When selling to international customers you need great sales skills, but you also need to pay closer attention to a variety of things than you would normally.

One of the particularities with international sales is that the international salespeople need to become skilled in multitasking.  They need to monitor a variety of different information sources on different communication levels and learn how to do business in unfamiliar environments.

These multitasking skills are vital to improve your international sales expertise.

Different Levels Of Cross-Cultural Communication

Let’s first have a look at the different levels of cross-cultural communication.

#1: Verbal Communication

Verbal messages are transmitted in a variety of ways:

• What is said
• What is not said
• How it is communicated
• When it is communicated
• The tone of voice
• The speed at which you speak

All of these can be interpreted differently in other cultures.

#2: Non-Verbal Communication

In cross-cultural communication this includes everything else.

• Body language
• Anything that happens before, during and after the sales process in any shape or form

Non-verbal communication can become quite complex in international sales.

International Sales Skills Multitasking

As you can see from the above, there’s a lot to pay attention to simply to understand your communication.

Now let’s have a look at how to improve your multitasking skills so you can get more international sales. Most international salespeople use a few tricks to help them process all of this information.

#1: Understand What’s Going On

First you need to have a solid understanding of what you want and what the other person wants.  You should be able to understand things from your end, but you’ll probably only have your own understanding of what the other person really wants.

So you have to continually be on the lookout to improve your understanding of what your customer really wants throughout the entire sales process. With cultural differences you can’t afford to let up on this.

#2: Keep It Simple

Different cultures go about business in different ways and you’ll need to adapt your sales tactics to fit in with their buying habits.  It’s much easier to adapt your tactics when they are simple.

It’s not always easy to keep things simple and it’s even more difficult to make things appear simple when communicating with people from different cultures.  This is why it’s so important to first start by developing a deep understanding of the situation.

#3: Do The Personal Work

Keeping things simple can take a lot of energy in cross-cultural sales and you can only really get this right after you’ve done your homework.  This is where most people jump into studying the other cultures.  But international sales blunders also happen because people lack a deep understanding of their own business. You need to always question yourself first.

You’ll need to spend time and find the humility to do the personal development work before you can develop strong international sales skills.

Improve Your International Sales Skills

Good sales professionals usually have good communication skills and good people skills.  To get more international sales, you need to take these skills to the next level and then work on improving your multitasking skills in:

• Assimilating this information
• Listening to know when you need to question yourself first
• Using this information to adapt your own communication

The first place to start to learn how to sell more to international clients lies within yourself. The next step is to implement the business of selling and make sure your offer fits in well with your international clients.

What other things are important to selling more to international customers?

Please leave your comments below or on Twitter.

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Cross-cultural selling has unique challenges.  And selling to people in a culture that is not your own is never an easy task. International sales professionals rely on a series of different skills.

One of the first cross-cultural skills you pick up in international sales is learning how to look for different perspectives other than your own.

Wondering why this is one of the first skills you pick up?

Different Perspectives Impact Business Basics

It all starts with the basics of doing business.  Cultural differences create different perspectives across some of the most fundamental business basics.  Here are two examples.

Benefits

When selling the same product or service in different countries, you’ll often need to change your sales and marketing materials.  Different people see your product differently and what they like about it may be something unexpected.  Before you can sell anything to a different culture you need to find out the benefits a different culture sees in what you are selling.

An American hotel close to a popular tourist location realized their hotel was full of German tourists some years and not others.  This German clientele obviously followed a different pattern. They responded to different benefits offered by staying at this hotel.  The hotel eventually found out why. The Germans didn’t come to see the local attractions everyone else came to see. Instead they came to go bone fishing nearby.  But they only came as a second choice. They came when the weather was not optimal in their favorite location for bone fishing.  Once the hotel figured this out they were able to market to this particular clientele and brought in more sales consistently each year.

Needs

Cultural differences also bring about different needs.  This can impact all aspects of your business.  And it’s worth taking the time to understand different perspectives to uncover different needs which can also open the door to different business opportunities.

There are a few stories of how washing machine manufacturers adapted and improved their machines to provide for the different needs of different cultures.  They found this out when learning of the challenges faced when their clients in India tried washing thin saris in their machines without success. And also when they realized rural Chinese people were using washing machines to wash potatoes.  In both cases listening to and understanding the different market perspectives led to product improvements and new market opportunities.

Different Perspectives Change The Sale

It’s easy to see from the examples above how different cultural perspectives can change the basics of doing business.  But different perspectives continue to impact the sale throughout the whole sales process.  Here are some of the main areas where different perspectives impact the sale:

Approach

Different cultures require a different sales approach. Some people need to establish a relationship in a certain way. The decision makers do not always have the same job function in different countries.

Timing

Different cultures have different perspectives on when things should be done. North Americans like to get straight to the point, but other cultures need more time.  Timing also comes into play with trust building and credibility building.

Expectations

Different cultures can have different expectations on just about every portion of the sales process. These differences in expectations can crop up unexpectedly and can easily jeopardize your sales success.

What Can You Do?

