strong relationship with
• You are likely to have more contacts than you will connections
• Making contacts allows you to spread the net far and wide
• You will want to consider all your contacts with a view to understanding which contacts you will convert into connections and how you will do this.
• Having many contacts does increase your opportunities for referrals; however, the referrals won’t necessarily be qualified or come from a position of credibility. It will be up to you to build that credibility with your referral lead

Connections: Having a connection is like having a large tree with a deep root system. When you put pressure on the big tree or lean on it, its root system is strong enough to support this process.

In networking terms:

• A connection is someone whom you have known for some time
• You have a deeper relationship with a connection than you do with a contact
• A connection trusts you because you have taken the time to grow the relationship so that is solid which means you have established credibility with them
• A connection will be a powerful referral source for you based on their deeper relationship with you and their ability to refer from a point of credibility.
• Having a combination of Contacts and Connections is important in networking. The key is understanding which contacts you will turn into connections and apply the farming approach with a view to yielding powerful results over a longer period of time.

Are your expectations realistic?

Testing the strength of your networking relationships is much like testing the strength of your various friendships. Some friends you can ask only so much of and others will help you with almost anything. I mean, would you consider asking a contact to help you move house over and above a life long friend?

Unrealistic expectations about what your network can provide to you come from trying to lean on or use your contacts before they have turned into connections. What results is contacts providing support out of obligation or choosing not to provide support to you as they feel that you do not deserve it. In reality, for your contacts to work for you, you need to engagement at a deeper level and develop loyalty and respect them.
Here is a great piece of advice I was given a while back and it helped make sense of particularly difficult situation I was going through at the time. I feel it holds very true for this topic as well:

You have friends for a reason, a season or a lifetime.
With that in mind you may like to reflect on your own networking relationships. I suggest you list some people that sit in the Contacts camp and those that sit in the Connections camp. Reflect on what distinguishes these relationships from each other and seek to build more connections it just might be worth it.