I originally wanted to call this post “Building your future on BRICs” but that would give you a false impression about sales to international clients. No doubt that the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) countries are important players in the world economy but they are not the only people out there that look for high quality goods and services from American companies.
In the modern world we have to realize the importance of offshore clients. No matter what your field is, there is now and in the future there will be an increasing number of clients hailing from offshore locations that want to do business with you and you better be ready to handle that.
The company that I work for relies mainly on offshore contracts for the majority of its contracts. We have developed a very good website that draws attention from all over the globe and this has led to me having to understand and deal with clients of all sorts of backgrounds.
Having had to deal with folks from all sorts of cultures has taught me a few lessons in sales that really should apply to selling to any client.
1. Check your prejudices at the door. If you have problems with other people’s race, religion, or anything else about them, then sales is not the field for you. Having been on the receiving end of a salesperson who seemed to have a problem with my race I can tell you that even if they don’t say anything overt that the attitude does transmit itself to the client. From a pragmatic point of view you are not only giving bad service to the client but to your employer as well.
2. Treat people with the respect that they deserve. If they have a PhD or have some other sort of title then treat them with the respect that it merits. These are fellow professionals making a serious inquiry. Act accordingly.
3. Disregard the faulty syntax. So they may not know a particular word in English or their grammar may not be so great. So what? Who learned a foreign language and tried to communicate using it? not you.
4. Don’t fake it. I had a colleague who would try to greet foreign clients in their own language by googling appropriate greetings. Mixed results at best. If you don’t know then don’t try it. You will look foolish or you may even end up offending them.
5. Somewhat related to the last point, what do you do when you get an inquiry in a foreign language that you don’t understand? Answer back in English. Again you don’t speak their language. You could try online translators and risk making errors or hiring foreign language specialists to translate responses although that gets expensive. Ultimately I think your best will be to answer back in your own tongue. If the company gets enough business in that language then maybe they might want to consider hiring a foreign speaker to handle sales for that market.
6. Keep away from all politics or anything that is not related to the business at hand. You’re not the State Department and you’re not here to sell politics or your personal opinions. You’re here to do a deal. If they’re the ones persisting in trying to bring it up then deflect the subject back to business. That’s all that both sides should be focused on.
Basically it all comes down to respect. Not only is it polite manners but it helps to bring across the idea that despite any differences in distance or culture that you are truly interested in helping the client achieve his goals.
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