The most important thing to do is to have a clear understanding of what your basic business objectives are and the very basic framework within which you must navigate in.  Always keep this at the back of your mind.  It’s not always easy to identify how you can adapt your basic business objectives to fit into different cultural framework.  The simpler the framework the easier it will be to adapt to different cultures.

Next, you need to open up to different perspectives, different people, and different cultures.  This is one of the basic international skills. You simply need to develop strong listening skills to pick up any differences in perspectives

And finally remember, in all sales and particularly in international sales, it’s about creating the right connection with real people.  You’ll do well if throughout the whole sales process you try to understand and connect emphatically with your clients. You may start off with different perspectives but strong people skills will help you to connect with people and bring in the sales.

What about you? Do you have any stories to share about how different perspectives impact the international sale? If so, please share them in the comments below.

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When companies first hire sales staff abroad they do it because they want to make sales and open a new international market.  An obvious question is how to set up the right incentive plan to get their sales people to make more sales.

There is a temptation to propose a low salary with a juicy commission plan.  But when you are entering new foreign markets, this is not usually a good option if you are serious about developing your international business.

The main problem is that commissions are based on percentages and numbers.  When entering a new market it’s hard to come up with good numbers.

But that’s not all. There are a few things that come into play related to the international aspect of these sales. Here are two of the differences you need to take into account when coming up with a good compensation plan to drive sales performance in a new foreign market.

Your Sales Person Wears Many Hats

It’s true in all markets that salespeople where many hats, but when selling to new international markets your salesperson also has to adapt your sales and marketing tactics to a different culture.

Whether your salesperson is from the local market or is from your home country, he still goes through a period of adapting to being the connecting point between two different cultures.

Most companies find they need to adapt their original sales and marketing tactics when they first start selling in a new country.  There is almost always some adaptation needed to come up with a good sales strategy.

This takes time.

And it also takes teamwork with the home office.  This means he’ll spend more time wearing different hats than if he was selling to a market feedback cultural adaptation.

This takes up even more time.

And the trouble is: no one can really estimate just how much time this will take until you have been selling to your new international market for a while. You want to make sure you have the right person doing the job for you.

Cultural Differences In Compensation

Given that he already has so much to do, you have to make it easy for your salesperson to fit in well within his environment. Different cultures have different sales practices and you need to make sure your compensation plan works well to drive sales in this environment.

There are many different types of cultural blunders linked to expecting one sales compensation plan that works in some countries to work well in other countries.  And it’s not only a question of knowing where bribes and where they are illegal.

• There are countries where commission-only based sales do not work well simply because the legal system does not make it an attractive or easy set up to work with.
• There are countries where not having a company car is not a good sign.
• In some countries payment of overtime is expected and in other countries there is a certain level of tolerance for non-payment.

Even if you think compensation information is between you and your salesperson, the other people he comes into contact with will probably notice any different practices.  This includes your potential clients.

And this is where funny things can start.  People from different cultures can make wrong assumptions that impact how your company is perceived.  Salespeople who earn big commissions because they are successful are usually proud to show this in North America for example.  But this is not the case in other countries.

Two Step Approach

You don’t want to create any cultural blunders when you first set up your compensation plans for the first salespeople you hire to open new international markets. This is why you will probably look at a two step approach. In the first step:

• Companies with little budget and only focusing on immediate sales will try a compensation plan based on large commissions or a commission-only plan… in markets where the legal system makes this easy to do.

• Companies focusing on sustained international business development will invest in a salesperson capable of wearing many hats and helping them adapt to a new market. They will probably pay him a fixed salary and maybe a smaller commission at the end of the year.

Once businesses become familiar with cultural differences in what works in driving more sales, they can evaluate how best to set commissions and sales targets for an all round win-win situation.

I’ve worked for a few North American companies setting up European offices to develop more European sales.  There was never a sophisticated commission plan to begin with and targets were only set as guidelines.

There was always a good level of flexibility in the first 2 years.  This was the average length of time needed for the North American home companies to learn about their new market, including how sales were made abroad and how to adapt to the differences.

But there were always weekly calls to a senior executive in the North American home office.  These weekly calls made it possible for North American management to stay current on all activities including actual sales results and expectations.

There is no best way to set up commission plans and targets for all new foreign sales offices.  You need to know the sales environment to learn what works best and this takes time.

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When I first heard my North American sales friends speak of how your March sales were determined by what you did in December, my first thought was how lucky some people have it if they only have to think of sales 3 months in advance.  And I realized that as an international sales person used to opening new foreign markets I was comparing apples to oranges.

But to be honest, North American sales and marketing professionals often amaze me by the level of sophistication of the methods they use. And this sophistication reminds me of the 5 levels of market awareness and sophistication I read in Eugene Schwartz’s Breakthrough Advertising.

Now, I realize the comparison is not a good fit once again, but I see quite a few sales people who get so caught up in their advanced practices that they forget the very basic ones on which they were founded. And thinking back to Eugene Schwartz, I keep wondering if the sophistication will get to a point where falling back to basics once again will be the fastest way to make sales.

This is why I want to share with you one particular international sales basic. [...]

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