Use of communications technology accross borders

Dear readers,

Today's topic is use of technology across borders. I know there are plenty of courses out there on how to use the media specifically for your marketing, but here is some free advice. Think about how you can use technology to change your entire business model. Take my business for example, as a business coach traditionally you would go and see your clients in person. Nowadays, it is very easy to use means like Skype and of course the good old phone call to talk to them.

Instead of having a potential of about 10,000 companies in the area that could be my clients, this number is almost infinite. It also changes my whole marketing strategy. Instead of using a letter campaign to promote my services, I can send e-mails, join local business boards via LinkedIn and other sites, ask my friends abroad for referrals etc. It also makes it easier to work with big, international companies as I can coach some of their staff remotely.

So think about your business and how you take advantage of new media. What role do Skype, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, blogs and other social media play in your company? How does it affect the services you offer? Could you offer something different to non-local customers? How does it influence the ways in which you market your products or services? How do you contact your existing customers? How do they pay you? Could you work with third parties on the Internet? Examples are E-bay stores where people have set up their own on-line business within the framework of E-bay.

Perhaps you will want to adapt your pricing to reflect the different ways you use technology. For example, I will charge a client who comes to my office or will work with me via Skype less money as it saves me time.

Be careful though that quality and customer services do not get affected. Recently I approached an on-line business to do some printing work for me (business cards etc). It probably works well if you need something standard, but as soon as I had any specific questions, I had to wait for non-UK business hours to call them. Also, the lady who answered the phone seemed to know nothing about printing so I ended up working with a local printer at twice the price but a much better experience.

If you enjoy this blog, please get anyone you know to sign up to it too. Any comments are also always very welcome. I hope this week's post got you thinking about your work and more importantly, to do something with it. Have a good week! 


 

Is your communication working for non-native English speaking customers?

Hello,

Today's topic could be important to anyone doing business in the UK with non native speakers, or with clients abroad. If clients don't understand you, they will of course never buy from you. However, that does not stop some companies from:

• Using lots of abbreviations and jargon in their sales material, web site etc.
• Only providing information in English
• Only providing success stories of clients in English speaking countries
• Using very complicated and long sentences

 

First of all you need to understand if your potential client base speaks FLUENT English. I have put that in capital letters as it is key. It will not help your sales efforts if clients who only speak some English have to struggle their way through information they can only half make out. Their proficiency is usually based on two factors, nationality and need to use foreign languages.

 

Some countries like Sweden and Holland are renowned for their language skills, so usually it will not be an issue to approach those in English. This is of course talking about business to business, if you are advertising toys to an eight year old, you will have to go in with the local language. Secondly there is the need to use English for work. A qualified European Patent Attorney should be pretty fluent, as would a shop keeper in a tourist resort in Spain. Do not assume that just because someone has a high ranking job or a good job that they can speak anything other than Spanish or Finnish. I know plenty of business owners in Spain who are barely understood outside of their own province as they can only speak their local dialect.

 

So what should you do? If you have the budget, get your marketing materials translated in all the languages of your target markets, provided it is going to cost you less of course than it would gain in additional sales.
Start with the countries where you absolutely must have local language brochures and manuals such as Germany and France (assuming you want to do business there) and expand further into other countries. Where possible also make sure you take into account regional difference - US vs UK English, Dutch vs Flemish.

Get customer facing staff (sales, client service etc) who speak the local language. If this is not an option, make sure that all your communication is in the plainest English. This does not make your company look silly or less sophisticated, it makes it easier to do business with you. When speaking to your customers, ask them regularly if they understand and get them to recap what you said, at least until you know for sure that they are following you. This is generally good practise in any sales process any way.

As always keep well and keep forwarding this blog to anyone who could be interested. Please let me know if you have questions you would like to have answered or topics posted on.

Marrakech - lesson number two

Hello,

Today I wanted to write about another topic that came to mind when visiting Marrakech, which is about honesty in business. This is a fluid notion in many parts of the world and in quite a sharp contrast to someone like me, being Dutch. We hold the truth to be very rigid, inflexible and paramount to our integrity. Not that we don't all tell the odd white to stop us from looking rude (yes, you look hideous in that outfit....), but that is usually as far as it goes.

Depending on the sort of role you are in, the type of industry and company you are in and where you live the truth can have a very different meaning. I used to work in a manufacturing environment with a great number of engineers. A fork lift truck will either be able to lift a certain amount of weight, or it will topple over and kill lots of people. So if you are designing or manufacturing one, being precise and forthcoming with the truth is very important.

In my recent dealings with shop keepers, tour guides and other people trying to make a living out of tourists in Marrakech, of course the truth was less important than the amount of money that could be made. We were told stories that were blatantly untrue. The amount of times we were told a street was closed because it did not lead past the shop they wanted us to visit! 

So what can you do? First of all never accept anything that is important to you at face value. And do not assume anything!!! Just because you would do things in a certain way, or would be more or less truthful than someone else doesn't mean that they will. Ask detailed questions and get the answers in writing. If you are dealing with a foreign agent or supplier for example who tells you everything is fine, get them to detail how many leads they have, how much stock, what their cash flow is, when they can deliver by etc. Do not be afraid that these request will offend people, as long as you are tactful about it and explain why exactly you need this information.

