I recently had the pleasure of moderating a Women in Localization-sponsored Webinar entitled Cross-Cultural Strategies for Freelance Translators with @Agata Szubstarska, @Avishta Seeras and @Natasha Marques. The panelists shared great recommendations for translators to mitigate misunderstandings and miscommunication due to cultural differences when dealing with vendor managers and other professionals in other countries. Many of the suggestions provided could apply to just about any role in our industry and this got me thinking about the impact culture can have on salespeople who sell internationally.
Let’s explore two of many factors that can help prevent cultural missteps that could torpedo your efforts to get the conversation going, let alone close the deal!
Self-awareness is key. Most of us in language services are fortunate enough to have traveled to or lived in other countries, so I believe we are more generally aware of our own culture. However, we may not know how our cultural predispositions compare to cultures with which we’re not familiar.
The following Arab Proverb sums it up very nicely:
“We don’t know who discovered the ocean …but we can be pretty sure it wasn’t the fish.”
Communication preferences, level of formality, decision-making dynamics or non-verbal cues can be vastly different from our own. Raising our awareness of these differences and the potential bias or misperceptions they can cause go a long way to prevent misunderstandings or worse.
For example, when dealing with a Shanghai sales team that I’ve been managing, I still need remind myself to take a less direct approach when communicating with the team and pay attention to their (quite subtle) non-verbal cues. Some still go over my head, but I I’m doing much better at recognizing these cues and adapting my style accordingly. Not surprisingly, I’ve had to adapt my American-centric sales training to accommodate how business relationships are built in China: relationship first, then business rather than business first, relationship later.
It is a known requirement for salespeople to understand the customer, their role, their company and how they specifically use translation services. But what about culture? In language services, where many of us speak different language and have very likely lived in other countries, we do have more cultural sensitivity than most. That said, there are a lot of different cultures around the world and we can’t possibly know all of them. Taking the time to research and understand another culture enables us to adjust our own behavior to meet the client’s expectations. After all, we are asking permission to enter the client’s culture and it is only respectful to modulate our behavior to their cultural norms.
Sales is all about communication, so researching your client’s communication style, level of formality, etc. is crucial. Western cultures tend to be more direct in their approach to sales, calling clients they have never met to introduce their services. Other cultures might view this as off-putting at best and offensive at worst, preferring to do business more indirectly through personal introductions or referrals.
Our industry is more curious about other languages and cultures than most, but we all still have much to learn about other cultures. We’re in an exciting time in this respect with the expansion of businesses into previously underserved markets–markets in which (at least some of us) have much to learn in terms of cultural norms. And I would bet many of our end-clients could use our expertise in this aspect of international business as well!
Information about other countries and cultures is readily available in books such as the Culture Smart series, online and even ChatGPT, though I’d still verify the latter’s output! Cultural training is also readily available to help prepare for important meetings with international customers or dealing with your co-workers around the world. As a certified cross-cultural trainer, I can help!
FluentSales