At least if you have this information in writing and things still went wrong, you have evidence of it. Ideally put down as much as possible in legally binding contracts. And if people want you to just trust them on their word? Then weigh up how catastrophic it would be if things did not go as promised.

Hope you enjoyed this posting or found it useful, if so please spread the word on my blog!

Marrakech - a city of commerce

Hello,

After a nice few days in Marrakech I have so many ideas for this blog - so I might stretch this one out for a few weeks! The thing that I noticed most about this area is how it has adapted to making money from tourism. Morocco has kept its own identity with its traditional food that is served in all restaurants, snake charmers in the town square, traditional houses clad in the local pink mud. However, the locals are extremely good at finding ways to monetize this.

In the old centre traditional houses have been converted to riads or bed and breakfasts. Traditional lamps are still hand made and sold in hundreds of shops, spice shops lure you in with the promise that they can cure you of any ailment. Old fortresses or Kasbah's are being used to film in, a long list of pictures including Gladiator, Prince of Persia, Lawrence of Arabia, Babel and more have all been filmed in the area. Even local children will give you directions for a price, often even when you don't need them. Sadly if you don't give them what they want they do swear at you....

So what are the lessons to be learned? First of all look at what your company or you as a person are good and unique at and stick to that. Be proud of being a family owned business, or a giant one stop shop. If you are a gregarious sales person, make that the thing that works for you, or if you sell through your knowledge of your field then make that your USP. Do not let other people tell you you should fit into a mould or your company should do exactly what everyone else does. No one is perfect and we can all learn and grow, but if you have something you are good at it, stick with it and become even better at it.

Secondly, how can you make money out of it? Here is the bit where you do have to look at the competition and ask your customers what they want. What is a reasonable price? The reason I bought in one spice shop over another is that it was beautifully laid out, the owner was a charming man who demonstrated his products very well and entertained us with his story. Half the money making was in his products, the other half was the show he put on for us.

Lastly, if you do find people don't want to pay (enough) for your services or goods, unlike some of those  kids put on a brave face and walk away. There will always be more customers and your reputation is more important than to react badly!
 
If you like this blog or think that anyone else you might know, please make sure you click the follow button to be notified of any new posts. This is a public blog that is open for anyone to follow and I do welcome any feedback. Do you have certain questions on international sales or business that you want answered? Examples you want to give? Let me know!

Have a good week.

International business

Hello!

Want to learn something for free that will help you grow your business? Why restrict yourself to your home country for clients when there is a huge and ever expanding market out there. So read on!


Why could you do with this advice? Surely you know how to run your own company or division...Because a. globalisation is here to stay, b. the recession is forcing companies to either cut costs or increase their customer base and c. going global is not as easy as you may think.

Even large companies like Fiat make big blunders, for example when they created the Croma model of car and launched it in Holland. Unilever had very prominently marketed the exact same brand name for butter for decades, resulting in very poor car sales. If Fiat had used a good trademark attorney and consulted staff in any of their Dutch dealerships this could have easily been avoided.

An American company I worked for could not understand why we could not roll out their marketing campaigns across the whole of Europe, Africa and the Middle East in a matter of weeks. It was often hard to explain that not only did we have to have all the material translated into several languages and products priced in different currencies, we also needed to make sure there was a requirement for these products in the various territories. Having one of the senior managers come over to Europe for several months really helped overcome this issue.

Many companies approach acquiring foreign clients, serving clients with a global footprint, finding foreign agents and distributors or setting up a foreign office the same way they would approach these matters if they were inside their borders. This simply is not the case and can cause you to make very expensive mistakes!
 
Here are a few of the indicators of what to look out for:

• Cultural issues. Is bribery accepted or expected in any of the countries you are targeting? How do people express themselves, what characteristics are appreciated in a manager or sales person? Is there a culture of asking questions or just doing as you are told?
• Language issues. Do you need to publish your marketing materials in every language on the globe? What languages are key? Do you need a native speaker to do this?
• Intellectual property. Do you have it secured for your products, company name, promotional materials etc? Do you know what countries will actively enforce any breach of this and which ones won't? What do you do to stop others from simply copying your work or reputation?
• Legal. Where are you getting your legal advice? Do your lawyers know the local laws of the countries you are working with? Do you have all your work with both suppliers and clients legally secured?
• Go direct or via channels? What is more important to you, having full control and retain all profit or get instant local knowledge and contact? Do you wish to work with third parties?
• Customer and technical support. Do you have staff who can communicate in the customer's own language or be on site the same day?

These are just a few examples, there are many more issues to consider! The main thing to do is keep your customer, employees and competitors in mind with everything that you do when dealing on an international basis. Make sure you are set up so that your competitors can't copy you, customers find it easy to deal with you, employees are happy to work for you and legally you are safe. Of course there are costs involved with taking care of these matters as there always are when you expand your business. However, sitting still is not an option unless you want to lose huge amounts of market share!

This is a first posting on my blog and I welcome anyone who has any questions, funny anecdotes in this area etc. I may be off line for a little while as I am going to Morocco this week - a sunny 23 degrees forecast!